Issue no 1, February 1995

Regional flying is suffering a strange malaise, writes Richard Morris

Since 1920, aerial archaeology has identified traces of settlement and land-use which go back more than 5,000 years. The volume, diversity and sheer extensiveness of this evidence, much of it invisible from the ground, have transformed our understanding of Britain's past, and our ability to care for it.

However, this immensely valuable activity is falling victim, in England at any rate, to a strange lassitude. Important aspects are being neglected, and there is no overall sense of direction. If the trend is not reversed, we shall all be losers.

From the start, most reconnaissance has been undertaken by a loose network of regionally-based aerial archaeologists. They fly at their own expense, with help from local bodies, or work with archaeological units or Sites and Monuments Record offices. Some are grant-aided from public funds, channelled since 1988 through the Royal Commissions for England (RCHME), Wales and Scotland. Grants are restricted to direct flying costs; they do not cover salaries, overheads, or the lengthy post-flying work of locating and cataloguing photographs.

Nationally grant-aided regional flying programmes are an outstanding example of cost-effective partnership. Between 1989 and 1993, England's regional fliers alone clocked up over 1,000 hours of reconnaissance for an average 24,400 a year.

This is a minute figure in relation to the return of information it generated. For instructive (though perhaps unfair) comparison, the budget of one particular current urban excavation would be sufficient to support all Britain's regional flying at its present level until 2050.

Regional flying is effective for other reasons. It minimises transit times, and localised windows' in weather or ground conditions can be recognised and exploited swiftly. Such opportunities may not return for many years.

More importantly, over a period of years, regional fliers build up an intimate knowledge of the areas they study. Close familiarity with local archaeological and historical issues, soils, geology and crop regimes, are strengths not easily matched by those flying occasional sorties from remote bases.

Despite the advantages of regional flying, funding for it in Wales and Scotland is still pitifully small, while in England malaise is setting in. Symptoms include a cut in real funding and rumours of at least one premature retirement. The cut comes at a time when, as some of the veterans depart (1993/4 saw the deaths of two of the giants, Prof JK St Joseph and Derrick Riley), most of the expertise is now to be found among the regional fliers.

The difficulty is not loss of commitment to aerial archaeology itself- RCHME is investing heavily in a national mapping project, its central flying programme, and thematic surveys - but rather a lack of strategic thinking. Air archaeology has yet to mature from a process of data gathering, and to realise its potential for addressing large historical questions.

Three years ago, the CBA's Aerial Archaeology Committee noted that `despite the evident value of air-reconnaissance .... and its relatively modest cost when compared with excavation and other means of survey, the resources available for it are both inadequate and eccentrically distributed.'

Acting on advice from a working party headed by John Hampton, the former head of RCHME's aerial photography unit, the CBA called for a `searching review' of current practice throughout the UK, to identify problems and seek remedies.

The Royal Commissions, as major players in their own countries, would have much to contribute to such a review. However, the Commissions are not only principal funders of regional flying but also bodies with substantial programmes of their own. As both allocators and users of resources, and arbiters of the balance between them, they are arguably unable to take the dispassionate, comprehensive view now needed. This is a job for the CBA, which is prepared to undertake it if funds can be found. It is high time that they were.

Richard Morris is Director of the CBA