I own a large commercial premises in N W England which was a post office in the 1950s - 1970s.
There is a local legend that there had been a robbery many years ago and a rumour that it may have been an inside job, so the loot may have been hidden on the premises.
Prior to being a post office it had been a butchers shop, with a meat hanging room, that was still sealed off when I bought the place in 2016.
When I stripped back the timbers using a car jack and crowbars and opened this room up it was only full of junk and bricks, as if it had been used as a skip.
There was a bricked off cellar below the meat hanging room, so I opened this up and it was full of empty wooden crates which once contained Danish Bacon circa 1930s.
Some were still intact, and an antique dealer bought these from me.
The fireplace was sealed up so I removed the bricks, but again there was nothing interesting inside.
I gradually removed the raised wooden floor throughout, revealing the large quarry tiled floor.
I eventually discovered a large patch in a corner where the tiles had been replaced by concrete, which had been sculpted to look much like the original tiles.
Could this be the location of a hiding hole? The concrete had cracked, and there was a noticeable cavity underneath when I poked at it a bit.
Over time I dug out around 100 bags of sand, and put in boards to hold the surrounding sand from caving in.
The foundations go down to around 6ft.
I thought that it is possible that if a large metal box had been hidden it could have sunk in to the soft beach sand that had been dumped into the foundation cavity.
The tiled floor was uneven and cold, so I resolved to replace it with a new suspended wooden floor, at least for the lobby room. This would also allow me access to
repair the lower levels of the deteriorating walls, which needed a new dpc.
I raked out the mortar lines and hammered in large metal joist hangars, and installed new joists and floorboards, intending to drop the level four brick levels down, and create
a wine cellar.
I was getting intermittent bell-tone signals from my Garrett Ace 150, as if there were jewellery or coins 4 - 6 inches below, at different stages of the continuing dig.
However, there was nothing in the sand, which I finely sieved. I reduced the sensitivity, and the signals stopped. The logical conclusion was that there is a large metal object
much deeper below. Hundreds of bags taken to a local recycling depot later, I have now excavated down to 14 ft, in steps. The loose dry sand slopes all around, and I intend to remove this
over time, to create the wine cellar.
Below a twelve inch layer of sooty sand there is a ten inch layer of rust impregnated sand, which is the source of the bell tone signals.
I assume that the sooty level is from some time in the industrial revolution period.
However, I cannot yet work out how the lower level of rusty sand was created. Was there an old ship hulk which disintegrated in this specific location? Or has a meal box disintegrated over many years or centuries and stained the
sand? The beach level must have changed over the centuries and millenia. At one time the Forest of Amounderness stretched into the Irish Sea, until a great inundation swept through the forest, in Medieval times.
My question is does anyone know how long it would take for a metal box to sink through dry beach sand, within the foundation space in an old building, and into the wet sand much deeper below.
The town was built as a seaside resort by mill owners in the 1870s, by clearing away the sand dunes. The building is at the centre of the old town, but there may have been more ancient buildings, or even docks a few thousand years ago.
I am going to take my Goldmax detector with me to the next stage of the hunt, as this may have better discrimination than the Garrett.
I may only find more rust, but hopefully there is something more precious which is being masked by the false coin signals being produced by the thick rusty layer.
I will keep you posted.
