Why Farming Matters to the South Downs Education Pack
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Why Farming Matters to the South Downs Education Pack - Key Stage 1 & 2 TOOLKIT www.bournemouth.ac.uk/caah/ landscapeandtownscapearchae ology/neolithic_flint_mines_of_ sussex.html The Neolithic Flint Mines of Sussex: Britain's Earliest Monuments - overview with pictures www.bignorromanvilla.co.uk Bignor Roman Villa www3.hants.gov.uk/museum.htm Guide to Hampshire museums and collections www.nationaltrail.co.uk/ The History of the South Downs Southdowns National Trails - The South There is evidence of people on the South Downs from as Downs Way long ago as the Paleolithic era (Old Stone Age). However, the www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/ earliest signs of occupation that can be seen today are from oswebsite/freefun/didyouknow/ placenames the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, around 6,000 years ago. Overview of history/meanings During this time, hunter-gatherer people another legacy - the heathland of the of place names with a place gave up hunting and started to farm to western Weald. It is the result of poor name search tool linked to provide their food. Large scale clearance acid soils being cleared for agriculture, Ordnance Survey map shop of woodland took place as grazing was and the land becoming impoverished [Teacher’s recommended provided for livestock and men created without the replacement of any reading: Oxford Dictionary of the first enclosed fields. These people nutrients. Communities of acid-loving English Place Names by A D were using stone tools, as this was plants took hold, making the habitat Mills, ISBN 0-19-283131-3] before the introduction of metal we see today. www.sussexpast.co.uk/propert technology, and so the traces of old flint ies-to-discover/the-long-man mines can be seen. The Iron Age peoples left majestic hillforts along the South Downs ridge. The Sussex Archaeological Bronze was introduced gradually Among the best examples are Old Society looks after The Long alongside flint from about 3,500 years Winchester Hill in Hampshire, Cissbury Man of Wilmington and other ago, while Iron first appeared on the Ring in West Sussex, the Devil’s Dyke monuments Downs 1,000 years or so later. The and Ditchling Beacon in East Sussex. www.sussexmuseums.co.uk Bronze Age peoples left notable Iron Age or "Celtic" field systems are Sussex Museums Group monuments across the landscape, also common. Hillforts were later used -weblinks to museums in Sussex especially ‘tumuli’ - burial mounds or as beacon sites by the Anglo-Saxons barrows. Many of these mounds never who lit fires on hilltops to warn their www.wealddown.co.uk contained any human bones, and those communities of invading tribes and The Weald and Downland Open that did almost always held only imminent danger. This tradition has Air Museum, Singleton, West cremated remains. Vast numbers were continued into modern times, notably Sussex has more than 45 plundered by Victorian treasure hunters, during the Napoleonic wars, and for historic houses and agricultural depriving later generations of valuable celebrations, marking historic occasions buildings dating from the 13th information that could have been such as the Royal Jubilees and the end century to Victorian times, obtained by modern archaeologists. of World War Two. rescued from destruction and Bronze Age men, though, also left rebuilt on site. 33 Why Farming Matters to the South Downs Education Pack - Key Stage 1 & 2 Bignor Roman villa, West Sussex The History of the South Downs (continued) Activity The Downs are littered with Roman villas By the medieval period people grew Look at a map of the area or farmsteads. Perhaps the best known arable crops and grazed sheep on the surrounding your school and is Bignor Roman villa in West Sussex Downs, and this has continued until encourage pupils to use the which was uncovered in 1811 by a farmer modern times. The ploughing of land in glossary of place names ploughing. Bignor lies near one of the recent centuries has been related to (overleaf) to work out the best known Roman roads across the good corn prices, with surges in demand meaning of place names nearby. Downs - Stane Street. Place names coming during the Napoleonic Wars, for around the Downs indicate the locations example. During periods of economic The place names may give you of Roman army camps such as depression, land would fall fallow again. clues about what was there in Winchester and Chichester, ‘- chester’ the past and what may still be being the Old English ‘ceaster’ coming World War Two saw large areas of the there. The names may also from the Roman ‘castra’ or ‘camp’. Downs used for military training, with describe how you would expect more and more land cultivated to feed the landscape to look and what In fact, the Downs show traces of all the nation. But the biggest changes types of farming activity may periods of history, ranging from the came afterwards. Mechanised have taken place and may still great white chalk figure at Wilmington agriculture, production-based subsidies, happen there. in East Sussex, known as The Long Man, and the extensive use of artificial whose origins mystify historians, to pesticides and fertilisers allowed the Pupils can write a description deserted medieval villages, a stark greatest cultivation of land ever seen. of what the area and the reminder of the Black Death. The steepest downland slopes are still landscape would have looked best suited to sheep grazing though! like to the early settlers, using words from the glossary. You may wish to visit a particular locality or a farm in the area to see how it looks today. Ask pupils to write a present day description, take photographs and even sketch the landscape. http://gridreferencefinder.com Insert postcode to find Ordnance Survey grid reference and view a map The Long Man, East Sussex 34 Why Farming Matters to the South Downs Education Pack - Key Stage 1 & 2 Investigating the history of your local area What’s in a place name? Many place names are derived from Glossary - The meaning of place names. We have also put place name endings with , the person or group of people who a ‘ – in front of the word eg –chester, -ham, -ton. first settled in the area. As such, most English place-names are Old English Barrow site of a mound or a burial -chester a place that was once a (Anglo-Saxon) and our ancestors chose mound, usually Bronze Age Roman walled town or a these names carefully to describe the Roman army camp people, the wildlife, or the countryside Beacon a hilltop (or high tower) where they lived. used for giving signs, Common an area of open land usually warning signals, commonly used by the In their earliest form, many place names by lighting a fire ordinary people who live indicated a place of settlement or there who have the right homestead such as a ‘farm’ or Bourne a stream to let their livestock ‘enclosure’ and referred to some sort of graze there habitation. These words were combined Bostal a narrow track leading up with a variety of other elements, the Downs, once used by Coombe a valley (usually a short or such as natural or man-made landscape people driving cattle or wide valley) features, to give more precise sheep to fields or to market information about a place. The names Copse a thicket of small trees Bottom the deepest or lowest part and bushes of natural or man-made features in the of a valley landscape tend to be older than those Cot/Cote a small hut, a cottage of settlements. Names were given to Bridge a structure crossing over a hills, valleys, wooded areas, settlement gap or barrier, such as a Croft a small field types together with plant and wildlife river or a deep valley, that names and, in some cases, personal allows people to get over it Dean a valley or names such as those of important (Dene ) a place in a valley Brook a stream smaller than a river chieftains or land-owners. Place names -den a grassy area in woodland, can help us create an image of a place Brooks meadows next to a river that often used by pigs; a valley besides giving information about its flood during winter. These likely size, status and possibly even lush grassy places were Down a gently rolling hill the activities practised by the grazed by cattle and then community there. Dyke a ditch, usually a deep cut for hay during summer ditch around a fort, or a The boundaries of today’s counties Brow the top edge of a steep ditch carrying water would be unrecognisable to the early place: the brow of a hill settlers. However, the place names they Edge the side of a steep slope have left us act as a time-capsule Bury originally (a place next to) a or hill revealing secrets of what the traveller fort or a village with a big Enclosure an area of land surrounded would have seen between 1,000 and fence by a fence 1,500 years ago. Butt/Butts site of mound(s) or burial End the outside edge or the far mound(s), usually Bronze Age side of a piece of land; Chase a place where hunting took a boundary place, a hunting ground Estate a large area of land with where rich men and even property/farms in the kings could hunt deer and countryside wild boar Farm an area of land used for producing food, with crops/and/or farm animals 35 Why Farming Matters to the South Downs Education Pack - Key Stage 1 & 2 Field an open area of land, Lea/Leigh/ a clearing, -stead a place, a fenced off but nowadays a fenced -ley a grassy area grassy place, a site area of land Lodge a small house in the Top the highest point, Firle a place covered with grounds of a country estate the peak of a hill oak trees or a park, often used by a caretaker or gatekeeper -ton a farmstead,