A reappraisal of Eleventh-Century Settlement in the Eastern High Weald

A REAPPRAISAL OF ELEVENTH-CENTURY SETTLEMENT IN THE EASTERN HIGH WEALD

brendan chester-kadwell

The High Weald is usually considered to be an area of poor soils and relatively late settlement, overshadowed by the more prosperously settled coastal areas to the north and south. Many believe that the High Weald was in times past a marginal land, difficult to subdue, which even though permanent settlement had already been established ‘was in the late 11th century grossly under-exploited’ (Brandon 2003, 52). The evidence appears to support a marked distinction in wealth and density of population between the settlement of the coastal fringes of Kent and Sussex and the High Weald. However, does this mean that High Weald settlement was particularly sparse? A reappraisal of the evidence questions whether it was especially sparse, particularly when compared to other parts of the country: notably with places that were not exceptionally prosperous, but not marginal either.

This article sets out to re-examine the evidence for the extent and density of eleventh-century settlement in selected hundreds and parishes of the eastern High Weald as represented in Domesday and other contemporary sources. It explores how much of the eventual settlement pattern existed and how populous the area had become. The lack of archaeological evidence for early medieval settlement means that the documentary sources are of particular importance:¹ these sources are investigated so as to estimate the nature of settlement in the eleventh century, either directly, or by implication. The existence of a church, for example, can be an indicator of associated permanent settlement, and the evaluation of the different sources for Kent and Sussex help to understand how well this part of the High Weald was settled.

Settlement is defined by its attributes; for example, settlement pattern describes how settlement is distributed within the landscape, whether it is dispersed or nucleated. Settlement form describes its structure, or morphology – especially how different elements relate to each other spatially. Rural settlement is taken to mean the combination of its essential parts, its built environment (habitation elements) as well as the spatial resources (fields and woods etc) that makes it economically and socially viable. How these elements have developed over time is of particular interest to settlement studies, especially in relation to those settlements that have persisted to this day.

Eleventh-century settlement in lowland England was sparse in comparison to later times: even the population of its greatest cities were smaller than many country towns today.² The issue about the state of development of settlement is, therefore, one of comparison and informed judgement between areas at any one time: would the eye of a travelling man, experiencing the agricultural realm of England in the eleventh century, have seen the Eastern High Weald as an area of settlement more sparsely developed than elsewhere?

The article, therefore, attempts (maybe for the first time for the High Weald) to compare the level of resources recorded in Domesday with another comparable area outside the South-East, on this occasion the townships in the Huntingdonshire Ouse Valley. Thereby, it is hoped to throw light on how ‘marginal’ High Weald settlement actually was. However, the results of this comparison remain tentative, partly because the Wealden data is less abundant than should ideally be the case, but also because a comparison with only one other area (the Huntingdonshire Ouse Valley) is insufficient to be certain about the conclusions. However, the results are encouraging and give new insights to the state of contemporary settlement in this part of the High Weald.

Overview of the Study Areas

The study areas (see Fig. 1) featured in this article are ones that were used in an extensive longitudinal research project looking at origins and development of some settlements along the eastern Rother valley of the High Weald and the Huntingdonshire Ouse valley (Chester-Kadwell 2010). The areas were selected partly because of their topographical similarity, but also because of a shared original settlement pattern of wood pasture communities; although by Domesday in Huntingdonshire a system of common agricultural management was practiced, causing the decline of its dispersed settlement pattern. The framework for eleventh-century settlement in each of the areas is discussed as follows.

Eastern High Weald. This was an area of small hundreds and large parishes. The study area featuring in this article looks at selected settlements along the catchment area of the River Rother. It focuses on the Domesday hundreds of Rolvenden and Selbrittenden in Kent (looking at the parishes of Benenden, Rolvenden, and Newenden), and the hundreds of Shoyswell, Henhurst, Hawkesborough and part of Staple in Sussex (looking particularly at the parishes of Etchingham, Salehurst and Bodiam).³ Although the connection between hundreds and Domesday parochia is not always clear, it is possible to relate eleventh-century churches to the later medieval parochial structure that has come down to the present day in the form of civil parishes. This establishes a basis for a comparison with later settlement structures.

Unfortunately, knowledge of the High Weald hundreds in Kent is very limited, so that the data available for an area comparison of the eastern High Weald with the Ouse valley is effectively restricted to the Domesday record for the three adjacent Sussex hundreds of Shoyswell, Henhurst, and Hawkesborough in the Rape of Hastings. The entries for these hundreds contain a fuller record than is usual for the High Weald (although regrettably, an incomplete one) because of an administrative technicality involving the ‘Pevensey outliers’ (explained below).

The Huntingdonshire Ouse Valley. Huntingdonshire was a county of large hundreds containing townships that at Domesday were served by well established parochia, many in the process of dividing into the smaller parishes generally established by the thirteenth century. The townships in the study area fall mainly within the hundreds of Toseland and Hurstingstone, but excepting one that falls within the hundred of Leightonstone. The Ouse Valley lies on the eastern edge of the Midland open field system and by the eleventh century the settlement pattern was becoming more nucleated and the system of common field management was being extended and developed throughout the region. However, it had previously been an area of distinctive wood pasture (for which the place name and landscape evidence still remains) and this had not been completely extinguished by the eleventh century. At Domesday this part of the Ouse Valley, whilst not being as well populated as parts of Norfolk (for example), had riparian settlements that were of moderate prosperity, but also regions above the river valleys that would not be fully exploited until the thirteenth century. These factors make it a good comparator for the eastern High Weald.

The two areas chosen for the comparison study are both centred on a defining river system, which has created significant alluvial deposits amenable to early settlement (see Figs 2 and 3). The river valleys in both areas contrast with once heavily wooded hills, and both are associated with significant wetlands that give eventual access to the sea (Romney Marsh for the High Weald and the Fens for the Ouse valley).

The High Weald is part of the Wealden region geologically, although topo-graphically it forms a distinct sub-region that needs to be considered on its own merits (Thomas 2013, 4). The eastern High Weald is in some respects different to its more western reaches. It was, historically, accessible from the sea with the Rother being navigable as far as Bodiam or Robertsbridge for much of the Middle Ages (Eddison 1985). It was also rather less wooded than many other parts of the region and there is a higher percentage of better soils, especially along the course of the Rother and its tributaries. These factors may also be expected to have affected the manner and development of its settlement.

The chosen section of the Ouse Valley is situated in the historic county of Hunting-donshire (now in Cambridgeshire). The River Great Ouse enters Huntingdonshire at St Neots, the site of a Saxon monastic foundation, and flows north and then eastwards for about twenty miles to Earith, a fen edge settlement, before leaving the district. It forms a distinct sub-region that geographically has characteristics in common with the eastern High Weald.

The Settlement Debate

Bedevilling the whole issue of the establishment of permanent settlement in the eastern High Weald, and its extent at any particular time, is the lack of clear archaeological evidence for early medieval settlement generally, and including the immediate post-Conquest period. Earlier writers like Witney, Everitt and (to some extent) Brandon have chosen to read this lack of evidence as proof that no early permanent settlement existed and that later settlement was especially sparse. Later writers like Gardiner, Harris, and Thomas are more cautious: they maintain that the lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack of early settlement, as there are good reasons why the evidence may be hard to locate (Gardiner 1990, 33-­35). Early Saxon habitation is notoriously difficult to find and easily missed, and there is the potential for earlier settlement evidence to be hidden under, or destroyed by, later development. This lack of evidence may partly arise from the comparatively little developer-funded archaeology in the High Weald.

Field walking and metal detecting, which have been very productive in other parts of the country, are difficult in an area of mainly pastoral farming (as the High Weald has reverted to in recent years), and the Portable Antiquities Scheme has not yet recorded much in terms of Saxon finds. For whatever reason, archaeological evidence for Saxon settlement in the Weald has been less forthcoming (Gardiner 1990, 47) and the search less systematic with fewer resources applied than elsewhere. Unless or until more archaeological evidence is available the question of settlement continuity and the chronology of settlement formation will always be an area of difficulty.

The lack of archaeological evidence means that there has to be a greater reliance on other kinds of evidence, such as place-name studies, and the landscape itself (including the results of environmental archaeological analysis). However, it is the documentary evidence that, as it becomes more abundant post-Conquest, is of potentially greater significance when making assessments of settlement in the eleventh century.

For many historians the High Weald as a whole was an area of Saxon colonisation by piecemeal advance, driven by a process of resource exploitation by the peripheral estates. In this view, estates in the coastal fringes of Kent and Sussex sought seasonal pannage for their swine within the forest that led them further and deeper into the uninhabited Weald. Within this process Wealden settlement was typified by impermanent, seasonal settlement in the Early Saxon period, followed by the gradual establishment of permanent settlement into the Late Saxon period. However, the pattern of permanent settlement was still incomplete in some areas of the High Weald at the time of Domesday. This emphasis on a lack of continuity with pre­-Saxon land use in the High Weald, the impermanence of early settlement, together with the importance of transhumance in terms of economic and social activity, became the dominant model for the origins and development of settlement morphology of the High Weald until very recent times.

The origins of this traditional view of Wealden settlement can be found in the work of Edward Hasted (1798) and Robert Furley (1871), both historians of the Kent Weald. Hasted, writing in the latter years of the eighteenth century at a time when the role of the old Lathe and Hundred administrative units were still (just) more than a memory, recorded a wealth of contemporary information still relevant to modern scholarship. Furley’s History of the Weald of Kent (1871) is very much in this tradition but with a later style of scholarship and also recorded an extensive list of Wealden dens (wood pastures) still considered valuable reference material today. Others followed, but amongst the most influential texts supporting the traditional view has been Kenneth Witney’s The Jutish Forest: a study of the Weald of Kent from 450 to 1380 AD (Witney 1976), Alan Everitt’s Continuity and Colonization: the Evolution of Kentish Settlement (1986), and a number of contributions by Peter Brandon (1974; 1978; Brandon & Short 1990), including his recent The Kent and Sussex Weald (2003).

Witney’s research was, by his own admission, strongly influenced by Jolliffe’s Pre-­Feudal England: the Jutes (1933) and Du Boulay’s The Lordship of Canterbury (1966). He relied upon a wide range of evidence, including place name evidence such as that supplied by Wallenberg in The Place Names of Kent (1934), the large number of early Saxon charters, Domesday Book, as well as later historical sources including manorial records. Witney’s great contribution to our knowledge of Wealden settlement was his detailed analysis of the development of the Wealden dens and the drove ways linking them to the northern manors. Comparable research conducted in the Sussex High Weald, looking at the relationship between the manors on the Sussex coastal plain and their outliers in the High Weald also shares many of Witney’s conclusions. Everitt believed that in Kent there was a degree of continuity between Roman and Saxon settlement in the coastal fringes, but did not find evidence for continuity in the Weald – although some of Everitt’s arguments have been called into question by more recent authorities (Thomas 2013, 2-3).

During the last fifteen to twenty years the development of improved techniques and understanding of the strength and weaknesses of different evidential resources has led to a re-evaluation of the evidence itself. This, more than the turning up of completely new sources of evidence, has led to a shift in how early settlement patterns are understood. For example, Mark Gardiner has argued that in the eastern Sussex Weald permanent settlement was more widely established than had previously been considered the case and that most of the High Weald as a whole had permanent settlement by 1086, ‘even in the most distant areas of the Weald’ (Gardiner 1995, 68). Roland Harris, in his overview of the most up-to-date Kent and Sussex Weald research, generally supported the idea that permanent settlement occurred earlier rather than later, and that there was most probably some level of continuity with the Romano­-British practice of transhumance (Harris 2003, 25). Gabor Thomas in a paper given in 2007 to the South East Research Framework challenges earlier assumptions that the Weald was colonised piecemeal from the edges inwards, but instead suggests that colonisation was an expansion of settlement from within – that is, the Weald was fully explored and known early on (possibly through transhumance) and more permanent settlement was produced on the back of this (Thomas 2007).

In conclusion, it is fair to say that the early history of High Weald settlement is still very much open to debate. This article is a modest contribution to this debate: it suggests a re-appraisal of some of the evidence can provide new insights into the level of settlement development in the immediate post-Conquest period.

Churches as Evidence of Settlement

Churches are an indication of permanent and developed settlement that is at least substantial enough to bear the cost of supporting and maintaining the ecclesiastical infrastructure required for the local church to function. The sources for churches in the eastern High Weald are well known and have been commented upon by a number of scholars over the years, but often with the sources from one county being explored in isolation from the other. This is an opportunity to summarise the evidence for both Kent and Sussex, specifically in the context of wider settlement studies.

Domesday is very uneven in its recording of churches nationally. In some counties (such as Huntingdonshire, for example) it gives an almost complete rec-ord of the number of churches existing at the time. For the eastern High Weald generally, it is not particularly good, but other contemporary evidence exists that helps to overcome this deficiency. They are the Domesday Monachorum, the Textus Roffensis for Kent,⁴ as well as other sources relating to the existence of local churches for Sussex, including the Chichester Cartulary, the foundation charter for St Mary’s at Hastings, and the later, but still relevant, Taxatio of 1291. The aim here is to examine this evidence in order to establish where churches existed on the assumption that these places must also have had communities to support them.

The collected list of churches in the Domesday Monachorum identifies where contemporary churches were situated, but it is what can be inferred from it about local Wealden settlement that is of especial interest (Fig. 4). Examination of the Domesday Monachorum helps to explain not only what places were extant in the eleventh century, but also something of their relative importance. The first list in the collection is of those churches owing dues to the archbishop for chrism at Easter and the amount is an indication of the status of the church concerned, minsters and parish churches paying more than chapelries, for example. Thus, Appledore – a late Saxon minster church on the eastern boundary of the area under discussion (Riddler 2004, 33) – had a customary due of 7s., which was twelve times the minimum payment listed in the Domesday Monachorum of 7d. Other churches in the eastern High Weald listed there were Sandhurst, Rolvenden, Woodchurch, Benenden, and Cranbrook, which were all assessed at 28d. paid directly to the archbishop and probably indicating their status as parish churches. St Peter’s, Newenden, appears in the second list under the churches that paid their dues to the Abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury, and is listed as a church subordinate to Lyminge. Considering the importance of Newenden in Domesday this subordinate status might seem surprising (see below). The third list (after mentioning the dues owed by the minster churches ‘before the coming of Lord Lanfranc as Archbishop’ – i.e. superseded by the dues in the first list) also includes the churches ‘of the tenure of St Augustus and beyond’ (considered as a fourth list in the collection by Neilson (1974, 257a)). Amongst them are Stone in Oxney and Tenterden, both owing 7d., which may indicate that they were not yet established parish churches.

This evidence suggests that most churches recorded in later medieval records in this part of the Kentish High Weald were already in existence by the eleventh century. The inference must be that there was sufficient permanent settlement to support these churches, and this paints a more encouraging and complete picture of settlement distribution than is implied by Domesday alone. Effectively, the eastern High Weald in Kent can claim to have attained a nearly complete complement of its medieval churches by the eleventh century, a feat that was only achieved in the Huntingdonshire Ouse Valley by the early thirteenth century. In the Huntingdonshire study area fifteen ‘mother’ churches and two others later identified as chapelries were mentioned in Domesday. By the thirteenth century, there were thirty-four churches and chapels of which twenty-one were parish churches. The average (estimated) size of Domesday parochia was about 4,000 acres, whilst the average size of parishes in the thirteenth century was about 3,000 acres.

Unfortunately, the evidence for eleventh-century Sussex churches is piecemeal. Other than churches recorded in Domesday, it relies either on information gathered from charters (such as that connected with the foundation of St Mary’s free chapel at Hastings) or deductions from the list of churches contained in the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas IV of 1291 (Rushton 1999, fig. 2, Appendix 2). Domesday mentions a church at Salehurst in Henhurst hundred and another in Shoyswell hundred at Hazelhurst in what is now the parish of Ticehurst (Morris (ed.) 1976, 9, 82; 9, 60), although it is unclear whether the churches at Hazelhurst and Ticehurst were different churches on separate sites, or an earlier and later name for the same site. Churches at Ewhurst and Bodiam were mentioned in the Chichester Cartulary in the eleventh century, and the former church is believed to have been a late Saxon minster (Rushton 1999, 141 fig. 5). Ewhurst was also one of those granted as a prebendary to Hastings College at its foundation (or re-establishment) by the Count of Eu sometime before 1086 (Gardiner 1989, 44). It is possible that Ewhurst’s original parochia could have extended over the hundreds of Henhurst and Shoyswell prior to the establishment of Salehurst and Hazelhurst, which each seem to have originally been the churches for their individual hundred. However, if this was so their previous relationship left no sign in the evidence that has survived from the eleventh century. Etchingham does not appear to have had its own church until later and an earlier church mentioned in the Taxatio as being at Burgham, a short distance away from the present church, appears to have been a chapelry in Salehurst. Etchingham was not formally established as a separate ecclesiastical parish until it obtained burial rights in 1362, and the present church was built soon after (Saul 1986, 140).

It is impossible to arrive at a verifiable chronology for the Sussex churches in the Rape of Hastings, but the evidence suggests that the process of church building and parish formation in the Kent High Weald was in advance of that in East Sussex. However, this apparent discrepancy between the two counties may be as much a matter of the quality of the records that survive or the manner of church foundation and need not imply that settlement in the Sussex eastern High Weald was substantially different to that in Kent.

Evidence for parish formation was emerging in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in both Sussex and Kent. Parish boundaries became clearly demarcated soon after their foundation, driven by the need to know the land from which tithes could be derived (Morris 1989, 210) and parish boundaries once established tended to remain fixed for long periods. However, the boundaries of the emerging parishes rarely conformed to the territorial divisions of the hundred. This complexity makes the hundred difficult to deal with within eleventh-century settlement studies and, therefore, being able to relate the contemporary parochial structure to the hundred system is useful: it helps in the establishment of continuity and geographical location of settlement over time.

Domesday Settlement in the Eastern High Weald (Fig. 5)

Settlement as recorded in Domesday is expressed as manors or townships within a particular hundred. The parish (ecclesiastical or civil) had not yet taken on the significance it later had (and in fact still has) for defining the boundaries of local settlement. Understanding the nature of the hundred helps to explain how the Domesday settlement record relates to the parish structure with which most people are familiar.

Hundred boundaries in the High Weald are difficult to ascertain with certainty and were not clearly demarcated until the work of the Ordnance Survey in the nineteenth century – and even this attempt met with imperfect results in many locations (Pollard & Strouts 2005, 46).⁵ The High Weald hundreds were sub-divided into ‘boroughs’ (Kent) or ‘tithings’ (Sussex) that brought together dispersed farmsteads and hamlets into sub-hundredal groupings (Winchester 1990, 21). However, it is difficult to find evidence for any territorial boundaries between these sub-divisions either, and it is probable that none ever existed: they were simply collections of households. It seems possible, therefore, that this was also true of the hundred itself and that membership of a hundred, although broadly territorial, was as much a matter of establishing the identity of a household within a particular hundredal jurisdiction. Individual households (or even whole settlements) might not be reckoned to ‘belong’ to a particular hundred (even if they were geographically situated within it) if they were subject to another court elsewhere.

It is now widely recognised that High Weald settlement as a whole is grossly under-recorded in Domesday. However, the Sussex Domesday gives a reasonably full account of land tenure and the extent of settlement for some High Weald hundreds within the Rape of Hastings.⁶ For the Kent High Weald, on the other hand, the Domesday account is fraught with difficulty because there are very few entries indeed that can be related to High Weald hundreds in that county. Unfortunately, therefore, the extent of Domesday settlement in eleventh-century Kent is largely a matter of guesswork or inference from the better information available for Sussex or from other sources such as the Domesday Monachorum.

The Sussex Domesday

King William I (1066-1087) saw the County of Sussex as an area of significant strategic importance. He had proved, by his own success, exactly how important (and vulnerable) the Sussex littoral was and devised an administration for the county that allowed for a coherent military response against any future threat to its security (Round and Salzmann 1905, 353). The result of this policy was the establishment of a series of lordships that divided the county into five divisions, known as ‘rapes’, each of which had a principal town and castle, granted to a trusted lord whose Honour was the dominant land holding there (Adams 1999, 40-41). The origin of the rapes is unknown, but they may represent administrative organisation of the once independent Kingdom of the South Saxons (Haselgrove 1978, 198-199). Each rape was divided into hundreds, which were also pre-Conquest administrative districts of uncertain date.

Notably, the High Weald hundreds in this part of Sussex were geographically small, and fell well short of the theoretical one hundred hides (or the land for a hundred significant households) normally associated with the hundredal system elsewhere (Gardiner 1999, 30). The three Sussex hundreds covering the parishes in this study each contained a clear core territory typically centred around a local manor which had a church by 1086 (Morris 1976, 9, 82; 9, 60; 9, 120). Henhurst hundred (10,665 acres) contained at the time of Domesday the whole of Salehurst parish (which included the later Liberty of Robertsbridge Abbey); just over half of what would later become Etchingham parish, part of Brightling parish, and small parts of Burwash and Mountfield.⁷ Shoyswell (10,769 acres) seems to have centred on the manor of Hazelhurst in what is now Ticehurst parish, together with parts of Etchingham (in which Shoyswell itself sits) and Burwash. Staple hundred (14,145 acres) contained Ewhurst and Bodiam (recorded together by Domesday) and substantial parts of three other parishes; Ewhurst and Bodiam together now account for 7,450 acres.

Just how small and different the Sussex High Weald hundreds were from those in other parts of the country can be seen through a comparison with those in Huntingdonshire. Of the three (out of four) Huntingdonshire hundreds of which Ouse Valley Domesday townships were part, two contained twenty-three parishes and the third twenty-seven. Parish areas in Huntingdonshire were normally con-tained within defined hundredal territories and hundredal boundaries tended to respect parish boundaries: the smallest of these three hundreds was in excess of 50,000 acres. If High Weald hundreds were small and their parishes large, in Huntingdonshire the situation was reversed: hundreds were large, being assessed as ‘double hundreds’ of about 200 hides each, but the parishes were typically quite small (Wickes 1995, 30-37).

Sussex Domesday records those individuals who held land in each hundred within the rapes, recording the value of the assets of each estate and the hidage, or the amount of land upon which taxation was to be levied.⁸ Besides the hidage, entries included the number of ploughs (an indicator of the actual amount of arable land attached to the settlement), the number of households (indicated by the number of villeins, bordars, or serfs recorded),⁹ and other assets such as mills, fisheries, woodlands and markets. The unit of assessment was the manor, which was entered within the hundred where the lord’s caput (or head manor) was situated. This meant that if any of the lands of the head manor were at a distance, separate from the caput, then this ‘outlier’ was not recorded under the hundred where it was geographically located, but with that of the head manor. Under those circumstances the assets of such outliers are absolutely impossible to isolate from the assets of the head manor itself. In Sussex this is a particular problem as many Downland and Coastal manors had outliers in the High Weald, which led (as in Kent) to the under-recording of settlement within the High Weald hundreds, whilst boosting the size of those head manors to which the outliers were attached.

However, in the Rape of Hastings this problem has been partially mitigated because in 1086 land previously held as outliers by a number of manors in the Rape of Pevensey (but geographically situated in the Rape of Hastings) were in the process of being transferred to the jurisdiction of the Count Robert of Eu, Lord of the Barony of Hastings (Round and Salzmann 1905, 357-358; Morris 1976). Consequently, in the three Wealden hundreds of Shoyswell, Henhurst and Hawksborough not only are the local manors recorded there but also a number of unnamed holdings that would otherwise have remained hidden in the entries for manors in the Rape of Pevensey. Fortunately, two of the three parishes in this study, Salehurst and Etchingham, fall within two of these hundreds, whilst the third, Bodiam, is recorded in its own right as a sub-manor of Ewhurst in Staple hundred. Consequently it is possible to gain a good idea of the minimum level of settlement in those parishes.

An examination of the returns for the hundreds of Henhurst (Table 1a), Shoyswell, and the manors of Ewhurst¹⁰ and Bodiam in the Hundred of Staple (Table 1b) suggests that settlement was well established in this part of the Sussex High Weald. However, the holdings, including the outliers from the Pevensey manors, are small and most have a typical hidage of one or two virgates. It is difficult to know how accurately these land measures are reflecting the actual size of the holdings in acres, or whether the numbers apply in a purely fiscal sense. Round, Salzmann, and Morris have pointed out that they can be used in both ways in Domesday. The evidence seems to suggest that the smaller holdings were more likely to be assessed on their actual size (Round and Salzmann 1905, 358-359; Morris 1976) and were less likely to benefit from the fiscal reductions often applied to the holdings of the great landowners. For example, ‘beneficial’ reductions appear to have been applied to the archbishop of Canterbury’s estates both in Kent and Sussex (Round and Salzmann 1905, 360). Gardiner has shown that a typical peasant tenement of 20-40 acres was a not uncommon measure of land in the eleventh or twelfth centuries (Gardiner 1996, 98) and it is quite possible that this reflects a Domesday virgate of about 30-40 acres. By way of an example, if the Burgham recorded in the Domesday hundred of Henhurst, which had two virgates worked by two households, is actually the same as the Burgham later identified in Etchingham parish assessed in a quitclaim of 1421 at 65 acres (Martin 1988, P15/21), this would seem to support the view that the typical holding was a virgate or multiples or fractions of a virgate. Furthermore, the succession of smaller holdings would fit the profile of a highly dispersed settlement pattern that still exists in the High Weald and can also be found contemporaneously elsewhere – such as in the South-West of England (Hoskins & Finburgh 1952) and as described by Taylor generally for the South-East of England (Taylor 1983, 181-182).

Compared to some of the coastal and Downland manors of Sussex the High Weald, on a cursorily inspection, may look sparsely populated – but the differences may be magnified for two reasons. First, many of the coastal and Downland manors are particularly large and wealthy (they are not necessarily typical of other manors elsewhere) and secondly, the entries for these manors are potentially inflated by the inclusion of further unidentified outliers situated in the Weald itself. However, the evidence suggests that the East Sussex High Weald was widely settled by the time of Domesday (Gardiner 1995, 94; but see Brandon 2003, 52), and the Domesday evidence clearly indicates that by the late eleventh century there was a well-established settlement pattern. Indeed, the Domesday record for the Rape of Hastings, whilst not as full as could be desired, contains enough information (just) to allow an assessment of the likely minimum level of settlement for this part of the Sussex High Weald. It suggests a landscape of smaller holdings, typical of an area of dispersed settlement, but whether this was truly a landscape of sparse settlement is difficult to discern without comparison with other areas.

The Kentish Domesday

Medieval Kent had a particular tenurial and administrative arrangement that involved a complex relationship between local manorial estates and the county’s administrative divisions, the lathes and hundreds. Lathes were an ancient territorial division of the county whose origins are not known for certain, but are believed to have originated when Kent was an independent kingdom (Brooks 1989, 69-74). The number, and even the names of the lathes changed over time. However, when Domesday was compiled the three parishes in the study area were in the Lathe of Lyminge, excepting the northern portion of Benenden, which was situated in the Lathe of Wye (Morgan 1983, Maps and Key).¹¹ The Kentish hundreds were a later introduction into the administrative system for the county, although the exact date of their introduction is not known either (Everitt 1986, 271). However, they are numerous and generally small, often centred on a single manorial estate and (as in Sussex) do not conform to the concept of the hundred as being a land division ideally containing one hundred hides. It is generally accepted that early Kentish land tenure involved a system of extended estates (Everitt 1986, 75-87), and by the time of Domesday the typical arrangement was for a head manor in the northern divisions of the county to possess detached holdings (outliers usually referred to as ‘dens’) stretching southwards into the Weald (Witney 1976, 120-121).

Kentish Domesday set out the various holdings of the King, the Church, and other tenants-in-chief within the lathes and hundreds where they were located, with the manorial assessment recorded under the township within which the caput of the manor was situated. Consequently in those areas of the Weald where, in 1086, most settlement was dependent on a distant head manor then little Wealden settlement was recorded in Domesday. In fact, within the Kentish High Weald itself very few independent settlements are visible. This is not, though, an indication of scarcity of permanent settlement, but a reflection of the degree of dependency of these areas on manors lying outside the Weald. Of the four hundreds that share a part of Benenden parish alone, only two, Rolvenden and Selbrittenden appear in Domesday (Morgan 1983, 5,180; 2, 27), whilst of the others, Cranbrook and Barclay are not mentioned. The neighbouring hundreds of Tenterden and Barnfield (later East and West Barnfield) are also not mentioned, but Oxney and Blackborne hundreds are recorded (although outside the study area). Thus, in the Kentish parishes within the study area some limited knowledge of Domesday settlement can be gained simply from looking at the text of the survey, but not enough from this source alone to understand the extent of settlement in the eleventh century.

The lack of clear and unequivocal evidence for the extent of early settlement in the area is a problem, although the lists of churches in the DM indicate that more settlement existed than that recorded in Domesday, and it is therefore likely that some sort of hundredal system was also present elsewhere. Certainly, Kentish High Weald hundreds were appearing as a matter of form in documents by the thirteenth century (Greenstreet (ed.) 1900, 221), despite their absence in the Domesday record.

The entries for Rolvenden and Selbrittenden hundreds (Table 2) contain the Domesday record for the parishes of Rolvenden, Benenden, and Newenden. The general tenor of these entries accords, not surprisingly, with those found over the border in Sussex – a countryside of small settlements. However, it is hardly possible to draw firm conclusions about the state of settlement in the eastern Kent High Weald from these three entries alone. The entries relating to the hundred of Rolvenden are similar to many of those found in the Sussex hundreds, but Newenden is unusual and the larger than expected number of households, for the size of its hidage assessment and the number of recorded ploughs, may be connected to the presence of a market here (although no-one is listed as ‘townsman’). The Domesday Monachorum includes Newenden as a demesne manor of the archbishop of Canterbury (Neilson 1974, 262b) and Witney believed that three dens restored to the Archbishop by Odo of Bayeux just before Domesday were those of Lossenham, Wassal and Hexden (Witney 1976, 268-274).¹² If so, this could account for the relatively high pannage dues for this rather small manor.

The local importance of Newenden may have been due to its strategic position at the confluence of the Rother and the Hexden Channel and the fact that the Rother was navigable to the sea from this point (Eddison 1985, 97). Multiple earthworks at about the five metre level at the end of the promontory at Newenden marks a succession of defensive positions, the earliest probably being that of the Saxon burgh called Eorpeburnan in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which was destroyed whilst still incomplete by the Vikings in 892 (Kent HER: SMR number TQ 82 NE 1 – KE2708).¹³ The construction of a Saxon burgh here would suggest that there was a serious level of permanent settlement in the eastern High Weald by the ninth century. Although much of its history is obscure, Newenden continued as a small river port well into the twentieth century and its status as a township separate from the rest of Newenden parish was recorded as late as the tithe survey of 1840.¹⁴

Selbrittenden, Rolvenden, Blackborne, and Oxney – the Domesday hundreds on the extreme eastern side of the High Weald – are all recorded as having holdings independent of external manors, which suggests that their greater accessibility by water may have created the conditions for the early emancipation of local manors: a process that would occur within other High Weald hundreds during the course of the Middle Ages (Witney 1976, 164-173).

In conclusion, the Domesday evidence for Kent, together with that for the existence of a far larger number of churches than those recorded in Domesday, and what is known from other sources about Newenden, suggests that (as in Sussex) there was widespread settlement in the High Weald of Kent by the eleventh century. This further questions whether, as some have claimed, the High Weald was so uniquely different in terms of the extent of its settlement to other parts of the South-East prior to the early modern period.

Comparison of the Sussex and Ouse Valley Domesday Data (Fig. 5 and Fig. 6)

In order to estimate a relative value for the density of High Wealden settlement a comparison has been made with that for the Huntingdonshire Ouse Valley. Whilst it will probably never be feasible to gain a particularly accurate estimation, an approximation may be sought by calculating the ratio of certain assets, recorded in Domesday manors or townships in each of the areas, against their acreage as extrapolated from the known areas of the later medieval hundreds (or where appropriate the parishes) within which they were situated. These ratios can, thereafter, be directly compared. The calculations for the comparison are based on the number of ploughs (as an indication of the degree of cultivation) and households (as an indication of population levels) and a broad idea of relative settlement density may be expressed as a ratio of the number of acres to one plough, or to one household.

Table 3 shows the number of ploughs and households for the High Weald hundreds of Hawksborough, Shoyswell and Henhurst (the three hundreds including the data about the Pevensey outliers) and compares them with seven Domesday townships in the Huntingdonshire Ouse Valley. Both the Sussex and Huntingdonshire groups have a comparable area of about 34.5 thousand acres. The Ouse valley townships, it should be noted, had strong associations with wood pasture husbandry even though they also contained significant centres of nucleated settlement.

Surprisingly, both the Wealden and the Ouse Valley settlements have a similar number of ploughs, from which it might be thought that both areas had a comparable amount of arable for their acreage. However, the ratio of households to ploughs (calculated from the data in Table 3) averaged out at 3:2 for the High Weald settlements, whilst for the Ouse Valley townships it was 5:2. Thus, the ratio of households to ploughs suggests that the number of ploughs recorded for the High Weald settlements is slightly greater than might be expected because, being an area of dispersed settlement, more ploughs were needed than in comparable areas of nucleated settlement.

What is also clear, however, is that there is a real difference in the number of households in the Weald compared to those in the Ouse Valley within a similar sized area – the High Weald having 38% fewer households. However, it has been suggested (Brandon 2003, 75-78) that large tracts of the Sussex Weald were reserved for activities other than agriculture (i.e. hunting and other forestry activity), which may help account for the higher ratio of acres to households (although this was possibly also true for some of the Ouse Valley townships). It is also likely that the number of households is under represented if (as should be expected) some Wealden settlement is included in the totals for coastal manors within the Rape of Hastings itself, resulting in outliers not being separately identified. Whether these factors are enough to account for the difference is uncertain, but even taken on face value the data suggests that the High Weald hundreds were less densely populated, but not sparsely so.

What is also clear from Table 3 is that there are significant differences between the Wealden hundreds themselves. The question is: why might this be so? By comparing the individual hundreds with a range of different types of settlements within the Ouse Valley, further insights into the relative values of interpretative data can be obtained. Three broad topographies can be identified amongst the Ouse Valley settlements, for example:

(a) ‘wood pasture’: settlements like Eynesbury, Eaton Socon (Bedfordshire), Buckden, Brampton, Paxton, Slepe and Hartford – nucleated townships that included areas of dispersed settlement and woodlands in the eleventh century and which, in the past, had a topographic profile close to that found in the Weald;

(b) ‘fenland’: settlements like Fenstanton, Bluntisham and Holywell that included large areas of fen, heath-land and woodland;

(c) ‘riverside’: settlements like Offord, Godmanchester, Hemingford, Houghton and Wyton that had extensive areas of lighter soils on the gravel terraces of the Great Ouse.

Of course, all Ouse Valley townships had riverside characteristics to a greater or lesser degree, which partly accounts for their more favourable ratios overall: however, for group (c) settlements these attributes are more pronounced. Table 4 illustrates how these types compare in terms of their density ratios against the ratios for individual hundreds in the Weald. The coastal hundred of Bexhill has also been included as an indication of the range of settlement type within the Rape of Hastings itself.

Despite the considerable opportunity for inaccuracy in the calculation of the acreage upon which these ratios are based, a discernable pattern emerges in terms of the settlement density of the different categories of settlement morphology in both the Sussex and Ouse Valley groups. The Wealden hundreds show a lower density of households compared to the Ouse Valley settlements (excepting that for the fen edge settlements), a variation that may be partly explained if some households in the Weald were included in the coastal manors as suggested above. Comparison between the ratios of the Wealden hundreds and the coastal hundred of Bexhill shows a result not out of keeping with the more nucleated townships in the Ouse valley. However, caution needs to be exercised in the comparison as the coastal hundreds also contain urban settlement elements, very different in nature to the more rural High Weald. Bearing in mind the possibility of under recording of settlement assets within the High Weald hundreds, Wealden settlement in the Rape of Hastings, although less well developed than in the coastal areas, was not sparse enough to suggest that these settlements were truly marginal. These findings also reinforce the picture presented by the work of Gardiner (1995, pp. 89-94) relating in particular to the Lowy of Battle just to the south of Henhurst hundred, which suggests that settlement in the Weald of eastern Sussex was well advanced by the eleventh century.

What is of particular interest is that, based on these figures, it could be argued that the differences between the Wealden areas and other rural areas may not be as great as sometimes postulated. Generally the results from these very different parts of the country display a pattern of densities, falling within a definable range – even though at the extremes the differences may be quite great. Realistically, the results of the calculations for comparing Sussex hundreds with the Ouse Valley townships are at this stage only indicative. More work needs to be done on a much wider geographical basis and taking in a greater variety of settlement types, including the truly marginal.

Overview and Conclusion

Any conclusions drawn from this exploration of eleventh-century settlement in this part of the Weald remain tentative. It could be argued that the Weald (and the High Weald in particular) has tended to be regarded as a special case in terms of the development of its settlement. This has partly been because of its perceived late and ‘unusual’ form of colonisation, and partly because of the specific tenurial arrangements that shared the control of Wealden lands between those estates in Sussex, Surrey and Kent that were situated outside the Weald itself. In the Rape of Hastings, however, this tenurial arrangement largely came to an end during the course of the eleventh century, and this has allowed a window into the true extent of settlement in some hundreds of the Sussex High Weald.

The picture that emerges is that (as was the case in the Ouse Valley) the settlement pattern in the High Weald was already, by the eleventh century, similar to what can be seen in a more developed form by the sixteenth century. The record of place names reinforces this view, and eleventh-century documents such as the Domesday Monachorum, the Textus Roffensis and Domesday itself, cumulatively indicate the existence of many of the major places by this date. Additionally there is the evidence of pre-Conquest charters that refer to a number of lesser places such as dens, which have often survived as farm names (Witney 1976, 196-200; Brandon 2003, 48-50; Wallenberg 1931; 1934). Similarly, many surviving farms and hamlets appear in later medieval documents from the thirteenth century onwards. All this suggests that there has been a strong continuity in settlement pattern throughout the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Less, however, is known about settlement form over this same period, although late and post medieval evidence suggests a tendency towards nucleation in response to the steady increase in population and economic opportunities in what was otherwise a highly dispersed morphology.

It is likely that settlement patterns and overall morphology (form) were alike in many respects in both Kent and Sussex throughout the Middle Ages, although there were also some real differences between them. In Kent, the tenurial geography that placed much of the eastern High Weald under the control of manors based elsewhere in the county persisted well into the thirteenth and even fourteenth centuries. In Sussex, on the other hand, this pattern of manorial outliers was brought to a rapid end with the re-organisation of the Rapes into coherent baronies after the Conquest. Consequently, whilst in the Sussex High Weald this resulted in stronger and more centralised manors emerging, in Kent the strain placed on distant head manors brought about the slow decline of manorial power in the High Weald outliers. In the short-term manorial organisation passed to a number of small local manors, but also many manorial rights became devolved to ordinary farmers (Du Boulay 1966).

The value of holdings in Sussex were recorded by Domesday as steadily rising since 1066, and this despite the fall in value caused by the ravages of the Norman army following the Battle of Hastings.¹⁵ In Henhurst hundred, for example, both Salehurst and Drigsell were wasted although the value of the former had risen from 20s. in 1066 to 30s. by 1086 and that of the latter from £3 to £4 (Morris 1976, 9, 82; 9, 83). This gain in value was typical of the Sussex holdings and contrasts with townships in the Ouse Valley that tended to hold their 1086 value to what it had been in the time of King Edward. The impression is of an expanding economy in the South-East of England in the eleventh century.

If Domesday statistics for the High Weald indicate an expanding economy in the eleventh century, the process accelerated during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Brandon 2003, 91-94); for example, the Battle Abbey estate (part of which was in Bodiam) had quadrupled its rental value by 1124 (Searle 1974, 22). Despite these advances, the High Weald (with the exception of Newenden) remained relatively poor compared to other parts of the South-East, and the lay subsidy of 1334/5 (just before the Black Death in 1348) indicates that the tax assessment per thousand acres was less than £1 5s., compared to the wealthiest parts of the South East at over £3 (Lawson & Chalklin 2004, 58). However, levels of wealth are not, in themselves, a measure of population density or the extent of settlement.

Although many earlier commentators believed that settlement in this area was particularly sparse, it is probably not the case that the High Weald was radically less settled than many other areas of the country – even if it was not nearly as densely settled as the coastal fringes of the South-East or areas like north-east Norfolk. Comparison with the Ouse Valley suggests that it does not seem to have been dramatically less well developed than in many other areas (including some of the Ouse Valley townships themselves). In other words, it fell within a range of settlement density that would be recognised as not out of the ordinary in other parts of the lowland zone. Likewise, church building and parish organisation in the High Weald was as developed as elsewhere at the time. In Kent (perhaps under the influence of the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of Rochester) it was possibly more advanced, which strengthens (if it does not actually prove) the argument that the High Weald had a well established settlement pattern with a reasonably well developed density of population.

The lack of archaeological evidence remains a problem in findings answers to many of the questions that arise about early settlement. The High Weald, because of its status as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, has not had the scale of development projects that have produced opportunities for gathering archaeological evidence such as happens elsewhere. The lack of existing evidence also often militates against archaeological investigation accompanying new development because it is hard to justify on the evidence that does exist. Further investigation, however, is needed on elements of dispersed settlement, like historic farmstead sites, which may yield further evidence for early settlement. Other features, such as lost routeways that can indicate previous patterns of economic and social activity, may also provide further opportunities for discovering lost habitation elements. What is perhaps needed is a research strategy to support future investigation in the High Weald, based on the knowledge of early settlement that does exist.

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endnotes

¹ The period between the departure of the Roman Legions (ad 410) until the end of the eleventh century is referred to as the ‘early Middle Ages’ (‘early medieval’ period) throughout. Occasionally ‘Saxon’ is used to describe cultural periods – Early, Middle, or Late.

² At the time of Domesday London had a population of c.10,000, and Norwich, York and Win-chester within the range 4,000-6,000. /www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/world-of-domesday/towns.htm (25/09/13).

³ The parish boundaries are the pre-1894 ones, and thus Salehurst and Etchingham include the now separate parish of Hurst Green.

⁴ For the eastern Weald the most relevant document is the Domesday Monachorum, a manuscript that contains lists of churches as well as a version of the Exchequer Domesday for lands held by the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Rochester, and the monks in Kent (Neilson 1974, 253). The Domesday Monachorum is in an early twelfth-century hand but is generally considered to be a copy of an earlier manuscript (see notes in Morgan 1983). A second document, the Inquisitions of St Augustine’s, Canterbury (sometimes referred to as the Excerpta) is a thirteenth-century copy of an original made in or before 1087 (Morgan 1983, see notes). The significance of these church lists as a source for the establishment of churches prior to 1100 has been unpicked by G. Ward (1933). Ward suggested that they were most probably drawn up in the opening years of Lanfranc’s episcopacy, soon after 1070, and were possibly based on earlier Saxon documents (Ward 1933, 60-61). The Textus Roffensis, a document written about 1115, lists the churches and chapels in the Rochester Diocese. Ward (1932, pp. 54-59) makes out a case for this being a copy of a document written not later than 1089, listing Saxon churches originating in some cases before the Conquest. The combined evidence of the Domesday Monachorum and Textus Roffensis demonstrates how many churches were in existence around the time of the Domesday Survey.

⁵ The Domesday hundreds would have been slightly different to those recorded by the Ordnance Survey, but the areas would have been comparable.

⁶ The Sussex Rapes were a sub-division of the County.

⁷ The latter may have been a post Domesday addition caused by the inclusion of Glottenham into the Barony of Etchingham.

⁸ A hide was normally reckoned to be 120 acres. Where the hidage was less than one hide it could be recorded as a fraction of a hide or in virgates; a virgate was 30 acres or one quarter of a hide.

⁹ A villein was a villager holding manorial land by rent or labour service; a bordar worked the lord’s demesne, with little land of his own; a serf was an unfree man, a servant tied to the land.

¹⁰ The manor of Eyelids is included within the assessment as this also falls into the later parish of Ewhurst.

¹¹ In the thirteenth century the Lathe of Wye and the Lathe of Lyminge were absorbed into a newly formed Lathe of Scray. The seven hundreds of the Weald (Barkley; Barnfield; Blackborne; Cranbrook; Rolvenden; Selbrittenden; and Tenterden) were grouped into a Bailiwick within the Lathe (Morgan 1983, notes; Lawson 2004, 59).

¹² The dens of Wassal and Hexden were in Rolvenden parish, but in the Hundred of Selbrittenden at the time. Hundred boundaries were fluid and in the thirteenth century Newenden was for a time listed as a quarter in Rolvenden Hundred (Greenstreet (ed.) 1900, 221).

¹³ The presence of the earthworks associated with this early burgh is not in doubt, but whether this was Eorpeburnan is contested. Gardiner supports the case for (Gardiner 1999, 30).

¹⁴ Medieval Newenden had its market and was an important bridging point on the road from London to Rye. A Carmelite priory was established there (aka Lossenham) in 1442. Its later decline may have been accelerated by the introduction of Flemish weavers into Cranbrook by Edward III in 1332, and by the creation of Tenterden as a limb of the Cinque Ports with the growth of Small Hythe, and Appledore as a trading port. However, the population of the township was so diminished by 1700 that the parish church was greatly reduced in size (Kent HER – TQ 82 NM 1 and 3 – KE2714/16; Hasted 1792, vol. vii, p. 171).

¹⁵ A number of Domesday entries testify to this ‘wasting’, notably in Henhurst, which must have been on the direct line-of-march of the Norman army (Round 1905; Salzmann 1973, 363).

Fig. 1 Location of the Study areas. © Crown copyright 2009. An Ordnance Survey/EDINA/Digimap supplied service.

Fig. 2 The Topography of the Eastern High Weald. © Crown copyright 2009. An Ordnance Survey/EDINA/Digimap supplied service.

Fig. 3 The Topography of the Great Ouse Valley study area. © Crown copyright 2009. An Ordnance Survey/EDINA/Digimap supplied service.

Fig. 4 Eleventh-century churches in the Eastern High Weald. Map constructed using information from Morris 1976; 1983.

Fig. 5 Domesday settlements and Hundred boundaries in the Eastern High Weald. Map constructed using information from Morris 1976; 1983.

Table 1a. Summary of Resources in Henhurst Hundred (SUSSEX) Recorded in Domesday Survey

Settlement Location	Hidage	Ploughs	Villeins	Bordars	Serfs	Church*	Priest	Mill	Fishery	Meadow (acres)	Woodland (no. swine)
henhurst hundred, sussex [comprising the parish of Salehurst, part Etchingham and others]
Salehurst	0.5	7	7	8		1				16
Drigsell	3.75	14	18	6						10	20
Burgham**	0.5	2	2			[?]
Unnamed Holdings (totals)	2.75	9	10	4				1		19	7
Unnamed Holdings (Pevensey Rape outliers totals)	8.52	20.5	32	15	1			1	3	19	9
Total	16.02	52.5	69	33	1	2	0	2	3	64	36

Table 1b. Summary of Resources in Shoyswell and Staple Hundreds (SUSSEX) Recorded in Domesday Survey

Settlement Location	Hidage	Ploughs	Villeins	Bordars	Serfs	Church*	Priest	Mill	Fishery	Meadow (acres)	Woodland (no. swine)
shoyswell hundred, sussex [comprising Ticehurst parish and part Etchingham and others]
Hazelhurst	4.5	11	10	2		1					10
Unnamed Holdings (Pevensey Rape outliers totals)	8.26	34	35	12	0	0	1	0	0	17	2
Total	12.76	45	45	14		1	1			17	12
staple hundred, sussex [parishes of Ewhurst and Bodiam only]
Manor of Ewhurst	3	10	12	10	4	[ 1 ]				12	10
Sub-manor of Bodiam	1.75	6	7	10		[?]
Total	4.75	16	19	20	4	[ 2 ]				12	10

The hidage in Tables 1A and 1B has been decimalised for ease of calculation. In the original entry, sub-divisions of a hide were entered as either a fraction or in virgates (one virgate being 30 acres, or a quarter of a hide).

* Both Kent and Sussex Domesday under-recorded churches, but other documentary sources indicate where churches existed about the time of Domesday and these have been included in the tables within [-]. Possible chapels at Burgham and Bodiam.

** There is some confusion as to whether Burgham is the place of that name in Etchingham parish (Hundred of Henhurst) or an as yet unidentified manor in the Rape of Pevensey. On balance, however, it seems reasonable to assume that it is Burgham in Etchingham.

Table 2. Summary of Resources in Selbrittenden and Rolvenden Hundreds (KENT) in Domesday

Settlement Location	Hidage [Sulungs*]	Ploughs	Villeins	Bordars	Serfs	Church**	Woodland (no. swine)	Market
rolvenden hundred, kent [comprising the parish of Rolvenden and part of Benenden]
Benenden	0.5	3	4	9		1	5
Den of Belice manor (Hayne hundred)	0.125	0.5	2			[ 1 ]
selbrittenden hundred, kent [comprising the parishes of Newenden and Sandhurst]
Newenden	1	5	25	4		[ 1 ]	40	1

*The term sulung was the Kentish name for the land measure known elsewhere as a hide.

** Both Kent and Sussex Domesday under-recorded churches, but other documentary sources indicate where churches existed about the time of Domesday; these have been included in the table within [-].

Fig. 6 The Great Ouse Valley study area in the Eleventh Century.

Historic boundaries are based on hand-drawn version by Cambridgeshire

County Council, 1979, from OS 1st edition map.

Table 3. Settlement Density: Sussex High Weald and Huntingdonshire Ouse Valley Compared

Sussex High Weald				Huntingdonshire Ouse Valley
hundred	Estimated Acreage	Ploughs	Households	townships	Estimated Acreage	Ploughs	Households
Hawksborough	12,890	77.5	101	Brampton	3,557	18	41
Henhurst	10,750	52.5	103	Buckden	3,096	21	57
Shoyswell	10,770	45	59	Eaton Socon	7,602	32	93
				Eynesbury	7,722	55	68
				Hartford	3,047	12	33
				Paxton	4,269	5	68
				Slepe	5,225	29.5	62
Totals	34,410	175	263	Totals	34,518	172.5	422
Acres per plough/ household		197:1	130:1	Acres per plough/ household		200:1	82:1

Table 4. Acreage to Plough/ Household Ratios: Sussex High Weald and Huntingdonshire Ouse Valley Compared

	settlement group
	High Weald				Ouse Valley
	Bexhill Hundred (Rape of Hastings coastal hundred)	Hawks-borough hundred	Henhurst hundred	Shoyswell hundred	‘Wood pasture’	‘Fenland’	‘Riverside’
Acreage to Plough Ratio	172:1	166:1	205:1	239:1	200:1	374:1	165:1
Acreage to Household Ratio	72:1*	128:1	104:1	183:1	82:1	129:1	56:1

*Excluding ‘burgesses’.