SEND US YOUR OLD PHOTOS
How snapshots could help save historic sites
IT is responsible for hundreds of ancient sites spanning thousands of years.
Now Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is keeping track of the state of the country’s castles and monuments by asking visitors to send photos alerting it to any damage – especially at smaller, remote or unstaffed sites.
Researchers can then examine them for signs of potential damage such as decolouration, algae growth, water damage, vandalism and littering.
The project is running at 21 HES sites, including Kilmartin Glen in Argyll, Caerlaverock Castle in Dumfriesshire, the Ness of Burgi on Shetland, the Machrie Moor Stone Circles on Arran and the Maiden Stone near Inverurie, Aberdeenshire.
Since launching in May, the project has received 1,700 submissions from more than 300 people. It has already helped alert HES to littering at Loch Doon and vandalism at Machrie Moor.
The collaboration between HES and University College London’s Institute of Sustainable Heritage is being managed by UCL PhD researcher Rosie Brigham.
She said: ‘It makes perfect sense to use visitors’ images to assist with conservation – our heritage sites are so photogenic. We picked the sites we did because we felt they were the ones we’d get good data from. Ideally, we’d like to expand to as many as possible.’
‘We are ascertaining what data we can use from crowd-sourced images. Then we will employ artificial intelligence to make the process automatic.’
Visitors are encouraged to take photographs at Special Monument Monitor signs at the sites and send them to HES. The project will run until next spring.