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Taking a view on the past. Andy Burnham describes how contributors to the Megalithic Portal website created a map of over a thousand prehistoric and ancient sites visible from the roadside in Google Street View.
The Megalithic Portal database began some 12 years ago from my research into information on megaliths and prehistoric sites that was springing up all over the web. It was given an early boost by Aubrey Burl, who kindly allowed use of his location data for stone circles and rows. Over the years we have added megalithic sites of all sorts, and also cursus monuments, timber circles, holy wells, early Christian crosses and Pictish symbol stones. Web visitors can add their own locations and photos: this has proven wildly successful, and we now have over 50,000 sites listed worldwide.
Once a monument is in our web database, we can create links to other websites such as Defra's MAGIC Map, aerial views and now on-page Ordnance Survey maps thanks to its recent open data initiative. The Megalithic Portal software also locates images of the surrounding area from such sources as Geograph, Panoramio and Flickr.
Earlier in the year I was browsing our site listings in central London, and realised you could see the London Stone in Cannon Street on Google's Street View. I was intrigued by the possibilities: but there are few ancient sites in the urban areas that were covered at the time, so that was as far as the idea went. Then on 11 March, Google extended its Street View coverage to include 95% of UK roads. While most of the media reporting focussed on burglars using the service to plan crimes, or people caught fighting, I knew there was something useful we could do with this new technology.
Like many I had a quick look round my local area on Street View – and breathed a sigh of relief that shadow hid the unkempt hedge at my house. Then remembering the London Stone, I realised we could use the Megalithic Portal's database to pinpoint ancient sites all over the UK. We already had links from each of our site listings to maps of the local area, so it was a case of finding which sites might be visible from the road, then "teleporting" down, as it were, to within a few tens or hundreds of metres of each location and having a closer look.
I was soon hooked, driving up and down on the computer looking for ancient sites. I set up a competition to see who could find the most sites on Street View, as I was sure there must be many hundreds visible. My challenge was taken up enthusiastically, and not just in the UK. For Steve Watson distance has been no barrier to taking part. "I've been amazed how many sites are visible", he wrote from Australia, "I've managed to find some in France as well, Champ Dolent Menhir was a captivating find for me".
Amanda Gough from Cardiff is one of our keenest volunteers. "People probably don't realise they are driving or walking past ancient monuments on a regular basis", she says. "This gives you an idea just how many are still visible and waiting to be discovered."
Working together, in the four weeks of April we found over 1,000 ancient sites visible from the roadside. At the time of writing we are up to 655 in England, 352 in Scotland, 207 in Wales and 34 in Northern Ireland.
Our Street View discoveries are mapped on the website. From a country you can narrow down by county and type of site using drop-down selection boxes. A click on the coloured icons brings up a text link to each Street View page. You can change country via the selection box at the top to show Street View sights we have found in the UK, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy and (36 to date) the US.
Andy Burnham is founder of the Megalithic Portal. Links to a selection of Google Street Views can be found here:
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba113/ontheweb.shtml
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