ABOUT US
OUR NEWSLETTERS CAN BE FOUND HERE
If you have a field or a mystery that you would like us to investigate please contact us:
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Investigation Invitation
The Field Detectives is a group of historians that seek opportunities to survey fields that can tell us more about how our historic landscapes evolved. By sharing the findings from our field surveys, we help to inform and re-engage people with their local heritage. One of our favourite sayings is “Every field tells a story”.
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​YOU ARE ALL INVITED TO JOIN US
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THE 8TH FIELD DETECTIVES' ANNUAL HUDDLE
Saturday, 7th February 2026
Hoveringham Village Hall, NG14 7JH
Meet, greet & see the artefacts from 12 Noon – Presentation commences at 1:00 pm
We will be Looking Back at 2025 and Making Plans for 2026.
All are Welcome, and it’s FREE
Tea, Coffee, Cakes and nibbles are available
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THE SEARCH FOR STATHERN HALL
OUR LATEST EXCITING DISCOVERIES!
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History is always being rewritten, and our discoveries from the Belvoir Castle muniments room when we visited on Wednesday, 17 December 2025, have done just that for Stathern. Our ongoing search for Stathern Hall began in 2019, and we have already added newly found genealogy records to the Hacker family, along with being a part of discovering the real face of Colonel Francis Hacker.
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With the support of Sarah Bedford and the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, our recent archaeological dig on Coombs Meadow, searching for the remains of the lost hall, has added to the initial discoveries made by the Framland Local Archaeological Group (FLAG) during the early 2000s. Still, one of the main legends surrounding the hall was that it was demolished following Francis’s execution in 1660. Our initial hypothesis was that the hall was destroyed and building materials from it were used when Belvoir Castle was rebuilt during the 1660s; however, this hypothesis was scuppered by two documents we discovered.
An indenture dated 1662 contains these precious words – Stathern Grange was late in the tenure or occupation of Francis Hacker, deceased. Definitive proof that he held the lease to the farm, and furthermore, that the hall was not demolished as the lease passed onto the Earl’s steward, St Clare Raymond.
We then discovered that Stathern Grange had been a monastic farm held by Haverholme Priory before the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII.
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From our previous research, we knew that Colonel Francis’s son, Francis III, lived in Stathern after his father’s execution, which had been another myth buster, but a second document dated 1682 revealed that he had also held the lease for Stathern Grange, and from him it passed to Thomas Doubleday the younger of Harby. So, twenty-two years after Francis’s death, the buildings were still standing. What we now need to prove is that the foundations being uncovered in Coombs Meadow belong to that grange.
The next step in this exciting adventure is a second visit to the Belvoir Castle muniments room in mid-February to see if there are any other documents to help us in our quest.
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We’ll keep you posted.
HISTORIC LANDSCAPE STUDIES
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Sunday, 8 February 2023 from 10.30 am
The Grange Block of Fields - Bingham Stee
Cropwell Butler
All Trackways Lead to the Field Chapel
Click here to find out more
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The Field Detectives Talks Calendar