1. Permission comes before everything
In England and Wales, all land belongs to someone, and detecting on it without the owner's permission is trespass. Any object you recover from that land belongs to the landowner, not to you. Reputable clubs work on written permissions that set out who owns what is found and how finds are split, and that agreement is signed before anyone switches a machine on.
Some land is off limits regardless of who owns it. Scheduled monuments, Sites of Special Scientific Interest and land under certain stewardship agreements require consent that a hobby detectorist will not have. If you are unsure, the answer is not to detect it.
2. The law in brief
The Treasure Act 1996 defines what must be reported. In broad terms that means objects of gold or silver over 300 years old, groups of coins from the same find, and prehistoric base-metal assemblages. Reporting is a legal obligation with a deadline, and it runs through your local Finds Liaison Officer and the coroner.
Everything else is voluntary but strongly encouraged. Recording ordinary finds with the Portable Antiquities Scheme is what turns a hobby into a genuine contribution: the national database now holds well over a million objects, most of them found by detectorists.
3. The code of conduct
The National Council for Metal Detecting Code of Conduct is the standard we hold members to. It covers the practical courtesies that keep landowners saying yes: fill every hole, take your rubbish home, close gates, keep off standing crops, and report anything significant rather than pocketing it.
4. Kit: what you actually need
- A detector. Do not spend a fortune to start with. Talk to people at a club dig and try a few machines before you commit.
- A digging tool. A proper detecting spade or trowel. A garden spade will make a mess of a field and of your welcome.
- A pinpointer. Not essential on day one, but it will halve the time you spend on each hole.
- A finds pouch and a rubbish pouch. Two separate pouches. Everything metal that comes out of the ground goes into one or the other, and nothing goes back in.
- Headphones, boots and waterproofs. An English field in February is not a forgiving place.
5. Your first dig
Expect to spend most of the day digging bits of iron, ring pulls and shotgun cartridge caps. That is normal, and learning to read the tones takes months rather than days. Work slowly, overlap your sweeps, keep the coil close to the ground, and dig a neat plug you can replace so the field looks untouched when you leave.
If you find something you think is old, stop. Do not clean it, do not keep digging around it, and show it to an experienced member. If it might be Treasure, the object stays where it is, gets photographed in place, and gets reported.
6. Why join a club
The hardest part of detecting is not the machine, it is getting permission to walk decent land. A club has established relationships with landowners built up over years, and members who can identify what you have found. Midweek Searchers run weekly digs, weekenders and rallies across Hampshire, Wiltshire, Sussex and Surrey.
If you would like to see the sort of thing that comes out of these fields, our finds gallery records everything our members have reported, era by era.
7. Get Covered
Before you detect, we strongly recommend joining the NCMD (the National Council for Metal Detecting). Membership provides third party liability insurance of up to £2 million, which is a genuine reassurance to landowners when you ask for permission — it shows you take the responsibility seriously.