hi,has anyone found any strange things in their allotments? i have recently found a old military brass button with a coat of arms on it also a old brass coat hanger,i have heard of people finding ww2 bombs etc, any of you lot found any treasure in yours? :o
;DJust two old clay pipes .And loooooaaaaaaaddddddddssssss. of bloody cooooch grass
Clay pipe stems here too, the odd clay pipe bowl, never found one complete, libe in hope!
found a lovely brass thing, maygbe an ornament or hook for dogs lead, a spaniels head with 2 hooks below, with a hole in base for mountimng on top of a p[ost or something
Here in Lincolnshire, if you stick a spade in the ground almost anywhere you'll have Time Team crawling all over the plot to dig up the Roman or Bronze Age remains.
Allegedly the oldest thing found here was a copy of jokes used in the first episode of Terry And June. ( Anyone under 40 will not understand this joke)
Loads of broken clay pipes. Bits of shrapnel. No complete bombs, though I have a couple of bits which I think must have come from a blast bomb, as the curvature isn't enough for an AA shell.
dodgy looking bones but they turned out not to be human
i found the following while digging my garden
5 partial sheets gypsum wall board
1 gi joe with kung fu grip
3 20+ lbs chunks concrete
Loads of rusty nails, broken glass and half burnt wood. The previous owner had a huge bonfire after dismantling a shed and greenhouse before vacating the plot.
The marestail remains.
We get animal bones too. stone age flint tools and the odd piece of pottery and loads of fat hen.
No bombs - but I did have half a Morrison shelter!
I never did find the other half. Or work out: a) how someone cut it in half; b) how they got it there!!
There are lots of Morrison shelters on our site.. mostly above ground serving as sheds or compost bins. They were bolted together in sections so are easily disassembled... :)
Thanks for that! It's been worrying me for years!
I've slept in one plenty of times - which is why I recognised what it was - but you don't take in the finer points of construction when you're a baby, do you?
Yep..broken off pieces of clay pipes here too, bits of fancy china..they really used to have a 'proper' cup of tea.., pottery, smurfs ???..do they live bellow ground?..I must have disturbed their 'nest' as I've already found 4 in different parts of the lotty, big lumps of bone..something that fox have left behind I assume. I know next door had whole pig carcasses berried into their ground.. :o
Tons and tons of glass, nails and other unwanted stuff.
It does make digging bit more interesting when you discover something.. ;D
Nothing of value. did have a whole fox carcass in the manure once. ???
couple of bedframes and a set of iron railings about six ft long! tons of glass too..
I had some treble thickness corrugated iron propping up the stream bank, and when I looked into it I discovered it was the remains of an Anderson shelter. There's a record of someone trying to put one onto my plot; predictably, it flooded. They spent the Blitz sleeping in the shed.
On our old allotment in South Northamptonshire I found lots of small fossils, sea snail looking things.
Here in the garden I found a Nazi German coin. Apparently POWs used to grow potatoes here. I sometimes find very sharp flint pieces too and wonder whether these might be of interest to Phil Harding of Time Team, but most likely they are just shaped like that by nature. A metal hoe without handle. Several old style iron nails. And of course bits of 'Great Aunt Elsie's' china tea and dinner set. Bits of ancient milk bottles and clay cider flagons.
Oh yes, three days ago an old, large sized penny from 1967 which I put it into Cillit Bang - their claims are exaggerated! ;D But at least I could see what it was after the treatment.
A 'lovely' Garden knome which my daughter called ben. He sits at the door to the shed and keeps guard! Everyone said he would be gone in a couple of days but he still stands there a year and a half later!
Quote from: galina on June 20, 2011, 19:39:02
Oh yes, three days ago an old, large sized penny from 1967 which I put it into Cillit Bang - their claims are exaggerated! ;D
Soak it in C*ke, works wonders - we used to soak all of our brass window catches and they came up luverly!
s. We found a lovely round ceramic ash tray with a lady towering over it. the lady had her *whistles* out and draped with a toga style dress. My fatha in law uses it daily......
Quote from: two sheds on June 20, 2011, 17:31:31
couple of bedframes and a set of iron railings about six ft long! tons of glass too..
every allotment comes with its own glass mine, apparantly...................
Soak it in C*ke, works wonders - we used to soak all of our brass window catches and they came up luverly!
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Thanks for that. It is much shinier now, but also shows that is a very worn coin, but the edges are still well defined and the writing is easily readible. Now for our dull brass drawer knobs.
Quote from: saddad on June 20, 2011, 07:25:35
There are lots of Morrison shelters on our site.. mostly above ground serving as sheds or compost bins. They were bolted together in sections so are easily disassembled... :)
I must have been having a blonde day...
Anderson Shelters are the ones made of curved corrougated iron in sections...
Morrison shelters were welded metal cages to put in cellars.. for houses with no gardens.. :-[
Quote from: saddad on June 21, 2011, 09:31:45
Quote from: saddad on June 20, 2011, 07:25:35
There are lots of Morrison shelters on our site.. mostly above ground serving as sheds or compost bins. They were bolted together in sections so are easily disassembled... :)
I must have been having a blonde day...
Anderson Shelters are the ones made of curved corrougated iron in sections...
Morrison shelters were welded metal cages to put in cellars.. for houses with no gardens.. :-[
correct. there were many anderson shelters in lincolnshire, in fact every now and then they come up for sale in auctions or on ebay..............much in deamnd as pig shelters
We find lots of fossils including a sharks tooth of about 83 millions year old (as identified by our museum), other interesting finds include a 1910 penny, parts of clay pipes, hand made nails
- and
on one particular plot we found burnt glass, hinges and other bits of metal - the plot holder here many years ago used his plot - it adjoined his garden - to burn items from his business as a window fitter! There's still so many clumps of burnt glass and small fragments of glass here that its used now as a wild flower area and to grow hazel (for pea sticks) as its too contaminated for regular cultivation.
Things dug up in my plot
1 complete cast iron bed in 3 different sections (that was fun :'(!)
2 numerous bones dead animals (the plots were once part of a farm)
3 corrugating sheeting
4 couple of metres barbed wire
5 so much glass
6 clay
Even after 3 years I still come across the odd piece of china , glass and tin
Trouble with glass is that self-seeds every where.. ::)
I'm still to see what glass seeds look like, but I swear that is what they do. I've been cultivating my plot for years and everytime I start working on the soil I keep my glass bucket next to me and keep picking..or after heavy rain..you find all those that you've missed glistening on surface.. >:(
lincsyokel2 is right.
our allotment is in peterborough, we found a saxon burial and coptic bowl three years ago when we took over out plot.
Coptic? All the way from Egypt?
Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on June 28, 2011, 12:25:50
Coptic? All the way from Egypt?
Why not. The romans used to bring them here (because the roman empire extended all the way to Egypt), and then dumped them when they buggered off back to Rome in in 200 AD. Especially in Lincolnshire. There prolly more roman rubbish pits in Lincolnshire than the rest of Europe.
It's interesting that they'd bother to ship pottery all that distance when they could have made something locally. Their trading networks were pretty sophisticated, but that surprised me.
Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on June 28, 2011, 18:17:44
It's interesting that they'd bother to ship pottery all that distance when they could have made something locally. Their trading networks were pretty sophisticated, but that surprised me.
ah no its not that simple, there pottery and pottery. Its to do with technology - it might be simple, but in those days, knowing how to make one of these was the equivalent of being a engineer on the Space Shuttle
(http://store.higherheart.com/shopimages/products/thumbnails/Duamutef-coptic-jar-66331-T.jpg)
3 trillion yards of indestructible nylon string, tangled up everywhere - I'm still digging it out after 5 years. Why on earth would anyone need this much string on an allotment?
I live in hope of a Coptic pot though.
In our back garden, after the landscaping was completed we found a complete dinosaur.
Yes you guessed it a complete plastic dinosaur which came as a shock due to our kids not having any of these to play with.
i dug up an old glass bottle from the aberdeen mineral water co. complete with glass marble stopper
I knew of a builder who used to have a plastic skull which he would 'find', (he half buried it), when digging the footings for jobs. He was amazed at the number of people who would choose not to involve the police once they realized that it would hold up their extentions for several weeks. :o
What would you do in that situation?
HAVE HIM LOCKED UP!!
On my Allotment I recently found a large bit of china that looks like willow pattern,as it is a brand new Allotment on what was a field that had horses in I wonder how it got there.Love these snippets from the past telling you that the land has another story to tell. :)