RESULTS
On April 17th 1993 eight MARS members arrived to begin the survey on Joseph Sargeant's field. It soon became obvious that there was a good scatter of metal objects near to the Northampton Road and operators were kept very busy recording finds. On that first day, after over 30 man hours, we had recovered and recorded 56 musket balls, plus buttons, a coin weight of James I and other objects including a jetton, a thimble and some pre-decimal coins.
On the second day we had topped the 100 mark for musket balls and had also found a bronze Roman coin. By the time we had completed a 50 metre strip adjacent to the A508 we had found 212 musket balls and it had become evident that this area had seen lots of action during the 1643 siege. It wasn't until we were on the second field, to the west of Joe's house (GR/2/S) that we found alternative evidence in the form of a spur rowel and a powder measure cap, plus coins of Elizabeth I. These powder measure caps were made of lead and were attached to a thong across the chest to seal pre-made charges for use in muskets. What the soldiers called 'the twelve apostles'
By the time we had completed GR/2/S we had found a total of 355 musket balls. As we progressed along both sides of the avenue towards Grafton Lodge the finds petered out, suggesting that the main action was along the main road to Northampton.
Although some metal objects did come to light on Charles' fields immediately north of the village tt wasn't until we were on the opposite side of the Northampton road to the other concentration of musket balls on Joe's field that we once again found ourselves in a large scatter of musket balls and hammered silver coins. It would appear from this that soldiers were holding the Northampton road, possibly in camps on either side. Many of the fields on the eastern side of the A508 held very little in the way of metal objects. Because of the very hot, dry weather we were taking plastic buckets to the water troughs so that we could soak the grass divots in to give them some chance of survival. It was during a particularly hot day that John Colgrove, seeing that we were watering in the holes, informed us that we needn't have bothered because the field was due for ploughing very shortly!!
When we began searching to the east of The Old Rectory we suddenly started to find concentrations of musket balls, completely divorced from any other scatters and surrounded by almost barren fields. We were to find a possible explanation for this at a later date. John Colgrove had told me of a small hoard of Roman coins which had been found just east of Charles' garden when a worker was replacing a gate post. Bearing in mind that only I knew of this I wasn't entirely surprised when one member excitedly held up a Roman coin. There was a small scatter of Roman bronze coins and a silver denarius of Septimius Severus. It was while we were searching these fields that Dave, one of our members, realised he had lost his gold wedding ring. He had taken the ring off because his detector sounded off when he was passing soil over the search head to isolate a metal find. A search of the area where he thought he might have dropped the ring produced nothing. It was decided that we ought to search the grass verge where we parked, and amid loads of ringpulls and other metal junk Dave's wife Sally finally found the ring.
Most of the fields up the slope to the northern boundary were devoid of any meaningful finds, and the hot weather made searching a bit of a trial. When we were searching the last field on the left past Millstones, abutting the canal we began to find some VERY interesting metal items. About half a dozen or so plastic bags were recovered containing ringpulls from drink cans and aluminium foil etc with a nice typed note Aluminium ring-pull Circa 1950. Some wag from the village had taken the time and trouble to have a little wind-up, which caused a few chuckles!!
With a few breaks to do other surveys for Northants Heritage the searching continued into 1995 with very little in the way of recordable evidence, although the odd nice coin appeared from time to time. During August of 1995 the weather was very dry and oppressive and I can well remember the lads sitting in the shade of a hedge watching buzzards circling overhead. According to the pundits this was the hottest, driest period since 1727, and we knew it!!
By this time we had searched all of the outlying grass fields and, thinking we may have left the best until last, began searching the triangular field between the two roads into the village from the A508. What a disappointment! Plenty of junk, and the horses thankfully left us alone, but not as productive as we had expected. We were kept busy digging but nothing of any interest connected with the siege turned up. While in this field we also searched two adjoining gardens with little result.
We didn't get back into the musket balls again until we started to scan the field immediately south of Joseph's house. Once again there may be evidence that a camp had been set up here to guard the Northampton road. There was plenty of evidence for the houses that once stood here, with lots of limestone debris and l9th century finds.
The next field we searched was opposite the Manor House where evidence exists of the shrunken village. Once again there was limestone from buildings and lots of glass, nails and the usual occupation junk. We were searching this field just as Mr Smith was preparing for sowing and we had to leave after only a small part of the field had been searched. This seemed as good a time as any to evaluate the finds so far and to get the findspots onto a computer mapping system. At Northants Heritage Glenn Foard and I did the photocopy transfers and a meeting was arranged for a finds expert to come down from Leicester to assess the metalwork. After that the finds went to Mark Curtis, of Northampton Museum, who was retained by Northants Heritage to record the finds.
I didn't envy Mark his job because by now we had amassed several pounds of metal in two large polythene boxes, and he had the unenviable task of weighing and measuring over 600 musket balls as well as identifying everything including many hammered silver coins.
One day Glenn called me in to see the computer maps he had prepared and I will never forget the thrill I felt when, with the push of a few buttons, the scatter of finds appeared on the screen. All those hours of work, plodding up and down fields in all weathers. Trips to the water troughs, digging into baked earth as hard as concrete, the mud and the snow. Here it was.all coming together and it had really been worth it. The only survey of its kind to be undertaken anywhere and Grafton Regis was at the centre of this ground breaking search for archaeological evidence
Then came the possible explanation for the isolated concentration of musket balls near The Old Rectory. "Watch this" said Glenn. "Here are the 17th. century field boundaries". With a click on the computer three intersecting hedgelines suddenly appeared right next to the spot where we had found the musket balls. It is possible that there was musket fire from a small party of parliamentarians hidden at the intersection and directing fire at the Manor House and Church. We'll never really know but without the evidence from the metal detecting we couldn't possibly have put forward a conjecture
CONCLUSION
Without doubt the Grafton Regis Survey was a useful exercise in the obvious adviseability of co-operation between metal detecting and archaeology. The results speaks for themselves. Hundreds of metal objects recorded for posterity, evidence that couldn't be gathered in any other way. Some evidence of camps on the Northampton road, no real evidence that the village was attacked up the northern slope and the possibility that the parliamentary troops may have attacked house to house from the A508. Only further searches, to the south and possibly around the Manor House can add to these suppositions and add to the overall picture. As I write (July 99) the finds are with Lord Charles Fitzroy, who will shortly be arranging a proper display.
The survey continues after harvest to the south of the village, and the latest research suggests that we may be able identify those musket balls that were fired and those that may have just been dropped in the heat of battle. Overall this survey has been a very worthwhile contribution to the history and archaeology of Northamptonshire and I would like to thank the landowners and tenants for making it possible. Between us we have let a small chink of light into the short bloody history that was Grafton Regis' involvement in the English Civil War.
