"The leaving of small gifts, such as a personal item, quartz, whatever, to show homage to the Gods and Ancestors has long been common practice in these Isles. "

Has it? How long is long? Not very at most sites, if truth be told.

Anyhow, I know there are two schools of thought, I was just pointing out that it wasn't possible to recommend leaving a site as you found it AND leaving stuff at it.

BTW, "a quartz pressed into the mud by someone giving thanks for the rain stopping" - what's that about then?? An attempt to avoid breaking the law by saying "I didn't bury it?" I'm no lawyer but I bet it DOES breach the law. The Pagans that I know wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. Maybe you should write to EH, get a definitive opinion and transmit the results to those that do it?