Wharram Percy, North Yorkshire: Report on Geophysical Surveys, 1984-2002
Author(s): Paul Linford, Neil Linford
Wharram Percy in the Yorkshire Wolds is indubitably the best-known example of a deserted medieval village in Britain. Its renown is due, in no small part, to the programme of excavations conducted by the Wharram Percy Research Project over forty years between 1950 and 1990. These excavations have revealed that the development of the medieval village was much more complex than was originally envisaged, with antecedents in the late Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. Much information concerning this research has already been published but a synthetic volume is now in preparation that is intended to provide an overview of the project’s findings (Wrathmell and Clark, Forthcoming). The Archaeometry Branch has had a long history of involvement with the Wharram Percy Research Project and has provided geophysical surveys in advance of excavation over much of the site, the last work being carried out in 1989. However, these surveys have concentrated on the northern and central areas of the medieval village. On reassessing the geophysical evidence in preparation for the publication, it was realised that its conclusions could be strengthened if magnetometer survey coverage were extended to the southern part of the site. As previous magnetometer surveys had been carried out with less sensitive instruments and using several grid alignments, it was considered that the best way to achieve this end was to undertake a new survey that would cover all the open parts of the village site on a single survey grid. The Archaeometry Branch thus visited Wharram Percy in September 2002 for this purpose. This fieldwork has resulted in a new magnetic map of Wharram Percy revealing an impressive range of anomalies likely to be of an archaeological origin. Where the 2002 survey covers areas surveyed in earlier years, it has successfully relocated the anomalies previously detected, often defining them with greater resolution. As these earlier results have not all been formally reported, they are included here for the purpose of compa
- Report Number:
- 28/2003
- Series:
- CfA Reports
- Pages:
- 21
- Keywords:
- Geophysical Survey
