A RALLYING call has gone out to Solihull drone owners to take advantage of the summer heatwave in a bid discover the secrets of the borough and surrounding areas.
The foundations of historic sites across the UK have become exposed in scorched grasses as fields and gardens dry up.
Outlines of a first century town, a ‘ghost garden’ from the 1850s and an undiscovered Roman site are all appearing across the British countryside.
Elsewhere in Northern Ireland the hot weather has caused the water level in a local reservoir to drop, revealing a road usually submerged.
As Britain basks in the longest heatwave since 1976, the nation’s normally luscious green landscape has given up some hidden gems and led to calls for drone owners to send their machines into the borough’s skies to potentially discover more about the area’s heritage.
Ian Barnes, head of archaeology for the National Trust, said: “Parch marks are a result of vegetation growing in thin soil over buried archaeological features, such as stone walls, becoming stressed in times of drought as there is less depth of soil to retain moisture.
“This results in the vegetation being a lighter colour than the more healthy plants on the surrounding deeper soil.
“This differential health of the vegetation when seen from above reflects the pattern of near surface archaeological features and allows the outlines of long-gone buildings and other features to be mapped,” he added.
