Cartographic, Geophysical and Diver Surveys of the Medieval Town Site at Dunwich, Suffolk, England

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an integrated historical and geophysical survey of a medieval town lost through cliff recession and coastal inundation. Key objectives included evaluating historic maps in supporting the relocation and identification of major buildings, and applying integrated multibeam, side‐scan and sub‐bottom profiling to determine the location and extent of archaeological remains. The results demonstrate that cartographic sources from 1587 onwards can be a reliable source of data to guide geophysical survey. Integration of historical mapping with geophysical data enabled identification of the remains of two medieval structures, and the tentative identification of two others.

© 2010 The Authors

Key words:

• geophysical survey
• Dunwich
• medieval
• multibeam
• side‐scan

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (Grant 2411) and English Heritage Maritime Division (Grants 5546 and 5825) in particular Peter Murphy and Ian Oxley. We would also like to thank George Spence, Andy Spence, Kevin Spence, Duncan Coles, and Andy Rose of Historic Wreck Recovery; Dr Justin Dix, School of Ocean & Earth Sciences, University of Southampton, for advice on sub‐bottom profiling; Chris Hill from Geodata; Pam Baldaro and Alex Kent for cartographic work, Adam Cross, Ed Hendon and Richard Cooke of EMU Ltd for hydrographic and geophysical survey; and all those from Dunwich Museum for enthusiastic support and space. For more detail about the project see http://www.Dunwich.org.uk.