The Saxons in Milton Keynes

Does history repeat itself?

In 409 AD the British "revolted from the Roman Empire, 'rejected Roman law, reverted to their native customs, and armed themselves to ensure their own safety'" - an early Brexit? The following year (410 AD) "Emperor Honorius sends his Rescript (diplomatic letters) to the Romano-British magistrates, where he explains that the cities in Britain must provide for their own defence against the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons. This effectively ends Roman rule in Great Britain."

410 CE/AD is often described as the last year of Roman Britain, the year we entered the "Anglo-Saxon period".   In fact things didn't change overnight. As with the start of the Roman era, settlement patterns and daily life evolved more slowly.

Croft and Mynard commented in their excellent book 'The Changing Landscape of Milton Keynes' - "It is clear that settlement of the area in the Roman period was extensive, so it is likely that any Saxon people entering the area would have found the remains of a well-managed agrarian landscape...It is likely that rough pasture, scrubland and even woodland had regenerated over some of the former arable lands of the villa estates. The place-name evidence in the Shenley (Bright clearing) and Bletchley (Blaecc's clearing) areas tends to confirm the wooded nature of these areas in the 7th and 8th centuries."

The map of the area did change. Magiovinium, Bancroft and other roman sites were abandoned, whilst other areas saw new development. Even places like Pennyland and the Hartigans gravel pit (near Milton Keynes village), which had seen earlier settlements abandoned in the early Roman period, saw new settlements develop. While Bancroft villa was left to decay, settlement on the hill at Blue Bridge revived.

The Saxons originated mainly in the area we know today as northern Germany and Denmark. At first they were sea-borne raiders - but in the turbulence of the collapse of the Roman Empire they began to settle. Saxon sites have been discovered in Old Wolverton, Westbury (actually in what we now call Shenley Brook End), Pennyland and Newport Pagnell. As noted above, some of our City's place names have Saxon origins. Michael Farley in his 'Illustrated History of Early Buckinghamshire' claims that "by AD 500 it is fairly likely that Buckinghamshire was to all intents and purposes a Saxon county...lacking documentation it is too early to know which principle tribal grouping (e.g. Anglian, West Saxon, etc) was dominant here." We know that they arrived holding pagan beliefs, but Christianity re-established itself during the early Saxon period. The most complete Saxon church in Buckinghamshire is to be found in Wing, between Milton Keynes and Aylesbury.

It is during the Saxon period that the "hundreds" were established. In a forthcoming post I will describe the Secklow Mound, which lies behind the Central Library in Milton Keynes.

Milton Keynes' Bronze Age

The Bronze Age roughly covers the period 2300 BCE until 600 BCE. In reality these dividing lines are not as clear cut as we sometimes imagine. It is the introduction of metalworking in bronze (and also copper and gold) which defines this period - until iron becomes the major type of metal being worked. Another characteristic of this period was a distinctive style of burial involving decorated pottery (giving rise to the name 'beaker culture).

The evidence of Bronze Age settlement  has largely come from excavation of ring ditches in the Ouse and Ouzel valleys.  These are associated with burial mounds (Round barrow). The most significant finds were at Warren Farm (Wolverton Mill) - which may be the oldest; the nearby Little Pond Ground, Oakgrove and Cotton Valley (between Willen Lake North and M1 Junction 14).

There's an excellent piece about the settlement at Blue Bridge/Bancroft accessible at http://www.mkheritage.co.uk/mkm/mkarchaeology/Web%20pages/Bronze%20Age.html. The pottery is of bronze age type, but the buildings are closer to Iron Age types.

A number of Bronze Age artefacts have also been found in Stony Stratford (a socketed axe): Shenley (an urn and an arrowhead) and other sites around the city.

Near Newport Pagnell (Gayhurst Quarry) an early Bronze Age cemetery has been excavated. It had seven round barrows. At the centre of the largest barrow was a massive grave pit which showed a sequence of five successive burials from around 2000 BCE, while the six surrounding ones were 100 and 600 years later. The Illustrated History of Early Buckinghamshire  says "What made this barrow remarkable was a deposit of cattle bones, perhaps the remains of 300 animals...The overall scale of the bone deposits provides as vivid an indicator of the wealth of the community that could afford to make this exceptional statement as the deposition of any number of artefacts. It illustrates the central importance of both cattle and ritual sacrifice to early Bronze Age communities"

The British Museum has the "Milton Keynes Hoard", an incredible hoard of Bronze Age gold found in 2000 in a field near Monkston. It has been described as "one of the biggest concentrations of Bronze Age gold known from Great Britain". A hoard of weapons was found on what became the County Arms Hotel in New Bradwell.