My partner is, and I once was an archaeologist, so we always have an eye open for 'treasure'. Sadly our allotment has yet to reveal anything at all!

Erm, recently, a pound coin. And a while back, some old bottles, a dead hamster (I just had to open the margarine tub, didn't I?), and a plastic frog.

Really not much interesting happening in this soil.. :(
Melanie

We built a house on what was the garden of a rectory, next to a church and graveyard. When I started work on the garden, I was a little concerned that the graveyard had once been bigger than it is now - that is, extending into our garden. But so far, phew, no signs!

We found 2 of these:

{{gwi:2117310}}

Just rubble, rubble and more rubble. Oh, and broken lightbulbs, car parts, bags of yet more rubble, 18 large, stoppered bottles all in a pile, a pair of curtains... and 12 kettle elements.

Bones - human bones!

To be more precise they were in the shed, and had been left there two or three years earlier, unknown to me, by my next door neighbour when he needed room to store furniture in his garage.

My neighbour was an Indian doctor and explained that in India many medical students could not afford a full skeleton so they just had a collection of individual bones. He had brought them from India - I do not know if he declared them at Customs!

Oh, this reminds me of E.F.Benson's Lucia novels...I must dig them out (sorry!) and reread. Anyone else remember the incident of the archeological dig for Roman relics in Miss Mapp's old garden?

Josh ...who loves old British books (usually about gardening but novels too).

why is there always an empty jar of potted meat - shipphams, usually

20 years ago we bought an old farmhouse in Wales. Apparently the previous owner used to go round auction sales and collect any leftovers. This went on for years. When we came to do the negkected 'garden' we found everything from lorry parts, tin baths, large unidentifiable bits of metal. You name it - we had it. The broken glass was horrendous. We placed the old baths at strategic points, and made a rule - 'if you see a piece of glsss PICK IT UP. Shipphams paste jars were there in quantity - they msst have just thrown them out of the kitchen window. The loft was a foot deep in empty unwashed baked bean tins. EVERY WORD OF THIS IS TRUE. Our neighbour found a double bedspring a foot deep under his lawm.

May of this year we moved into a new rented house where the bottom of the gardeb as not been touched for at least 30 years according to the neighboors, so me, started to cut and clean and dig, and grass seeds the whole thing... 50 hours later i can proudly say that i've dig up, climbing frame, a metal barrel where a tree had growned through it, the inevitable broken glasses , jars, plastic bags, pottery, as well as a fence, pallots, and a massive quantity of rocks...a yes, forget about an intact lizard, dead of course, lots of bones...i'm still hoping they where a BIG chicken, a massive frog that made me jump out of my skin et j'en passe. no wonder no one ever dig this up...

A friend of mine vacated some land he rented as a small holding. It now has on it some very expensive houses, 2million+. Under one garden is the remains of 3 greenhouses, each ~40' long, brick cold frames, and a very large concrete slab. The developers just dug a very large hole and pushed it all in. Cheaper than removing for land fill elsewhere. So don't dig too deep. You have been warned.
Brian