An aerial relic of O.G.S. Crawford

A manuscript scroll preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, proves to be the log from the first in a series of flights undertaken by O.G.S. Crawford (1886-1957) in association with Alexander Keiller (1889-1955), which ultimately resulted in publication of their classic volume, Wessex from the Air (1928), a key work in the history of archaeological aerial photography. The roller-board on which the scroll is mounted proves equally interesting, being a cavalryman's mapping board of a type in use from the 1870s to the late 1920s. These items are placed in their respective historical contexts and an explanation is offered for their seemingly improbable conjunction.