Alliances are being forged between archaeologists and metal detectorists after years of skirmishing.

Professional archaeologists have complained that detector enthusiasts have destroyed the context of finds and valuable information by simply digging up objects while club members claim they behave responsibly and find items which would otherwise be lost to history.

In the 1980s there was even an attempt by archaeologists to have metal detecting banned.

Now bridges are being built between the two camps and the latest example is an exhibition which has opened at the Old Fulling Mill Museum in Durham City.

Philippa Walton, finds liaison officer for the North-East has worked with the museum and the Dunelme metal detecting club based in West Cornforth in County Durham to stage the display.

It includes the type of objects most commonly found by club members in forays across the region.

On show are a Roman coins, Iron Age and Roman pottery, a medieval pilgrim's holy water bottle, a Bronze Age axe head, prehistoric flint tools, and Anglo-Saxon and Tudor brooches, medals, buttons, clay pipes and 19th and 20th Century stoneware beer bottles.

Phillipa's job, backed by the Heritage Lottery Fund and based at the Museum of Antiquities at Newcastle University, is to encourage the public to report finds.

She works closely with 10 metal detecting clubs in the region and visits them regularly to log discoveries.

She said: "Metal detecting isn't going to be banned so we should all try to work together."

Last weekend detectorists worked with archaeologists to sift spoil heaps at Romano-British site in Darlington which is being developed as a depot.

Tommy Allison, treasurer of the 50-strong Dunelme club, said that a tiny minority of detectorists harmed the reputations of the many by visiting archaeological sites at night and causing damage.

"But I think a lot of archaeologists if we they work with us we can do them a lot of good."

The Old Fulling Mill Museum of Archaeology is open daily from 11am-4pm (April to October) and Friday to Monday, 11.30am-3.30pm (November-March).