It is good to see Historic England’s publication of the 400,000 images which it has digitised, brought to our attention, in the papers and on TV. The Aerial Archaeology Mapping Explorer is a fantastic tool which gives access to years of aerial photograph mapping projects across Great Britain.

You can explore the layers of archaeology in and around your personal location and you can browse the map and zoom in to the feature you’re interested in.  It is all easily manageable and quite intuitive in a format with which most of us are becoming familiar these days.

What is also brilliant is you can see photographs taken by the RAF as well as sideways aerial views from locations all over the country – search by postcode, address or place name.

I was immediately reminded of one of the Society’s albums on the Image Archive ‘Mateer’ after its donor the late Brian Mateer who contributed over 600 images which he had taken himself. 

After twelve years in aerial photography in the RAF, Brian joined Fisons as part of their Farm Photo Plan in which two cameras, one colour Infrared film and the other with 120 negative film were used. The infrared film could pinpoint any disease in the crop.

He told us that a  precarious method of photographing was employed in which he had to stand on the pilot seat and photograph through the open window using a fast shutter speed. Generally pictures were taken at five hundred feet and the whole job would take about half an hour.

What was wonderful to see was that amongst the photographs featured on the Historic England’s Explorer web page one was of a Cessna aircraft – almost identical to that used by Brian in his work taking photographs of Ipswich and and Suffolk. Check out the Historic England website – but don’t forget you can see acres and acres of Ipswich and Suffolk from the air in Brian’s album.

Tony Marsden

 

Links

Historic England

Image Archive – Mateer album

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