Metal Detecting
Below is an email report on a trip in 2019 by John Wishart. Text and all photos used with his kind permission.
"Dear PSHCG,I am writing this email regarding the recent stay in Papa Stour I had with Michael Bain on our short metal detecting trip (29th May to the 1st June 2019). We thought this little update may be of interest for your local newsletter as to how we got on.Firstly I would like to thank the lovely community of Papa Stour for being so accommodating. Everyone we met and spoke to was very friendly and welcomed us on to their grounds to metal detect which was much appreciated. Due to this, our stay was very enjoyable and we would be hoping to come back in the future again some time soon.
I have attached several photos to the email showing our finds so everyone can see what we uncovered. Some of these images may be useful for the history side of your group. There was a lot of ground to cover in a short period of time and so we tried to do a little bit of each site to get a basic understanding of what went on in each area. "Jane's" yard, behind John Walker's certainly seems to have had some trading activity as our finds included various 20th Century coins with one George V Farthing which seems to have been made into 'trench art'. We also found a trade cup weight, possibly 1800's, a c1720-1790's shoe buckle clasp and an overyssel 1740 Dutch coin.
Down at 'North-house' for the moment we were only able to find some 20th century coins, Victorian/ Georgian pennies and half pennies, a nice 1920 silver florin and a 1933 silver sixpence. These are consistent losses with farming and working the land. The 'Haa' had more of the same coins but also a couple of shoe buckle parts c1720-1790's which are in extremely good condition compared to others we have found throughout Shetland. Hopefully on our next trip we would be looking to detect the fields behind and across the road in front of the 'Stofa' as there may be something of interest to find there. As for the moment the items we have found along with the GPS locations will all be passed on to Jenny Murray to be recorded at the Lerwick Museum and Archives. Hope to see you all again soon, John Wishart."