Stratton, Biggleswade: 1,300 years of village life in eastern Bedfordshire from the 5th century AD

The culmination of three decades of work, Stratton, Biggleswade: 1,300 years of village life in eastern Bedfordshire from the 5th century AD presents the result of around 12ha of excavations undertaken between 1990 and 2001.

The excavations took place in advance of large-scale development on the south-eastern edge of Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. It quickly became apparent that the known deserted medieval village was surrounded by the ramins of its Anglo-Saxon precursor, and thus began a decade of excavations, exploring the village’s development from its 5th century origins through to its 18th century demise. This represented one of the largest excavations of an Anglo-Saxon settlement to have taken place in England, certainly at the time.

The village had modest origins, situated on previously uninhabited land and occupied by only a few families at a time in the 5th and 6th centuries. Expansion began in the 7th century, when the imposition of an extensive field system suggests the influence of the Church, and a greater and more complex array of domestic structures can be identified. A new field system was set out in the middle Anglo-Saxon period, before a radical change in the settlement’s layout was imposed in the 9th century. This occurred at roughly the same time as the Danelaw was established in this part of the country, although a direct causal link remains elusive.

Changes to the layout of the settlement continued to be made throughout the Middle Ages, but its overall form had largely crystallised by the 11th or 12th century under the influence of the two manors which held land in Stratton. Documentary sources suggest that the resident lords of the manors gradually began to reduce the number of tenants in the late 17th or early 18th century, remodelling the village into the classic estate landscape of Stratton Park.

The excavations revealed a settlement that was constantly in flux, when viewed from the perspective of its life over more than a millenium, but which in many ways remained remarkably constant over that period. Stratton was not a wealthy village, existing as a dependent township within the parish of Biggleswade, and the focus of the excavations lay primarily on the homes and activities of the ordinary villagers rather than the social elite. This publication chronicles 1,300 years of a small, low-status farming community - the crops they grew, the animals they reared, and the goods they traded or made themselves.

Stratton, Biggleswade: 1,300 years of village life in eastern Bedfordshire from the 5th century AD is available as a PDF (free) or hard copy (£45) from Archaeopress.