West Midlands Regional Research Framework for Archaeology, Seminar 4: Kinsley
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Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire: An Overview
Rural Settlement
Gavin Kinsley
Trent & Peak Archaeological Unit
Gavin.Kinsley@nottingham.ac.uk
In Staffordshire, in common with much of the West Midlands, there is a dearth of direct
evidence for rural settlement in the Anglo-Saxon period. I claim to have no special
general knowledge of the area, so, having been asked to provide an overview, what
follows is merely a compilation of readily-available sources. Foremost are the Sites and
Monuments Record for Staffordshire (Anglo-Saxon period), and Margaret Gelling's book
(Gelling, M, The West Midlands in the Early Middle Ages Leicester, London and New
York 1992).
The midland shires in general are of late formation (10th century) and bear little relation
to earlier distributions of peoples or of dioceses (Hooke, D, The Landscape of AngloSaxon England, 1998, p.203). Any consideration of Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire is
therefore using a study area which for most of the period is probably unrelated to the
study material. It is hardly surprising therefore to see, for example, such a contrast across
the shire in the archaeological evidence for the early/middle Anglo-Saxon period, where
the Peak Barrows and the Trent Valley cemeteries within eastern Staffordshire clearly
represent the western extreme of a mostly East-Midlands distribution.
The early Anglo-Saxon period
Archaeological evidence relating to rural settlement in the early Anglo-Saxon period in
Staffordshire is largely limited to what can be inferred from burial sites and isolated
finds. The known distributions suggest that Anglo-Saxon influence was limited to the
extreme east of the county, and much of it was late.
Peak District burials
These are largely C7-C8 inhumations in barrows, although probable flat-grave
inhumations and some cremations in barrows are also known (Alsop Moor/Cold Eaton,
and Musden Low). Some burials could perhaps be C6, e.g. the barrow at Musden Low
(pair of annular brooches).
There is little of a distinctively Anglo-Saxon nature from the Peak District barrows; they
mostly represent high-status burials whose dress fashions reflect the widespread
prevailing insular culture of the seventh and eighth centuries. Their restriction to the Peak
District probably reflects enhanced preservation resulting from subsequent land-use. The
restricted date range may result from the antiquaries' focus on barrows.
Middle Trent Valley burials
Anglo-Saxon inhumation, cremation and mixed-rite cemeteries are known, mainly
datable to the C6/early C7 period. All are known from chance finds with little systematic
West Midlands Regional Research Framework for Archaeology, Seminar 4: Kinsley
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excavation. Although there is little or no C5 material, dateable finds from the cremation
cemeteries (where it would be most likely to occur, on the East Midland model) are
probably under-represented due to destruction in the funerary process. Barrows are
probably under-represented in the shire due to subsequent land-use.
Outliers
The majority of the county has no known early Anglo-Saxon burial sites.
A few finds come from outside the mid-Trent Valley and the Peak: at Barlaston (isolated
inhumation with knife, sword, hanging-bowl) and Forsbrook (pendant); both are likely to
be seventh century.
British survival
An alleged (SMR) Anglo-Saxon sherd from Berth Hill camp in the north-west of the
county hints at re-occupation of an Iron Age hillfort site during the Anglo-Saxon period.
A Dark-Age fortified centre like South Cadbury could be envisaged, but little should be
built upon the evidence of one sherd.
The remaining evidence comes from place-names, of which some thirty indicate some
form of contact between British and English-speakers. Comberford contains cumbre, an
OE version of Cymry, the whole name being a 'respectful' reference to Britons, using
their name for themselves; Eccleshall indicates Anglo-Saxon recognition of a British
institution; the names of the two main Roman centres were preserved, possibly indicating
continuity of occupation: Penkridge (Penn-crug (a tumulus on a headland)/
Pennocrucium) ; Lichfield (Leto-cet-um (grey-wood)/Liccidfelth).
The middle and late Anglo-Saxon period
Evidence for rural settlement is largely limited to excavations at Catholme, and to written
sources.
Catholme
A large settlement of Grubenhauser and wall-post buildings was occupied from at least
the seventh to the ninth centuries. The settlement was set in a framework of enclosures
and trackways defined by shallow ditches, and clearly extended beyond the limit of
excavation to the west and south, in the direction of the Wychnor cemetery, which must
have been the burial ground for the settlement. The ditches were shallow, of a depth not
producing clear crop-marks, and the material culture was very poor, consisting mainly of
modest quantities of very friable hand-made pottery (mainly recovered from
Grubenhauser). The pottery would not survive long in the ploughsoil. Metal objects were
scarce and small. These features explain the difficulties of finding more sites of this type.
There are few diagnostically Anglo-Saxon attributes of the setlement apart from fourteen
grubenhauser. The Wychnor cemetery, of 6th/7th century date and known only from
quarry-finds, contained artefacts of Anglo-Saxon type. Catholme/Wychnor lies at the
western limit of the essentially East Midlands distribution of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. It
may be no accident that this 'cultural frontier' lies at a geographically-significant location
where the rivers Tame and Trent meet. It may have had a symbolic meaning, or it may
represent the western limit of the broad Trent Valley gravel terraces, and therefore a
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change in land-type, in the agricultural regime, and in the openness of the people to
cultural change.
Evidence from excavation, cropmarks and fieldwalking suggests that the excavated
features may represent the final phase of a single settlement, located at the Tame/Trent
confluence in the mid-Romano-British period, and migrating along the river terrace
through the early Saxon period, and into the middle/late Anglo-Saxon period.
This apparent continuity of settlement from the Roman period suggests that the AngloSaxon settlements of the 5th and later centuries further east in the Trent Valley did not
cause major disruption of the agricultural regime, even in the eastern part of the county,
and the population of Catholme may have been substantially, even wholly, native. The
use of Germanic style brooches and weapons in the Wychnor cemetery could perhaps
indicate the presence of an elite group of Germanic origin, but it is equally likely to
represent the adoption of Germanic cultural styles by the native inhabitants.
Place-names indicating Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon influence
By C10, charter bounds show that even the smallest features of the landscape had OE
names.
There is little place-name evidence for Viking influence: some -gate names in Tamworth,
-holme element appears in mid Trent Valley (Catholme, Tucklesholme); there are a few
Norse settlement names in the Peak (Swinscoe, Thorpe, Ilam, Leek, Hulme).
Saxo-Norman settlement
The evidence is largely documentary.
In Domesday Book there is of course nothing to indicate the physical nature of the
settlements represented; they were widespread and numerous in all but the north-east and
eastern parts of the shire, but the population for the county was relatively low (Hill, D,
An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England).
Some open-field parishes are known with a nucleated village, eg Barlaston; these occur
mainly in river-valleys (Gelling). Much settlement elsewhere in the county took the form
of dispersed hamlets and isolated farmsteads where open fields were often not fully
developed, and frequently disappeared early (Gelling).
Apart from Catholme, no finds of the Anglo-Saxon period have been made in rural
settlement contexts in Staffordshire (SMR), and there is therefore no direct evidence for
the antiquity of the pattern suggested by Domesday. This could perhaps indicate that the
current settlement pattern was formed after the period, but it is more likely to simply
reflect the difficulty of identifying features with the sparse material culture of the
settlements suggested by Catholme, or simply a lack of archaeological investigation.
Some assessment of the amount of excavation carried out in villages, and of large-scale
fieldwalking projects and reporting of metal-detector finds would help to clarify this.