Unearthing medieval Kent
Comments |
by Rhona Pinkerton
Previously uncharted medieval landscapes are
being unearthed in The Weald Forest Ridge.
Specialist technology has been used to
effectively see through the trees in this heavily wooded area that
stretches across parts of West Kent by Tunbridge Wells and into
Sussex.
A grant of £90,000 from English Heritage has
enabled the Historic Environment Awareness Project to go ahead.
Experts used a scheme called LiDAR (Light
Detection and Ranging) on board an aircraft that flew over the area
and photographed the landscape below. This technology uses lasers
to filter out the tree cover so that a three-dimensional image of
the ground can be produced.
It means archaeologists, local residents and
visitors can now see what is beneath the forests and hopefully
discover previously unknown ancient roadways and earthworks.
Paul Roberts, English Heritage Inspector of
Ancient Monuments in the South East said: "LiDAR is a fantastic
modern tool that allows us to explore areas that have been very
difficult to survey for archaeological remains in the past and we
expect to discover a landscape that is wonderfully rich."
Historic Environment Awareness Officer for the
project, Lyn Palmer said: "I shall be working with lots of
different groups, people who own a woodland, people who walk their
dogs through a particular wood, so that we can identify and record
all these exciting new discoveries."
Hear more from Lyn Palmer here
The project is being launched at the Bowling
Green in Calverley Grounds on Sunday in conjunction with the
Tunbridge Wells Mela.
Thursday, July 16 2009
The KM Group does not moderate comments.
Please click here for our house rules.