The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 216 • John Schofield
Suburbs and the waterfront
The actions of civic leaders in medieval towns can also be seen in the way in which the borders
of towns, outside the line of the defences, were organized—the suburbs on land, and the waterfront
zone along the town’s river or its seafront.
Growth or decline in the suburbs of the town may be a reflection of its economic fortunes.
The form of suburbs was usually dictated by existing approach roads and by the location of
markets immediately outside the town gates, as illustrated most vividly by the space called St
Giles outside the north gate of Oxford. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, many of the
older towns such as Canterbury, Winchester and York expanded their suburbs to reach their
largest extent for several centuries. Prominent churches or bridges would be rebuilt as signs of
prosperity. At Exeter, for instance, a suburb on Exe Island would have been promoted by the
building of St Edmund’s church and the contiguous Exe Bridge around 1200. Suburban expansion
can be identified by areas of town called Newland, as at Banbury and Gloucester. After 1300, few
if any towns expanded further, and many contracted in size. By the time of the earliest maps
around 1600, great parts of their suburbs had reverted to fields.
Dangerous or obnoxious trades were often banned to the extramural areas. Blacksmiths, potters,
tanners and fullers were found here, either excluded because of their smoke or noise, or taking
advantage of the relatively open space (the bell-founders could dig for brickearth, the dyers
stretch their cloths on frames called tenters). When the hospitals and friaries came in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, they tended to form topographical obstacles rather than give encouragment
to further growth (though there are exceptions: sometimes a friary would give a new tone to a
suburb or neighbourhood, and richer houses would thereafter congregate around it).
Most suburbs were relatively poor, but some early developments were conspicuously wealthy,
for instance in the western suburb of Winchester or outside the north gate at Gloucester. In a
few cases, the town centre moved to what had previously been a suburb; at Hereford and
Northampton, for example, the extramural market became the commercial centre of the town,
and the later expansion of Leicester was around the East Gate.
The boundaries of suburbs, being the boundaries of the whole settlement, indicate general
prosperity or decline of the town, and suburbs often offer ‘clean-slate’ sites, where the occupation
is easier to understand because it is on virgin soil. This occupation is often of an industrial
character. A relative concentration of housing along certain streets identifies the major axis routes
to the town, and if the date of this settlement can be established by archaeological and other
means, the date of development of that route (a trading route out to the hinterland in a particular
direction) can be explored. Two excavations of medieval suburban sites in recent years demonstrate
these qualities: that of the Hamel, Oxford, and Alms Lane, Norwich (Atkin 1985). Alms Lane in
particular shows a good suburban sequence. In the tenth century, it lay north of and outside the
Saxon town, and until about 1275 was used as a refuse dump for the crafts of the town, as shown
by the artefacts. Wetland plants and bones of frogs and toads indicate the environment. From the
late thirteenth century, as demonstrated by archaeological and documentary evidence, the site
was owned and used by workers in leather, skinning, bone-working and especially iron-working.
In about 1375, however, the land was levelled and became the site of housing from the expanding
city, and suburban industries were pushed out.
Besides spreading out along approach roads, the town often spread in a rather different manner
into the adjacent river or sea. A waterfront zone often developed as a narrow strip of reclaimed
land along the river bank or shore, modifying it to suit the needs both of landing and exporting
goods, and in time for housing, warehouses and other buildings, even churches. Thus many
towns actually increased their area—in the City of London, perhaps by as much as 15 per cent—
over the medieval period by pushing out into the water.