Wainway Channel: aerial photographic evidence for land reclamation
This is a condensed form of the Report submitted by Alice Deegan of Air Photo Services Ltd. Unfortunately space did not permit publication of her entire report.
In June 1996 Air Photo Services was com missioned by the Romney Marsh Research Trust to undertake a detailed aerial photo graphic assessment of the area surrounding the former Wainway Channel. The aim of the assessment was to identify, interpret and accurately map upstanding and levelled physical and archaeological remains visible on the available aerial photographs. . This would refine Green's Soil Survey Map of 1968 at a scale of 1:2500, and would form the basis of future ground-based investiga tions. The aerial photographs were interpreted in September and October, and a full report including a gazetteer of all sites and features submitted to RMRT in November 1996.
The National Library of Aerial Photographs at the Royal Commission on the Historic Monuments of England (RCHME) at Swindon is the main repository of aerial photographs for England. This collection holds extensive vertical and oblique photographic coverage for the country. Many of the vertical surveys in this collection were un dertaken for non-archaeological purposes by the Royal Air Force and the Ordnance Sur vey as well as by commercial outfits such as Meridian Airways Limited. The specialist oblique photography collection consists of material taken with the purpose of recording archaeological features. Although no specialist oblique photographs were held for the Wainway area in this collection, this study has shown that the area is certainly not devoid of archaeological features and suggests a bias of interests in the aerial reconnaissance of such landscapes.
Fortunately, with the types of features pre sent on the marsh and the high quality of the available vertical photography, the lack of oblique aerial photographs was not detrimental to the project. In total over 26 runs of different vertical photographic sorties were consulted for the project from the NLAP collection, ranging in date from 1946 to 1983. Most were photographs viewed in runs of stereo pairs examined under l.5x magnification. Some sorties were of excep tional quality and greatly facilitated the inter pretation and mapping processes. These were those taken in good lighting and at a large scale, such as the RAF photographs taken in February 1950 at 1:5800 scale and the more recent MAL sorties taken in Octo ber 1977 and July 1979 at 1:5000 scale.
Six vertical sorties were also examined at the East Sussex Record Office in Lewes. These photos, mainly taken in the early I 960s and early 1970s usefully filled the temporal gaps in the NLAP collection.
Reference to earlier work in this area, as recorded in previous issues of the Romney Marsh Irregular, and the insight into the local geology afforded by Green's soil sur vey gave some idea of the types of features that may be apparent on the aerial pho tographs. Detailed archaeological interpreta tion of aerial photographs allows accurate mapping of archaeological sites recorded as cropmarks ( caused by the differential growth of crops over buried features), soilmarks ( caused by differences in soil colour over ploughed features) and shadows cast by up standing earthworks. Aerial photographic evidence is, however, limited by seasonal, agricultural, meteorological and environ mental factors that affect the extent to which either buried or upstanding archaeological sites can be detected under a given set of environmental conditions.
With a long history of sheep farming on the Marsh many features survive upstanding in the Wainway, having rarely, if ever, been ploughed. But the sequence of aerial pho tographs taken since 1950 show increasing numbers of fields being brought under arable. Unfortunately the potential for recording the old creeks now under crops is very low, because of the similarity of crop growth between the silt filling the old creeks and that of the surrounding marsh sediments. Fortunately, however, when the plough is bare the tonal contrast between the soils of the material of constructed features such as the banks and the marsh soils is marked. Thus bare, recently ploughed soils showed such archaeological features as much paler lines. The silts of the old creeks were similarly visible.
The most important natural feature recorded from aerial photographs in the area was of course the Wainway channel. The ancient sinuous route of the channel, running east to west, is much silted up but still visible as a depression when viewed stereoscopically on the aerial photographs. It is best seen when holding standing water at wetter times of the year. At its greatest visible extent this feature is recorded as 45m wide. This would appear to correlate with descriptions of the channel as capable of carrying cargo loads (Eddison, 1989 Romney Marsh Irregular) and as such may be the original width of the channel. The full extent of this feature is difficult to assess from the aerial photographs because of the enormous change in patterns of deposition and drainage bought about by the progressive confinement of the channel.
The Wainway Channel was confined by a system of generally east-west walls, and was then reclaimed by a sequence of north south cross-walls. The network of both extant and levelled walls was clearly visible on the aerial photographs, mainly as banks with either one or two ditches running alongside.
The Wainway project aerial photographic interpretation provided detailed mapping of fealures from aerial photos which had not been examined previously. It now remains to compare, contrast and integrate the results of the mapping with ground-based investigative surveys.
