Detecting on rivers

[Kentish Man]

Hi All,

I’m relatively new to this and have mainly focused on a local field that I had obtained permission from the owner to search finding mainly old agricultural artefacts but there is a nearby river and a few streams that I would like to explore but I can’t seem to find who or where to seek permission from, can anyone help me? Are rivers part of crown estates, are the river beds covered by different regulations to river banks?

[Red Fred]

We farm alongside a river (inland, tidal rules are different IIRC) and we own the river bed out to the centre of the river, where the boundary lies with the neighbouring farm. There is no automatic right of way along the bank, but the riparian rights were sold off separately in the 19th century, so we have to allow fisherman from the local syndicate to walk along the banks and dangle their rods in the water. I believe they have a 6ft path to stick to along the bank. Otherwise, it is no different to any other property.

I also rent some land on a 3 generations tenancy but cannot give permission to anyone to detect without the consent of the landowner. In practice, we check with each other if anyone requests access to make sure we are both happy and in agreement and either can veto it if we want to.

[Kentish Man]

Thanks for the quick response, that makes a lot of sense, but a pain to gain the permissions as depending on boundaries I guess there could be multiple land owners for the stretch of river, oh well best get drafting those requests!

[Red Fred]

I should have added that we have a stream running across our land too, which flows into the main river. As we own both sides of the stream, we also own the bed, but the bed has been declared an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) and having checked through the paperwork that we were sent by Natural England, I am not allowed to detect within the gravel bed, although I can search the banks which are not SSSI! It seems a bit daft as the stream dries up entirely for about 8 months of the year and is just bleached gravel.

[ceebee58]

Not sure if I can name a publication but there an article on waterways detecting in Octobers Treasure Hunter.

[Ringtop-grafter]

Has the riverside been subject to floods over the years? If so I wouldn’t bother mate, my main permission is about 400 acres of pasture and fields raised up from inside a large loop of a river and I’ve tried different areas of the riverside but found it was a complete waste of time with signals galore, it’s completely littered with trash/rubbish due to what the the rivers carried over with the floods over the years and the few copper coins I found were completely toasted/ discs.

[pasttarg]

They can be raging torrents in winter and quiet streams in summer.finds get flushed away to who knows where…the Thames was always good as finds didn’t move far