The western half of Herefordshire was overrun by a glacier near the end of the last ice age around 20,000 years ago.
The western half of Herefordshire was overrun by a glacier near the end of the last ice age around 20,000 years ago. The impacts on the landscape of this glaciation and its aftermath have been profound, even though they are less easy to see on the ground than the effects in mountainous regions. Field photographs of the landscape are effectively complemented by detailed topographic images from aerial LIDAR scanning which were prepared for a Lottery-funded project on Herefordshire's Ice Age Ponds. The LIDAR images make the landscape come alive and help to show the sequence of events including the circumstances giving rise to ponds, which continue to the present day as hotspots in biodiversity. Examples will be drawn from several areas including the profound changes to the course of the River Wye which, for example, used to run through the village of Staunton-on-Wye, but now occupies its floodplain below the village.