Anglo-Saxon Romsey
The Evidence in the Landscape
Defence
A local legend records a Viking attack on Romsey during which the abbey was sacked and the town burned. Fortunately, divine intervention had prevented a greater disaster; forewarned of danger in a dream, the abbess and her nuns had fled to Winchester for safety. There is no documentary or archaeological evidence that the Vikings ever set foot in Romsey. However, if there had been the threat of a raid, Winchester would have provided a refuge for the local population. Winchester was part of a network of fortified burhs organised by King Alfred and his son Edward the Elder for the protection of Wessex. Romsey lay within the territory of Winchester and would have had a responsibility to contribute to the construction and maintenance of its fortifications. In order to benefit from this secure stronghold, people would have to have been warned in advance to head to the burh as the army was mustered to fight. Therefore, a system of communications was vital for defence.
Networks of Saxon beacon sites have been identified along the south coast of Wessex with further beacons inland to pass on the warning signals. Toothill, southeast of Romsey, was one of these sites. The place-name comes from Old English tot meaning a projection or lookout. At Toothill the bank and ditch of an Iron Age hillfort ring the northern end of a ridge, an ideal location for a beacon with a wide-ranging view. The place-name in itself is evidence for its use. Charter landmarks strengthen this identification of Toothill as the site of a Saxon beacon and provide a date for its development. They also provide clues about the organisation of the communication network as a part of the strategy for the defence of the kingdom.
3D Open Street Map view of Toothill, looking south.
The estate controlled by the nuns of Romsey Abbey was bordered on the south by Nursling. Their shared boundary was described in the Nursling charter of 877 and the Romsey charter of c.972. Since each boundary survey was undertaken in a clockwise direction, the surveying parties proceeded in opposite directions. Both charters travel along stemnes/stennes path and both include a stone called boddanstan/bodestan as a landmark. These names place the Anglo-Saxons themselves into the landscape. The word stemn means a tour of duty, a period of military service. Stemn’s path crosses the ridge south of Toothill. It would have provided access to the site for the parties of men assigned to surveillance duty. Bod or boda meant a messenger suggesting that the stone marked a location involved in military communications.
The map shows the location of the beacon site on Toothill. Red arrows point to Stemn’s path which is visible in the LiDAR. The orange arrow points to the probable location of boddanstan, the messenger stone, at the northern edge of a field named as Badstones on the 19th century Nursling tithe map. The grain and cattle symbols refer to land use.
3D view with Toothill on the horizon. The parish boundary, in red, still follows the line of Stemn’s path. The southwest section of the path is labelled Ancient Road on this mid-19th century OS map; the first edition map of c.1810 had tagged it as a Supposed Roman Road.
The surveyors for the first edition OS map located a pair of parallel banks at the southern edge of Austrey Wood which was interpreted as a Supposed Roman Road. This is the feature referred to in the Saxon charters as Stemn's Path.
The banks flanking Stemn's Path can still be seen in Austrey, now Nightingale, Wood. Jane Powell is standing on the northern bank in the foreground and Mary Harris is just visible standing on the bank at the edge of the wood. This bank marks the boundary of Romsey Extra.
This 2nd edition OS map shows the shared boundary between Romsey and Nursling with the pre-1851 parish boundaries marked in red. The arrows point to Stemn's Path, right, and boddanstan, the messenger stone, boundary markers that appear in both the Nursling and Romsey charters. Stemn's Path continued southwest towards Upton and connected with Nursling Street. The Romsey charter boundary turned south at boddanstan; the road heading north leads to the crossing of the Test at Lee and on north to Romsey.
The field archaeologist OGS Crawford is famous as an early pioneer of aerial archaeology. He lived in Nursling and published a short history of the village in 1946. In it he described an 'ancient road' visible as a double line of banks running from Nursling Street to Nightingale Wood and continuing in a north-easterly direction. This is the road referred to as Stemn's Path in the Nursling and Romsey charters. The arrows point out the line of the road traced by Crawford.
Tithe maps were available for most of the parishes, east and west of the Test, examined by the Romsey Local History Society Anglo-Saxon Project. Out of all of the fields recorded over this area, there are only two with a name combining bad and stone. The scarcity of the name suggests that it isn’t a comment on the productivity of the soil. The Nursling field took its name from an Anglo-Saxon landmark. Since there is no stone bedrock in the Hampshire Basin, the stone in Badstones field would have been a notable feature. Badstone field in Michelmersh north of Romsey is on the Chalk, also lacking in stone. Could this have been the site of another Messenger stone? The field is located at a nodal point in the landscape, with roads leading out in five directions. A road heading north meets with the horse way mentioned in the 10th century Michelmersh charter. This routeway continues northeast towards Farley Mount on Beacon Hill, the highest point in the local landscape. Farley Mount and Toothill were both sites of Armada beacons, links in a chain stretching from the Isle of Wight to Highclere in the north. The presence of another Badstone field near a beacon site seems like more than a coincidence. In 878, a year after the Nursling charter was written, King Alfred achieved a major victory over the Danes at Edington after his army had been summoned to assemble at Egbert’s Stone. The measures taken for defence and communications had been successful.
The arrow points to the field named as Badstone on the Michelmersh tithe map.
OS map with contour lines added. The arrows point to Badstone field in the south and Farley Mount on Beacon Hill in the north. 19th century parish boundaries are in red. Charter landmarks defining Michelmersh, shaded, and Slackstead are indicated by stars.
King’s Dyke
A charter boundary clause has as many possible solutions as it has would-be boundary solvers. The Chilcomb charter has attracted a lot of interest because it covers such a large area around Winchester. Multiple attempts have also been made to solve the charters for estates bordering Southampton. It is particularly difficult to trace a boundary through an area that has undergone development. Rural fields and hedge lines will have disappeared before the Ordnance Survey arrived to map the landscape. Industry, road and railway construction, and house building have altered the topography, diverting streams and flattening earthworks. The scars are evident in LiDAR images. North Stoneham is one of the semi-urbanised estates that have challenged Saxon charter investigators.
North Baddesley has no Saxon charter and no tithe map, but local historian Jane Powell was able to find an estate map drawn in 1826 in the Hampshire Record Office. Field names recorded on the map match landmarks in the 932 charter for North Stoneham which bordered North Baddesley to the south, while the Chilcomb boundary, described in 909, ran along the east and north sides of the estate. We have been working together to try to solve these charters. During our research we identified a feature that could have been constructed for the defence of Winchester against the Vikings, cynninges dic, king’s dyke. This assessment is based on our interpretation of the charter landmarks which places the dyke at a strategic location, adjacent to a bridge over the Itchen.
The North Stoneham boundary proceeds from ipping wanne, Eppingham Corner on the North Baddesley estate map, along a slade, a small valley, to mæran broce, the boundary brook, now known as Monk’s Brook. It meets the Chilcomb boundary here near Chandlers Ford, then heads south along the brook, east towards Eastlea, then north until it reaches the boundary of Chilcomb again near Otterbourne. The various published solutions of the North Stoneham charter agree that the boundary extends this far north before returning south along the Street, the Roman road running from Winchester to Clausentum, Bitterne. They differ on the location where the boundary turns east to follow King’s Dyke towards the Itchen. Our new solution proposes that this section of the boundary coincides with the boundary of Chilcomb, reaching the Itchen at Highbridge.
First edition OS map c.1810 with modern surface water. The red arrows point to a Roman road in Otterbourne Park Wood and the projection of its route further south towards Boyatt Farm labelled ‘Supposed Site of Roman Road’. This is the road running from Winchester to Clausentum. The brown arrow indicates the bridge crossing the Itchen at Highbridge.
ARCHI UK (https://www.archiuk.com) LiDAR map showing the valley of the Itchen south of Winchester. The arrow points to the bridge at Highbridge.
The Chilcomb boundary description starts on the Itchen at brombrigce, broom bridge. Somewhat surprisingly, charter solutions have offered differing locations for the bridge. The LiDAR map shows an ideal site for a crossing - at Highbridge. The floodplain of the Itchen narrows as the river bends to the east before making another tight bend to head west. The land enclosed by the loop is a section of the lowest river terrace which projects into the floodplain. The bridge links the terrace on the west side of the river to a broader terrace east of the Itchen. The road crosses from west to east by heading north over the narrowest part of the floodplain. Here it avoids a steep climb as it continues to the northeast along the terrace. Place-names help to confirm the identification of Highbridge as broom bridge, with the village of Brambridge to the east and Broom Hill to the west.
Second edition OS map with modern surface water. The upper arrow points to a section of road labelled ‘British Road’. A footpath branching off it to the south, lower arrow, is also labelled ‘British Road’.
From broom bridge the Chilcomb boundary headed north, ‘up along the way’, towards Otterbourne, then southwest to searnægles forda, Chandlers Ford. Coming south from Otterbourne the North Stoneham boundary description is more informative - it follows along the Roman road as far as green lea, then turns east and south until it comes to King’s Dyke. It follows the dyke until it comes to the bend opposite mucelinge meadow, meadowland on the floodplain. The boundary then goes northwards out on to the Itchen. This description fits with the topography at Highbridge - it refers to the bend in the river and it reaches the Itchen by heading north.
The boundary description doesn’t provide any information on the length of the dyke. It probably met the dyke near Allbrook in the vicinity of the road named as Park Lane on the OS map. The surveyors working on the second edition OS map included a feature extending northwest from Allbrook they described as a British Road. It doesn’t seem a likely route for a road, crossing a hill in a straight line. Could this be part of the dyke? If so, it would have blocked the Roman road linking Winchester to Clausentum. The route of the road has been lost south of the hill.
A dyke associated with a king is likely to have been a substantial earthwork. It is difficult to see what its purpose could have been other than defence, controlling the bridge and access to Winchester from the south. Although it isn’t mentioned in the Chilcomb charter of 909, it might have existed by that date. Candidates for the construction of the dyke are Alfred (871-899), Edward the Elder (899-924) and Athelstan (924-939).
The North Stoneham tithe map on the second edition OS base map with modern surface water added. The ‘hole’ in the tithe map is a detached part of Twyford. Twyford was part of the Chilcomb estate. The river terrace lying in the bend of the Itchen was divided up between North Stoneham and Chilcomb in the 19th century as it had been in the 10th century.
The images combining the second edition OS map with views from Google Earth demonstrate the changes that have altered the landscape since the area was mapped. Roads and housing estates constructed with the benefit of heavy earth-moving equipment during the 20th century will have removed features that might otherwise have survived and been visible in LiDAR data.
The pale, horizontal band crossing the middle image was caused by the overlapping of grid sections of the OS map. The grey band cutting through the landscape is the M3 motorway. Modern surface water has been added to these QGIS maps.