THORVERTON and District History Society held its first meeting of the year, its Annual General Meeting, on January 25.

Membership is up a little from last year and finances are good although we are having problems finding a new bank that doesn’t make excessive charges. The problem seems to be that we are neither a business nor a charity.

Following on from the AGM, committee member Andy Brewer gave a talk on his local metal detecting.

He has been trying to get permission from landowners and the Trustees of Thorverton Millennium Green gave permission for Andy and his team to search the field.

They started where they had been told there had been a Victorian rubbish dump but they found nothing.

The Coldridge map of 1815 shows there had been building in the field.

This area was searched and provided some finds. These were mostly of an agricultural nature and included a plough share, part of a cooking pot and part of what had once been a large saw. There were plenty of drink cans and ring pulls.

Some years ago there was a survey on what was referred to as the Raddon Gold Triangle so they searched the stream often using what they call a carrot – a small device used when looking for small objects.

They found a number of nails and a metal nugget which may have come from local metal working.

They also found what was initially thought to be an Angle Saxon knife.

The local museum thought it might be a medieval glove knife but Devon Finds thought it could be a scrapping tool but the jury is still out on this one. They are still trying to get permission from local land owners for other places to search.

We then had a quiz compiled by Robin Blythe-Lord.

Robert Turner