by Rhona Pinkerton

Previously uncharted medieval landscapes are being unearthed in The Weald Forest Ridge.

Specialist technology has been used to effectively see through the trees in this heavily wooded area that stretches across parts of West Kent by Tunbridge Wells and into Sussex.

A grant of £90,000 from English Heritage has enabled the Historic Environment Awareness Project to go ahead.

Experts used a scheme called LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) on board an aircraft that flew over the area and photographed the landscape below. This technology uses lasers to filter out the tree cover so that a three-dimensional image of the ground can be produced.

It means archaeologists, local residents and visitors can now see what is beneath the forests and hopefully discover previously unknown ancient roadways and earthworks.

Paul Roberts, English Heritage Inspector of Ancient Monuments in the South East said: "LiDAR is a fantastic modern tool that allows us to explore areas that have been very difficult to survey for archaeological remains in the past and we expect to discover a landscape that is wonderfully rich."

Historic Environment Awareness Officer for the project, Lyn Palmer said: "I shall be working with lots of different groups, people who own a woodland, people who walk their dogs through a particular wood, so that we can identify and record all these exciting new discoveries."

Hear more from Lyn Palmer here

The project is being launched at the Bowling Green in Calverley Grounds on Sunday in conjunction with the Tunbridge Wells Mela.