A few months ago someone drew our attention to some lidar images of an area on the Stalybridge and Hyde border. There appeared to be an anomaly that was interpreted as possibly an agger, i.e. raised earthwork that, given its linear appearance, could have been evidence of a Roman road.
The most accessible section was fortunately owned by Tameside and the council readily gave us permission to carry out some geophysical research.
Work is ongoing , using both a magnetometer and a resistivity meter, to try to find further evidence to back the theory.
Such surveys requires a lot of painstaking work. The equipment can only be employed after a lot of careful measuring, marking out and setting up. The data is later fed through software that produces images which can then be interpreted by the team.
It may well be that no further evidence will be found and that it was a false lead. However, this does not mean that the work was a waste of time, as knowing what is not there is sometimes as valuable as knowing what is.
The pictures show some of the team at work one sunny Sunday morning.
