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3D Lidar landscape on Sketchfab: https://skfb.ly/pKozv English Heritage: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/.../hardknot.../history/  LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology. The three images below show contours at interval of 0.5m created in QGIS from dsm lidar.
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Iron Age hillfort & Roman Signal Station on Barcombe Hill above Vindolanda Roman Fort, Northumberland. Location: NY 7830 6681 Keys to the Past: N6569 Scheduled Monument: 1018536  LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.  View of Vindolanda Roman Fort from Roman Signal Station on Barcombe Hill. 3D model from lidar data. 3D LiDAR landscape on Sketchfab: https://skfb.ly/pGKN9  Site of Roman Signal Station, Barcombe The ditch here, parallel with the escarpment edge, is the north side of a prehistoric defended settlement, thought to be Iron Age in date, probably extended by later Roman quarrying for stone. Within the enclosure, the Romans constructed a Signal Station providing inter-visibility north to Hadrian's Wall and west to Vindolanda Fort NY7866 : View west from site of Roman Signal Station, Barcombe. However, excavation showed that it may have only been in use for a short period during the later first century AD. LinkExternal link (Archive LinkExternal link ) A rectangular ditch with rounded corners around the mound in the north-west part of the larger enclosure is clearly visible in aerial views. Photo A Curtis (2012).  View west from site of Roman Signal Station, Barcombe Hill. Barcombe Hill trig point is on the extreme left, Long Stone on the peak just left of centre. Although a misty day, Vindolanda Roman Fort can just be made out in the valley, right of centre, with the straight line of the Stanegate Roman Road climbing the ridge to its right. The Signal Station would have provided good views north to Hadrian's Wall including Housesteads Roman Fort to the north-east. Photo A Curtis (2012).  LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology. Risingham Roman Fort (Habitancum), West Woodburn, Northumberland. Great weather for a site visit yesterday and, unusually for me, spent some of it with the Romans. 3D lidar landscape: https://skfb.ly/p9Cpu Habitancum Roman Fort & Medieval Settlement is a Scheduled Monument protected by law: https://historicengland.org.uk/.../the.../list-entry/1008561 Devil's Causeway, Bolam, Northumberland. A nice section of the now unused Roman Road passing close by the Bronze Age tumulus & standing stone known as The Poind and His Man. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Causeway Photos: Andy Curtis (2014): https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4226462  LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.  LIDAR (DTM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology. The Roman Forts at Low Learchild, Northumberland, UK.
Just visible as shadows at the centre of this LIDAR image (DTM, 1m). Learchild Roman fort is believed to have had the place name ALAVNA. The site at Learchild is a Scheduled Monument protected by law. https://historicengland.org.uk/.../the.../list-entry/1006440 The two forts have been almost completely reduced by ploughing and forestry, and cut by a bridleway and now disused railway. Lots more information and geophysical survey here: https://romanroads.org/reports/low_learchild_smx006_final.pdf Looking at the lidar evidence for the course of the aqueduct which led water some 10km from the Caw Burn to Great Chesters (Aesica) Roman Fort on Hadrian's Wall. Although shown in full on the OS map, several parts are missing (perhaps never completed or damaged by later drainage and agriculture). Its course over valleys assumed to have been on wooden or stone bridges. The elevation profile (created in QGIS from the DTM) shows a fall of only 10-12m over the whole length. The LIDAR view is DSM, 1m copyright Environment Agency. Contours (at interval of 1m) were created in QGIS from DTM.
The Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the Caw Burn is a Scheduled Monument (https://historicengland.org.uk/.../the.../list-entry/1003788) 3D LIDAR landscape: https://skfb.ly/pxqDN  LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology. LIDAR suggests new line for the Roman Road, Maiden Way, through the parish of Culgaith, Cumbria, crossing the Kirkland Beck just east of the village.
Maiden Way (Roman Road) - 3D LIDAR landscape: https://skfb.ly/pxoVw Corbridge Roman Town, Northumberland.
The remains at Corbridge are largely those of a Roman town, 2½ miles south of Hadrian's Wall, which developed after AD 160 around a base for legionary soldiers. This replaced a succession of forts on the site, built from about AD 85 where one of the main routes northwards crossed the River Tyne. Corbridge became one of only two substantial towns in the Hadrian's Wall zone and remained a vibrant urban community until the last days of Roman Britain. English Heritage: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/.../corbridge-roman... Hadrian's Wall at Wallhouses, Northumberland - 'slighting' of the Vallum. One thing I like about looking at the LIDAR images is that they remind you about things I have forgotten (or perhaps never knew). In this sector along Hadrian's Wall for example the wall itself lies under the modern road (Military Road). The north wall ditch is often extant and, when not ploughed out, so are the impressive earthworks of the Vallum, here closely parallel to the line of the Wall and to its south. The ditch of the Vallum in my enhanced LIDAR is the dark line between the two white dashed lines of the marginal mounds. These were built from the spoil of the ditch and were continuous so why do they now appear as regular segments? When constructed the Vallum only had very few crossing points aligned with the Wall forts. However, when Hadrian's Wall was abandoned around 140AD for a new frontier in Scotland (the Antonine Wall) there was a systemmatic slighting of the Vallum creating a large number of crossings across the ditch using soil taken from the linear mounds. 35 beaks were made every Roman mile providing an interval of crossings of around 40m. "We can surely agree that the very regularity of the action of slighting the Vallum points to the hand of the army" (Breeze 2015). When the Romans returned to Hadrian's Wall a few years later they clearly didn't bother to fill all the gaps in the linear mounds and there seems to be conflicting evidence about whether the Vallum ditch was completely reinstated as originally built.. I wonder if the LIDAR has enough resolution to see the remains of ditch crossings? Breeze, D. J. (2015). The Vallum of Hadrian's Wall. Archaeologia Aeliana Series 5. Vol 44, pp. 1-30. https://doi.org/10.5284/1061298  Enhanced LIDAR (DSM, 1m) © Environment Agency (2022).  Enhanced LIDAR (DSM, 1m) © Environment Agency (2022).  LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology. Chew Green, Northumberland. Roman fort, two Roman fortlets, two Roman camps, a section of Roman road (Dere Street), and a medieval settlement and chapel at Chew Green in Cheviot Hills. Chew Green is a Scheduled Monument protected by law: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1015847  LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.  Plan from Richmond, I. A. and Keeney, G. S. (1937). The Roman works at Chew Green, Coquetdalehead. Archaeologia Aeliana Series 4. Vol 14, pp. 129-150. https://doi.org/10.5284/1059983 Supposed Roman Signal Station (or small Roman fortlet), & cross-dyke (bank and ditch crossing the ridge) close by the England-Scotland Border on Brownhart Law, N of Chew Green. The track heading north into Scotland is the line of the Roman Dere Street (later called Gamelspath). The cross-dyke is an example of numerous similar earthworks of uncertain date that may have been constructed to constrain traffic along the cross-border tracks or to act as boundaries between adjacent areas of territory.  LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology. |
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