Given that The Battle of Hatfield Investigation Society (BOHIS) are presently unable to gain access to St. Mary’s, Cuckney, to examine skeletal remains that may be from the 632 AD battle, work continues instead with a wider landscape search for a potential battle field.
This started with our HLF funded, “Warriors Through The Landscape” project in 2018/19, continuing with Field Walking and Metal Detecting in the Hatfield vicinity in February/March 2020 in 4 fields, assisted by Mercian (Archaeologists) and the fabulous free efforts of Chesterfield Metal Detecting Club (CMDC).
We are now detecting in another 6 fields with CMDC, having started in Nov. 2022, ending 31/3/24.
During our 2018 to date detecting phase, we have discovered c. 3,000 items from many ages, including a bone Viking gaming piece, an Obituary Token dated 17th June 1778 and various Medieval lead seals.
However, pride of place goes to potential battle related items – an arrowhead and even more excitingly an Anglo-Saxon Sword Pommel, which has been examined and assessed by Professor Mark Horton and Mercian. We aim to use a deeper detector (sourced and operated by CMDC) over the coming months to help reveal further items.
On 8th November we visited the Wirral Archaeology Group to understand their experiences in presently having discovered some 30 to 40 items that could be related to the Battle of Brunanburh (937AD) and we hope that they will visit us shortly. We’re also about to contact the Battlefields Trust to see if they can help us understand the strategic importance of the landscape and help reveal further clues.
Of course we’d like to put in another (necessary) HLF bid asap but that would be dangerous if we don’t complete this groundwork in order to define and focus any future funded work and make it count.
So we’re putting in a lot of effort and we hope that you will reward us with your motivational presence at our AGM on Friday 26th January 2024 at 7:30pm.
We’re currently putting the meeting Agenda together and this will be posted to Facebook /Web – plus physically through doors in both Cuckney and Norton as usual.
We also distribute our Agenda to about 10 local libraries as well.
Please note that we are holding this and future meetings at Cuckney Cricket Club, Langwith Rd, Mansfield NG20 9NG. Attendance is FREE as usual but please try to pay for Membership (it’s only £10 a year and it really helps).
Thanks for your anticipated support,
Paul Jameson