The Nottinghamshire Mapping Project was carried out in partnership between the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) and Nottinghamshire County Council. The mapping work was done by Chris Cox (APS Ltd) and Alison Deegan who also wrote the report.
The objective was to create a consistent standard of air photograph mapping and interpretation in the face of the on-going threat to the archaeological resource from industrial activity and re-development.
Air photograph mapping
The project began in the first quarter of 1991 and was re-specified in December 1993 for incorporation into the NMP. The project abutted with the National Forest NMP Project area to the South and with the Lincolnshire NMP Project area along to the East along the Trent Valley. The OS quarter sheets along this border were divided between the Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire projects in such a way as to retain the integrity of the Trent Valley landscape. Subsequently the north end of the county was abutted by the ALSF funded Magnesian Limestone NMP Project.
The county of Nottinghamshire encompasses a range of varied landscapes, the characteristics of each determining site visibility on aerial photographs. Cropmarks are most prolific on the limestones in the west, the Sherwood sandstones north of Nottingham, and on the sands and gravels of the Trent Valley. In the late 1970s Derrick Riley first drew attention to the levelled archaeological landscapes of the Sherwood Sandstones, mapping and publishing his results in 1980 in ‘Early landscape from the air’.
The archaeology
The range of sites types recorded during this project is extensive and encompasses prehistoric burial and ritual sites including a newly identified henge at Gunthorpe; defensive sites ranging from Iron Age promontory forts and hillforts, Roman forts and camps, to several mottes and civil war forts. Note that 20th century military sites were not recorded by this project.
Settlement evidence is equally broad and includes both simple and complex arrangements of enclosures with those attributed to the Iron Age and Roman periods often set within contemporary landscapes of land division most commonly taking the form of coaxial field systems. These landscapes of coaxial division extend into South Yorkshire where they have been mapped under the Magnesian Limestone NMP project.
The images used on this pageare copyright English Heritage unless specified otherwise. For furtherdetails of any photographs or other images and for copies of these, orthe 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 by email via the link above.
