USING AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS

 

The Wiltshire Archaeology Service holds a huge collection of aerial photographs. This is made up of the whole county aerial photograph cover, which is carried out every ten years, as well as copies of significant aerial photos from the National Monuments Record Centre in Swindon. There is also a large collection of photographs unique to the Archaeology Service.

Anyone can use these photographs by arranging to visit the Sites and Monuments Record.

WHAT CAN BE FOUND OUT FROM AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS?

Often mounds or 'humps and bumps' survive where structures once stood. The link between sites close to one another is better appreciated from the air. Aerial photos are used by archaeologists to draw plans of sites.

The Wansdyke is one Wiltshire's most prominent earthworks. It is believed to be a defensive structure from the Saxon period.

Other archaeological sites can be located and recorded from marks left in the crop or where the ground has dried out to leave parch marks.

The double villa at Bradford on Avon was discovered by an archaeological aerial photographer. By kind permission, Copyright English Heritage.

 

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