Living Landscapes - how to discover the ancient Cotswold landscape

Mark Horton on reading the hidden landscapes beneath the Cotswolds

Professor Mark Horton — landscape archaeologist, RAU Pro Vice-Chancellor, and familiar to many from Time Team, Coast and a decade of BBC archaeology programmes — gives the second talk in the RAU's Living Landscapes public series on 15 July. The subject: how to read landscapes that no longer exist in their original form.

The talk runs from the basics — humps and bumps in a field, antiquarian maps, the trained eye — through to LiDAR scanning, aerial photography and drone survey. Horton draws on work spanning the 1990s to the present, showing how traces of past environments survive in the landscape as it exists today, and what they reveal about how people shaped, and were shaped by, the land they farmed.

Arrival and refreshments from 6:15pm. Talk runs 6:30pm to 7:30pm, followed by a Q&A until 8pm. Free parking at the RAU campus. Bar on site, card only.

Wednesday 15 July 2026 · The Alliston Centre, Stroud Road, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 6JR · From 6:15pm