Oosthuizen-2002-Landscape-History
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Medieval greens and moats in the Central Province: Evidence from the Bourn Valley, Cambridgeshire Susan Oosthuizen ABSTRACT Province, whose predominantly arable countryside is characterised by nucleated Tbis paper considers the evidence, and some settlement and is more or less coincident with explanations, for the suroival into the nineteenth Rackham's 'planned' landscapes (Roberts & century of large, apparently Anglo-Saxon, Wrathmell 2000, p. 3). In their view, each of 'the greens, commons and of moated sites, provinces can be defined in terms of particular traditionally associated with 'ancient' and distinctive associations of landscape landscapes, in west Cambridgeshire, an area of elements' (ibid., p. 39). classic two- and three-field common field This work was based on an analysis of the arrangements. distribution of dispersed and nucleated settlement in England, and may indicate a more KEYWORDS complex result than simply a subdivision into three distinctive provinces. In their opinion, Greens, commons, medieval, Cambridgeshire 'each province is made up of smaller regions or zones, termed sub-provinces, in turn characterised by associations of elements which, INTRODUCTION while in general broad accord with those expected for the province, nevertheless differ in Recent work by Professor Brian Roberts and Dr some proportions' (ibid.). And each sub- Stuart Wrathmell appears to have confirmed province is further divided into local regions, Rackham's division of England into 'ancient' and each with distinguishing qualities. The defining 'planned' landscapes. Their careful analysis of characteristics of the 'champion' landscapes of the distribution of nucleated and dispersed the East Midlands sub-province and the 'ancient' settlement has led them to propose the division landscapes of East Anglian sub-province - of lowland England into three provinces: the those with the most relevance to this discussion South-Eastern, and the Northern and Western of part of west Cambridgeshire - are Provinces, roughly conforming to Rackham's summarised in Table 1. Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 12:03 01 March 2013 areas of 'ancient' landscape; and the Central TABLE 1. LOCALISED CHARACfERISTICS OF 'ANCIENT' AND 'CHAMPION' LANDSCAPES (ROBERTS & WRATHMELL 2000, pp. 41-2, 50) Anglian sub-province Central East Midland sub-province (part of South-Eastern Province) (part of Central Province) Definitive characteristics • Nucleations Lower densities High densities • Dispersed settlement Medium to high densities Low to very low densities • Deserted villages Not generally significant Thick clusters, esp. in the north • Moated sites Plentiful on central and Few in the north, but high numbers southern clays in the south are more characteristic of the SE Province • Greens and green settlements Significant numbers Apparently few Associated features • Field systems Fragmented and irregular Regular two- and three-field systems 74 LANDSCAPE HISTORY It seems that huge greens - occasionally up settlement at, for example, Croydon, Litlington to 100 acres in extent - were also a prominent and Caxton, while settlement on or around element in the south Cambridgeshire landscape others might be the result of post-Conquest before Parliamentary enclosure. In many places settlement mobility as at Borough Green, Weston a small, residual, open space - the relic of a Colville and Haslingfield (ibid.). very large, often irregular, common or green - The definition of, and distinction between, has survived near the centre of many settlements commons and greens can be problematic, to into the present century. There are examples of the extent that 'the whole question of defining these residual greens at Comberton, Harlton and a "green" remains a troubled one' (Roberts Haslingfield in the Bourn Valley, just west of 1989, p. 186). The terms are often used inter- Cambridge. changeably in the literature, but some attempts These large greens are usually interpreted as at definition have been attempted. Rackham one of the defining medieval and post-medieval implies that greens are both smaller than features of 'ancient' landscapes as opposed to commons and generally more 'embedded' in those of the Central Province (Rackham 1986, settlement: p. 343). This attribution seems to be borne out by recent research, which shows that place- Typical of East Anglia is the green up to half a names with the element 'green' are not generally mile wide, grazed by horses and cattle, its long found in the Central Province, but are grass brilliant with cowslip, meadow saxifrage, particularly characteristic of the 'ancient' hay-rattle, cuckoo-flower, and green-winged countryside of the South-Eastern Province orchis; scattered around its edges are ancient (Roberts & Wrathmell 2000, p. 38). It is not houses half-hidden in trees (Rackham 1986, pp. surprising that greens and commons should 343-4). generally be regarded as a feature of 'ancient' landscapes. Their existence is at variance both This description is difficult to use in any way with the geography of common field townships, as a definition since greens and commons can in which up to 90 per cent of the land lay under range in size from just an acre or two to over 900 the plough, leaving little available for common acres, and more quantification is necessary to grazing, and with the system of common field make a clear distinction (Dymond & Martin 1988, agriculture, which supplanted large commons p. 62). Other researchers have used the 1965 with grazing on the fallow field. Their survival in Commons Registration Act which defines 'champion' south Cambridgeshire, where commons and greens in terms of their use: common field agriculture was well established, is commons are land subject to the wide variety of therefore apparently anomalous. common rights, while greens are large open Also present in the Bourn Valley are moated areas used for leisure or recreation (ibid., p. 199, sites situated at least 1 kilometre away from the n. 1). It is not easy to substantiate the validity of nucleated settlement of the township, and these this distinction in the Bourn Valley in the Anglo- too are believed to be an index of 'ancient' Saxon and/or medieval periods since there is no landscape (Table 1 and Fig. 3). This paper evidence on which such differentiation might be examines the evidence for greens and dispersed based, nor is it known to this author whether a settlement within the 'champion' landscape of study of the distribution of 'common' and 'green' the Bourn Valley in particular and south names might reveal regional variations which Cambridgeshire in general, and possible reasons might in turn suggest whether the difference Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 12:03 01 March 2013 for their survival. between the two might be linguistic rather than functional. The present study distinguishes between GREENS AND COMMONS: DEFINITIONS commons and greens only in terms of their relationship with settlement, and then only in Greens and commons in south Cambridgeshire parochial terms: in the Bourn Valley, greens, exhibit a bewildering variety, ranging in form whether formal or informal, seem usually to be between the extremes of planned settlements associated with nucleated settlement, while similar to those in the north of England and commons are generally located at a distance irregular greens like those on the Suffolk clays. from such settlement. It is important to note that Some appear to be part of planned village this distinction is unlikely to be sustainable 'landscapes, as at Kingston, Eltisley and Reach. further afield. Some are peripheral to settlement, and may be Greens and commons in the valley have been relics of much larger areas, like those at identified by a number of characteristics, apart, Whaddon, Bassingbourn and Comberton of course, from identifying place-names like (Oosthuizen 1994 and 2002). In yet other 'Green', 'Common' or 'End'. Many have a examples, manorial expansion onto earlier characteristic 'irregular concave outline 'waste' - the physical expression of the frequent funnelling out into the roads which cross the subinfeudation of Cambridgeshire manors after common' (Rackham 1986, p. 343). Settlement 1100 - may have led to the green-side often lies at the intersection between the MEDIEVAL GREENS AND MOATS IN THE CENTRAL PROVINCE 75 commons and the arable fields, as, for example, exception of Comberton Offal, all the examples at Haslingfield (ibid., p. 344). They are often in the study area are located on the relatively flat wholly or substantially bounded by roads, tracks valley bottom south of the Bourn Brook where or other rights of way, and property boundaries the combination of Gault Clay, a spring line within them are often irregular, denoting produced by the proximity of higher Middle piecemeal encroachment, as at Harlton. Roberts Chalk deposits overlying the Gault, and very has identified as a particular form of green those gradual relief meant that this area was difficult to that are linked 'by a web of grass road verges drain and to plough. These areas of pasture and footpaths' (1989, pp. 158, 194). Although his seem to be divided into two categories, whose example demonstrates this principle within an significance is not fully understood: those called agglomerated settlement, the principle is also greens, commons or other names indicating viable on a larger scale, linking the greens and pasture, and those called 'Offal' or 'Offil' of commons of one township with those of its which there are examples at Haslingfield, neighbours. It is possible that many of the Harlton, Eversden and Comberton. commons of the Bourn Valley were part of such Almost all the greens and commons a network. There is little evidence in the valley described below were lost in the process of of the 'curving estate boundaries [of demesne Parliamentary enclosure. This account begins by farm estates which] may well have been formed describing evidence from Haslingfield and in the middle to late Saxon period' that are Harlton, before moving west to examine occasionally found in relation to commons in evidence from Little and Great Eversden, and Suffolk and other parts of Cambridgeshire north to Comberton (Fig.