Rising high above the Severn Vale, Church Hill in Hanbury, Worcestershire, is a familiar sight for travellers passing along the M5 south of Birmingham, and forms a scenic remnant of the ancient woodland landscapes that once traversed the West Midlands from the Warwickshire Arden to the Forest of Dean (Figure 1). The hill is a natural topographic focus in a mainly low-lying farming district, and its commanding views over the ancient Droitwich salt ways towards the Malverns, Cotswolds and River Severn have made it a prominent and attractive site for human occupation over millennia. Though previously subject to very little archaeological investigation, topographic and documentary sources indicate a complex sequence of multi-period activity concentrated on the hilltop and upper slopes, which include phases of use as a 4.7 ha Iron Age hillfort (the source of the parish name: Old English hean + burh, ‘the high fortification’), an Anglo-Saxon monastic centre and a medieval manor-church complex held by the Bishops of Worcester until the accession of Elizabeth I (ad 1558–1603) (Bassett 2009; Bassett and Dyer 1980; 1981; Dyer 1991). The Grade I-listed church of St Mary, which has crowned the hilltop since at least the eleventh century, remains in use today and forms a focal point for parishioners, church-crawlers, dog walkers and others drawn to the hill for worship, leisure and picturesque views across the Worcestershire countryside.

Like many prominent archaeological sites in England and Wales, Church Hill has become a target for heritage crime enacted by ‘nighthawks’: clandestine metal detector users operating outside legal frameworks, looting archaeological sites of saleable antiquities and causing physical and intellectual harm in the process (Renfrew 2000, 83–9). Though notoriously difficult to measure, estimates suggest that as many as 3,500 nighthawks may currently be active in England and Wales, and there are indications that the extent of the problem has worsened over the past decade (Daubney and Nicholas 2019; English Heritage 2020; Hardy 2017, 17). While the impact of nighthawking is seen most keenly through high-profile examples of looted ‘treasure’, like the prehistoric and Roman bronzes from Salisbury (Wiltshire) and Icklingham (Suffolk) and the early medieval hoard from Eye (Herefordshire), these cases form only a small subset of a wider problem more often represented by pockmarked holes dug through archaeological sites, many of which are not subject to statutory protection and are therefore more difficult to address through legal mechanisms (Hoverd et al. 2020; Stead 1998; Wilson and Harrison 2013). The experience at Church Hill falls into this second category. Evidence of nighthawking at the site first emerged in August 2023, when a small group of illicit detectorists were caught operating within an area of woodland on the north of the hilltop, close to the modern boundary of St Mary’s churchyard. Follow-up investigations established that the group had undertaken extensive scrub clearance, which enabled the digging of three large looter trenches (Figure 2). Examination of the spoil heaps revealed a quantity of disturbed Roman and post-medieval pottery and human remains, the latter of which produced a calibrated radiocarbon result (94 per cent probability) covering the date ranges ad 670–779 (78.4 per cent), 787–829 (15.4 per cent) and 858–870 (1.6 per cent) (E. Hancox, personal communication, 2 October 2024). The scale of the looter trenches, together with the material recovered from the spoil heaps, suggests that the nighthawks were targeting archaeological deposits within the hillfort ramparts, at least some of which may relate to the documented Anglo-Saxon minster cemetery.

Nighthawked sites like Church Hill are just one expression of the global problem of archaeological looting, a phenomenon that has been much debated since the adoption of UNESCO’s 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. Particular attention has been given to issues surrounding the outputs of looting – that is, unprovenienced or falsely provenienced antiquities – and their legal, ethical and intellectual implications for scholars, museums, dealers and collectors (Gill 2012; Gill and Chippindale 1993; Renfrew 2000), as well as to the wider socio-economic, cultural and political factors that encourage or discourage looting (Bowman Proulx 2013; Brodie et al. 2022), but there remain fundamental questions about the extent to which archaeologists can meaningfully engage with looted sites. Does looting render sites scientifically worthless (Lundeen 1997), or is it possible to salvage archaeological data in the looters’ wake? These issues have been prominent in Mediterranean and Latin American archaeology, where clandestine digs by huaqueros and tombaroli (grave robbers) pose recurring challenges for cemetery excavations (Cadwallader et al. 2018; Di Noto and Guglielmino 2002; Tremain 2017), but have been less frequently addressed in Britain despite a long tradition of rescue and salvage excavation. Investigation of the nighthawked site at Church Hill therefore offers a valuable opportunity to explore this problem in a British context and to consider the kinds of information – if any – that can be recovered through the scientific excavation of sites affected by an increasingly common form of heritage crime.

In May 2025 a team of 22 staff and students from the UCL Institute of Archaeology, aided by 15 local volunteers, undertook a programme of archaeological fieldwork at Church Hill, which aimed to assess the nature, extent and degree of impact of illicit metal-detecting at the site (Figure 3). The project was designed in collaboration with local stakeholders, and was delivered as part of an elective field school for second-year undergraduates, who are required to undertake at least 50 days of fieldwork training as a condition of their degree. The combination of student and public involvement was a central part of the project design and reflects a conscious engagement with the UCL Institute of Archaeology’s policy regarding the illicit trade in antiquities, which emphasises the responsibility of staff to educate others of the dangers of looting and the importance of the concept of archaeological context (UCL Institute of Archaeology 2022).

The investigations involved a combined programme of field survey and excavation, which sought to locate and record evidence for looter disturbance and assess the survival of buried archaeological features and deposits within the nighthawked area. These latter objectives were to be addressed through the manual excavation of three trenches (total area 57 m²) sited in locations wholly (Trench 1), partially (Trench 2) and not previously impacted (Trench 3) by illicit metal detecting. Given the nature of the research questions, a comprehensive programme of dry sieving was adopted, with 100 per cent of excavated spoil manually processed using 10 mm mesh hand sieves. The results are therefore likely to offer a highly accurate representation of buried archaeological remains, and can be used as a benchmark for evaluating physical and informational loss in the area of the site impacted by nighthawking.

Relative to the scale of excavation, the investigations at Church Hill produced a large assemblage of artefactual and environmental remains, which included more than 2,200 specimens weighing a total of 51.8 kg. These results at least partly reflect the application of systematic dry sieving, which produced nearly one-third of the total assemblage and had an appreciable impact on its overall composition (Table 1), especially in the case of low-visibility objects made of copper alloy, flint and silver (Levitan 1982, 23–7; Payne 1972, 55–61).

While analysis of this assemblage is ongoing, preliminary assessment has yielded important new insights into the chronology and nature of the buried archaeological remains present at the site, and, by extension, the potential character of remains already looted from the site by illicit detectorists. Hints of pre-hillfort activity were provided by residual Neolithic or Early Bronze Age flints in Trenches 2 and 3, which echo similar finds from the Worcestershire hillforts of Conderton Camp and Midsummer Hill (Bellamy 2005, 117; Stanford 1981, 118–21) and add to a growing picture of the nature of such sites as multi-period ‘persistent places’. Iron Age pottery from the made ground deposit in Trench 2 almost certainly originates from the demolished eastern rampart, as may a silver unit of Anted (c.ad 20–45), a ruler of the Dobunni tribe of the Severn-Cotswolds region (Figure 6). This is one of two late Iron Age coins known to have been found within the hillfort ramparts since the nineteenth century (Cotton 1886). Its discovery complicates regional narratives of Iron Age settlement, which emphasise discontinuity and hillfort abandonment during the Middle to Late Iron Age transition (Hurst 2017, 115; Moore 2006, 165). Perhaps the most significant finds, however, date to the Roman period, which is represented by a large assemblage of pottery, CBM, coins and other small finds found mostly within the Trench 2 levelling deposit. Initial examination of the pottery has identified a high proportion of early forms and fabrics, including significant quantities of Severn Valley Ware with attributes typical of the mid-first to early second centuries, while the coins are of contemporary date and omit any of the common types of the third and fourth centuries. The volume, condition and tight chronology of this material, reinforced by finds of a Polden Hill brooch (c.ad 75–175) and blue glass melon bead (c.ad 43–200), suggests that the hillfort saw significant reoccupation during the Flavian and early Antonine periods – an unusually late instance of hillfort reoccupation in post-Conquest Britain south of Hadrian’s Wall (Harding 2012, 158–62). The site’s coin profile (Figure 7) opens a window on the likely character of this activity: by far the closest parallels among a corpus of 187 comparative sites are the auxiliary forts at Castleford and Brecon Gaer, both establishments of the late first and early second centuries (Mattingly and Pirie 1998; Reece 1991; Wheeler 1926). The possibility of a military reoccupation of the hillfort is tantalising, and could directly relate to developments at the neighbouring salt production centre of Droitwich (5 km west of the site), where mid-second-century changes in the organisation and scale of production at the brine springs may reflect to a shift from direct to indirect military administration, or possibly even to franchised civilian control (Freezer 1977, 3–8; Hurst 2006, 243–5).

While the finds offer glimpses into the kinds of material that may have been removed from the site through illicit detecting, they also include some distinctive forms of material culture that were almost certainly left by the looters themselves. These include several plastic soft drinks bottled scattered across the surface of the nighthawked area, as well as the plastic wrapper for a chocolate-coated flapjack found among looted spoil near Trench 2. This object has a best-before date of 25 November 2023 – a terminus ante quem for illicit detecting in this area of the site.

The results of the investigations in 2025 demonstrate both the potential of archaeological fieldwork as a means of generating useful information about an increasingly prolific form of heritage crime and the potential of looted and otherwise damaged archaeological sites to preserve meaningful information relevant to an understanding of the human past.

It is now clear that the extent and degree of impact of illicit detecting at Church Hill is far greater than previously thought, a conclusion underscored by new estimates for the volume of earth movement undertaken by the looters: at least 15.8 m³ of soil, equivalent in scale to a small archaeological excavation. Work of this magnitude is intrinsically suggestive of significant archaeological discoveries, the character of which probably varied across the site. Looter Trench I appears to have targeted metal objects from an early medieval cemetery, which might conceivably have included coins, buckles and strap ends (as at Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire: Dornier 1977), while Looter Trench II is more likely to have targeted Iron Age or Roman metalwork and coins. Though not yet fully investigated, it seems probable that the remaining trenches and pits were intended to produce metal objects of similar dates. These findings open potential lines of enquiry for the identification of looted material from the site offered on the antiquities market. However, even if such objects were recovered, it would not undo the harm to the site caused by their recovery, which was undertaken in a reckless and uncontrolled fashion and significantly disturbed buried archaeological remains, including human graves. This fundamental point lay at the heart of the project’s public outreach programme, which created opportunities for local groups and schoolchildren to engage directly with the site, its archaeology and the wider issue of heritage crime (Figure 8).

While illicit detecting has robbed us of key information about Church Hill’s past, it has not destroyed it altogether. Excavation has demonstrated the survival of buried archaeological features and deposits in the vicinity of the looter trenches, and examination of both the excavated and looted spoil has revealed artefacts and environmental material that generate new knowledge and new questions about human activity at Church Hill from prehistory to the present day. Some of these are quite unexpected, and are of particular archaeological interest: new discoveries relating to a possible Roman military reoccupation of the hillfort in the late first to mid-second centuries, for example, are potentially of national significance, and highlight the continuing ability of the site to generate new insights that engage with wider research agendas. Such questions will be at the forefront of future fieldwork seasons at the site, which aim to further mitigate the harms of illicit detecting through scientific monitoring and investigation.