Field Finds Guide · Permission, Law & Finds
Independent, UK-focused guidance on landowner permission, the Treasure Act 1996, and what to do with what you find. Not a detector shop with stock to move, and not the NCMD itself.
Three questions worth answering in order — before you buy a detector, or walk onto land you have not been given permission to search.
Right-to-roam and open-access land do not cover metal detecting. Our permission and access guide is the honest starting point before anyone swings a coil.
The Treasure Act 1996 draws a precise line, and the hobby's recording norm sits wider than that line. Our Treasure Act explainer covers what counts, the reporting window, and who to tell.
Coil size, pinpointer, headphones and digging tools are open questions — not a shop wall of "best beginner detector". Our pinpointer decision guide is a typical starting point for gear.
29 guides covering the practical decisions UK detectorists actually face — permission, reporting, finds, and kit.
Asking a farmer, public land and parks, beaches, and why right-to-roam does not cover detecting. The layer this site exists for.
See the guides → 02What legally counts as treasure, whether you have to report everything, whether you can keep a find, and what happens if you don't report.
See the guides → 03Cleaning without wrecking surface detail, hammered vs milled, patina, and storing what you keep — text-first, no fake coin photos.
See the guides → 04Coil size, pinpointers, digging tools, pouches and headphones — framed as open questions, not a retailer "best detector" list.
See the guides → 05When a club actually buys you permission and insurance, and when a rally is an apprenticeship rather than a day out.
See the guides → 06False signals, quiet soil, dying batteries — diagnosed by mechanism, not a shop's next-model upsell.
See the guides →Search "best metal detector for beginners" and you land on a specialist retailer. Search a permission or reporting question and you get a fragment — a forum thread, a land-agency note, or the NCMD's own guidance sitting as one voice among many. Nobody neutral pulls the can-I / am-I-allowed-to / what-do-I-do-with-it layer together.
Field Finds Guide exists to be that neutral voice. Every guide reasons from the statute, the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and the hobby's own code of conduct — not a shop's stock pitch. Treasure Act and reporting content is general guidance, not legal advice: for a specific find, that's your local Finds Liaison Officer.
The things worth having sorted before you ask a landowner or put a coil on the ground — so you don't find out the hard way that access or reporting was the actual first job.