The environment of Battle Abbey estates (East Sussex) in medieval times; a re-evaluation using analysis of pollen and sediments, by Brian Moffat, published 1986 in Landscape History, the journal of the Society for Landscape Studies (vol. 8, issue 1, article, pp.77-93) View Online
The Rumenesea Wall and the early settled landscape of Romney Marsh (Kent), by J. R. L. Allen, published 1999 in Landscape History, the journal of the Society for Landscape Studies (vol. 21, issue 1, article, pp.5-18) View Online
Abstract:The Rumenesea Wall, a seabank of early medieval date, has been traced for almost 9 kilometres between Snargate and the coastal barrier at New Romney as a consistent rise in ground level toward the south-west averaging about 0.5 metres. It probably is rooted in the Wealden scarp at Appeldorn, but between there and Snargate is today subsumed within the structure of the younger Rhee Wall. The Rumenesea Wall lies north-east of the Rhee Wall and on the far side of the Rumenesea, a waterway recorded from early times with the characteristics, when it became fixed in the landscape, of a modest tidal inlet carrying some freshwater. Together with complementary earthworks identified in the north of Romney Marsh, and the coastal barrier, the Rumenesea Wall provided for the enclosure and defence against the sea of most of Romney Marsh proper. Its construction transformed the coastal wetlands, dividing the area into a north-eastern part, where permanent settlement was assured, from a south-western portion which largely remained for a long period under tidal influence and could not be exploited in this way without further embanking. After the Roman embanking of large parts of the Severn Estuary Levels, the Rumenesea Wall is perhaps the earliest seabank of any substantial length to be constructed on a British coastal lowland. The landscape changes its construction brought about illustrate a social and economic movement for which there is evidence on much of the north-west European littoral.
Church building fabrics on Romney Marsh and the Marshland Fringe: a geological perspective, by Andrew Pearson and John F. Potter, published 2002 in Landscape History, the journal of the Society for Landscape Studies (vol. 24, issue 1, article, pp.89-110) View Online
Abstract:Romney Marsh is a region where few historic buildings now remain in the modern landscape. This paper examines the only group of historic monuments on the marsh in which stone was the principal medium, and where it was employed on a major scale - the parish church.
A fieldwork programme determined the types of stone present in eighteen churches on Romney and Walland Marsh, and a further eighteen in the immediate upland hinterland. The objectives of the study were to establish the types and provenance of the principal stones used in church building in the region, and using these data to examine the pattern of historic quarrying and supply from the Anglo-Saxon period to later medieval times.
Building stone supply was shown to vary according to several factors, including the geographical location of each building site, the date of construction, and the relation to known or surmised communication routes. The study pointed to an increasingly sophisticated quarrying industry, relying initially mainly on opportunist collection of beach boulders up to the thirteenth century, before sources of hewn stone for ashlar began to be increasingly exploited. The coast was the major resource at all times, and it is tentatively suggested that the removal of foreshore stone contributed to long-shore drift, and thus indirectly to dramatic coastal changes in the region. Most material was of local origin, although rare, high quality imports were also utilised.
A fieldwork programme determined the types of stone present in eighteen churches on Romney and Walland Marsh, and a further eighteen in the immediate upland hinterland. The objectives of the study were to establish the types and provenance of the principal stones used in church building in the region, and using these data to examine the pattern of historic quarrying and supply from the Anglo-Saxon period to later medieval times.
Building stone supply was shown to vary according to several factors, including the geographical location of each building site, the date of construction, and the relation to known or surmised communication routes. The study pointed to an increasingly sophisticated quarrying industry, relying initially mainly on opportunist collection of beach boulders up to the thirteenth century, before sources of hewn stone for ashlar began to be increasingly exploited. The coast was the major resource at all times, and it is tentatively suggested that the removal of foreshore stone contributed to long-shore drift, and thus indirectly to dramatic coastal changes in the region. Most material was of local origin, although rare, high quality imports were also utilised.
Rethinking the early medieval settlement of woodlands: evidence from the western Sussex Weald, by Diana Chatwin and Mark Gardiner, published 2005 in Landscape History, the journal of the Society for Landscape Studies (vol. 27, issue 1, article, pp.31-49) View Online
Abstract:The assumptions underlying the interpretation of the early medieval settlement of woodland are challenged through a detailed study of the Weald in western Sussex. The patterns of usage of woodland in England were very varied, and each area needs to be looked at individually. Systems of woodland exploitation did not simply develop from extensive to intensive, but may have taken a number of different forms during the early medieval period. In one area of the Weald, near to Horsham, the woodland appears to have been systematically divided up between different estates. This implies that woodland settlement may not always have developed organically, but this type of landscape could have been planned. It is argued that the historical complexity of woodland landscapes has not been recognised because the evidence has been aggregated. Instead, each strand of evidence needs to be evaluated separately.