Pottering about on the NLS pics I have come across a crosshatched area  SW of Sanquhar.  Clearly it is an area that has been censored but I cannot find any modern aerial pics that cover the area in any detail.  It appears to be an empty field.

Coordinates - (:gma-point lat=55.3541841 lon=-3.9600563

Anyone have any suggestions?

Is it not just ploughing?

I don't think so, part of RAF Greenock has the same treatment.   I am fairly sure it has been obliterated because it was a live site in the 1950s.

Can you include the rest of the coordinate details please?

The second line gives the NGR, which is what NLS and Canmore thrive on, and it means we can go straight to the point in any of their offerings.

Took me a while to get a look at this - the NLS map kept crashing every time I got close to looking at it, and telling me it had informed their Admin too.

Referring to the scale suggested by the width of the lines, it looks like 8 metres between them, and the light colour, ploughing would seem unlikely, but if you look at the 1930s background, a gravel pit is referred to, and this could be workings resulting from that.

The scaling is very rough though, as the pics aren't sharp enough (and can't be spun around to align with the scale) but it does look as if the distance between them is similar at Greenock (yes, my eyes are getting better - I can actually see a detail ), about 8 metres, but they look much more like simple ground features there, rather than something penned over detail to hide. They look almost like wear patterns from movements over the ground.

Do you mean this area?

That's the one.

You'll find a similar, but greyer, patch on the area of Battery Park, where RAF Greenock was located.

I hope that's the same one The Fox mentioned - it's the one I can see anyway

(All the modern maps can be found in the links in the Secret Scotland - Map Sandbox for the next few hours.)

Your wish is my command.

(:mlat:55.3538913(:mlon:-3.9606571(:mngr6:NS757084

Of course this may be a red herring but on the otherhand it might be a lost and forgotten site.

There is nothing on the Canny mapping at this point.

It looks very like the effect one sees when deep ploughing was used to lay field drains to improve the ground for cultivation. The thicker lines being broader pipes to carry away the water. If ground is subsequently not ploughed much it develops characteristic humps and troughs over time - enough to show in a current day long shadow view.
LeNav

Indeed, in fact medieval ridge and furrow ploughing still shows up on modern aerial pics.   If you have a look at http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/e.....tery/  you can see traces of it in places showing up as parallel lines on the ground.  

Having looked at several of the NLS maps quite closely I am suspicious of any strange effects as the aerial pics have been adulterated quite a lot by the OS.   It is of course only the fairly recent maps which have included any defense installations.  For many years the area of the ROF at Bishopton was shown as a huge expanse of open moorland.   Tough on anyone who had planned a stroll across it.

Bishopton only appeared on OS maps after 2002

Have you considered the apparent distance between the ridges - approximately 6-7 metres or some 20 feet or so:



This may be the source of the old stories about the giant horses used to pull ploughs down there, reputedly two storeys and more high (sorry, couldn'r resist after the picture flashed up )

I've never seen a ploughing result in white lines. Turning over sod at the depth of a plough just results in earth being exposed, for cultivation. If anyone saw something white, they'd give up ploughing, as the field would be useless. If they were turning up a white deposit, presumably mineral, they'd need more than a plough - even one the separation between those ridge suggests, to get down that far - and in 1940, they wouldn't have had anything powerful enough to pull it.

I'd rather go with some system being used to hide quarry waste (or even some sort of open quarry, I can't find any details ) - the separation is of the right order to have trucks or similar dumping spoil - or even some sort of ditches to take liquid spill, and bury it (in pre-environmental concern days of course )

Anything is possible, except for the giant horses.  Methinks you have been reading too much Harry Potter.

Quoted from Apollo

Have you considered the apparent distance between the ridges - approximately 6-7 metres or some 20 feet or so:

You obviously need to borrow a Wild A5!

Disturbed ground often shows up as white or certainly very light grey.  Just looking through some of the wartime aerials in Evidence in Camera.  That was how I found the WWII experimental chicken farm near Oban by all the disturbed ground in the aerial photographs though I had not idea what it was until told.

MB

I have noticed the white colour of the disturbed ground.   This seems very surprising as you would generally expect it to be more damp and hence darker.   Do you think they have been using infra red or is it a feature of the old panchromatic film?

I don't think they normally used IR film but I wonder if they had chosen the film type to show up disturbed ground because it was obviously of great importance when surveying enemy territory which is what they did most of the time.

From other sources, IR film was used to penetrate camouflage netting.

It is also possible that simple colour filters may have been used - in any event, being a B&W shot, the references to black, white, and all shades of grey in between are not absolute, as certain colours can react very differently to normal B&W film, and the results can be even stranger if colour filters, let alone IR film is used, so we may be looking at something that would be quite different if we were looking at it "for real".

Regardless, I have good news, and it suggests this is a ground feature of some sort, rather than editing

And guess what?

It's also stuck on to the side of a quarry!

Look at NS583154

Also, just noticed in passing, a very nice, neat, water-filled circle at NS610162 - with what would seem to be a similar enclosure marked to the northwest.

There seems to be faded remains of similar activity in an north-south direction slighly to the east in the aerial picture.

In 1940s deep ploughing for drainage would be undertaken by a pair of agricultural steam engines winching a mole plough back and forwards. One of these engines can easily move a fully laden modern eight-wheeler - all-be-it at walking pace. Another agricultural activity of the time was applying lime to fields. This would be dropped in a line out the back of a trailer, and then ploughed in at right angles. The spacing between lines is about right, but the density of the lines, and their straightness, on the image seems too clear.  Maybe the IR/black-and-white film effect though.

There are similar sized circular areas close by at NS586148 and NS571102; and a "depot" to north west of crossroads at Benston Smithy. Maybe nothing more in this than canny farmers using minimum length of fencing to enclose maximum area to tightly enclose stock - but seem to do it in odd places.
Navigator