The Wansdyke & District Forums

For those not out on the downs much this month: the drought is doing what droughts do, and the parch-marks are extraordinary this year. Where the soil is thinner over buried ditches and walls the crop stays green longer; over buried stone it burns off faster. The result is the buried archaeology drawn out in yellow and green as clearly as a plan. I went up with a friend who flies a drone (all properly logged, before anyone asks) and we have marks near three known sites that I have never seen show before, plus at least one ring ditch that is not on the record at all. I will get the good frames to the county team. Worth getting up there with a camera while it lasts; it will be gone with the first rain. The national picture this summer is remarkable too, whole new sites drawn out of the ground from the air:

https://historicengland.org.uk/whats-ne ... cal-sites/

https://www.archaeologyuk.org/resource/ ... eries.html

[Edited to add some links]

saw this from the road and wondered, theres a whole pattern come up in the barley off the Ridgeway, squares and lines. is that Roman? proper spooky how clear it is.

Could well be, Pete. That lie of the land has a known Romano-British field system. The squares are likely enclosures, the lines old boundaries or trackways. Photograph it, note the field, and if you can get the rough grid reference it is genuinely useful. 1976 was the famous drought year for this, whole landscapes appeared and were recorded that have never shown so well since. We may not get another like this for decades.

Not just the archaeology showing the drought either. The dew ponds up top are dry to the clay, which I have not seen in twenty years of walking them, and the larks have gone quiet early. Everything is a month ahead of itself. Beautiful light for the photographs though, Col is right about that.