Back-to-back heatwaves and drought exposed an archaeological site near Welshpool in Powys, where Dr Toby Driver identified a rectangular Neolithic long barrow about 5,000 years old. The dry spell also brought other buried remains into view across Wales, giving archaeologists a short window to record them before rain could hide the marks again.
Driver, an archaeologist with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, flew aerial surveys from Haverfordwest and Caernarfon airports throughout June and July. The national archive for the Welsh historic environment published photographs from those reconnaissance flights, showing cropmarks, parchmarks and other traces that appeared during the unusually dry weather.
Welshpool in Powys
The long barrow near Welshpool was picked out by cropmarks, where vegetation growing above buried features responds differently from the surrounding ground. The commission said some of the marks exposed this summer had not been visible for "two or three decades". Driver described the period as "a record heatwave summer for aerial archaeology" and said such conditions now come around "every year."
The exposed remains span thousands of years and include prehistoric burial monuments, fortifications, Roman-era structures and First World War military training features. At Caerhun Roman fort in Conwy, Driver’s flights captured fresh details of Roman-era buildings buried beneath the ground, while at Deganwy in Conwy a set of First World War practice trenches lay beneath a golf course.
Conwy and Deganwy
The parchmarks at Deganwy traced the training earthworks with remarkable clarity, but only while the ground stayed dry. Wales received roughly five per cent of its typical July precipitation after an unusually dry spring that began in April, and the exposed marks may disappear rapidly once rain returns.
That leaves a narrow recording window for Driver and the Royal Commission, which will keep documenting exposed sites while the conditions last. For anyone following the discoveries, the practical issue is whether the visible outlines can be surveyed before the weather changes again.
