Medieval settlements and landscapes in the Whittlewood area

Archaeology, History

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Medieval Settlement Research Group, Society for Medieval Archaeology, English Heritage, Royal Archaeological Institute, Society of Antiquaries, London, Aurelius Trust

Still Image/Graphics, Text

The main historical sources were documents from the National Archives, the British Library and many local repositories, e.g. Northamptonshire Record Office, New College Oxford. The source of the archaeological data came from our own field work - field walking, test pitting, aerial photography, planning of earthworks, resistivity surveys etc.

The digital archive was created during the course of the ARHB- (now AHRC) funded Whittlewood Project which ran between 2000 and 2005. The principal aim of this project was to explore the origins and development of a group of rural settlements in the Central Midlands which adopted both nucleated and dispersed forms, and to explore the reasons for this divergence. These forms, which began to crystallize in the period between AD 805 and 1250 were examined in the longer context of settlement development from the Mesolithic to the present day, and their broader landscape setting. The project adopted an interdisciplinary approach, primarily using historical and archaeological data supplemented by evidence from buildings survey, place-names, and the palaeoenvironmental record. The digital archive complements a series of other publications written by the core team which have appeared since 2000. The digital archive contains a variety of electronically generated files, including working papers, drafts of publications, notes, transcripts of historical documents, reports of archaeological fieldwork, databases of archaeological finds, raw and processed data from earthwork and geophysical survey, GIS files, illustrations, images and video clips. The main core of the archive was created by the core team of historians and archaeologists, but to this have been added specialist reports and individual pieces of work written or undertaken by other individuals. Issues of photograph copyright and client confidentiality, however, preclude the full deposit of all digital resources. It has been deposited with AHDS Archeology and can be found at: http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/search/fr.cfm?rcn=WHITTLEWOOD05-1

Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), Apple QuickTime Movie (MOV), Comma Separated Data (CSV), Esri Shapefile, JPEG File Interchange Format (JPG)

Jones, R. and Page M., Medieval Villages in an English Landscape: Beginnings and Ends (Macclesfield, 2006).
Page, M. and Jones, R. 'Stable and Unstable Village Plans: case-studies from Whittlewood', in M. Gardiner and S. Rippon (eds.) Medieval Landscapes in Britain (Macclesfield, 2006).
Jones, R., Dyer, C., and Page, M. 'The Dynamics of Medieval Villagescapes', Internet Archaeology, 19 (2006).
Page, M., 'Destroyed by the Temples: the deserted medieval village of Stowe', Records of Buckinghamshire, 45 (2005), 189-204.
Jones, R., 'Signatures in the soil: the use of ceramic manure scatters in the identification of medieval arable farming regimes', Archaeological Journal, 161 (2005), 159-88.
Page, M. and Jones, R., 'The Whittlewood project: excavation of a medieval manor at Wicken, 2004', MSRG Annual Report, 19 (2004), 24-7.
Jones, R. and Page, M., 'Characterizing rural settlement and landscape: Whittlewood Forest in the middle ages', Medieval Archaeology, 47 (2003), 53-83.
Page, M., 'The extent of Whittlewood Forest and the impact of disafforestation in the later middle ages', Northamptonshire Past and Present, 56 (2003), 22-34.
Page, M. and Jones, R., 'The Whittlewood project interim report 2002-3', MSRG Annual Report, 18 (2003), 27-36.
Jones, R. and Page, M., 'Medieval settlements and landscapes in the Whittlewood area: interim report 2003-4', MSRG Annual Report, 18 (2003), 37-45.
Dyer, C., 'Whittlewood: revealing a medieval landscape', Current Archaeology, 182 (2002), 59-63.
Jones, R., 'The Luffield Priory grange at Monksbarn, Whittlebury, Northants', Northamptonshire Archaeology, 30 (2002), 126-39.
Jones, R. and Page, M., 'Medieval settlements and landscapes in the Whittlewood area: interim report 2001-2', MSRG Annual Report, 16 (2001), 15-25.
Page, M. and Jones, R., 'The Whittlewood project interim report 2000-1', MSRG Annual Report, 15 (2000), 10-18.