The Magnesian Limestone in South and West Yorkshire NMP (3860) project was carried out in partnership with West Yorkshire Archaeology Service (WYAS) and funded by the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF). It covered an area of 800km2, mostly lying within South Yorkshire but also covering small parts of Nottinghamshire, North and West Yorkshire.
Air photograph mapping
Aims of the project
- To provide a better overall understanding of the archaeology of the aggregate yielding geology of the project area.
- Help to provide a more focussed, meaningful and consistent approach in the archaeological requirements for mitigating the impact of the aggregates industry in the future.
Previous work
Small areas of South Yorkshire and North Nottinghamshire had been mapped in the late 1970s by Derrick Riley and published in Early Landscape from the Air (1980). Riley coined the term ‘brickwork fields’ to describe the coaxial pattern of parallel linear boundaries and short cross boundaries that are common in this region. However, no mapping had been carried out since Riley’s and there had been a further two decades of aerial photography.
The Iron Age/ Roman landscape
The NMP mapping has made a very significant contribution to our understanding of Iron Age/ Roman settlement and land division in this region of Yorkshire. This landscape can broadly be characterised as comprising field systems, trackways and enclosures.
Extensive areas of coherent coaxial field systems are visible as cropmarks, in places several hundred hectares in area. These commonly divide the landscape into long strip fields, but a more irregular system of in land division can be seen in places. The fragmentary remains of trackways, frequently relating to the field boundaries, can similarly be traced for distances of over a kilometre in places.
Embedded within these field systems are numerous ditched enclosures which may have related to stock management. Other larger enclosures have evidence of multiple circuits of ditch and some contain round houses, indicating that they represent settlements.
The Magnesian Limestone in South and West Yorkshire Archaeological Mapping and Assessment Project
The Magnesian Limestone in South and West Yorkshire Archaeological Mapping and Assessment Project was a multi-disciplinary project that aimed to integrate the results of past excavation, geophysical survey and field walking with the information from high quality air photograph mapping.
The air photograph element combined the Magnesian Limestone NMP with areas previously mapped as part of the Lower Wharfedale, Vale of York and Nottinghamshire NMP projects. The results of this project, including a detailed discussion of the results of the NMP mapping, will be published in 2010.
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 English Heritage 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.
