Historic Environment Character Area Overviews for Stafford This
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Appendix 2: Historic Environment Character Area Overviews for Stafford This appendix provides an overview of the historic environment for each of the Historic Environment Character Areas (HECAs) within Stafford Borough. It should be noted that the information and any recommendations contained within this appendix is subject to amendment should any new information become available. For further information regarding the Historic Environment Record (HER); Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) and designated sites please contact: Cultural Environment Team Environment & Countryside Development Services Directorate Staffordshire County Council Riverway Stafford ST16 3TJ Tel: 01785 277281/277285/277290 Email: [email protected] Staffordshire County Council June 2009 1 Historic Environment Character Area (HECA) 5b Introduction This document forms an overview of the HECA which specifically addresses the potential of medium to large scale development to impact upon the historic environment. The character area is dominated by 20th century housing development and field systems. Evidence of earlier farming practices and settlement do survive across the character area in the form of ridge and furrow earthworks, late medieval/post medieval field systems, moated sites and historic farmsteads. Earlier activity has been recorded in the character area in the form of the hillfort at Berry Ring and evidence for prehistoric to Roman settlement at Acton Trussell. Such sites suggest the potential for further unknown archaeological deposits to survive across the HECA. The character area covers 3,056ha and is split between Stafford Borough Council, to the north, and South Staffordshire Council to the south. Archaeological and historic documentation A number of archaeological assessments were carried out in the early 1990s for proposed large scale development. A few archaeological interventions have been carried out as part of the planning system. A programme of archaeological excavations has been carried out since 1985 upon the Roman villa site at Acton Trussell. The results of these archaeological works and other archaeological information are recorded on the Historic Environment Record (HER) held by Staffordshire County Council. Two volumes of the Victoria County Histories series for Staffordshire, researched in the 1950s, cover most of the settlements across the character area. Historic Environment Assets Summary The current understanding of the later prehistoric landscape of England suggests that it had mostly been heavily wooded until the Bronze Age. Some clearance may have begun to take place by this period to support a small scale pastoral economy when humans were settling down to farm specific landscapes. There is some evidence for human activity during the Neolithic and Bronze Age within the character area. However, these mostly relate to finds of tools such as the Neolithic axe found in the parish of Castle Church, Stafford and the Bronze Age spearhead found near Berry Ring1. Such finds probably represent casual loss and do not add to our understanding of what activities were being carried out in the Neolithic and Bronze Age within the character area. 1 Staffordshire HER: PRN 02741 and PRN 01787 2 A burnt mound2 was discovered during excavations on the site of a Roman villa in the church yard at Acton Trussell. Burnt Mounds have generally been dated to the Bronze Age and although their function has been widely debated this evidence adds a further dimension to our understanding of human activity around the site of the church at Acton Trussell during the prehistoric and Roman periods. Neolithic and Bronze Age finds have also been recovered. Human activity from the Iron Age has also been identified in the in the form of several ditches or gullies and a shallow ditched enclosure which have been dated from the associated pottery assemblage. The evidence perhaps suggests continuous domestic and agricultural activity on this site certainly from the Iron Age, but possibly earlier through to the Roman period. The Scheduled Berry Ring hillfort, to the north of the character area, represents one of the most iconic monuments associated with the Iron Age3. This defended site provided protection for local residents, functioned as a store for produce including grain and livestock and may have served as a marketplace and focus for feasting. This would suggest a well developed agrarian landscape and an organised community within this HECA capable of constructing and maintaining a significant defensive earthwork and typified by dispersed farmsteads, open fields and formal field boundaries. The site at Acton Trussell may represent one such farmstead. The Roman villa4 at Acton Trussell clearly has an earlier precursor and this site may represent the Romanisation of a pre-existing British family rather than new settlers. Several phases for the development of the villa have been identified; the last dated work being the re-construction of a wing in c. AD340. Later activity has been identified, but this has not currently been dated. Further evidence for wider occupation of the landscape during the Roman period has been discovered adjacent to Hill Farm (see HECA 14d). Evidence for human activity in the Saxon period almost exclusively comes from references to entries in Domesday Book (1086). Seven surviving settlements were recorded two of which were included in the account for the manor of Bradley (see HECA 5c). The remaining five had between two and eighteen heads of household and were recorded with plough lands suggesting arable cultivation was being carried out. This hypothesis is supported at Acton Trussell by the presence of a mill. By the late medieval period much of the character area formed open fields5, which were probably farmed by the inhabitants of these scattered settlements. This pattern of arable agriculture, 2 Burnt mound: A mound of fire-cracked stones, normally accompanied by a trough or pit which may have been lined with wood, stone or clay. Assumed to be locations where heated stones were used to boil water primarily for cooking purposes. (Scope note reproduced from the Thesaurus of Monument Types by kind permission of English Heritage © 2009). However, other interpretations of their function have included the idea that they were used as a form of sauna or ‘sweating lodge’. 3 Staffordshire HER: PRN 00024; English Heritage SM no. 21588 4 Staffordshire HER: PRN 04003 5 Open Field: An area of arable land with common rights after harvest or while fallow. Usually without internal divisions (hedges, walls or fences). (Scope note reproduced from the Thesaurus of Monument Types by kind permission of English Heritage © 2009) 3 where two or more large fields were divided into individual strips whereby the local people held scattered strips among them, was probably in place by the late Saxon period. The population count for these places in Domesday Book does not imply large settlements. Baswich, which is recorded as having two villagers and a priest, had the lowest population count, was the centre of a manor and the settlement of Walton-on-the-Hill belonged to it. The presence of the priest suggests that a church probably existed at Baswich prior to the Norman Conquest (1066). This evidence appears to be confirmed by two capitals in the chancel arch of the existing Holy Trinity church at Baswich, which have been tentatively dated to the second half of the 11th century. It is likely that St James’ church at Acton Trussell, which has been dated to c.1300, was established as a chapel of ease6 to the church at Baswich. St Lawrence’s church at Coppenhall, dating to the 13th century, belonged to the church at Penkridge by 1267. A further two chapels of ease are known from documentary sources, at Derrington and Billington, but these have since disappeared. Five medieval moats exist within the character area, three of them, Littywood, Acton Trussell and Hyde Lea, have been designated as Scheduled Monuments. Three of the moats are known to have been the seats of the lords of the manor of Burton, Acton Trussell and Littywood. The moat platform at Acton Trussell is believed to date to the 12th or 13th century, although the surviving buildings, which now form a hotel, were constructed in the 15th/16th century, followed by extensions in the 18th and 21st centuries7. The earliest part of the farmhouse at Littywood dates to c.1400 and was constructed as an open hall house, it has been substantially altered in the following centuries, principally in the later 16th century8. The most unusual aspect of this double moated site is that the moats are circular. Little is currently known about the history of the moat at Stallbrook Hall, but it is possible that this may have originated as a homestead, rather than as a manor house. A 17th century timber framed farmhouse survives within the moat9. The fifth moated site lies at Hyde Lea10 and is associated with two fishponds, one of which lies in Drumble wood11. Field name and documentary evidence also suggests that the site was associated with a deer park and is therefore likely to represent the manor house of The Hyde which had been created by the mid 12th century12. Archaeological excavation on the site suggested that the moat dated to the 13th or 14th century. How far the settlements and the arable open fields expanded and contracted over the period of the medieval period is not currently known. Further 6 Chapel of ease: A church built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently. (Scope note reproduced from the Thesaurus of Monument Types by kind permission of English Heritage © 2009) 7 Staffordshire HER: PRN 01020 and 50031; English Heritage SM no. 21519 8 Staffordshire HER: PRN 00056 and PRN 00057; English Heritage SM no. 22435 9 Staffordshire HER: PRN 00799 and PRN 08153 10 Staffordshire HER: PRN 00791; English Heritage SM no.