The Forest of Dean Mapping Project, Gloucestershire: A Report for the National Mapping Programme
Author(s): Sharon Bishop, Edward Carpenter, Fiona Small, C Stoertz, H Winton
The Forest of Dean Mapping Project is part of the Gloucestershire Mapping Project which is being carried out by English Heritage to National Mapping Programme (NMP) standards. The purpose of NMP is to enhance the understanding of past human settlement, by providing primary information and synthesis for all archaeological sites and landscapes from the Neolithic period to the twentieth century. NMP aims 'to map, describe and classify all archaeological sites recorded by aerial photography in England to a consistent standard' (RCHME 1994, English Heritage 2001). The Gloucestershire Mapping project was initiated by Gloucestershire County Council Archaeology Service (GCCAS), and a programme of field work was established by GCCAS, headed by Jon Hoyle, to run concurrently with the survey of aerial photographs. The Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire National Mapping Programme Project Design (Hoyle 2001), and The Gloucestershire Cotswolds National Mapping Programme Project Design (Grubb 2001) were produced at the beginning of the project. A secondary phase of field work was carried out by GCCAS using the data generated by the aerial survey. The Forest of Dean was recognised as an area of relatively low monument density with poor representation in the National Monuments Record (NMR) and the SMR and, although much of the area is heavily afforested, it was believed that the area would benefit from archaeological aerial survey. Very few confirmed Prehistoric monuments had been recorded within the Forest of Dean project area, and it was hoped that NMP survey would help to explain the apparent absence of early sites. This survey identified a number of enclosures of possible Prehistoric date, although further field investigation is required to confirm their interpretation and chronology. Prior to the survey 779 individual monument records existed in the NMR's database (AMIE) for the entire survey area. The survey created an additional 1832 new AMIE monument records, increasing the total number of records for the area to 2611
- Report Number:
- 28/2006
- Series:
- Research Department Reports
- Pages:
- 156
- Keywords:
- Aerial Photograph Interpretation Aerial Photography Lidar Survey National Mapping Programme
