COVERDALE ENCLOSURES/SETTLEMENT SD 849468 (SMR: PRN 1918) - site visit 5 August 2010

Thanks, Im glad you like them - I love it when people take an interest in my finds, and I love talking about them.
If you ever want to see more just let me know.

Steve

All the best to you all

Bronze-Age Spearhead from Brogden, Barnoldswick.



By kind permission of and copyright scocker625.

Viking Orm wrote:

scocker626 wrote:I have uploaded More photos to photobucket. It's a bit messy at the moment, I will sort better descriptions later. I have a few more artifacts from Middop and I will upload later. Please feel free to ask me questions on any of the finds etc.

Horton, on the outskirts of Barloldswick is another place that has had a lot of activity over the ages, right from the early Bronze age. A Bronze age dagger found withought the handle around Horton Hall and also a partifact of an early axe head, also Celtic artifacts have popped up here. The most outstanding period though is Medieval. Throughout the entire village and outskirts, medieval artifacts have popped up. The amount is so significant that Horton must have had a large number of houses spread out across the entire village. I am not talking like Stocks DMV but more spread out over a large area.


Steve

oh Ray, please could you edit the Gold Poesey ring as it says bracelet?
Excellent collection of finds that you have there Steve, some real gems. I find it a little ridiculous that your armlets were poo pood by the so called experts because of their content, but there you go I suppose. Looks like years of graft have certainly paid off in terms of your finds and Im sure that your are over the moon about them too...Well done and keep the faith.
Thanks you

Yes it is quite unbelievable really, the finds officer for Lancashire had just started the job when these BA bracelets landed on her desk. Through her own admittance, her inexperience was one of the reasons they were disclaimed. I have tried many times over the years to get them reassessed but to no avail. All the experts are in the same opinion - the metallurgy is wrong for BA gold. I ask.....so where did they come from? Victorian replicas?? a joke?? my answer is, they were found 15" in thick clay without any container, these were make of GOLD, who would be silly or rich enough the bury them without a container?

No one was interested in the find location even when we went and found bone fragments (which I still have) There is more bone fragment around the spot, but I have had enough of it all now - 7 years of it! The only other piece of BA gold that I know of thats been found in Lancashire is from Portfield camp in Whalley in the 1960s. A bracelet and dress ring was found thought to be of Irish origin. I did not have this information in 2004 so thigs might have come out differently, what, with Portfield being only about 8 miles away!

Steve

Hello Steve, I know its a lot to ask but do you have, or could you provide us with, a map of the finds that you have found. I think that we be of great help to us. You could just do a rough map that could then be put onto the forum. See what you think. Oh, and JD sends his best wishes/regards to you !!

Hi, I think the best bet would be to give the 8 digit SD location of each find but I am a little uncomfortable publishing these exact locations online partly due to the fact that it would not be fair to the landowners to have other detectorist asking for permission to detect (or even not asking for permission). It might be a good idea to put something on photobucket that is password protected and just PM me for password.

More photos uploaded, included the john hoard as well. I have a couple hundred of hammered coin photos here but unless I get a request I will leave them off.

Steve

Sunbright57 wrote:Hello Steve, I know its a lot to ask but do you have, or could you provide us with, a map of the finds that you have found. I think that we be of great help to us. You could just do a rough map that could then be put onto the forum. See what you think. Oh, and JD sends his best wishes/regards to you !!

Hi Ray, who is JD?

Okay yes you are right. Blame JD for wanting the map. But, if you could put a few grid refs that should be okay, or as you say, put something on Photobucket. I'd be quite happy with a Roman coin or two Steve - i would be happy, over the moon if I found even a tiny coin, be it Roman or medieval. Thanks for keeping us informed. Best wishes, Ray.



JD is John Dixon author of The Brigantia books. He seems to know you ??

Hi Ray, believe this or not there are 2 steve cocker's! I have never met the 'other' steve cocker but I know he comes from Burnley, I live in Colne.

It has caused one or 2 problems in the past with articles written in detecting magazines. It was even more of a coinsidence a few years ago, when I found the hoard of john coins. I was invited to a detecting club in Yorkshire where I met a fantastic guy who happened to be a Numismatist called Peter Spencer, he had been invited to the club to give a talk on coins etc. He identified all the coins for me at the club, but thats the only time I have ever been to one of these places. Early last year he wanted to write another piece about me in the Searcher magazine and happened to mention the John hoard, Peter thought that I was a member of this club and also mentioned this in the article. A week later I got a phone call from Peter asking if I was a member of this club as there was this guy called Steve Cocker (who happened to be a member of this club) complaining that he had never found a hoard of John coins! How's that for a coincidence? Another Steve Cocker was a member of a club I visited just once....

Funny thing is, I came from Burnley origionally and we are probably related somewhere down the line!

Steve

That might be why John Dixon thought it was the Steve Cocker he knew. Very confusing all the same. I'll tell John when I send him an e-mail. Cheers.

-

Hi Steve. As I was browsing the NA website last night with my girlfriend Vicky. She noticed your name on the article that I was reading. It turns out that she is your cousin and her Mum is your Auntie Maureen. Like you said earlier its a small world ha ha,

Viking Orm wrote:Hi Steve. As I was browsing the NA website last night with my girlfriend Vicky. She noticed your name on the article that I was reading. It turns out that she is your cousin and her Mum is your Auntie Maureen. Like you said earlier its a small world ha ha,

Wow what a coincidence! Aunty Mo has mentioned that Vicky is seeing someone. I did not know though that you knew my favorite detecting area!

I am working my way over to Nappa via Horton at the moment must have at least 2K acres! but I allways come back round Brogden/Middop area. These areas produce Bronze Age and medieval, plus the odd Roman bits. I have never found anything Saxon or Viking, even Celtic is very thin on the ground.

If you ever want to meet up and have a look at some find spots, give us a ring mate.

Steve

Hi Steve, I went up for tea at your Auntie Mo`s yesterday and she thought it highly amusing when we told her about bumping` into you on the forum the other day. I look forward to meeting up sometime and having a look at your finds and your local sites, thankyou very much for that and please keep in touch with any updates.

Sure no problem, if you ever need any more information about these finds etc just let me know.
If I find something of interest I will post on this forum with a link to the images.

All the best

Steve

Yes Steve, please do keep us up to date with the finds. I can't wait to see what turns up next - sorry just had to say that "turns up". Ray.

Hi Steve,

Just wondering your thoughts on this...A guy that my friend met the other day through work told him that a few years ago, whilst detecting the river banks a couple of hundred yards upstream from Catlow bottoms ford in Nelson, he said that he found a decayed armoured breastplate. Now that is all the info that I have at the moment until I go straight to the horses mouth, apparently it hasnt been sent off to be dated or analysed in a ny professional way. Apparently when he dug it from the riverbank it broke up somewhat, he went on to say that he would be more than happy to show the exact spot that it was found, and further added that the hole that the piece was found in has left an imprint in the banking that can still be seen. The funny thing is that this area is inundated in prehistory from many eras, with too many landmarks in the immediate vicinity to mention on here.
Would you have any idea from which eras in history that breastplate armour would most likely have been used in our area?, and in your opinion do you think that if indeed this is armoured breastplating, that it could have been used in combat and was lost in conflict?. It would be interesting to hear your view on this being a detectorist. In the meantime I will try to arrange a trip out with said guy for a browse.

Viking Orm wrote:Hi Steve,

Just wondering your thoughts on this...A guy that my friend met the other day through work told him that a few years ago, whilst detecting the river banks a couple of hundred yards upstream from Catlow bottoms ford in Nelson, he said that he found a decayed armoured breastplate. Now that is all the info that I have at the moment until I go straight to the horses mouth, apparently it hasnt been sent off to be dated or analysed in a ny professional way. Apparently when he dug it from the riverbank it broke up somewhat, he went on to say that he would be more than happy to show the exact spot that it was found, and further added that the hole that the piece was found in has left an imprint in the banking that can still be seen. The funny thing is that this area is inundated in prehistory from many eras, with too many landmarks in the immediate vicinity to mention on here.
Would you have any idea from which eras in history that breastplate armour would most likely have been used in our area?, and in your opinion do you think that if indeed this is armoured breastplating, that it could have been used in combat and was lost in conflict?. It would be interesting to hear your view on this being a detectorist. In the meantime I will try to arrange a trip out with said guy for a browse.

Hi there! I think a good start would be to find out what material the breastplate was made from i.e. Bronze etc it sound very interesting though. it might be an idea to get him to take some photos of the fragments and pass the emails about? I will be honest though....This finder must have kept the find to himself as these finds usually travel the metal detecting circle and get exaggerated over the years so i would tread carefully here. Let me know what happens please.

I started a new thread on the forum in this catagory about a new possible Roman site, I have also uploaded some new photos. I have edited the comment quite heavily, as earlier I posted the grid location and other facts that give the site away, I have now removed this info. If you would like to know location pm me or email to steve.cocker7@ntlworld.com