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047-120 section 2.qxd 6/21/05 4:19 PM Page 81 (Bond 1991). The hundred extended from Biddesden in Chute Forest to below Durnford in the Avon Valley, and eastwards to the Hampshire border (Thorn and Thorn 1979). It is assumed that smaller settlements must have been developing in the countryside surrounding Amesbury, probably along the Avon and Till valleys in situations that later became the villages still familiar in today’s landscape (see McOmish et al. 2002, figure 5.2 for the Avon Valley). Certainly, the majority of the present settlements are mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086. Parish units must also have been established in this period, in many cases utilizing prehistoric barrow cemeteries and indeed individual barrows as boundary markers and alignments (Bonney 1976). To what extent the existing later prehistoric and Romano-British fieldsystems continued in use, or were abandoned, is not known. LATER MEDIEVAL (AD 1100–1500) The later medieval period sees the continuing importance of the crown and the church as formative agents in the development of the towns and the countryside alike. Castles, palaces, churches, monasteries, towns, villages, hamlets, and farmsteads form elements in a complicated Illustration 58 Anglo-Saxon and contemporary kingdoms in southern Britain. [Based on Hill 1981, figure 42.] Illustration 59 Amesbury. Plan of the modern town showing the position and extent of early features and principal excavations. [Sources: various.] 81
047-120 section 2.qxd 6/21/05 4:19 PM Page 82 Table 3 Later medieval settlements and hundreds within the Stonehenge Landscape. and structured system. Bettey (1986) and the papers in the volume edited by Aston and Lewis (1994) provide a background to this period and the archaeology of it. Indeed, Aston and Lewis (1994, 1) suggest that Wessex as a whole has great potential for the study of the medieval rural landscape owing to its abundance of documentary evidence and variety of landscape types. Map N shows the distribution of recorded sites and finds relevant to the medieval period. The Conquest period is represented by a small horsehoe-shaped ringwork castle at Stapleford in the Till Valley in the southwest corner of the Stonehenge Landscape. The ringwork was later expanded to operate in a manorial capacity with the addition of a fishpond and suite of paddocks (Creighton 2000, 111). The much larger castle with its associated royal and ecclesiastical centre at Old Sarum lies about 6km south of the Stonehenge Landscape on the east bank of the Avon (RCHM 1981). All of the settlements recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086 grew to become established villages in the succeeding period, together suggesting fairly densely populated river valleys with more open land between. Table 3 shows the names of the main settlements and the hundreds within Modern parish/ settlement Allington † Boscombe Amesbury † Ratfyn Domesday reference? Berwick St James † – – Bulford † Durrington † Knighton Figheldean † Idmiston † Porton Milston † Brigmerston Netheravon † Orcheston † Shrewton † Addestone Maddington Stapleford † Wilsford † Winterbourne Stoke † Woodford † – – † indicates modern parish centres. Place-names in italic are non-parish centres. Domesday hundred Amesbury Amesbury Amesbury Amesbury Amesbury Amesbury Amesbury Amesbury Amesbury Alderbury Amesbury Amesbury Elstub Dole Dole Dole Dole Branch Underditch Dole which they lay. Illustration 60 shows the extent of the identified hundreds around Stonehenge. Several of the modern parishes have been created out of the amalgamation of medieval tithings or townships but some original medieval land units still remain (Illustration 61). As observed on modern Ordnance Survey maps, Wilsford cum Lake, for example, was created out of the medieval townships of Normanton, Lake, and Wilsford. Also, Shrewton incorporated the medieval townships of Rollestone, Netton, Shrewton, Maddington, Bourton, Addestone, Normanton, and part of Elston (Aston 1985, 40–1 and 79–80). Some township units seem to have incorporated prehistoric features at certain points on their boundaries, perhaps reflecting earlier land-divisions. West Amesbury, Winterbourne Stoke, and Normanton townships, for instance, converge at Barrow 10 of the Winterbourne Crossroads barrow group. Amongst others, potential prehistoric boundaries can be found at the bell barrow Amesbury 55, where Amesbury Countess, West Amesbury, and Winterbourne Stoke converge, and the north bank of the Cursus forms part of the Durrington/Amesbury/ Countess boundary (Bond 1991, 394). Amesbury remained the largest settlement throughout the medieval period, and the two manors in the town are the only ones in the area to have been researched in any great detail (Pugh 1948). During the later eleventh century, the royal estate of Amesbury was divided into two smaller manors: one consumed into the Earl of Salisbury’s estate and the other owned by the Sheriff of Wiltshire and later by his grandson, Patrick, Earl of Salisbury in 1155–6 (Bond 1991, 392). For some four centuries the Amesbury manors and associated lands passed through many hands and were divided, detached under multiple ownership, and finally reunited with almost all of their lands intact in 1541. Edward, Duke of Somerset and Earl of Hertford, acquired the manor of Amesbury Earls in 1536 and Amesbury Priors in 1541. Until the Reformation, the Benedictine Abbey of Amesbury continued to flourish as a nunnery, gradually increasing in size and wealth. In 1256, there were 76 nuns and by 1318 the nunnery housed 117 nuns with 14 chaplains (Bettey 1986, 74). By the fifteenth century, the abbey had become the second wealthiest and fifth largest in England until its dissolution in AD 1540 (Haslam 1984). The buildings were given to Edward Seymour who dismantled the abbey (Jackson 1867). It is likely that the settlement of Amesbury grew up alongside the abbey during its prosperous years, but little is known of the town from an archaeological perspective. The only known surviving domestic medieval building seems to be West Amesbury House. With a fifteenth-century core, medieval screens passage with an in situ wooden screen, arched doorways and a medieval arch-braced and windbraced roof in the west wing, the medieval building is proposed to be located within the remains of a grange of Amesbury Priory (Chandler and Goodhugh 1989). Throughout the medieval period, Amesbury Hundred constituted part of the Royal Forest of Chute, the earliest known documentary evidence for which dates from the twelfth century (Bond 1994, 123). Villages, as we recognize them today, appear to have developed during this period, although some presumably have Saxon or earlier origins. Settlement has a propensity to centre along the river valleys, particularly the Till and Avon. The eighteenth-century map by Andrews and Drury provides a detailed overview of pre-enclosure settlement within the Stonehenge Landscape, covering the whole of Wiltshire. Villages tended to be either compact nucleated 82
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