I found a trench in Kent...

[Trav]

Well... I found it accidentally whilst wandering and then did some reading to discover that I wasn't the first person to uncover this

 

1.5km long apparently but sources vary in opinon as to whether it's a "WW1 dated stopline trench" http://shornewoodsarchaeology.co.uk/world-war-one-stopline-trench-system-revealed-lidar-whitehorse-wood-birling or a "WWII inland Stopline" https://historicengland.org.uk/content/docs/research/fww-fieldworks-gazetteer-pdf/

 

The area isn't covered using Lidar mapping from my usual source https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map but it is covered by another Lidar survey, a photo of which can be found here: http://www.dfok.co.uk/content/TheNiche/Jan2014/html/mapping_news.html (and attached to this thread).

 

Google Earth from 1940 clearly shows the trench, and I have attached a snippet upon which one can see the trench running laterally across the image. There was indeed a WWII camp here, Wrotham OCTU, that much is certain, but is the trench from that period, or was the camp built around an earlier, existing training area / defensive position?

 

Has anyone any knowledge of this trench?

 

(Another unseen source: Mayfield, A. 2016. Research notes: World War One stopline trench system revealed by lidar in Whitehorse Wood, Birling. In: Archaeologia Cantiana, vol. 137, pp.304-306.)

 

 

 

[Guest]

That LIDAR image really demonstrates its power to discover features otherwise hidden from the air. It’s beautiful! Given how the Second World War camp is woven over the top of the trench reinforces my view that it is from the earlier conflict and it was merely an inconvenience to the later occupants.