How to protect 120km of the UK’s cultural heritage?
I was saddened to read the news of widespread damage to the World Heritage Site of Hadrian’s Wall from so-called ‘Nighthawks’, who unlawfully search for objects at historical sites.
These nighthawks often operate at night, using metal detectors to search for objects like coins, jewellery or precious metals, which they know have market value and can be sold to collectors or via online auction sites for significant prices.
The theft of these objects marks not only damage to historic sites and the archaeological context from which these objects are taken — but a damage to Britain’s collective heritage. This is by no means a new phenomenon, but the scale at which it is being carried out at Hadrian’s Wall in particular is worrying.
How then, can you try and protect such a vast area of heritage — which includes 160 scheduled monuments of Roman camps, forts and signal stations — from further damage?
Policing
It is clearly unrealistic and impractical to try and police a site like Hadrian’s Wall. CCTV as a deterrent would be both detrimental to the historic site’s appearance, which is often situated in the countryside in AONBs or national parks, far from any urban areas and nearly impossible to cover such a vast stretch of land.
Sites like Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire have implemented CCTV on-site, when a number of Nighthawks began metal detecting on the ongoing archaeological excavations at night in order to find metal objects. For a single site the cameras acted as an effective deterrant, but the same results cannot be replicated at Hadrian’s Wall.
Using security guards, as other World Heritage Sites like Stonehenge do, is again achievable for a single site which can be patrolled but almost laughable to try and achieve the same outcome on the 120 kilometres involved here.
Public awareness and education
How else then can we try and do something to minimise the loss of Britain’s historic past at the hands of these criminal nighthawks?
I think the best, and one of the only real options in trying to minimise the damage to Hadrian’s Wall, would be to educate local people on the practise of nighthawking in order to raise awareness.
Nighthawking breaks the law on a number of points:
- Trespass: Nighthawking is often performed on private land where permission to survey and dig has been refused. Any disturbance with the land or dispersal of any substance makes it aggravated trespass which is more routinely prosecuted.
- Digging on scheduled sites: Digging on any sites which are scheduled monuments without prior consent is illegal.
- Declaration of treasure: The Treasure Act of 1996 requires all finds that are legally defined as treasure to be declared to a local coroner or the police within 14 days. Nighthawkers rarely declare their finds due to the method of acquisition. Breach of this law can result in a £5,000 fine, a term of imprisonment up to three months or both.
- Theft: In Britain, ownership of finds on private lands, unless declared treasure, rests with the land owners.
If visitors, local interest groups and nearby inhabitants can be aware of the theft being carried out — particularly at the 160+ scheduled monuments — by reporting suspicious activity, we can start to see a reduction in these crime rates.
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