I was out on my permission in Cambridge Sunday 2nd of August 2020 it was a lovely sunny day for detecting in the beautiful Cambridgeshire countryside as the soil on my permission was dry and as it had been pulled through the soil under foot was sponge and the fact it was like this told me it would be hard to get a signal i was using my Minelab Equinox 800 using it in multi frequency to start off after an hour I found that the equinox did not like this type of soil in multi frequency I then I drop it down to single frequency of 40Khz I found this made my choice on the ground conditions to be the right one I started to find items I moved fields to one I knew had produce good finds in the past after an hour I got a clear strong signal it should an ID of 10 on my VDU screen and a depth of 9 to ten inches down on investigation I found I had recovered a Zoomorphic padlock dated to 12th to early 13th century after I got home I looked for information on my find the information I found that related to the, use of zoomorphic padlocks have an elaborately moulded case in the shape of an animal almost always a horse by the mouldings (or engraved lines) indicating a saddle. The holes to take the spines of the bolt usually two or three are situated in the rear end of the horse and the keyhole is in the other end in the horse's chest the holes for bar run through the head of the horse. The keyhole is often an irregular rounded shape, but the best - preserved examples are often T- shaped it does not extend down onto the belly of the horse. In all I was well pleased to find I had found a rare artefact from Cambridgeshire past
Ron - Europe
