‘I haven’t actually found a hoard yet. I’m still looking, but it will come one day,’ laughs Mary Swallow. Mary is a senior valuer at Hansons Norfolk auctioneers in Roughton.

You might have seen her on the TV series Salvage Hunters: The Restorers, where she was one of the show’s resident antiques dealers. She is also a keen detectorist and loves nothing more than sweeping the fields of north Norfolk in the hope of finding some buried treasure.

‘It’s the excitement of uncovering something that’s been buried for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years and you’re the next person to touch the item,’ she says. ‘And you’ve got a higher chance of finding a hoard in Norfolk, so get out there with your detector.’

Mary says that the joy of her job is never knowing what items are going to come through the door on a valuation day.

And, given her hobby, she’s especially looking forward to Hansons Norfolk’s first Finds From The East Anglian Soil sale, which is being held on February 21.

Mary Swallow and Charles Hanson, who is known for his appearances on TV shows including Bargain Hunt. (Image: Contributed by Hansons Norfolk)

‘The magic is the stories behind the find,’ says Mary. ‘You think of how it might have come to be there, that it had fallen out of someone’s pocket. Especially things like jewellery. If you uncover a lover’s posy ring, someone would have been really upset to lose that item and it’s just bizarre digging it up 300 or 400 years later.’

One of Mary’s most memorable finds was a Roman coin.

‘It was in very good condition, it looked like it had literally just dropped out of a Roman’s pocket,’ she says. ‘But with metal detecting, it’s not always about an amazing find. I think everything that you find is amazing, be it a Victorian coin, it could be a Matchbox car from the 1960s – everything has a story behind it. It’s just fun – it’s a lucky dip in the Norfolk fields.’

Mary, associate director and auctioneer Kevin Lines, and........

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