Saturday, August 09, 2008

A Bird’s Eye View

Most of these photographs (originally obtained courtesy of Frank Smith’s excellent piloting skills) have already been posted over at the Fylde and Wyre Antiquarian forum, which is where I’ve nicked them from. However, I’m working on the assumption that the majority of the people/person reading this board (over thirty million hits a week…pity that counter’s not working properly at the bottom of this page) don’t wander over that way to browse, peruse and otherwise plunder the ever growing archives. All of which is my excuse for rehashing them here.
Let’s start with that sandy old chestnut Bourne Hill in Thornton then, which, on this superb photograph taken by Ivan Carey, looks more like a molehill than a mountain.

Now, if you’re not as familiar with Bourne Hill as we are (and, let’s be honest, very few people alive actually are, because very few people alive are as completely sad and totally obsessed about the place as us) then you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about. Well, that’s the plain old vanilla flavoured photograph above. Below is the ‘adapted for explanatory reasons’ photograph that we’ve spent no expense creating for you:

There…that should have made everything about as clear as one of Amy Winehouse’s urinary samples, but let’s progress.
Up next, another photograph taken by Ivan, this time of the High Gate Lane Roman agger and ditch in Stalmine. I couldn’t be bothered sorting out two photographs for this offering (i.e. one pristine, the other defaced) so you’ll just have to make do with the scribbled-on version for now:

Right, photograph three, taken (as far as I’m aware) by Frank himself, showing the excavated second roundhouse at Garstang Road in Poulton. (What do you mean, you didn’t realise there was another one? Some of you just haven’t been paying attention to what we’ve said here have you?) By this point, to be honest, both roundhouses will be completely covered by that big spread of tarmac, which just goes to show, you can take the archaeology out of the ground, but the Water Board just takes the Mickey.

And finally for the time being at least (we will be posting more of these photographs at some point I’m sure) here’s a splendid aerial view of Fleetwood taken once again (we think) by Frank. There are a lot of points of interest here, (with the exception of mine and Michelle’s house that’s somewhere off the right hand side of the photograph behind the Mount), so go ahead and knock yourselves out.

If you’ve got any aerial photographs of the district yourselves for us to plunder (should we ever decide to run a follow up article) then you can either post them over at the forum (as previously mentioned somewhere) or send them to me by e-mail. Alternatively, if you fancy a flight in Frank’s plane to capture a few earthworks on film/digital photography card…or whatever those things are called…then have a word with Frank over at the forum and no doubt he’ll be willing to accommodate you. Eleven quid a trip! That’s a serious bargain if ever there was one.

12 comments:

Jayne said...

So Frank can pop over and pick up FB and I for only 11 pounds?!?!
Love the defaced piccys, makes so much more sense than gazing at a green paddock :P

Brian Hughes said...

Unfortunately Jayne, it's 11 quid per half hour (thirty minutes being the amount of time generally required to fly twice round the Fylde and Wyre and gather all the photographs necessary). It'd probably cost a bit more than that to fly to Australia.

chris2553 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chris2553 said...

Brian,

I think we need to be careful about the crop marks. It's a bit hard to tell from the photos, but if the direction of the ploughing in those fields is east-west, what look like crop marks, could easily be headlands. In the northerly of the two fields there appears to be a similar mark along the eastern edge. A headland is where the plough (and whatever is pulling it) is turned at the end of each traversal of the field. Sometimes the are left unploughed, but, more often than not, they are ploughed at 90 degrees to the rest of the field.

Brian Hughes said...

Chris,

I agree with you there, especially seeing as when we looked in said fields there was no sign of the agger whatsoever. However, the crop marks are in alignment with the bit of the road that we've already dug, so unless it veers sharply before reaching that particular point, there's a good chance the cropmarks are more than just headlands. Possibly...
They might not be, of course, but in the words of Harry Hill, "There's only one way to find out..."

Brian Hughes said...

"Hello Dear and Respected"

Hello Gorgeous

"Please send us your approval for your interview at my email address "ghazala.khi at gmail.com""

Sorry Ghazala, but I don't give my e-mail address away to strangers. It's nothing personal, you understand, because I honestly don't know you from Adam, but I get enough telephone calls every day asking for 'Meester Hugoohess' as is it, without finding my e-mail box stuffed with spam as well. You could be genuine, and if you want to post your interview questions either here or at the Fylde and Wyre Antiquarian Forum, then fair enough. But no e-mail contact, thanks. I've fallen for that one before.

Unknown said...

Brian,

Excellent post! As I've mentioned before,and at the risk of sounding all "Gee whiz" and "Oh, Golly", you really do have a fantastic resource in Frank and your photographers. A lot of significant finds have been discovered through aerial photography, since it gives you very different views of the land. Sometimes just seeing a place in different lighting can reveal wonders you might otherwise have stumbled over and moved on.

Also, it's better than looking at a map because you really get a feel for the land.

Very enlightening!
Cheers, JOHN :0)

Brian Hughes said...

John,

The other good thing, of course, is that I'm thinking of releasing a book of aerial photographs. Frank doesn't know this yet, but he might have caught on to what I'm doing by the time I've compiled enough of 'em.

Feral Beast said...

I didn't even need the second photo to work out what the earth works were.

Brian Hughes said...

Mr. Beast,

You have archaeolgists' eyes...which are usually crossed.

Anonymous said...

Excellent hiding place. Tiny little pocket of time but you found them.

Brian Hughes said...

Reuben,

Are we still talking about the Feral Beast's eyes here?