Staffordshire Water Meadows Survey March 2008 March 2008 Staffordshire Water Meadows Survey By Paul Breeze, Keith Challis and Mark Kincey HP VISTA Centre
[email protected] for Staffordshire County Council For further information please contact: Alex Jones (Director) Birmingham Archaeology The University of Birmingham Edgbaston Birmingham B15 2TT Tel: 0121 414 5513 Fax: 0121 414 5516 E-Mail:
[email protected] Web Address: www.barch.bham.ac.uk © 2008 University of Birmingham Page 1 Survey of Water Meadows in Staffordshire SUMMARY The Staffordshire water meadows survey was commissioned in September 2007 by Staffordshire County Council, and took the form of a large scale landscape assessment of the location, extent and survival of the predominantly post-medieval agricultural systems known as water meadows within the county. This survey comprised the analysis of 1st edition Ordnance Survey data for the entire length of all identifiable watercourses within the county of Staffordshire, followed by the examination of identified targets within two series of aerial photographs, and was focused around the major river valleys. A total of 1543km of watercourses were visually examined within the 1st edition dataset, followed by an estimated 300 aerial photographs, from two catalogues of imagery, the Staffordshire County Council 1963 and 2000 vertical series. This analysis was intended to allow the identification of the location and extent of possible water meadows within Staffordshire, and the assessment of the changing condition of water meadow sites over time, through the production of a GIS database. This desk-based assessment was then to be followed by field examination of a representative sample of targets in order to test the veracity of the GIS model.