A tenth-century Anglo-Saxon standing cross discovered at Louth, Lincolnshire

This aim of this post is simply to report the rather exciting discovery of two joining pieces from a Anglo-Saxon standing cross in the rectory garden at Louth, Lincolnshire, which David Stocker and Paul Everson have dated to the tenth century. Both of these pieces depict the body of the crucified Christ and the original ring-headed cross was probably a very substantial monument, several metres high, that must have been of considerable importance in the local area.

The two joining pieces of the Anglo-Saxon cross-head found at Louth, shown shortly after the discovery of the second piece; the surviving parts of the cross-head together measure around 0.4m top to bottom (image copyright © C. R. Green).

Needless to say, this new pre-Conquest cross is a very significant find indeed, and its discovery in Louth is of especial interest. The current parish church—which possesses the tallest parish spire in England—dates largely from the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, and whilst it contains within it the fabric of earlier churches dating back to the later twelfth century, this is by far the earliest Christian artefact yet found in the town. As such, it provides something of a 'missing link' between the medieval structural evidence of the parish church and the important documentary evidence for both a significant Middle Saxon minster at Louth which produced Offa of Mercia's last Archbishop of Canterbury, St Æthelheard (792–805), and a tenth-century shrine to Louth's own Anglo-Saxon saint, St Herefrith, who is thought to have been potentially the last ninth-century Bishop of Lindsey (c. 870 or thereabouts) and perhaps martyred by the Vikings.

For further details of the finding of the cross and commentary on its significance, see the press release from St James's Church and The Louth Cross sub-committee and the Lincolnshire Echo article on the Louth Cross, published this morning.

The largest piece of the cross-head, photographed shortly after its discovery during routine maintenance work (image copyright © Richard Gurnham, St James's Church, Louth, and The Louth Cross sub-committee). 

Compilation of views of the different sides of the cross-head; click the image for a larger view (image copyright © Chris Marshall, St James's Church, Louth, and The Louth Cross sub-committee).

St James's Church, Louth, from Westgate; the church possesses the tallest parish church spire in England, completed 1515 (image copyright © C. R. Green).

The content of this post and page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2016, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.

Of Sacred Springs, Commerce and Crime: Aswell Hole, the Gatherums, and the History of Louth

When people write about Louth and it's history, they often focus on the most immediately obvious aspects of the town, including the church, the grammar school, the market, the canal and Riverhead, and civic buildings like the town hall and former workhouses. This focus is, of course, quite understandable, with the importance of all of these elements to the history of the town being clear. In this post, however, I’d like to talk about Aswell Hole and the Gatherums/Springside that runs east from it—although both are, perhaps, a little off the normal tourist and casual visiting routes in the town, they are also of some considerable historical interest within the context of Louth as a whole, as I hope the following will demonstrate!

Aswell Hole and the Gatherums, Louth, showing the two large pools and their streams as they appeared on Espin's early nineteenth-century plan of the town, originally published in 1808 and slightly revised to remove the demolished Town Hall in c.1815. Note, the pool of the Aswell Spring originally filled almost the entire Aswell Hole, though its extent was much reduced over the course of the nineteenth century and it was finally covered up in 1974. The names Gatherums and Springside both nowadays refer to the area to the east of Aswell Hole (currently a park) all the way through to Church Street; the name Gatherums is probably earlier and derives from Scandinavian 'gatu-rum', meaning a rough track or droveway. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, both springs fed into the Monks' Dyke, and the former route of the Aswell Spring where it once joined St Helen's spring at Monks' Dyke Head on the right hand side of this map is visible in the property boundaries depicted by Espin. At some point the Aswell Spring was diverted to form a mill pool and drive a fulling mill, perhaps in the sixteenth century (see below), and its waters thereafter flowed north down the open street and then along what is now Eastgate, then Watery Lane, to join the River Lud; this open stream was apparently culverted at some point between 1808 and 1834.

The key to understanding the local import of this area lies in the origins of Aswell Hole. The present Aswell Hole was, until relatively recently, filled by a large pool of spring water which emptied eastwards at a rate of somewhere around 460 gallons-per-minute, running along the back of the properties facing onto modern Queen Street (formerly Walkergate) before filling the old mill pond and later Open Air Swimming Pool off Church Street. This was in modern times known as the Aswell Spring, but the second element of this name is in reality redundant, as the name 'Aswell' means 'the spring by the ash tree'. Furthermore, just to the east of the Aswell pool was a second spring and pool, the St Helen’s Spring, which similarly flowed eastwards in historic times, in this case into the Monks' Dyke and then through to Louth Park Abbey (founded in 1139), supposedly once with sufficient force to allow a loaded skiff to sail from the town down to the Abbey, according to Bayley in 1834.

The only remaining open part of the Aswell Spring, flowing through the back garden of property facing onto modern Queen Street (photo: C. R. Green). Aside from this section, the whole of the Aswell Spring is now culverted, as are the waters of the St Helen's Spring. The flow of this section appears to be controlled by the water authority and seems to be much reduced compared to its original output of around 460 gallons per minute.

Needless to say, these two medieval springs appear to have had considerable significance for the town in the past. In particular, not only was one of the springs dedicated to St Helen and very probably venerated in the medieval period, but there is also a sizeable body of material that suggests that the springs were an important focus for religious devotion in the Early Modern period too. Of particular note here are the many references to relatively substantial payments being made for the dressing and cleaning of at least the main Aswell Spring in preparation for its blessing and religious usage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. So, William Blanchard bequeathed £3 for the dressing of Aswell and other springs in the town in 1592, and payments for such veneration occur in the Churchwardens’ accounts through the sixteenth century and almost annually in the Louth Corporation records from 1601–77—for example, ‘Ffishers wief’ was paid 4s for the ‘dressinge of Aswell’ in 1609, equivalent to a labour cost of around £580 today. This devotion was apparently primarily focussed on Holy Thursday (Ascension Day), although there are indications that the spring was prepared for other religious festivals too, as in 1559 when Mertyn Chapman was paid 12d by the Churchwardens to dress the Aswell Spring for Christmas.

There are also frequent accounts of large quantities of stone and timber being conveyed to Aswell in the aftermath of the Reformation, something which has been thought to indicate an unusual lavishing of attention on this area then. Some of this material was apparently being used 'for paveinge at Aswell... [and] the Raisinge of yt', as in 1621, but the quantities involved would imply that rather more substantial building works were also taking place. In fact, Bayley in 1834 suggested that so many wagonloads of stone and timber are said to have been conveyed to Aswell from St Mary's chapel and Louth Park Abbey in the period after the Reformation, for some unstated purpose, that he could only think that a stone wall was being built around the spring which always fell down as soon as it was raised! Although few traces of any such sixteenth-century building works now survive, there is a quantity of dressed stone in the wall where the Aswell Spring once rose that may well represent the remnants of this activity (the pool was finally fully covered over in the 1970s). Furthermore, Bayley observed that one of the much-decayed late Tudor houses that persisted at Aswell to his day had 'some appearance of having been used for religious purposes', which may well be significant. One might tentatively wonder whether this lavishing of money on the Aswell Spring in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries might not, in fact, have reflected somehow a redirection of popular veneration and religious activity from the now-forbidden traditional Catholic rites and dissolved Abbey onto what look to have been surviving and apparently unrepressed 'holy wells' of medieval Christianity?

The Aswell Springhead, where the spring—now culverted—originally rose; a small portion of the pool and stream remained open here until 1974, when it was finally fully covered over (photo: C. R. Green). Note the dressed stone around the springhead, partially covered on the left by a thin covering of cement with a design set in it, which stands in contrast to the use of brick everywhere else in this part of town; the bottom row of dressed stones directly around the springhead are also angled and shaped. This stonework presumably represents the remnant of the loads of stone brought to Aswell in the sixteenth century from St Mary's chapel and Louth Park Abbey.

If the Aswell Hole and Gatherums area is therefore likely to have been of some religious significance to the early town into the Early Modern era, this is not the end of the import and historical interest here, and the Aswell Spring in particular appears to have been of critical importance for the development of Louth. First, it was a key source of fresh water for the town from the medieval period through into the modern era. Its importance in this regard is reflected in the fact that fines were fairly frequently handed out for its defilement in medieval period. So, in 1431, Robert Ffynche was reported to the Manor Court for washing newly dyed black cloths in the Aswell spring; in 1441, John Baumburgh was fined 4d for washing sheepskins in the water of Asewell; and in 1449, nine men were fined 1d by the Manor Court for daily watering their horses in the Aswell spring, 'contrary to ancient custom', thus defiling and corrupting its water. This use of the spring as a source of water continued well into the modern era, when water carriers such as John Jeffries would take their horses down to the Aswell Pool to fill water bags and then sell the water around the town.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, the spring water not only acted as a source of fresh water but also gave life to a number of industries. Historically, the most important of these was the cloth finishing industry, which was located in this area of the town. The water from the Aswell Spring was used by both the dyers and fullers—who stamped on cloth in pure water to felt it and give it a smooth finish—of medieval Louth as an essential part of their trade, and this industry may well have driven the medieval expansion and prosperity of the town. It is perhaps not always fully appreciated that Louth was actually one of the most important textile centres in both Lincolnshire and eastern England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, producing, along with Lincoln and Beverley, a distinctive fine cloth that was mentioned by name in customs accounts of that period—for example, in 1307 a substantial cargo of ‘Louth say’ (a cloth of fine texture) was loaded in Hull for Gerard Nerle of Florence on the galley of Andali de Nigro. The thirteenth-century prosperity and expansion of the town—as witnessed by the famous tessellated pavement unearthed two hundred years ago on Westgate and the major rebuilding of the parish church in that century—probably had its roots in this industry and thus ultimately in the pure waters of Aswell Spring.

John Jeffries, water carrier of Louth, who took water from the Aswell Spring in leather bags and sold it around the town in the late eighteenth century. This version of the famous image is dated 1775 and signed Wm Williams (image: British Museum)

The entrance to Louth's former Open Air Swimming Pool, originally the site of the fulling mill that was powered by the Aswell Spring in the early nineteenth century. The swimming pool itself operated from 1924 through until the early 1970s and was created from the former mill dam, which was filled by unheated spring water that would freeze over in winter. On the ground floor of the building shown was the pit that once held that waterwheel of the fulling mill and also a coke-fired boiler that heated the water for the swimming pool showers, whilst the changing rooms for the pool were located up a set of wooden stairs. The fulling mill seems to have been converted into a corn mill in the early 1820s and continued to function as this through until the early–mid 1870s.

Louth’s distinctive cloth continued to be exported well into the fourteenth century, and the cloth-processing industry in Louth still provided employment for thirteen walkers or fullers in the late fourteenth century, according to the 1379 poll tax list. Indeed, the cloth industry in the town is thought to have remained in reasonable health through the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth, with the early sixteenth-century Churchwardens’ Accounts referring to sixteen weavers and ten fullers, along with others associated with the trade. By the end of the sixteenth century, however, cloth processing appears to have been a declining area of local employment. Nonetheless, it did continue. Indeed, the industry was still functioning in this area as late as the early nineteenth century, when the waters of Aswell Spring drove a fulling mill. The mill pool eventually became the town's 'Open Air Swimming Pool' in the twentieth century, until its closure in 1970, and the early nineteenth-century fulling mill may well have been the successor to the unlocated fulling mill at Louth that was owned by John Bradley in 1590.

Another important commercial use of the Aswell Spring was by the brewing industry. In 1449 it is recorded in the Manorial Court Roll that Aswell Spring provided the people of Louth with 'clean water for making their beer, as they are wont', and there were at least three breweries listed in this part of town in the 1830s. Indeed, one was actually located 'in Aswell Hole' itself, being said in 1837 (when it was offered for sale) to be 'immediately adjoining Aswell Spring'. However, it is worth emphasising that the Aswell Hole and Gatherums area of Louth was not simply a religious and industrial focus for the town; it was also a significant residential area of the town from the mid-nineteenth century too. Although there were a few earlier buildings in this part of Louth (not least the surviving late Tudor houses that Bayley mentioned in 1834, said to be 'of the worst workmanship and character'), residential activity was relatively limited and small in scale through until the 1830s. This situation changed dramatically after that point, however, with the rapid construction of tightly-packed terraced housing to the south and east of the Hole and all along the banks of the springs right the way through to Church Street. These houses remained in place until the mid-twentieth century, when they were finally demolished as slums.

Looking east along the Gatherums and Springside walk in 2012; up until 1960–1, the St Helen's Spring flowed openly through this area, with nine small footbridges over the stream being used to access the terraced houses on the south side of the stream from the path. These houses were demolished as slums at around the same time as the stream was culverted (image © Copyright Chris, via Geograph, used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 licence).

The Gatherums and Springside in the mid-nineteenth century, from William Brown's Panorama of Louth, painted 1847–56; the terraced housing, stream, footpath and footbridges are visible on this part of Brown's Panorama (photo: C. R. Green)

These slum terraces were inhabited by a wide variety of people, from plumbers and ropers to labourers, painters and lodging-house keepers, although a significant number of the buildings here also housed people and businesses that were of considerable 'ill repute' in the mid-nineteenth-century town. Indeed, the area in that period was amongst the most notorious in Louth, with the brothels of the Gatherums and Aswell Hole being both exceptionally numerous and, according to a contemporary journalist, 'of the very worst kind'. Numerous lurid tales were told in the local Victorian newspapers of these brothels and the women who lived and worked in them, such as Ann Kime, Elizabeth Clarke, Suke Mason and Elizabeth Muncaster. Unfortunately, whilst such tales seem to have excited considerable contemporary interest, there is little evidence that much was done to assist the women involved or alleviate the underlying social issues beyond simple condemnation. Moreover, violence and other crimes against these women were both common and rarely punished with the sort of severity that the mid-nineteenth-century Louth magistrates reserved for petty thieves, beggars and exhibitionists in the town.

Aside from brothels, the Aswell Hole was also home to a 'tramp lodging house' and beerhouse known as the Lord Nelson or, more popularly, the Rag and Louse, in the nineteenth century. This apparently large establishment was run by Patrick Keyes and his family from the 1840s, the latter being described as ‘a son of the Emerald Isle’, another group of people with whom the local newspapers of the time seem to have had an issue. In 1851, twenty-three people were staying in this establishment, including a large number of agricultural labourers and a self-described beggar, suggesting both that it was of a fairly lowly status and that it must have also been reasonably extensive. As a beerhouse, it was the site of a considerable number of 'disturbances of the peace', and was described by the local newspapers as 'notorious' for its bad behaviour, great noise and disorder, with stolen items being fairly regularly discovered in its rooms and drunken brawls erupting out in the Aswell Hole between its patrons. Of course, the Rag and Louse was not the sole cause of disturbances in Aswell Hole in the Victorian period—for example, in 1848 six young men were each sentenced to two months hard labour for rolling a lighted tar barrel down the horse steps of Aswell Hole at 10pm at night! However, the Rag and Louse beerhouse was sufficiently uproarious that it was finally refused a renewal to its licence in 1869 and the property subsequently appears to have continued solely as a lodging house—it continued to play this role as late as 1901 and 1911, when it was still run by a member of the Keyes family and offered rooms for up to twelve patrons, including two Italians who were travelling with a piano organ at the time of the census.

The reconstructed horse steps that lead down from Aswell Street to the Aswell Hole (photo: C. R. Green). Note, Aswell Street probably originated as a medieval access road to the Aswell Spring.

This, then, is Aswell Hole and the Gatherums/Springside, an area of Louth that arguably had considerable significance for the early history of the town. It provided a valuable supply of pure water that powered the industries that led to Louth’s expansion and early prosperity. It was lavished with time, money and materials in the period after the Reformation through until the end of the seventeenth century, probably due to its continuing role as a focus of religious devotion. And it saw a decline in its prosperity and value during the nineteenth century, so that it became one of the most disreputable areas of town, apparently rife with violence, drunkenness and brothels, according to the mid-nineteeth-century newspapers—something that has plenty to tell us about what life was like for ordinary people in the rapidly expanding town of the Victorian period, with its vast numbers of itinerant visitors and labourers, away from the Mansion House, the Corn Exchange, the learned local societies, and the Mechanics Institute. All told, it is a site of considerable historical interest and significance, and well deserving of attention.

The content of this post and page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2015, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission. It is largely derived from my book, The Streets of Louth, which offers much additional detail on this area of town and the people who lived in it, along with information on the early history of all of the streets and significant buildings within Louth; it is available to buy as a paperback from the link above.

Of chalk and ice: the white cliffs of Louth in the Palaeolithic era

The previous post in 'The History of the Louth Region' discussed the earliest evidence for human activity in eastern Lincolnshire, with a particular focus on the handaxes found in Welton le Wold quarry, which were probably used by pre- or ancestral Neanderthal hunters in the Hoxnian Interglacial around 400,000 years ago. This second posting continues the tale, discussing the period after the Hoxnian Interglacial through to the end of the last glacial period, nearly 15,000 years ago.

The climatic fluctuations of the last 800,000 years, with the present warm-period being stage 1 on the right-hand side of the graph (drawn by C. R. Green, based on Gibbard & Cohen). The climatic changes are based on the Marine Oxygen Isotope Record, with the Marine Isotope Stage numbering shown: cold stages are assigned even MIS numbers, warm stages odd ones. The Anglian glaciation is MIS 12, the Hoxnian Interglacial is MIS 11, and the warm Ipswichian Interglacial is MIS 5e. 

It is likely that the Louth region—like Britain as a whole—was largely abandoned by humans after the Hoxnian Interglacial ended, about 374,000 years ago. At that point, the global climate grew significantly colder as part of its regular oscillation between hot and cold periods over the past million years or so (see the above graph; the post-Hoxnian cold stage is MIS 10). Quite what happened after the climate warmed once more, nearly 40,000 years later, is difficult to say for sure, as we lack further, well-stratified Palaeolithic artefacts of the kind found at Welton. However, there have been other finds of Lower Palaeolithic handaxes from the Louth region. These have been made in Legbourne, Maidenwell, and Calcethope & Kelstern parishes, with the handaxe found in the latter parish believed to date, typologically, from around 280,000 years ago. As such, it is probable that early humans did continue to occasionally visit the region after the Hoxnian Interglacial, at least when the climate was warm enough to render the area reasonably habitable to them.

A Lower Palaeolithic handaxe from Calcethorpe & Kelstern (PAS)

Needless to say, such early humans—probably ancestral Neanderthals—are likely to have only been infrequent visitors to the region, and this irregular visitation probably ceased entirely around 191,000 years ago, when Britain once again entered a glacial epoch. The MIS 6 cold period has been recently defined as the Tottenhill Glaciation and appears to have been especially severe, with ice sheets once more flowing right over the top of the Wolds (as they did during the Anglian glaciation, 478,000–424,000 years ago) to cover the entire Louth region. In addition to probably eroding the Wolds further, these ice sheets are thought to have deposited the Welton Till on the Wolds as they melted and probably the Calcethorpe Till too ('glacial till', or boulder clay, is the sediment left behind by a glacier as it melts or retreats).

Lower Palaeolithic finds from the Louth region, set against a map of the modern region (drawn by C. R. Green, contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2011). Any evidence for Lower Palaeolithic human activity east of the line running northwest-southeast is irretrievably lost, as this was eroded away by the sea around 115,000 years ago, during the Ipswichian Interglacial. The line marks the Ipswichian cliff-edge, which would have had a flint beach at its foot. As sea-levels fell again after this time, the exposed wave-cut platform become a flat plain.

The subsequent Ipswichian Interglacial (MIS 5e), beginning around 130,000 years ago, was even more significant for this region. This period was one of the warmest in recent geological history, and Britain from Yorkshire southwards was inhabited by exotic fauna including lions, hyenas, hippopotamuses, elephants and rhinoceroses—although humans appear not to have made it across to Britain from the Continent before Britain became an island due to rising sea-levels after the end of the Tottenhill Glaciation (MIS 6). It was also the era in which around half of the Palaeolithic landscape of our region disappeared. As was noted in the previous post, the Wolds originally extended well to the east of the current coastline, but in the Ipswichian Interglacial the sea gradually eroded this landscape away until it reached the modern eastern edge of the Wolds. The last glaciation, which saw ice sheets reach the Lincolnshire Wolds around 17,000 years ago, has covered the resultant Ipswichian landscape with glacial till (see below), but around 115,000 years ago the edge of the Wolds would have been marked by a line of white cliffs with a flinty beach at its foot and a wave-cut chalk platform extending eastwards from this: the present-day Louth hospital and cemetery stand roughly on this cliff-edge, and the Lincolnshire Marshes now lie above the ancient wave-cut platform.

Schematic cross-section of eastern Lincolnshire in the Palaeolithic period, showing how the Wolds once extended to the present coastline and beyond, and how they were eroded away around 115,000 years ago. From the landscape evolution of eastern Lincolnshire (drawn by C. R. Green).

The approximate coastline of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire around 115,000 years ago during the Ipswichian Interglacial; the current coastline is shown as a grey line (drawn by C. R. Green, based on IECS, 1994 with modifications).

After this period of warm temperatures and relatively high sea-levels came to an end, there was an erratic decline into the next cold epoch, MIS 4 (71,000–57,000 years ago). During this new cold period, both Britain and the Louth region probably experienced a climate close to that now found in northern Scandinavia, with temperatures dropping to about –20°C in winter months. Only after MIS 4 ended, around 57,000 years ago, did humans return to Britain once more. These new inhabitants were true Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, and they were joined around 35,000 years ago by our own species of human, Homo sapiens. The period in which this recolonisation of Britain and Lincolnshire took place is sometimes termed a 'failed interglacial'—the climate then was unstable and swung from relatively mild to cold, with significant amounts of water remaining locked up in the ice sheets so that sea-levels remained as much as 80 metres lower than today. As a result, the Ipswichian wave-cut platform below the white cliffs of the Wolds would have been exposed as a dry, flat plain sloping gently eastwards in this epoch.

Schematic cross-section of eastern Lincolnshire, showing how the Ipswichian wave-cut platform became a dry, flat plain that was later scoured by the advance of the Late Devensian ice sheet to the Lincolnshire Wolds. From the landscape evolution of eastern Lincolnshire (drawn by C. R. Green).

Whilst it is likely that the flat plain to the east of the Wolds saw human activity as a result of the recolonisation of Britain, the evidence that might be used to confirm this has long-since been destroyed. The cause of this loss was the Late Devensian glaciation. This final 'Ice Age' before the current warm Holocene epoch saw Britain emptied of people once more approximately 25,000 years ago, with mean annual temperatures dropping as low as –6 or –7°C and midwinter temperatures of around –40°C, colder than parts of Siberia today! Radiocarbon dating indicates that the Late Devensian ice sheet arrived in Holderness around 22,000 years ago and and reached the Lincolnshire Wolds sometime around 17 ka BP, where it rose to a maximum of about 114 metres above the current sea-level (Ordnance Datum). At the same time, the development of these massive ice sheets both here and elsewhere led to global sea-levels dropping to approximately –120 metres (–395 feet) OD. As a direct result, the bottom of the North Sea became dry land as far north as Shetland, although both this plain and those parts of modern Britain that remained ice-free formed an uninhabitable arctic desert at the height of the Ice Age.

Lincolnshire and the surrounding region c. 17,000 years ago (drawn by C. R. Green, based on a map for Origins of Louth and Clark et al, 2004). The present-day coastline is shown as a grey line; areas covered by the ice sheet are in white, areas covered by probable or possible glacial lakes are in blue, and ice- and water-free land is in green. It should be noted that the large glacial lake to the south of the Wash is speculative and its existence has been disputed. No Vale of York ice is shown, as this had probably retreated north by this point.

This glaciation had a number of important effects on the Louth region. First, the advance of the massive ice sheet to the Lincolnshire Wolds would have scoured the flat plain that stretched eastwards from the sea-cliff edge of the Wolds and destroyed any archaeological remains that might have existed there. Second, the ice sheet prevented the rivers in this part of Britain draining properly, so that massive lakes such as ‘Lake Humber’ built up, inundating vast swathes of land (see the map, above). A similar effect at the local level led to the creation of Hubbard's Hills gorge—the blocking of the Hallington valley by decaying ice and its thick deposits of till meant that the water that would have drained along this valley from the springtime snowmelt on the Wolds backed up to form a large lake covering Hallington and Raithby, which then overflowed northwards across the chalk ridge. The resulting waterfall off the ridge into the Welton valley rapidly cut a steep-sided channel—Hubbard's Hills—backwards through the chalk over the course of perhaps as little as two or three hundred years, which thereafter acted as the new permanent channel for the Hallington and Raithby/Tathwell Becks.

The landscape of the Louth area at the time the Hubbard's Hills gorge was cut by water draining from a glacial lake covering Hallington and Raithby (drawn by C. R. Green, after Robinson, 2007; contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2014). Glacial ice is depicted as white, glacial moraine as brown and the glacial lake and meltwater river is shown in blue.

Third and finally, the ice sheet retreated northwards to leave the flat plain east of the Lincolnshire Wolds buried under a thick layer of glacial till—this undulating till forms the present Middle Marsh and underlies the Outmarsh, whilst also extended out beyond the current coastline onto the then-exposed North Sea plain, which began to slowly flood in the north around Scotland as sea-levels rose due to the glacial melt. Needless to say, the next post in the current series will be concerned with the early history of this newly created landscape in the eastern part of the Louth region, examining how it developed after the ice-sheet retreated and how the rising sea-levels of the present Holocene interglacial affected this region over the subsequent millennia.

Schematic cross-section of eastern Lincolnshire, showing how the post-Ipswichian flat plain east of the Wolds and the former sea-cliff were buried beneath a thick layer of glacial till as the ice-sheet melted. From the landscape evolution of eastern Lincolnshire (drawn by C. R. Green).

Possible stages in the retreat of the Devensian ice at the end of the last glaciation, with the maximum extent of the glaciation shown as the unbroken line (drawn by C. R. Green after IECS, 1994).

Next: North Somercotes, the drowning of Doggerland, & the Mesolithic Louth region (#3)
Previous: The Welton le Wold handaxes & the earliest human activity in the Louth region (#1)

Post Index of  'The History of the Louth Region'

'The History of the Louth Region' is based in part on The Origins of Louth: Archaeology and History in East Lincolnshire, 400,000 BC–AD 1086, which offers additional details and analysis, along with suggested further reading. The content of this page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2014, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.

'Hells of intemperance': three of the worst pubs in Victorian Louth

The pubs of Louth feature frequently in the Victorian newspapers and court reports that I looked at in my Streets of Louth a few years back. Some of these establishments, like the Turks Head (arguably the oldest surviving inn in town) appear to have been fairly law-abiding places, seeing only occasional brushes with the law for minor infractions. Others, however, appear to have been rather more disreputable, and three of the most notorious of Louth's Victorian pubs are highlighted below.

(1) The Rag & Louse, Aswell Hole

The Rag & Louse was a Victorian beerhouse and 'tramp lodging-house' located in the Aswell Hole, down the horse-steps from Aswell Lane (now Aswell Street), a location it shared with an extensive spring-fed pool and number of brothels, according to the newspaper reports of the early to mid-Victorian period. It was officially called the Lord Nelson, but it appears to have been more usually known by the rather less salubrious name of the Rag & Louse. From the 1840s, it was run by Patrick Kayes—'a son of the Emerald Isle'—and his family, and it may have been related to the brewhouse and 'private brewery' that was located in the Aswell Hole in 1837, 'immediately adjoining the Aswell Spring'. The premises themselves must have been fairly extensive, as in 1851 there were 23 people staying in the establishment, including a large number of agricultural labourers and a beggar.

Aswell Hole, off Aswell Lane, showing the pool, spring and buildings here as they appeared in 1834 (plan by R. S. Bayley, 1834).

As a beerhouse, the Rag & Louse appears to have been just as pleasant as its name suggests. The newspapers of the time recorded it as the site of a considerable number of disturbances of the peace and it was described by one correspondent (William Brown) as 'notorious' for its bad behaviour, great noise and disorder, with stolen items being fairly regularly discovered in its rooms and drunken brawls erupting out into the Aswell Hole between its patrons. Of course, the Rag & Louse was not the sole cause of disturbances in Aswell Hole in the early and mid-Victorian period—the Hole was also the scene of a public brawl between the inhabitants of neighbouring Spring Gardens in 1846, and in 1848 six young men were each sentenced to two months hard labour for rolling a lighted tar barrel down the horse steps of Aswell Hole at 10pm at night! Nonetheless, one of the more disturbing incidents did begin there. In November 1865, an Irishman named Martin Monaghan, of Westgate Cottages on Irish Hill (now demolished), was charged by John Gibbons, 'a fellow-countryman and neighbour', with a 'most brutal and unmanly assault' that saw Monaghan bite off the whole of Gibbons' lower lip. The appearance of the victim in court was described as horrible, with the whole lip torn away. Apparently, Gibbons had been drinking in 'Pat Kaye's beer-shop in Aswell-hole' when the altercation started, although the final assault took place on Irish Hill, when Monaghan challenged Gibbons to a fight during which he took hold of Gibbons’ lip with his teeth and bit it off. Monaghan was, incidentally, fined only 30s for the injury to Gibbons (equivalent to around £109 today), which he paid and so avoided a short prison sentence.

The view up to Aswell Street from Aswell Hole in 2014 (image © Copyright Chris and licensed for reuse under a CC BY-SA 2.0 licence).

The Rag & Louse was finally refused a renewal to its licence in 1869 and the property subsequently appears to have continued solely as a lodging house—it continued to play this role as late as 1901 and 1911, when it was still run by a member of the Kayes family and offered rooms to up to twelve patrons, including two Italians who were travelling with a piano organ!

(2) The Dog & Duck, Upgate

The Dog & Duck beerhouse was located almost directly opposite the chancel of St James’s Church, between Chequergate and Eastgate and had been newly built in 1832, its first landlord being one Thomas Wakelin. In 1846, Joseph Johnson was the landlord and he was charged by Sergeant Chapman and Police Constable Ryall with allowing prostitutes to assemble and drink in his beerhouse at night. The following year he appeared again before the court, when he was accused of resisting and refusing to admit two police officers into the Dog & Duck. The policemen entered the Dog & Duck on the night of the 5 January and attempted to go upstairs, at which point Johnson grabbed Police Constable Ryall around the neck to prevent him doing so, calling out "here's the police!" Forcing their way upstairs, the constables encountered around twenty men and prostitutes dancing, and the defendant's wife pulling other prostitutes into a bedroom. PC Ryall attempted to see into the bedroom to identify the prostitutes, but was refused entry. Joseph Johnson had apparently been charged with similar offences in the past, his beer house being one of 'notoriously bad character’, and he was fined £2 plus costs on this occasion—that is around £150 today, adjusted for inflation! By 1852, Johnson had been replaced by Benjamin Turner as the landlord of the Dog and Duck, but he seems to have been equally uncooperative with the police, being severely reprimanded by the magistrates on the 24 December 1852 for refusing to admit the police into his beerhouse and permitting drunkenness in the Dog & Duck.

The site of the former Dog & Duck on Brown's Panorama of the 1850s, opposite St James's Church, Louth. Photo C. R. Green.

(3) The Marrowbone & Cleaver, Queen Street

This short-lived but notorious beerhouse was located somewhere on Walkergate (modern Queen Street) and was run by Samuel Walker in the late 1830s. In March 1839, the Marrowbone & Cleaver was raided by the police, who had been informed that Walker was running it as a brothel by parents who told Police Constable Ryall that 'their children had been ruined by resorting to Walker's house'. When inside they found 16 prostitutes all aged between 13 and 18, according to the final reports, who were said to be dancing to the music of two fiddles along with a number of local 'bad characters'. One of the girls, Elizabeth Stone (who seems to have been 13 and, it is said, already 'diseased'), was apparently given a 'fatherly lecture' by the magistrate, Samuel Trought, Esq., before being sent back to the House of Correction, where she had been committed for a month as a prostitute; Walker, in contrast, was fined £5 and costs, equivalent to around £350 today, and then appears to have spent the following months trying to avoid paying his fine, apparently with some success.

The Marrowbone & Cleaver had closed down by 1850, when it was operated as a lodging-house by James Marchant. However, despite no longer being a beerhouse, the building continued to cause trouble for local law enforcement. In that year, it was the scene of a three-hour fight between two families of lodgers who lived there and some of the local residents. According to newspaper reports, one of the lodgers (Michael Mitchell) was liberated from prison in the morning, where he had been incarcerated for drunkenness, and the lodgers then proceeded to have a celebration at the former Marrowbone & Cleaver involving rum and a fiddler. A row began which erupted into the public street and the resulting fight came to rapidly involve the local residents of the area, at its height encompassing around 20 people and implements ranging from mallets, chisels and kettles to saws, knives, irons and hammers! When the local police force appeared to break the fight up, the families retreated into the lodging-house, barricaded themselves in and then engaged in a battle with the police to prevent them from entering and arresting them, a battle they eventually lost.

The content of this page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2014, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission. It is based in part on my book, The Streets of Louth.

Which is the oldest pub in Louth?

The pubs of Louth have often attracted attention from local historians, but when it comes to the question of which of them is the oldest, there's rarely any serious discussion: Ye Olde Whyte Swanne on Eastgate (or, simply, The White Swan, as it appears from the historical directories to have been usually called before the twentieth century) is usually crowned the uncontested winner of that title.

Ye Olde Whyte Swanne, Eastgate, Louth. The sign on the side claims that it was established in 1612, although in reality this is the date of its first appearance in the written record, rather than when it was established. Photo: C. R. Green.

There are, it has to be said, good reasons why this is the case, not least the fact that 'The Sign of the Swan' is first mentioned as a Louth inn in an archdeacon’s visitation of 1612 and the present building is believed to date from the seventeenth century. As such, the White Swan would seem to be clearly more ancient than its usual nearest competitor, the Wheatsheaf on Westgate, formerly 'the Sign of the Wheatsheaf' (as in 1764), which is said to have been founded in 1627 and whose oldest standing element is usually only assigned to the late seventeenth century. However, whether The White Swan is the only answer to the question of the oldest pub in Louth, as opposed to the usual one, is a rather more complicated question: to some degree it depends exactly what one actually means by 'the oldest pub in Louth'? If one means the pub that has existed longest in Louth in its current premises, then The White Swan/Ye Olde Whyte Swanne is probably the answer that is sought: the White Swan clearly fits this bill. However, if one means something else, then there are other candidates to be had!

The first candidate is the Greyhound Inn, on Upgate. This inn is first mentioned by name in 1767, had previously traded as the White Hart from at least 1751 to 1766, and was the site of several interesting incidents reported in the early newspapers—for example, in 1833 the landlord of the Greyhound, Joseph Wilson, was ‘removing a great coat belonging to one of his guests’ when ‘a loaded pistol, which was in one of the pockets, went off, and he received the contents in his body, from the effects of which he died almost immediately’ (Hull Packet, 6 Dec 1833). Clearly, it doesn't have the written pedigree to convincingly challenge the White Swan as the pub that has existed longest in Louth in its current premises. However, if one wishes to know the site of the oldest possible inn or pub yet identified in Louth, excluding the requirement that it be continuously operating, then the Greyhound might well be the answer. The reason for this lies with archaeological excavations that were undertaken to the rear of the Greyhound Inn around ten years ago. As was noted in Streets of Louth, these excavations indicated that this area of Louth was occupied from the twelfth century onwards and that it lay on the edge of the medieval town, with arable fields and wooded areas being located close by. Finds made include a substantial quantity of twelfth- and thirteenth-century pottery, along with horse shoes and horse harness fittings, leading to the suggestion that the first buildings on this site were stables that were perhaps associated with an inn. This site continued in use for a period but appears to have been largely abandoned after the mid-fourteenth century, perhaps because of the Black Death, and was only reoccupied in the eighteenth century.

The location of the main inns and pubs mentioned in this past, against Bayley's 1834 plan of Louth; click the image for a larger version. Key: 1=The White Swan; 2=The Wheatsheaf; 3=The Greyhound Inn; 4='Ye Inne'; 5=The Blue Stone Inn; 6=The Turks Head; 7=The Blackmoor's Head (Image created by C. R. Green, using R. S. Bayley's 1834 plan of Louth).

If the Greyhound Inn therefore could be on the site of the oldest pub/inn yet identified in Louth, what of the oldest continuously operating pub or inn in the town, irrespective of the age of its current premises, another valid and important interpretation of the question 'which is the oldest pub in Louth?' It would be easy to assume that this would be the White Swan on Eastgate again, as it is first recorded in 1612 and appears to have operated continuously. However, there are several pubs or inns that were recorded earlier than this in the town, such as 'Ye Inne' that was located on Upgate in 1564—possibly on the site of the property to the south of Church House—or the Blue Stone Inn, which was located on the southern corner of Upgate and Mercer Row and was certainly functioning as an inn in 1677 and may well have been so in the sixteenth century too (it was said to have once extended back all the way to Kidgate and to have been the largest inn in the county until its closure in 1800: see Streets of Louth under Upgate for both of these inns).

Even more importantly, one of these ancient inns may well be still operating today, albeit in a building much younger than the business itself. The inn in question was known as the Saracen's Head and was located on Aswell Lane (now Aswell Street). This inn bore a classically medieval inn-name, referencing the Crusades, and was indeed first mentioned in the medieval period, in John Louth's will of 1459. In October 1536, it made another appearance in the surviving documentary record: it was in the Saracen's Head that John Franke or Frankishe, the Registrar of the Bishop, was apparently staying ahead of the Visitation of Louth in that month, and it was from there that he was dragged with his books into the Market Place by Nicholas Melton (‘Captain Cobbler’) and his company at the start of the short-lived Lincolnshire Rising.

With regard to the location and potential survival of the Saracen’s Head into the modern period, it seems reasonable to suggest that there is probably some sort of intimate relationship between the medieval and early modern Saracen's Head inn on Aswell Lane and the modern Turks Head inn, which stands on the north-eastern corner of Aswell Street. The Turks Head appears to be one of the few Louth inns and public houses to have survived since the eighteenth century without a name change—a characteristic it also shares, incidentally, with the Wheatsheaf and the White Swan—and it was clearly already a significant inn during the mid-eighteenth century, when Christian Frederick Esberger stayed at the ‘Turkshead’ three times in 1764. In light of the relatively early recording of the Turks Head (most Louth inns and pubs are not recorded until the last part of the eighteenth century or after); the stability of the inn’s name; the close resemblance of this name to that of the Saracen’s Head ("Turk's Head", as an inn-name, is usually considered an eighteenth-century variant of the medieval "Saracen's Head"); and the location of the inn on the corner of Aswell Lane at the front of the medieval tenement that originally occupied the whole of east side of Aswell Lane from Queen Street (then Walkergate) to the Aswell spring, it certainly seems credible that the modern Turks Head might represent a rebuilding and survival of the medieval and early modern Saracen's Head.

An alternative theory, promoted by R. W. Goulding a century ago, is that the now-demolished inn that once stood just a little further south on the same side of the Aswell Lane, where the Mr Chips’ takeaway now is, could have been a survival of the Saracen’s Head. Named variously the Red Lion, the White Hart and the Foresters’ Arms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was apparently known as the Blackmoor’s, or Black’s, Head before 1789, this being another eighteenth-century variant of the early "Saracen's Head" inn-name. Whilst it is certainly not impossible that this represents a continuing Saracen's Head, the lack of stability in the inn's name is noteworthy and the Turks Head looks like a more credible candidate if we have to choose. However, it is perhaps worth asking whether we really have to choose between these two inns at all. A better solution to the presence of two inns on the same side of Aswell Lane bearing names that are variants of the "Saracen's Head" is simply that the original medieval inn probably occupied the entirety of the medieval tenement here, from Queen Street to the Aswell spring (as the early Blue Stone Inn on Upgate/Mercer Row appears to have done too, see above), with both eighteenth-century inns then deriving from the original inn as its site was subdivided over time. After all, the current properties and businesses on both sides of Aswell Street all result from the subdivision of the two medieval tenements that the original Aswell Lane ran between, and such a scenario offers a plausible solution to the presence of both the Turks Head and the Blackmoor's Head on the same side of the road here—the Turks Head would, on this model, be the direct descendant of the medieval and early modern Saracen's Head inn, as it stands at the front of the original medieval tenement, whilst the Blackmoor's Head would be a secondary creation made at some subsequent point when the Saracen's Head tenement was split to create the properties facing onto Aswell Lane/Aswell Street.

The content of this page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2014, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission. It is based in part on my book, The Streets of Louth. 

The Welton le Wold handaxes & the earliest human activity in the Louth region

Trying to work out just when the Louth region was first occupied by humans is, needless to say, a complicated task, but it is the subject of this first post in my occasional series on 'The History of the Louth Region'.

A handaxe from Happisburgh, found in 2000 (PAS).

The earliest evidence for human activity in Britain is believed to come from Happisburgh (pronounced 'Haze-burra') in north-eastern Norfolk, where handaxes have been found that probably date from between 970,000 to 814,000 years ago. The people who created and used these handaxes are thought to have been representatives of Homo antecessor, or 'Pioneer Man', the only kind of humans known to be in Europe around this time. Homo antecessor had a slightly smaller average brain volume than modern humans do, stood between 5'6 and 6'0 tall, and may have occasionally practised nutritional cannibalism, in light of the evidence from northern Spain. As to whether these early humans ventured as far north as the Louth region, it is certainly not impossible, given that they clearly seem to have made it to Happisburgh. In particular, the geographical obstacles to any movement from northern Norfolk to Lincolnshire were far less significant in the period from 970,000–814,000 years ago than they are today. For example, neither the Wash nor the Fens existed then, both being created by the massive glaciers of the Anglian glaciation of 478,000–424,000 years ago, and the North Sea coastline lay well outside of our region at that time.

The landscape of eastern England before the Anglian glaciation of 478,000–424,000 years ago (drawn by C. R. Green, after Clayton & Parfitt et al); the modern coastline is depicted as a darker shadow. In the pre-Anglian era, the coastline lay well to the east of its current position, the Wash and the Fens didn't exist (they were scooped out by the Anglian ice-sheets) and the Wolds extended into Norfolk and beyond, though they were broken by great rivers.

However, actually proving that such early humans did indeed make the relatively short journey north-west from Happisburgh into what is now the Louth area is impossible. Around half of the early landscape of the Louth region was completely eroded away by the sea between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago. Furthermore, that which was not eroded away—the modern Lincolnshire Wolds—has few geological contexts that might preserve such exceptionally early, pre-Anglian-glaciation artefacts as the Happisburgh handaxes, unlike the coast of East Anglia. In this light, all that one can actually say is that the earliest surviving geological context that might preserve evidence of early humans in the Louth region does, in fact, possess such evidence, which is at least suggestive. It is to this evidence that we now must turn.

The location of the findspot of the Welton le Wold Lower Palaeolithic handaxes (created by C. R. Green, contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2011).

The material in question comes from Welton le Wold quarry, which lies in the Lincolnshire Wolds around three miles to the west of Louth. The finds made in this quarry consist of three flint handaxes, a worked flake, and a number of fossil animal bones and teeth, all found incorporated into a layer of material in the quarry known as the Upper Gravels. The Upper Gravels appear to have been eroded away from their original location (somewhere within the Welton valley) in an arctic climate, but the fossils found in these gravels all belong to temperate species, including straight-tusked elephant, red deer and horse. The temperate period that the animal remains and human artefacts were both originally deposited in has been the subject of debate, but recent Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating indicates that Upper Gravels were deposited on top of the Lower Gravels during a glacial epoch that lasted from 374,000–337,000 years ago. This in turn suggests that the handaxes and fossil bones probably originated during the preceding temperate period, the Hoxnian Interglacial, which lasted from around 424,000–374,000 years ago.

We therefore have, in the Welton handaxes, solid evidence that early humans were present in the Louth region around 400,000 years ago. If they were like their contemporaries who lived elsewhere in Britain, such as ‘Swanscombe man’ (actually a woman), then they would have had brains of a similar volume and physical structure to our own and are likely to have been pre- or ancestral Neanderthals. In terms of their everyday lives, they almost certainly survived via hunting, scavenging and gathering, perhaps even hunting the giant straight-tusked elephants whose tusks were found at the site, as their contemporaries appear to have done at Ebbsfleet. They may also have used fires for cooking and warmth, given that the first good evidence for the existence of hearths in Britain comes from this period. Finally, as was noted above, the Wolds still extended well to the east of the modern coastline in this era (see the map of eastern England in the Hoxnian Interglacial, above) and the people who were active in the Louth region around 400,000 years ago had probably arrived in it by following a minor river inland. As such, the Welton humans might perhaps be seen as relatively adventurous compared to their contemporaries further south, as early human sites elsewhere in Britain are more often located in significant river valleys and on lower-lying land.

A prehistoric straight-tusked elephant (Wikimedia Commons)

Next: Of chalk and ice: the white cliffs of Louth in the Palaeolithic era (#2)
Previous: A short introduction to 'The History of the Louth Region'

Post Index of  'The History of the Louth Region'

'The History of the Louth Region' is based in part on my book, The Origins of Louth: Archaeology and History in East Lincolnshire, 400,000 BC–AD 1086. The latter offers additional details and analysis, along with suggested further reading, and is available to buy as a paperback book. The content of this page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2014, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.

A short introduction to 'The History of the Louth Region'

'The History of the Louth Region' is intended to offer an illustrated, up-to-date online history of the early Louth region, based in part on my book The Origins of Louth: Archaeology and History in East Lincolnshire, 400,000 BC–AD 1086.

The 'Louth region' as defined here, showing areas lying within 5 and 10 km of the centre of Louth (created by C. R. Green, contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2011). The 10 km radius study zone around Louth covers a sizeable area of both the Wolds and the Lincolnshire Marsh. It was chosen not only for this reason, but also in order to pull together enough material for a meaningful analysis and to enable Louth’s development to be placed within its local context.

There are, needless to say, many books, websites, Facebook groups and the like which are devoted to the history of Louth and its surrounding villages. However, most of these are focussed on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with very little often said about earlier periods, especially those before the compilation of Domesday Book in 1086. To a large degree this is understandable, given that so little surviving written documentation survives from before the time of Domesday, less than a thousand years ago, and that so much information is preserved and accessible about the last century or so. Nonetheless, this situation is also problematical.

First, humans have been active in the area around Louth for considerably longer than a thousand years. The earliest material yet found in Louth itself dates from the Later Mesolithic and Neolithic periods (7000 BC–2200 BC), and tools found only a little way from the town (at Welton le Wold) were made by humans who lived there hundreds of thousands of years ago. In other words, the documentary record covers only a small fragment of the actual human history of this part of Lincolnshire.

Second, it seems clear that the fundamental origins of the medieval and modern Louth region lie beyond this documentary horizon. Louth was already a market town by the time of Domesday Book and most of the surrounding villages were in existence before this point too. In consequence, if we are interested in how the modern Louth region came into being, then we need to be looking at what happened in the period before written records become common.

All pre-Norman archaeological finds & sites within the Louth region through to 2010, demonstrating the wealth of archaeological evidence available from the region (drawn by C. R. Green). The finds are shown against an outline of the topography of the Wolds, the approximate position of the Late Saxon coastline, the original course of the River Lud and probable early routeways. Maps like this can be read against the main 'Louth region' map, above, to get an idea of the location of the finds (the modern day details are not included on such maps, as they quickly become confusing with it).

These two observations form the starting point for this series of posts. Any reasonable attempt at understanding the true length and complexity of human history and activity in the Louth region, how it changed over time, and how the modern region came into being, has to go beyond the documentary record. And whilst written references are certainly rare before the Norman Conquest, other types of evidence are available and even fairly plentiful. For example, there is a great wealth of archaeological material in this region (see the map above), and this can be supplemented by a significant body of linguistic, environmental, landscape and geological evidence too. Together these sources of evidence can be used to investigate the early history and origins of Louth and its hinterland, despite the lack of significant early written material. 

The aim of the present series is thus simple: to look at all the evidence, piece by piece, and ask what it can tell us about the history of the Louth region from the start of human activity here through into medieval period. In doing so, I hope to not only be able to build up an outline history of the Louth region from the Lower Palaeolithic onwards, but also to be able to draw wider attention to some of the fascinating finds and sites that lie within this region. I hope you enjoy!

Next: The Welton le Wold handaxes & the earliest human activity in the Louth region (#1)

Post Index of  'The History of the Louth Region'

'The History of the Louth Region' is based in part on my book, The Origins of Louth: Archaeology and History in East Lincolnshire, 400,000 BC–AD 1086. The latter offers additional details and analysis, along with suggested further reading, and is available to buy as a paperback book. The content of this page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2014, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.