Institute of Archaeology University College London
Case study: Manningford Abbots
Home Manningford Abbots The Vale of Pewsey Comments and debate Links	Case study: Manningford Abbots Manningford Abbots is one of three estates that make up the modern day civil parish of Mannigford. Indeed, originally, the estate of Manningford may have been one unit but by the late 9th century we learn from charter evidence that it has been divided into three blocks of roughly equally sized land. The name 'Mannings' could, like the 'Cannings', be another 'ingas' place-name and derive its name from the peoples who at an earlier period would have settled this part of the Vale. Strip parishes are not unique to the Vale of Pewsey but are a familiar estate structure for many, if not most of the river valleys of southern England. Other good examples include the Wylye Valley (Wiltshire), the Avon Valley (Wiltshire) and the Vale of the White Horse (Oxfordshire). (For a good overview of these see Hooke, 1998). The origins of these types of estates are obscure. In the 1960s and 1970s there was a tendency to suggest a reasonable degree of continuity from the late Roman period. Although parish boundaries appear to have fossilized estate bounds documented some 100 years ago, it is difficult, even speculative to look for earlier origins. A major stumbling block is understanding the nature of Roman Villa estates. Recent Roman settlement discoveries have discredited the apparant correspondence between villas and later parishes (Fowler, 1976) and as yet the positive recognition of a Roman Villa estate has eluded landscape archaeologists of the period. Since a least the 7th century, land units were assessed in hides. According to the writings of Bede the 'hide' is purported to provide land enough for one family. The Domesday book reports the size of estates in hides and there appears a remarkable degree of regularity in estate sizes. 'Tithings' represent 1o hide blocks of land and suggest the use of a decimal system. So to do the 'Five hide' estates evidenced in place-names such as Fyfield and Fiddington. This decimal system also ties in with the hundredal system supposedly introduced in the late 10th and 11th centuries. The vast amount of Anglo-Saxon charters, and in particular charter bounds have a 10th century date. This was thought to boil down to an issue of survival up until recently. Popular opinion now accepts that the huge increase in land granting in the 10th century may relate to a systematic reorganisation of the administrative landscape in the Late Anglo-Saxon period. This is a view favoured by the Mapping Anglo-Saxon Charters Project.

The parish of Manningford Bruce redrawn from an estate map dated 1722 (after Chandler, 1991). These maps can prove a useful tool in the study of Anglo-Saxon estates. On many estate terriers the names of the various 'open fields' are provided and these can used as a means of verifying and qualifying place-names and boundary features. This map in particular demonstrates the various uses of the valley profile for different agricultural needs. By design, these estates appear almost self-sufficient with their share of the full spectrum of agricultural and natural resources. Woodland resources and copses are best suited, along with rough common grazing land to the Upper Greensand. On the allivial plains of the river basin meadow pasture, a rich source for winter feeds thrive. These are often refered to as 'doles' or shares in the charter boundary clause and to many estates that do not have immediate access to such a resource is attached a parcel of meadow land elsewhere but often within the same hundred. Reeds and rushes also thrive in such conditions and are again a useful, all-purpose domestic resource. The lower chalk plays host to the main agricultural fields of the estate. Anglo-Saxon charter bounds will often list many features synonymous with open field systems. Furrow, furlongs, garans(or 'greens' - triangular fields), acres, ploughlands and headlands all feature in the bounds of estates that traverse areas of good arable potential. In the West Midlands the density of these features has been used to suggest a fully operational intensive open field system developed before the Conquest (Hooke, 1981). Finally, the upper chalk downland plays host to summer grazing. What is of value on the downs is that which walks round on four legs - not necessarily the number of acres. This is important to bear in mind when we consider the location of linear boundaries - as we shall see.

The modern civil parish of Manningford incorporating the medieval parishes of Manningford Bohune, Manningford Bruce and Manningford Abbots. Various identifiable features mentioned in the perambulation for the land charter of Manyngforde A.D. 987 (Manningford Abbots) have been plotted. In this instance, the Anglo-Saxon estate of Manningford Abbots can be compared with the 18th century estate of Manningford Bruce (above). Boundary perambulations usually list features in clockwise rotation. This estate's bounds begin at the 'east side of the ford by the Mannings'. Such a refernce is naomally easy to locate in the landscape and implies the existence of a road. The perambulations continue north along a 'heathy ridgeway' to the 'Swanabeorh' - the barrow of the wood men - a reference to the woodland still in existence in 1722. The Barrow itself is the meeeting place for Swanborough hundred and lies on the main east-west route through the Vale. This route is mentioned in the perambulation as we travel 'east along the way'. This way is crossed by a 'broad way' which continues south to the ford by the Mannings. There is another refrence to a roteway later in the perambulation. These occasional references can be used collectively to reconstruct whole networks of routeways. This is a task presently being undertaken as part of the West Saxon Civil Defence Project.

The Reference to a 'Middeldune' is interesting in that it high-lights the danger of merely studying charter bounds in abstract, overhead map format. Anglo-Saxon surveyors would not have had the benefit of close contour surveys and would have surveyed the bounds in from the ground. Indeed, with the exception of the 'Ealdan Gemaerdola' or 'old boundary shares', most of the features in the south of the estate could have been 'drawn up' from a good vantage point on the valley floor. Standing in the Valley bottom today, the 'Hlincrewe' (row of lynches), 'Middeldune' (middle hill), and 'Milandune' (great hill) are all visible to the eye. The 'old boundary shares' could even refer to prehistoric strip lynchets that can be seen, again, from the valley bottom. Certainly, when trying to locate estate boundaries in the landscape of the present, it must be borne in mind that they might not actually exist and that simple lines of sight between visible landscape features sufficed as a means to partition downland.

As the boundary perambulation comes back from whence it started and crosses the arable land once again, agricultual features are referenced. The 'long furlong (or ploughland) on its west side' may refer to the strips of open fields subdivided at a later period but non-the-less evidenced in the estate map of 1722. The 'Litlan Aecer' may manifest itself in the slight stepping of the modern parish boundary.

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	Alex Langlands Institute of Archaeology, 31-34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H OPY. E-mail: alexlanglands@yahoo.com Back to top