Article submitted by a local fellow history lover.
My name is
Ben Bishop and a resident of Bridgwater, Somerset. I've been asked
to write this blog post about a find I made a couple of years ago. I
have a great love of history and a passion for metal detecting. A
year or so ago I was detecting a field that I had detected before,
the grass was a little shorter this time and with a new coil on my
metal detector I was eager to try again, although not confident I
would find much more.
It was a
warm summers evening about 5pm my mother had just finished walking
the dog and was ready to come home. I decided to stay on a bit more
before stopping for tea. My detector went off with a nice high
pitched beep, which denoted a good find, with that I dug down not
expecting anything of worth maybe a coin or a button.
As I dug
down deeper a big hoop began appearing, I got on my knees and prised
the find out with my hands so as not to damage it with the spade. As
I got it out of the ground and wiped it over with my hand I could see
markings with writing and patterns. I took it over to the cows
trough and washed it clean, I could see then I had found something of
worth, historical and financial.
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| Photos courtesy of Ben Bishop |
The hoop
that I had found was a collar. At first I thought maybe it was for a
person but on closer inspection it was an animals collar, probably
that of a dog. The inscription around the collar reads: Samuel
Birch att shilton neare burford in Oxfordshire 1676. Wow I
thought, this is something better than silver and gold. After months
of research both online with ancestry and with books I was able to
determine the family history and the life of both Samuel Birch and
his brother John, both prominent figures in the new model army, They
both met with King Charles II, and more importantly to me his brother
John was an active part of the siege of Bridgwater, and later became
the governor. The Birch family has a lot of history locally and
further afield. This is one of my best finds and probably my best
find ever.
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| Photo courtesy of Ben Bishop |
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| Photo courtesy of Ben Bishop |
Thank you
for reading and keep enjoying what history has to offer us. Ben
Extracts
taken from 'Roundhead to Royalist -A Biography of Colonel John
Birch 1615-1691' foreword by Margaret Toynbee.
NB: The collar belonged to Major Samuel Birch, brother of Colonel John Birch.
Editors Note: My gratitude goes to Ben for sharing this wonderful piece of local history.
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I was very interested to read this article being a direct descendent of Colonel John Birch and still own the original account of his actions during the Civil War written by his secretary Roe (now on loan to the Hereford Archives). I also have a silver coffee pot with the same coat of arms as that on the dog collar which I believe was owned by Samuel Birch's widow.
ReplyDeleteHello Rupert, sorry I didn't reply sooner I was unaware that msgs were left on this site, I am Ben Bishop and the finder of the collar, I always wondered with such a rich history if any other artifacts were still remaining from the family, it's lovely to see that some things have survived. I would love to talk more if that is possible.
ReplyDeleteKind regards Ben Bishop