The Aerial Photography of Ad Gefrin and Milfield

On Saturday we hosted an archaeology student from Durham University, Tom Brash, who was keen to do some aerial photography to support his dissertation on Yeavering. One of our tug drivers, who also studied at Durham, took Tom up in the SuperCub so he could photograph the sites of interest. 

The project is described by Tom:

Summary
The modern hamlet of Old Yeavering below Yeavering bell is named after an early medieval township. Originally called Ad Gefrin it was the royal seat of Edwin who was an exiled Anglo-Saxon nobleman, in AD 627 he returned to Yeavering and brought with him a Roman priest Paulinus. The chronicler Bede describes how Paulinus stayed at Gefrin for 26 days baptising the pagan locals in the nearby river Glen. Edwin was killed in battle by pagans, and after his death Gefrin was abandoned in favour of a new town at Milfield. Today all that remains of Edwin's royal palace at Yeavering and the town at Milfield are crop marks which can only be seen from the air. 

The Project
This project which will form  the core of my dissertation aims to gather as many of the aerial photographs of  Yeavering as possible then analyse and map all of the features that are visible. The crop marks  are most visible during long dry periods. The site was first discovered in the summer of 1949 when the strange marks were first seen from the air.

I am also using Near Infra-red photography which captures pictures beyond the visible spectrum and can reveal all sorts of interesting features. For more information on the site visit the Gefrin trusts website at:



This photograph was taken in 1949 by an inquisitive RAF pilot (above). This is a map of the buildings at Gefrin many of which can be seen from the air (below).


Some photographs from the flight.