The History of Trowbridge MDC

By Dave Crisp

Trowbridge is a large town in the middle of Wiltshire, which started as a track over the river Biss, the name comes from the Anglo Saxon treow-brycg which means a Tree & a Bridge.

The club apparently came about in 1976, it was started mainly by three people, one of these is still in the club, thirty two years later. 

I joined in 1988 when I had left the FID, at that time there were only 10 members and not many of them came to the meetings. That is where I met Duncan who is still a member now and has to my knowledge only missed two meetings, a real detectorist with commitment, and he still detects even after celebrating his 80^th Birthday. 

We have slowly grown over the years, and have now forty members, most of them come from a 30 mile radius of Trowbridge. 

From the slow and steady beginning we have turned into a club full of members that all enjoy metal detecting. Our youngest member is only nine but very keen. We have, and always have had ladies in the club, and we also encourage beginners, as new blood is always needed and welcome. 

Katie Hinds the Finds Liason Officer for Wiltshire comes regularly to our club meetings and records items under the P A S scheme, and normally identifies just about anything. 

As a club we recommend that members record their finds on the National database, so they are available for all to see. 

We have some good club sites for detecting, one of which we have had since the club started. Our finds of the month competition is now going well, you can see the results on this web site. 

Club nights are well attended each month, and are as much a social evening, as about showing your monthly finds. As well as going out detecting, we also give displays of our finds at Museum open days, and Wiltshire Young farmer’s days. Social nights and even skittles are occasionally on the agenda. 

Also on this page we are going to try to encourage all our members to write a piece about any aspect of metal detecting, whether it’s about themselves or something they have found, or even something they would like to find. So with a bit of luck there will be something new here, every now and again. We shall also be asking other guests to write an article of their choice. 

We would also like to hear from any old members, who might like to get in touch, and let us know if they are still M D etc. If anybody has old photos of club outings etc we would love to see them.