Houghton is a deserted medieval village located one mile to the west of present-day Brampton, Cambridgeshire. [1] Unlike many such villages which became deserted following the black death, Houghton was abandoned earlier when Henry II declared the county of Huntingdonshire a royal forest, forcing the villagers to move elsewhere to obtain food and fuel. [1] The village was discovered during work to upgrade the A14 road which commenced in 2016. [2]
Houghton began as an unenclosed Anglo-Saxon settlement in the sixth century, eventually by the ninth century consisting of around forty houses and other buildings. [1] [2] By the early Norman period the village was centred to the north of the Anglo-Saxon site with more formalised plots and trackways. [1]
East Anglia is a geographical area in the East of England. The area included has varied but the legally defined NUTS 2 statistical unit comprises the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, including the City of Peterborough unitary authority area. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a tribe whose name originated in Anglia, in what is now northern Germany.
In the United Kingdom, a deserted medieval village (DMV) is a former settlement which was abandoned during the Middle Ages, typically leaving no trace apart from earthworks or cropmarks. If there are fewer than three inhabited houses the convention is to regard the site as deserted; if there are more than three houses, it is regarded as a shrunken medieval village. There are estimated to be more than 3,000 DMVs in England alone.
Landbeach is a small fen-edge English village about three miles (5 km) north of Cambridge. The parish covers an area of 9 km2 (3.5 sq mi).
Devil's Dyke or Devil's Ditch is a linear earthen barrier, thought to be of Anglo-Saxon origin, in eastern Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. It is now also a 98 acre biological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It runs in an almost straight line from Woodditton south of Newmarket to Reach north-west of Newmarket. It is also a Special Area of Conservation and a Scheduled Monument.
Guilden Morden, England, is a village and parish located in Cambridgeshire about 16 miles (26 km) south west of Cambridge and 5 miles (8 km) west of Royston in Hertfordshire. It is served by the main line Ashwell and Morden railway station 3 miles (5 km) to the south in the neighbouring parish of Steeple Morden.
Oakington is a small rural Anglo-Saxon village seven miles (11 km) north-west of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire in England, and belongs to the administrative district of South Cambridgeshire. Since 1985 the village has formed part of the parish of Oakington and Westwick.
Thorney Abbey, now the Church of St Mary and St Botolph, was a medieval monastic house established on the island of Thorney in The Fens of Cambridgeshire, England.
Whipsnade is a small village and civil parish in the county of Bedfordshire. It lies on the eastward tail spurs of the Chiltern Hills, about 2.5 miles south-south-west of Dunstable on the top of the Dunstable Downs which drop away steeply to the south of the village.
Croydon is a village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire, England. It is 10 miles (16 km) south-west of Cambridge and immediately west of the A1198 road. The population in 2001 was 221 people, increasing to 235 at the 2011 Census. The site of the deserted medieval village of Clopton is in Croydon parish, which was formerly known as Croydon-cum-Clopton.
The Kingdom of the East Angles, today known as the Kingdom of East Anglia, was a small independent kingdom of the Angles comprising what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the Fens. The kingdom formed in the 6th century in the wake of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. It was ruled by the Wuffingas dynasty in the 7th and 8th centuries, but fell to Mercia in 794, and was conquered by the Danes in 869, to form part of the Danelaw. It was conquered by Edward the Elder and incorporated into the Kingdom of England in 918.
Ixworth is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of the English county of Suffolk. It is 6 miles (9.7 km) north-east of Bury St Edmunds on the A143 road to Diss and 9 miles (14 km) south-east of Thetford. The parish has a population of 2,177, increasing to 2,365 at the 2011 Census. The south end of High Street and town may also be historically listed as Ixworth St Mary.
Witchford is a village and civil parish about 2.5 miles (4 km) west of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 2,385.
Little Thetford is a small village in the civil parish of Thetford, 3 miles (5 km) south of Ely in Cambridgeshire, England, about 76 miles (122 km) by road from London. The village is built on a boulder clay island surrounded by flat fenland countryside, typical of settlements in this part of the East of England. During the Mesolithic era, the fenland basin was mostly dry and forested, although subject to salt and fresh water incursions. The marshes and meres of this fenland may therefore have been difficult to occupy, other than seasonally, but there is evidence of human settlement on the island since the late Neolithic Age; a Bronze Age causeway linked the village with the nearby Barway, to the south-east. An investigation, prior to a 1995 development in the village, discovered a farm and large tile-kiln of Romano-British origin; further investigations uncovered an earlier settlement of the Pre-Roman Iron Age. The Roman road Akeman Street passed through the north-west corner of the parish, and the lost 7th century Anglo-Saxon village of Cratendune may be nearby.
Clopton is a deserted medieval village (DMV) about 1 mile (1.6 km) south west of Croydon that once stood on a prominent ridge overlooking the countryside of Cambridgeshire, England. Its history reaches back to the Roman occupation, and an Anglo-Saxon village, covering approximately 30 acres (12 ha) was established by the 10th century. The village is referenced to in the 1086 Domesday Book, when 18 peasants were noted as inhabiting it. A Friday market was granted in 1292 to Robert Hoo, Lord of Clopton.
Cratendune is the name of the lost village reported in the Liber Eliensis, the history of the abbey, then Ely Cathedral, compiled towards the end of the 12th century, as the 500th anniversary of the traditional founding date drew near. As no direction is indicated in Liber Eliensis, a number of archaeological sites are therefore candidates for this lost village.
The Trumpington bed burial is an early Anglo-Saxon burial of a young woman, dating to the mid-7th century, that was excavated in Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, England in 2011. The burial is significant both as a rare example of a bed burial, and because of the ornate gold pectoral cross inlaid with garnets that was found in the grave.
This page lists major events of 2019 in archaeology.
Hugh Benedict Willmott FSA MCIfA is a British archaeologist and academic. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on medieval England, with a particular interest in monastic archaeology.
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