Rockley

The Rockley furnace site is an earthwork landscape in dense woodland with two upstanding ruined structures. The site has scheduled ancient monument status.
This survey utilised a Leica C10 scanner and consisted of 38 scans, these scans were controlled with the use of a Leica smart pole GPS & TS15 solution. The methodology was focused on processing the scan data to revealed subtle landscape changes below the vegetation. Stripping back the data and revealing the archaeological features was achieved in Leica Cyclone.

This process facilitated the discovery of features masked by vegetation and created a holistic view of the hidden landscape. Historical documents and maps were used to aid in the understanding of the newly revealed digital topography.

It became apparent that this small area of woodland contained a wealth of landscape history, the remains of a medieval mill, an early horse drawn railway, water engineering for giant bellows that superheated a blast furnace and a steam engine house. The complexity was far greater than had previously been known, all discovered without any disturbance to the archaeology.

The value of using scanning technology in this way was further enhanced by the involvement of local community archaeology groups. Training days introduced local people to laser scanning and the benefits this technology provides to archaeological investigation.

Complex 3-D models were created from the scan data for the visualisation and conservation of this unique heritage site.