Hampshire
Metal detecting in Hart.
A small district with a long memory — royal manors, a medieval castle and working arable between the villages. We've recorded 50 digs here. Locations are shown approximately, out of respect for the landowners and the ground we're trusted with.
The land around Hart
Hart is the north-east corner of Hampshire, lower and softer than the chalk: London Clay and sandy gravels with pockets of heath. The farmland sits in blocks between Odiham, Hook, Long Sutton and Hartley Wintney, much of it arable with pasture along the Whitewater and the Basingstoke Canal corridor.
What's underfoot
Odiham was a royal manor with a King John castle, and the surrounding parishes carry the traces of that status — medieval coinage, seal matrices and personal items rather than the deeper prehistoric material found further west. Greywell and South Warnborough add a scatter of Romano-British activity along the old road lines.
How we search here
Clay and gravel hold moisture, so timing matters here more than on the chalk. We favour ploughed and drilled fields after rain, when depth improves and the ground works cleanly. Digs run midweek by written agreement with the landowner. We meet in the morning, spread out across the permission and search until mid-afternoon, refilling every hole as we go.
Permissions have included land near Odiham, Hook, Greywell, Long Sutton, South Warnborough and Winchfield.
We have 50 recorded digs in the Hart district, spread across 7 parishes, part of 487+ digs across Hampshire. Every member works to the NCMD Code of Conduct, and finds of note are reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme through our local Finds Liaison Officer.
Significant Finds
No published finds from Hart yet.
Surveys in this district are ongoing, and records still working through the Portable Antiquities Scheme are not published here until they're released. In the meantime you can browse everything we've recorded elsewhere.
Browse the full finds gallery →