Air Reconnaissance of Southern Britain

Abstract

This paper, a companion to one printed in vol. XLI of the Journal, describes discoveries made by air reconnaissance during the eight summers 1945–52 in the southern half of Roman Britain. The area concerned, extending from the English Channel to Yorkshire, embraces the whole of the civil district of the province and the highland regions of Wales and the Pennines that were throughout much of the Roman occupation under direct military control (pl. VIII). There is a broad difference, too, in the terrain of these two parts. The civil district corresponds to the lowland zone of Britain, which includes the most fertile soils and to-day the largest proportion of arable land. In Wales and the Pennines grass and moorland predominate. This difference is reflected in the results obtained by air reconnaissance. In the Midlands and the south, structures of the Roman period do not commonly survive above ground in open country, and by far the largest number of new discoveries have come from observation of crop marks, revealing features otherwise hidden. In Wales and the Pennines the aerial camera has recorded military remains, already known as they are visible on the surface as earthworks; and here additions to knowledge have come when such a site happened to be under a cereal crop rather than grass, or when earthworks were seen that escaped previous notice on the ground. The scale of the flying has varied much from one year to another in the period under review. In 1945 and 1946 the flying over southern Britain only amounted to a few hours; there were rather more in 1947, but most of the results here described were obtained in the years 1948–1951. This period included the exceptionally dry summer of 1949, when many features were seen that have not been visible at any other time.