I couldn't believe my luck! After many disappointments from asking and writing to various local farmers for permission to detect on their land, I had been given the go ahead to search a large estate in Hampshire. The land was of interest to me due to the fact that to my knowledge it had never been detected on before and had roman activity in the area. I couldn't wait to get started. Two weeks before the awful foot and mouth situation took a hold I got my chance and descended on the estate armed with all necessary supplies for a days detecting. As usual I made myself known to the landowner who took great pleasure in telling me I wouldn't find anything, as it had never been inhabited. Not to be put off, I set off with my trusty Minelab Explorer II purchased from Detecnicks to do some serious searching. Several hours had passed and I began to think the landowner was right there was nothing of any great interest here. Just about to call it a day when I got a signal that sounded promising. On digging, I was again rather dispirited to find three old fifty pence pieces stuck together! Not the sort of treasure I had hoped for! Working my way down the field towards the river I discovered several more old decimal coins and decided at that point to call it a day. Taking a different path across the field to my car I passed some molehills. I have always been under the impression that you would have more chance of winning the lottery than finding anything of interest in a molehill, but today I thought I'd give it a go. After sweeping across several molehills, I received a positive signal. I paused briefly to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I knocked the topsoil over to reveal a ring seemingly crying out to be rediscovered. From the condition of the metal I knew it had to be gold and could not wait to get back to my car and home for further inspection. After careful cleaning with warm soapy water at home I found the ring to be even more interesting and beautiful than I first thought. Inside was inscribed "Louisa Dunn born 7th February 1854 died 10th December 1863". My Wife, Lynne and myself were strangely obsessed with finding out more about this little girl and also, how the ring got to be where it was. We set off a chain of events that no one could have predicted. Lynne and I spent a very cold morning searching the local Churchyard for Louisa's grave but to no avail. The next step was the Hampshire Records Office in Winchester; maybe we were presuming too much in that she was a local girl. We discovered that the name Dunn was not common to Hampshire and had no luck finding our Louisa. As a last resort we were advised to search the National Records, which Winchester had a limited amount of. After looking intently at microfiche for hour after hour, my stomach lurched as I saw in print the name Louisa Dunn, born 7th February 1854 in Marylebone, London! I stared in amazement; one little piece found in the puzzle, at last we knew where she came from but however did the ring get to be where I found it? The record office advised us that there was enough information on the ring to request birth and death certificates, which we could obtain for a fee from the General Register Office in Southport, Merseyside. This would give us a fuller picture of Louisa's background. Because I always take any remotely interesting finds to Liaison Officer, Sally Worrell (Portable Antiquities) at Winchester museum thought I'd take the ring along for her opinion. Sally knew how intrigued I had become with the story behind the ring and asked if I would be interested in taking part in a new television programme called Revealing Secrets from Channel 4. They could hopefully discover more than I could alone. We knew there was no financial gain to be had from this little ring, but could not rest until we had all the facts. Two days later I was contacted by the Revealing Secrets research team who were most interested in my tale and requested the ring and information I had already collated to be sent to them. Hopefully they would be able to fit the pieces together and give me the whole picture. I had already informed the landowner of the find and kept him up to date with the proceedings. He was very pleased to know that it was to be featured on television. To read more and see the ring and it’s finding by the Channel 4 Team go to Youtube .
Paul Mc Taggart - Hampshire, UK