Dorchester father and son detectorists find 14 axe heads

A man who found 14 Bronze Age axe heads with his son has described the experience as “unreal”.

Martin Turner, 52, and his son Rhys, 18, were metal detecting in a field near Dorchester, Dorset, when they came across the haul.

He told the BBC: “I couldn’t believe what we were finding. I knew they were old but I didn’t realise how old.”

Archaeologists are now expected to excavate the site due to the significance of the find.

Mr Turner and his son were exploring a field they had not searched before in June and it was not long before they made their first discovery.

“We’d only been there for a quarter of an hour before we found the first one,” he explained.

“Then I dug it up and knew it was an old axe, so I called my boy over and said ‘you’ll never believe what I’ve found’.

“And as he came over to me his detector went off right behind my back, and I said ‘you better dig that,’ and he dug up another one straight away and I was like ‘what?’

“I turned my detector back on, went to walk away, and it went off, and probably not even 18 inches away there was another one.

“When we put them all together and I was taking pictures of them on the floor, about three feet away from us there was one on top of the ground,” added Mr Turner.

Mr Turner was left reeling at the luck of his teenage son.

“People spend all their lives trying to get one of these on their bucket list and he’s been part of finding 14 of them,” he said.

“The feeling of holding them for the first time in 4,500 years – you’re the only person to hold these in that amount of time.

“That’s the excitement of it,” he added.

Mr Turner would like to see the artefacts put on display at Dorchester Museum because “they’re part of the local history”.

The site’s precise location must be kept secret to prevent people looking for treasure to sell on the black market.

Follow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.

Related Topics