Blenheim Palace: Queen Pool Restoration Project - Survey Data Analysis (Landform Area)

Wessex Archaeology

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned to undertake analysis and interpretation of airborne LiDAR, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) photogrammetric data, and terrestrial laser scan data at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire (NGR: SP 43536 17842). The analysis was required to provide a record of extant archaeological features of an approximately 16.3 ha area of land, prior to deposition of silt dredged from Queen Pool at Blenheim Palace. A wider area of approximately 33 ha was analysed in order to provide sufficient context for any identified features.

The aim of the assessment was to digitise polygon features from the available datasets, to identify the extent of topographic archaeological features. The objectives of the assessment were to process the UAV photogrammetric cloud data to create a Digital Surface Model (DSM); to process the terrestrial laser scanned point cloud data to create a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and to process a LiDAR generated DTM acquired from the Environment Agency’s National LiDAR Programme (2021), to create Hillshade and Multidirectional Hillshade visualisations.

The interpretation examined a total area of approximately 33 hectares and revealed 65 archaeological
features and sites of potential historical interest, including ridge and furrow, banks and ditches, and mounds. The majority of features were detected from visualisations derived from the LiDAR DTM, whereas the DEMs created from the UAV photogrammetric and terrestrial laser scan datasets defined fewer features with poorer definition.