A ROMAN FOUND SURVIVAL GUIDE TO WINTER DIGGING
Making the Most of this Feral Season
What can we say about the English winter? Arctic, Wet, Windy, Hideous, these are all words that come to our minds.
Yet like lunatics we still dig every week throughout the winter months! So here are our top tips for surviving this feral season and still coming out with the finds. So let's start with the essentials, the gear that we really couldn’t get through the winter without. If these aren’t part of your winter digging kit then we can only stress how much of a crucial addition they are for getting you comfortably (well as comfortable as you can be in minus temperatures and sodden fields!) through the winter digging season.
THE WINTER GEAR ESSENTIALS
GORE TEX BOOTS / WELLIES
You really do fail to appreciate how important it is having dry feet until it’s hour four in a muddy field deep into chilly November. If, like us, you’re completely digging obsessed, slightly insane and not planning on cutting back on digging during this feral season (not even for snow!) then investing in some good quality Gore Tex Hiking Boots or Wellies will change your life.
Our digging lives were greatly improved AG (After GoreTex), keeping us warmer and happier out in the wet and cold, likely digging and finding better because of it! (a positive mindset is a really important part to the recipe of a good dig) There really is only so long you can ignore sodden socks and frozen toes. Plus we can't have anyone developing Trench Foot! (Seriously, Trench Foot may make you think of WWI Soldiers but it still exists and is very easy to get if your feet stay soggy for too long.) So ditch those trainers and grab the GoreTex, you’ll thank us for it later.
LAYERS
Now it might have just been our mothers, but some advice that has been drilled into our heads from a very young age when it comes to dressing for the cold is that age old saying: ‘You can always take layers off but you cannot add on what you don’t have!’ Mothers do know best and there’s nothing worse than being cold in the middle of the countryside wishing to all the gods that you hadn’t left that fleece at home.
We have made the investment into Thermals, Merinos, Polartec Fleeces, Time Team Long Sleeves, whatever your groove, layer up and layer on. Ellie will sometimes have up to four layers on the bitterest of days.
There’s even science behind the process of layering too, it’s much better to have several thin layers such as thermals, long sleeves and fleeces than one thick layer as warm air gets trapped between each layer and one thing that we can remember from Secondary School Science Class is that air is the best insulator!
If, like us, you’re completely digging obsessed, slightly insane and not planning on cutting back on digging during this feral season.
WATERPROOFS
In Britain, October to January is our wettest season seeing the most rainfall of any other months so it’s simply guaranteed that one of those rainy days will be a dig day. Sometimes it will be a constant drench drizzle that will slowly douse you over a period of hours, sometimes a rather unpredictable downpour that will seem to come out of nowhere.
We’ve experienced the freakiest of weather systems out in our fields only able to watch in horror as a dark cloud approaches menacingly across the horizon giving us minutes to prepare for the tornado to come. In these rather extreme times you will never appreciate your waterproofs more, waterproof jackets, waterproof trousers invest in them all! Being able to peel that top waterproof layer off at the end of the dig to get back into the car dry well that’s the miracle we all dream of.
Another thing that waterproofs are great for even if it isn’t raining is dealing with the mud. The mud in winter is really something else, that powdery dry substance from the summer is now a thick sludge that sticks to anything and everything. As we are sure most of you can tell from our TikTok live streams where by the end of them Ellie can sometimes be unrecognisable from the mud bath. Waterproofs provide the perfect wipe down surface that’s much easier to clean the mud off than any fleece or denim coat
KNEE PADS
This may seem like a rather random addition, do you really need knee pads? Well if you value your knees then the only answer really is yes, this is a hobby that possibly involves the most kneeling down of any other sport.
Plus in the winter your knee pads double up in use not only protecting your knees from whatever feral surface you are kneeling on but they also provide a dry surface to perch on. One that stops your legs getting drenched and cold, keeping you warmer and digging happier for longer. So a true survival essential, who wants cold legs!
As we are sure most of you can tell from our TikTok live streams where by the end of them Ellie can sometimes be unrecognisable from the mud bath.
BEANIES AND BOBBLE HATS
The biggest loss of our body heat is caused by our heads, simply because that is where we have the most blood vessels. So when it’s left exposed to the elements on a hot day more cold blood is being sent back into our bodies decreasing our core temperature.
Not only an essential for looking cool and repping your favourite metal detecting brand (Minelab) or shop (LP Metal Detecting) but a crucial piece to the jigsaw puzzle of warmth. Beanies and Bobble Hats, it wouldn’t be winter digging without them.
WARM GLOVES
In these winter months as the digger (so not Lucie) you do need to accept that to some extent you will have slightly cold and wet hands for most of the day but a good quality pair of gloves can really make this much more bearable.
Thinking back to when we just trusted gardening gloves to do the job we actually do not know how we didn’t get frostbite, plus they wear out like crazy god knows what B&Q thought we were doing with them coming back for a new pair every two weeks. Since investing in the Searcher Detecting Gloves Ellie’s digging life really has been made better. They keep your hands much warmer in the winter and don’t tend to get as sodden all the way through like other pairs that we have tried whilst the perfect glove might not exist out there these ones remain as our favourites.
HOT FLASKS
Now we don’t know what your digging drink preference is but for us a cold drink really doesn’t cut it in the winter. Cold food, cold drinks, it's all just a bit miserable in a cold field with cold hands and cold feet dreaming about what it was like to be warm. This is where a hot flask can make a world of difference providing just that little bit of comfort that will make or break the digging day.
HEAD TORCH
We aren’t really fans of digging in the dark, it’s just a bit difficult and slightly suspicious despite the darkness plunging at the ridiculous hour of 4pm. It really is a short digging window in these increasingly smaller winter daylight hours, but you really don't realise especially if like us, you have your head in the dirt most of the time focusing on one thing and one thing alone the finds and not that horizon and the ever sinking sunset.
Therefore we always get caught out in the dark, and it’s always when we have the furthest walk back to the car so a head torch is a pretty important element of getting you home. Lighting that dark trudge back to the car with much more efficiency than any phone torch.
THE ROMAN FOUND WINTER MENU
HOT LUNCHES
First of all ditch that cold food, it’s already cold outside there’s no need to make you cold on the inside as well. One of our personal favourites is Cheesy Chips that we grab on the way to the dig, they come so hot from our local chippy that they just reach the perfect temperature for us to enjoy in the field.
A Hot Flask also opens up a whole new world of wonders for the hot lunch, hot tea and coffee, warm soups, stews (there is a Roman Army Lentil Stew that we really must test out), pastas, chilli, you name it it’s going in that flask. You really will appreciate that hearty lunch warm, much more than your sorry looking Supermarket Sandwiches.
CHOCOLATE
It does go without saying but chocolate is always a must. But in the winter chocolate becomes invaluable, your body requires calories to stay warm and chocolate is the perfect way of consuming them. (In all seriousness Ellie did read this in an Antarctic Survival Guide so if it works for the explorers it works for the diggers!)
LOCAL HOSPITALITY
We have been digging at our local permission for over two years now and it really has been a valuable social experience for us as well. We are very well known in the village and have learnt a lot of local history and tips from our village friends, able to show them our finds often over a nice cup of tea or if we are really lucky a slice of lemon drizzle cake or plum bread.
Their hospitality is especially appreciated during these harsh winter months where they find us leaving the frozen fields and shelter us next to the fire for a gossip and mince pie. Getting to know our permission so well through the eyes of the locals has been one of the most rewarding parts of our digging adventures and we can’t recommend just being available for a chat more.
WINTER DIGGING SURVIVAL TIPS
Now we are set up with the Gear and Digging Essentials you are prepared for winter digging, a season that can be the hardest but also the most fulfilling, so here are our top tips for getting the most of these challenging times.
EXPLORE YOUR PASTURE
When it hits winter on our permission all of our best arable fields are under seed with maybe two left to fallow over the winter, so for us winter digging is all about working these neglected pasture fields hard and it’s proved itself time and time again to be the business!
Our Gold Henry VII Half Angel was found on a very miserable winter day in said neglected pasture field (definitely not neglected anymore after that epic find). It really is worth taking the time to cover even the quietest of the pastures during these months, they are less muddy than the arable, we have found they are often less frozen due to the grass roots and often produce better signals during the winter months than the summer. Now is the time!
BETTER SIGNALS
Often you get the best signals for metal detecting in the winter, deeper targets and louder signals that are much easier missed during the dry summer season. This is simply because the more moisture in the ground that you get during this winter season produces better conductivity for the metal detector making what sounded like previously empty fields come alive once more. It’s incredibly important to revisit your fields in all conditions; you just never know what is going to come up.
MAKE THE MOST OF IT
We are pretty stubborn over the winter months even during the harshest of conditions but in this season with the ever-shortening daylight hours you have to make the most of it! Seeing our permission throughout all seasons has been so rewarding, even just getting out to enjoy the beauty of the frost and the peaceful still of the winter months can be worth it. If you don’t get out there you don’t know what you’re missing.
TIME FOR RESEARCH
Sometimes it can be just too feral, looking after yourself is one of the most important things and getting ill definitely won’t bring the finds in. The winter months are the perfect time to take a deep dive into that research you may have been neglecting.
We all have that bucket of mystery finds that are yet to be identified, that box of trash we haven’t thrown out for some of us, it might even be your car boot! Now is the perfect time to go through all of this and have a sort out you really do never know just what little gem might be lurking amongst all that ‘trash’.
There are literally hundreds of reference books out there for metal detecting finds, we should know the Roman Found Library is pretty extensive and we often have finds that take us time to track down. Medieval Belt Mounts and Purse Hangers we remember as being quite the research dive. Winter is the best time to add to your knowledge and maybe even your finds cabinet with a little curiosity elevated from the mystery finds box to proud artefact.
If you do find something in your trash we would love to hear about what was lurking!
Surviving in the winter, it’s a harsh season but it can be one of the most rewarding. We hope our survival guide has helped to equip you for making the most out of these feral months. Don’t forget to use our 10% LP Discount Code: ROMANFOUND to make any winter gear additions. Happy Finding!
