My Brigantia

[Urien of Rheged]

Brigantia being the ancient pre Roman name for this region of Northern England, the county of Lancashire (pronounced Lan-ki-shur) where I live and where I hunt.

A medieval packhorse bridge on a permission of mine. The landowner told me he once caught a couple of hawkers detecting around this old bridge years, ago he also had some legitimate detectorists there too. It wouldnt stop me detecting the area; however the terrain around it does with the grass far too long
to swing a coil.
And so its the pasture fields like the one in the picture that I tend to detect mostly.
Where I took this photo with the hill as the backdrop recently produced a Bronze age spearhead and has been fruitful for me finding some nice silver coins.

The hill, Pendle, will be known to some in Pennsylvania as it's the place the founder of the Quaker movement had his vision of God back in the 18th century.
Merlin the wizard is also said to have frequented the summit back in the day and he also used to have visions up there.
And as a teenager me and my mates used to go there too and funnily enough we'd also have visions too as the slopes are covered in magic mushrooms at this time of year.
I wonder what time of year that Quacker fella went wandering up there talking of visions.
Anyway that's a snippet from my neck of the woods.
Cheers.

 

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[robertk]

Very neat place to hunt. Love the old bridge, and the history.

 

[ArfieBoy]

Beautiful country. Nice pictures, too. Thanks for sharing the story.

 

[Urien of Rheged]

Very neat place to hunt. Love the old bridge, and the history.

We certainly are steeped in history and I'm still buzzing nearly a week on finding a piece of that history dating back over 3000 years ago.

Pendle hill is infamous for witchcraft. In 1612 a witches coven was "exposed" and I think about 10 "Pendle witches" hanged after trial and conviction.

I'm lucky that I have a few permissions with rivers running through.
I love rivers, though youd probably class them as mere streams compared to the rivers you have over there.
My favourite local river is the Hodder which i took a shot of on my phone while out detecting recently.
Traditionally it is a boundary river that separates the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Etymologically The name Hodder derives from the ancient "Celtic" Yr Odre which translates to "Boundary". A Celtic name pre dates counties like Yorkshire and so this little river must have been a boundary of some sort since time immemorial.

 

[pepperj]

We certainly are steeped in history and I'm still buzzing nearly a week on finding a piece of that history dating back over 3000 years ago.

Pendle hill is infamous for witchcraft. In 1612 a witches coven was "exposed" and I think about 10 "Pendle witches" hanged after trial and conviction.

I'm lucky that I have a few permissions with rivers running through.
I love rivers, though youd probably class them as mere streams compared to the rivers you have over there.
My favourite local river is the Hodder which i took a shot of on my phone while out detecting recently.
Traditionally it is a boundary river that separates the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Etymologically The name Hodder derives from the ancient "Celtic" Yr Odre which translates to "Boundary". A Celtic name pre dates counties like Yorkshire and so this little river must have been a boundary of some sort since time immemorial.

Detected on a permission that there were witch burnings.
Kind of a sobering thought to walk on such dirt that had such a history.
I look at that picture and wonder what could be in the water.
Love that bridge picture.

 

[Urien of Rheged]

Detected on a permission that there were witch burnings.
Kind of a sobering thought to walk on such dirt that had such a history.
I look at that picture and wonder what could be in the water.
Love that bridge picture.

Burnings 😬
They dispatched Witches around here by hanging them. Burning was more a Euro thing to do.
As for the river bed pepper, ever since seeing a story when i was younger abput a lad finding a sword in a local river I too used to gaze into the waters and wonder what lurked beneath.
Then I had a spell at magnet fishing and realised that whatever is there if anything is staying there forever. 😆

 

[ToddsPoint]

Your area has such a long and colorful history, everyone over here on this forum dreams of a trip over there. In my area, something from 1830 would be from the very earliest pioneers. Luckily we have plenty of Native American artifacts that go back a long time. Thanks for the pics!

 

[Urien of Rheged]

Your area has such a long and colorful history, everyone over here on this forum dreams of a trip over there. In my area, something from 1830 would be from the very earliest pioneers. Luckily we have plenty of Native American artifacts that go back a long time. Thanks for the pics!

The grass always looks greener as they say.
I tend to look over in envy and awe at my fellow countrymen particularly in the south east of England in areas like Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. A detectorist over in those areas will find as much in one days hunting as im likely to in a month.
Historically these areas where more highly populated being more temperate and with arable soils.
Lancashire was and to an extent still is a provincial backwater, the lowlands toward the coast where swamps and further in land the hilly terrain is only good for pasture and notoriously wet even by British standards.
And there's no chance of me ever finding one of those amazing "Celtic" gold staters with the psychedelic designs. The tribe of the Brigantes didn't bother with coinage. Too European you see, Lancashire is and probably always has been Brexit country 😆

 

[pepperj]

Burnings 😬
They dispatched Witches around here by hanging them. Burning was more a Euro thing to do.
As for the river bed pepper, ever since seeing a story when i was younger abput a lad finding a sword in a local river I too used to gaze into the waters and wonder what lurked beneath.
Then I had a spell at magnet fishing and realised that whatever is there if anything is staying there forever. 😆

The history is there for sure.

Witchcraft and Witch Trials in England | Historic England

Witch fever swept across the country when witchcraft was made a capital offence in 1563.

historicengland.org.uk

 

[Urien of Rheged]

The history is there for sure.

Witchcraft and Witch Trials in England | Historic England

Witch fever swept across the country when witchcraft was made a capital offence in 1563.

historicengland.org.uk

Nice little article. And showing they did burn too though I don't think it was the usual way I think most hanged.
One of my permissions is at a place called Hothersall. While researching its history I found a place close by, a woods called red bank, still there and still wooded to this day and it is also associated with a witches coven.
The lesser known Samlesbury Witches where said to meet on the opposite bank of the river and await transportation across the other side which came in the form of some flying demon creatures who would take the girls over to red bank woods and have wild sex demon orgies with them.
The girls ended up apparently killing a child by draining its blood as it slept in the cradle and you know what would have followed....can't remember the exact details but I'm sure ironically that one of the child witnesses from the Pendle trials was one if th accused in this case some twenty years later. Fascinating what you unearth I suppose when you start to actually look into what has gone on in the past in any given locality.

Reminds me, A group of middle aged women on a hike stopped me a few months ago while detecting around there, asking what I've found etc. the subject turned to history and I decided to regale them with the demon orgy tale from the red bank woods.
That sure shifted em and I was back to detecting in no time 😂