As presenter of Hidden Treasure, a new series featuring some extraordinary finds by metal detectors, Miranda Krestovnikoff has discovered a passion for the past.

She talks to Cathy Mayer

FOR someone who hated history at school, Miranda Krestovnikoff is making a great career out of the past. The presenter, who made her terrestrial TV-presenting debut by scuba diving on Channel 4's Wreck Detectives earlier this year, is back with a new series on dry land.

Hidden Treasure follows members of the public whose hobby of metal detecting has led them to unearth some amazing finds, often thousands of years old.

Krestovnikoff says: "I know that sounds really corny, but history was my worst subject at school. I think my history teachers will watch this and laugh because suddenly I'm getting really, really excited about history, because there's a connection to people who actually lived."

"We had 3,000 Iron Age coins come out of the ground near Leicester and I was allowed to play with them. It was like opening a treasure chest and allowing the silver coins to drop through your fingers. We also had a couple of Iron Age golden torques from near Winchester and they looked like they could have been made yesterday."

The series travels around the country, talking to experts and meeting people who have often been detecting for decades. Krestovnikoff says: "There's so much more than just going out with your headphones and waving the metal detector around - there's a whole wealth of information you have to gather to do it successfully." Enthusiasts look for springs or former sources of water, which might indicate ancient settlements, as well as fields which have been ploughed, as artefacts can be brought closer to the surface. Krestovnikoff says many detectors do a lot of research into local history as well and can identify something like an Anglo Saxon burial site from an inconspicuous bump in the landscape.

"We did meet one guy who'd literally been detecting for two weeks and he found an incredible hoard of Bronze Age axe heads in Wales, but he is really the luckiest guy I have ever met," she says.

The blonde 30-year-old even picked up a metal detector herself to find out what the fuss was about.

"The second time I found an Iron Age coin, we're talking a couple of thousand years old. Once you find something like that, you just get absolutely captivated," she says.

One episode uncovers a hoard of gold that might have been a gift from Julius Caesar to the first King of England, whilst another uncovers a Roman shrine. Krestovnikoff also reveals that the hoard of Iron Age coins found in Leicester has changed expert opinion about the way tribes lived during that period.

Krestovnikoff hasn't splashed out on her very own metal detector just yet though. But far from its somewhat geeky reputation, she says her own experiences prove how exciting it can be.

"A number of times in the series I challenged our participants and said, 'Look it's a bit of an anorak sport isn't it, why do you do it?' And I talked to a couple of women who did it as well, and said, 'Don't you think it's such a male-dominated thing, like fishing?'

"Men do it to get away from their wives - and they admit to it. They say they want a bit of peace and quiet on a Sunday."

But she adds: "All the characters in the series were so charismatic and lovely - great personalities."

Far from wanting to get away from her own husband of five years, Nick, Krestovnikoff admits that her busy work schedule means she's hardly had a chance to see him.He has also helped her make a name for herself - courtesy of his memorable surname. "It is an unusual name," she says, "People can't pronounce it, but they don't forget who you are because you've got such a ridiculously long surname. Nick is second generation Russian, his grandfather came over during the revolution."

Krestovnikoff has found herself being recognised more often after her appearance in Wreck Detectives but giggles: "It's still in the very early stages. I can still go to supermarkets and be completely anonymous, thank goodness."

Though she is an aunt twice over - her brother, a missionary in Tajikistan, has two young boys - she's not quite ready to start her own family.

Next, the self-confessed "water baby" is taking to the seas again for a new series of Wreck Detectives. But despite her new-found passion for the past, she's not quite ready to pronounce herself an archaeology expert. "Oh no, definitely not," she says.