Hey guys,
Firstly I would just like to introduce myself to this area of the forum. I live in the Midlands (it appears there are a few of us) and have recently decided to get into this fascinating hobby.
If anyone would care to offer any advice on the best approach to securing adequate permission to dig a site I would be most grateful.
The reason I ask is that a few months ago myself and a friend visited a WW2 airfield that is now mostly farmland. We happened to meet the farmer whilst walking the perimeter who was extremely friendly and he allowed us to explore the site.
After some research and obtaining the plans for the airfield we decided to take another visit to explore further and to hopefully ask the same farmer about possibly digging. We decided to take a look at an area south of the main airfield site where accommodation was located where we came across a field which had a number of ruined wartime buildings in it.
Perhaps foolishly (and in some part due to the friendly meeting between the previous farmer) we hopped over the gate and started to look around. Unfortunately a different farmer (the opposite in fact) who must have been the landowner of this particular field saw us and was obviously very upset at the site of two blokes poking around his field.
I tried to explain the situation but he was having none of it and we got a right telling off!
Since then I have purchased a metal detector and am keen to get started but I obviously want to ensure that we do things properly and get permission and avoid angry farmers. How do you guys go about finding out who owns the land and asking to dig and what do you think is the best approach?
Can you just turn up and hope to bump into somebody, knock on doors or do you try and contact people before hand? Do you always even ask for permission or are there sometimes places that you can dig where permission isn't required?
I would be really interested to know!
Thanks in advance
Ash
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