The wild fire that raged across Fylingdales Moor, North Yorkshire, between the 17 and 21 of September 2003 devastated the vegetation and fragile peat soils of 2.4km2 of heather moorland, but in the process uncovered an archaeological landscape largely hidden by the heather for decades. Features revealed included prehistoric field systems and rock art, a network of leats associated with the Stoupe Brow alum quarry, and many earthworks left over from military training during the 1939-45 war.
From the start this project has been one of collaboration and cooperation between partners, including the North York Moors National Park Authority, English Nature, DEFRA, English Heritage, The Strickland Estate and the Court Leet.
A series of oblique air photographs taken by the English Heritage Aerial Reconnaissance team just a few weeks after the fire helped to give a rapid overview of the extent and nature of the archaeological remains which were documented in a report (Stone and Horne, Aerial Survey Report Series AER/07/2003)
A major concern was that the approaching winter weather would further damage the exposed monuments and soils. Also, it was clear that in order to safeguard the condition of the moor, it would need to be re-vegetated as quickly as possible, resulting in the timescale for any recording being limited. Due to these factors a series of high quality vertical photographs were specially commissioned to record the condition of the moor and features thereon.
The vertical sortie was undertaken by Aerofilms on 23 November at a scale of 1:2500. The level of detail visible on the resulting photographs is such that stones of as little as 10cm in diameter can be identified. Using digital photogrammetric technology and the vertical photographs, the English Heritage Metric Survey team produced an orthophoto, with an accuracy of 4cm, for the whole of the burnt area. This formed a base map underpinning other survey work which included a rapid walkover field survey across the entire burnt area, also a more detailed, analytical field survey of a select area.
In addition, Aerial Survey has transcribed features of interest from the photogrammetric 3D stereo models creating an interpretative drawing of visible archaeology. Regeneration of vegetation to protect the fragile moorland and its archaeology is now well underway as is illustrated in this oblique photograph taken in November 2004. The inset is an extract of one of original oblique photographs taken just a few weeks after the fire.
The images used on this page are copyright English Heritage unless specified otherwise. For further details of any photographs or other images and for copies of these, or the plans and reports related to the project please contact the NMR English Heritage's public archive.
For further information on a project or any other aspect of the work of the Aerial Survey team please contact us via email using the link above.
