EDO6688 - South Dorset Ridgeway National Mapping Programme Project; aerial photograph interpretation

The South Dorset Ridgeway project is part of English Heritage's National Mapping Programme (NMP) funded through the English Heritage Historic Environment Enabling Programme (HEEP 5583).The NMP project coincided with and fed into the ongoing South Dorset Ridgeway Heritage Project (SDRHP) which was initiated by the Dorset AONB Partnership with Heritage Lottery Funding. A large part of the project area lies within the Dorset AONB and covers 310 kilometre squares of the South Dorset Ridgeway; an area roughly equivalent to 12.5 OS 1:10,000 quarter map sheets. The project area was sub divided into two blocks: Block 1-Dorchester (150 km2) Broadmayne, Charminster and Uploders- SY59SW, SY59SE, SY69SW, SY69 SE, SY79SW and SY78NW. Block 2- (160 km2) Osmington, Chickerell and Abbotsbury, SY58SE, SY58NW, SY58NE, SY68SW, SY68SE, SY68NW, SY68NE and SY78SW (some of these are coastal and part of their area is taken up by the sea)The project was carried out between September 2008 and September 2010 check by staff from Historic Environment Projects, Cornwall County Council (Carolyn Royall, Emma Trevarthen and Megan Val Baker). The project followed standard NMP methodology and involved the systematic examination of all easily accessible aerial photographs from the English Heritage Archive in Swindon, Cambridge University Collection of Aerial Photographs (CUCAP) and Dorset County Council. In total 9046 aerial photographs were consulted during the project. These consist of 5075 vertical prints, 3477 specialist oblique photographs, and 498 military obliques.Archaeological features were digitally transcribed using the AERIAL (Version 5.29) rectification programme and AutoCAD Version Map3D 2010. Each archaeological site was recorded in the Dorset County Council’s Historic Buildings, Sites and Monuments Record (HBSMR) database. Each AutoCAD drawing was exported as an ArcGIS shapefile to the project GIS. Each mapped site could then be linked to the project database through the attached Project ID number. The project recorded 3,453 archaeological sites of which 2,500 were previously unrecorded new sites. The data was fed into the South Dorset Ridgeway Heritage Project being carried out concurrently by the Dorset AONB.Copies of the Project Design, Final Report (Royall, 2011) and all other relevant project documentation will be deposited at Dorset County Council and the English Heritage Archive. The PDF version of the report is available at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/nmp-south-dorset-ridgeway/Digital copies of the AutoCAD drawings are also archived with the English Heritage Archive.