Buried Treasure!!??

[janeyo]

[QUOTE=SlugLobber;382418]I found a donkey shoe in my garden, but that's it. Otherwise it's lots and lots of broken glass!

How do you know it was from a donkey? And not a small horse?

We found a big horse show the other day when the path was being dug out. I am going to put it on my shed, might bring me some good luck for a change

[SlugLobber]

Donkeys have different shaped feet, Jane and they're really tiny hooves for their size/strength. In ye olde days, donkeys were used in the fields (my garden was part of the crop field behind). My pony of only 12hh takes a size 1 shoe and his feet are twice the size of the donkey shoe, which has special heels which served as 'grips' in the clay soil. Even my shetland has bigger feet than a donkey and they weren't used in the fields!

Sorry, am a hoof anorak and when I was studying in earnest, we did cover donkeys, too.

ETA: Just found an image of one on Google:
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...%3Den%26sa%3DN

[di]

Unfortunately it wasn't me that unburied them,but a metal detector found some rather impressive coins on my parent's cousin's cow field a few months ago....if only we'd followed our dream & taken up metal detecting as kids!!metal-detecting Antiquarian’s Attic

[Nicos]

Sluglobber- I was going to suggest that it might have been Roman.....are you able to date it??

[Snadger]

Even worse then Snadge? The chooks were laying the eggs and then cooking them before eating them!!!!

Of course..........that's why I found a pan and a paraffin stove in the chook run...............

[selfraising]

We've found loads of bits of clay pipes in our garden. Apparently these used to be all hopfields so I presume their from the workers

[Flummery]

I think clay pipes are so abundant because they were meant to be disposable. You could actually buy a pipe of tobacco, and then chuck the pipe when it was smoked.

[selfraising]

Oh I didn't realise they were disposable, thanks Flummery, I've learnt something new for the day!

[TonyF]

I've just found the really good tin opener that we lost a few months ago, snug and warm - and a bit manky - in one of the compost bins

[SlugLobber]

Sluglobber- I was going to suggest that it might have been Roman.....are you able to date it??

Haven't tried to date it. The ones with the heel bits do allegedly exist from Roman times, but they are very similar in design to those post-medieval age. I do know that it's a hind shoe, but I need to file it down and look at the nail holes to date it further and I think corrosion might have gone too far for that.

[selfraising]

Oh I do love old things and history. Fancy having a go at metal detecting myself, ploughed fields are supposed to be good

[snuffer]

Like Flummery and selfraising, I have found hundreds of pieces of clay pipe. Although they are of no value and not unusual in any way I save every one. Don't really know why, it just seems nice to have a direct link to those that have worked my plot in the past.

[janeyo]

I've learnt something new about donkeys! cool

[selfraising]

Me too, I think Sluglobber should try and date it

[Flummery]

I've just found the really good tin opener that we lost a few months ago, snug and warm - and a bit manky - in one of the compost bins

Ha! We lost a really good potato peeler once. Found the handle clinging to a bit of rust in a compost heap. Annoying isn't it?