The survey was undertaken using a hand carried magnetometer system deploying five Sensys FGM650/10 sensors mounted at 1m intervals (1m traverse interval) onto a rigid carbon-fibre frame. The system was programmed to take readings at a frequency of 100Hz (allowing for a 1-2cm sample interval) on roaming traverses (swaths) 4m apart. These readings were stored on an external weatherproof laptop and later downloaded for processing and interpretation. The system was linked to a Leica GS18 Real Time Kinetic (RTK) differential Global Positioning System (dGPS) outputting in NMEA mode to ensure a high positional accuracy for each data point. MonMX (Sensys Ltd) software was used to collect and export the data. Anomaly GeoSurvey v1.12.3 (Lichenstone Geoscience) and QGIS v.3.34.6 software was used to process and present the data respectively. The survey has recorded anomalies mainly due to post-medieval and modern agricultural activity: boundary removal, ploughing, and drainage. Most of the remainder are of natural (geological) or modern origin. Several anomalies of uncertain origin have also been recorded, although given the absence of any evidence to support an archaeological interpretation all are considered more likely to be of natural or modern origin. No anomalies of obvious archaeological potential have been identified by the survey. The magnitude and resolution of the anomalies allied with the lack of any superficial deposits suggests that there was likely sufficient magnetic contrast, for the detection of sub-surface archaeological features, if present, notwithstanding the limitations of magnetometer survey to identify certain types, sizes and periods of archaeological features. It is therefore considered that the results give a good indication of the archaeological potential of the site and therefore that, based solely on the results of the survey, the archaeological potential of the site is assessed as low.
Ross Bishop (Wed,) studied this question.