Metal Detecting UK is the culmination of more than 20 years of research by Chris Kutler in the Field Archaeology. However, Chris’ love of everything ancient and passion for the discovery of the artefacts left by our ancestors, started way back in the 1970s. At that time stories started to appear in the press of amazing finds made my metal detectorists and he, like many other boys of his age was captivated. These news items engaged Chris and he dreamed of making a special discovery for himself. Having been from a very poor family in Oldham, Lancashire, UK there was no way his parents could afford to buy him a metal detector. But that didn’t stop him and he built his own at 12 years old.
However, he quickly found out that bungling aimlessly around the countryside was very unlikely to reap a harvest of treasure. Even at that early age he reasoned that the best place to find treasure was likely to where our ancient ancestors once lived and worked and also near places where things have been found in the past.
Back in the 70s, in fact right up until recent times, there were no really readily available sources of information on the actual location of the homes or our ancestors. That didn’t stop him spending many summers (and winters) looking for the fabled Roman fort at Castleshaw on the foothills of the Yorkshire moors. However, he never found it. Even the curator at the local museum couldn’t help and it seemed that metal detecting was to be consigned to the realms of a childhood hobby, hear today, gone tomorrow.
Fast forward 20 years and for some unexplained reason Chris started to dream about finding treasure. At first he took the approach we all do, which is to take a random field or track and start detecting. After 2 years of disappointment he decided to take a more strategic approach to identifying areas more likely to be productive. He had just taken up a job at The Nation Archives (TNA), Kew, UK as an Archival Data Analyst. He knew very well that within those records potentially lay secret clues that once deciphered could lead to his dream finds. TNA has a fantastic library and every lunchtime and after his days work he would scour the journals held in the library and plot down the names and locations of thousands and thousands of sites recorded in hundreds of archaeological journals and reports.