FieldFinders: The Airbnb for Metal Detecting

5 hours ago

8 min read

You know the routine. You've got your detector, the batteries are charged, the weather's looking reasonable and you've got a free weekend. There's just one problem. You haven't got anywhere to go.

Finding land to detect can be frustrating. You might spend weeks researching promising locations, driving around the countryside and knocking on farmhouse doors, only to discover that somebody else already has permission or the landowner simply isn't interested.

Similar experiences appear in discussions on MetalDetectingUK and The Metal Detecting Forum, where detectorists describe repeated refusals and landowners already receiving numerous requests.

It's a problem that led one detectorist to ask an interesting question: if you can book somebody's spare room online, why can't you book their field?

That question became FieldFinders, a UK platform connecting detectorists with landowners who are happy to offer detecting access. Think Airbnb, but instead of booking somewhere to stay, you're booking somewhere to swing your detector.

FieldFinders app
FieldFinders app
FieldFinders app
FieldFinders app
FieldFinders app
FieldFinders app
FieldFinders app
FieldFinders app
FieldFinders app
FieldFinders app
FieldFinders app
FieldFinders app

From the Netherlands to knocking on farmhouse doors

We recently spoke to Sebastian, the founder of FieldFinders, about how it all began. Sebastian started metal detecting around seven or eight years ago while living in the Netherlands. Getting permission was remarkably straightforward, and he couldn't recall ever being turned down by a landowner. There seemed to be less competition, and he could regularly get out detecting without much difficulty.

Moving back to the UK was a different experience altogether.

He would head out visiting farms asking for permission to detect. He gradually widened his search, travelling further afield as continual attempts continued to draw a blank. Sebastian told us he approached somewhere between 30 and 40 farms without success.

Eventually, he stopped detecting for around two years. Not because he'd lost interest, but because he simply couldn't find anywhere to go.

Club digs offered a way back into the hobby, and he began attending events with South Manchester Metal Detecting Club. He enjoyed them, but he wanted to get out more often, ideally two or three times a week. Relying on organised events wasn't quite the same as being able to head out whenever he fancied.

Even when he finally secured a small permission of his own, the available ground was becoming exhausted. About a year ago, he began thinking about an alternative.

What if you could just book a field?

The idea was straightforward. Landowners could advertise their fields, choose when they were available and set their own prices. Detectorists could browse the listings, find somewhere interesting and book a day out detecting.

Sebastian describes it as:

"an Airbnb for fields."

He searched online for something similar but couldn't find a marketplace offering what he had in mind, so he decided to build one himself.

His experience had also given him an appreciation of how uncomfortable approaching landowners could be. Anyone who's stood outside a farmhouse rehearsing what to say will probably recognise the feeling.

What appealed to Sebastian was the simplicity of the arrangement. Rather than trying to persuade a farmer to let him detect, he could find somebody who was already prepared to offer access. And that became the basis of FieldFinders.

How does FieldFinders work?

The marketplace allows landowners to list their fields, identify the areas available for detecting and choose which dates they want to offer.

From the detectorist's perspective, the process is familiar. You browse available fields, examine the location and details, choose a date and submit a booking. Think Booking.com or Airbnb.

Landowners set their own prices, which are charged per person per day. They also control how many detectorists can attend, and some listings may require a minimum group size. Ideal for a day out with friends or a club event.

Booking requests can be accepted or declined by the landowner, who receives a notification when somebody wants to visit. During our conversation, Sebastian mentioned a recent booking in Wales that had been accepted in around 20 minutes.

Each listing provides practical details, including field boundaries, parking, access arrangements and instructions from the landowner. There's also a messaging facility if you need to contact them directly.

The calendar shows availability and whether other people have booked on a particular date, so you can see what arrangements are available before making a booking.

It's a straightforward concept, and you can browse the available fields on FieldFinders to see how it works without having a paid account.

What's in it for the landowner?

During our interview, Sebastian explained that the marketplace had been designed with landowners in mind as much as detectorists.

A farmer with several fields can decide exactly which areas to make available and when. If one field contains crops or livestock, they can keep it closed while offering access to another. They can also limit visitor numbers and specify conditions.

The financial arrangements are equally flexible. FieldFinders suggests a starting price of £20 per person per day when a landowner creates a listing, although the owner can change that figure to their liking.

For clubs, there are additional possibilities. FieldFinders includes facilities for arranging digs, managing bookings and issuing QR-coded tickets, allowing organisers to handle registrations and admission through the same platform.

From finding fields to researching them

Although the permissions marketplace was the original idea, FieldFinders has developed considerably since its inception.

His interests extend beyond detecting into history, technology and artificial intelligence, and he started exploring how the platform could support the research that goes into a successful day.

The result is a growing collection of tools covering historical mapping, LiDAR, finds identification and detector settings, alongside the original field-booking marketplace.

Sebastian explained that these tools have become an increasingly important part of FieldFinders, with people now joining specifically to use the research facilities.

We will be exploring the individual tools in separate articles, but one story from our interview gives a flavour of why Sebastian has become so interested in this side of the application.

Putting the research into practice

Sebastian told us about a recent club dig where he'd used FieldFinders to research the site on the morning of the dig.

With around 100 acres available and a large number of detectorists attending, he wanted to identify the areas that looked most promising rather than simply following everybody else into the nearest field.

He used FieldFinders to analyse the available historical information, maps and LiDAR and the app picked an area that could be of interest. He headed straight there.

According to Sebastian, the results included a silver coin, a silver spoon, a silver love token, several Roman coins and multiple fibula. He was so pleased with the results that he encouraged the club organisers to extend the dig to let him keep searching.

The discoveries keep coming

Since our original conversation, Sebastian has been in touch with more stories of detectorists making fascinating discoveries after researching their permissions.

One particular account caught our attention. A detectorist was heading out to search a 500-acre permission and announced that he wanted to find Roman silver. Having examined the historical records, he made his way towards the only area on the permission with recorded Roman activity.

And he found his Roman silver.

Sebastian also described a hammered coin recovered beside a medieval village and associated agricultural landscape, and a Roman weight discovered along the course of a Roman road. Then there are his own finds, including Roman coins and fibulae recovered during a live-streamed detecting session at a location he suspects may contain a previously unrecorded fortified enclosure.

Trade weight
Silver hammered coin
Roman artefacts

There's something wonderfully exciting about those moments when the history you've been studying begins to emerge from the soil. The landscapes we walk are filled with stories, but it can take a remarkable amount of patience, research and sometimes a little luck to find the clues that bring them to life.

Sebastian isn't suggesting every carefully researched field will produce treasures. Quite the opposite. As he acknowledged in his recent email, not every outing is a success story. But he's increasingly convinced that better research can help detectorists make more informed decisions about where to spend their time.

Learning to read the landscape

What's particularly interesting is how Sebastian's own approach to detecting has evolved alongside the application.

He now talks about examining numerous layers of historical information before deciding where to concentrate his efforts. LiDAR might reveal an interesting earthwork, while historical maps, archaeological records and details of previous land use can help explain what that feature might represent.

He offers the example of finding evidence of Roman activity in a particular area, only to discover through further research that centuries of intensive cultivation may have considerably altered the ground. Without examining that wider history, a detectorist might arrive expecting wonderful Roman finds, only to spend the day digging modern agricultural debris.

For Sebastian, understanding the landscape is becoming every bit as important as identifying the initial historical interest.

LiDAR
FieldFinders Hybrid 3D
Old OS maps
LiDAR
Atlas mode on FieldFinders

He describes studying perhaps ten different layers before deciding where to search across a large permission. Each provides another piece of the puzzle, gradually building a picture of how the land has been used and what might remain beneath its surface.

It's a process that has clearly captured his imagination. The more he learns, the more questions he begins to ask, and those questions increasingly influence the tools he's developing.

From researching history to discovering it

Perhaps the most fascinating development in Sebastian's journey is that he's beginning to look beyond the history we already know.

Historical maps and archaeological records can tell us an enormous amount about a landscape, but they only describe what somebody has already identified, recorded or interpreted. There are undoubtedly countless features still waiting to be recognised.

Sebastian has become particularly interested in that possibility. He's experimenting with ways of identifying landscape features, recording his observations, mapping discoveries and connecting finds with the historical evidence surrounding them.

In his recent correspondence, he described an ambition for FieldFinders to develop beyond research into a system that could help detectorists discover, record, archive and report historical information.

It's an intriguing direction, and one that could eventually bring his interests in metal detecting, history and technology closer together than ever before.

Of course, interpreting an unfamiliar landscape feature is only the beginning. Establishing what it actually represents requires evidence and, where appropriate, archaeological investigation. But the prospect of recognising something that has escaped attention for centuries is enough to capture the imagination of any detectorist.

For Sebastian, that possibility appears to be becoming a driving force behind his work.

A journey that's only just beginning

Sebastian now works on FieldFinders full-time, combining his interest in technology and history with the hobby that inspired the whole project.

What I find particularly appealing about his story is that he's developing something he genuinely wants to use himself. He's out in the fields, researching permissions, testing his ideas and making discoveries. Then he takes that experience home and starts thinking about what he could improve, what information might be missing or what new possibilities the technology could open up.

It's a rather wonderful combination of curiosity and determination.

When Sebastian first imagined an Airbnb for metal detecting, he simply wanted to solve a problem that had kept him away from the hobby he loved for almost two years. He wanted somewhere to go detecting, whenever he fancied, without the uncertainty of knocking on yet another farmhouse door.

Now he's exploring the possibility of uncovering history that hasn't yet been recorded, and building tools that might help others do the same.

There's still a great deal to learn, plenty of development ahead and, no doubt, the occasional disappointing day in the field. But listening to Sebastian talk about his experiences, it's difficult not to be drawn into his enthusiasm for what might come next.

We often think of metal detecting as a journey into the past. For Sebastian, it has also become a journey towards an unexpected future.

And I suspect he's only just getting started. Here at UK Detectorist we have been getting into FieldFinders in a big way. We're off to a great start with a bucket-lister find on our first time out. Read more about it in our article FieldFinders - Can AI improve your metal detecting?

If you'd like to follow Sebastian's work, explore FieldFinders and see how a well developed ecosystem of tools can dramatically improve your metal detecting.