‘I’d like to find a Roman fibula brooch’: watching the detectorists – a photo essay

Alex Turner meets some of the amateur detectorists stalking the fields of the UK searching for buried history

In July 2009, Terry Herbert of the Bloxwich Research and Metal Detecting club picked up a signal with his metal detector; the signal for what we now know to be the Staffordshire hoard. The find of almost 4,600 pieces of gold and silver was the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver ever discovered. .

Without the army of dedicated hobbyists that stalk the fields of the UK, much of our history would remain secret, buried and forgotten beneath our feet. Since the success of the BBC comedy Detectorists, more people have taken to metal detecting than ever before.

Cameron Jones, a young metal detectorist who fell in love' with detecting after a metal-detecting rally was held on the land of his dad's farm.