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| ISBN-13: | 9780750986755 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Phillimore & Company, Limited |
| Publication date: | 01/19/2018 |
| Sold by: | INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 47 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
A Settlement on the River Lea
The archaeological information in this chapter was provided by Dr James Dyer.
LUTON OWES ITS very existence to the river Lea. This may come as a surprise to anyone who looks at the tiny little stream that flows through the town now and, in fact, many people are even astonished to learn that Luton has a river, as much of it is channelled under roads and buildings and only re-emerges on the southern side of the Parish Church. But, in the past, it was all very different.
The geological history of Luton began when the underlying Jurassic landscape was flooded by the sea. Over millions of years, the seas became much larger and deeper and chalk was deposited to a thickness of several hundred metres. Generations of Luton children have tapped this abundant supply of chalk to write on pavements or to draw cricket stumps on walls without realising how many thousands of years of history they were holding in their hands.
Chalk is formed mainly from fossilised coccoliths, the shells of dead single-cell plants that lived in the sea in the Upper Cretaceous Period. When the coccoliths died, the shells, which were rich in calcium, sank to the seafloor and compacted to form chalk. These chalk deposits were called the Lower, Middle and Upper Chalk. Below the Lower Chalk was a band of harder chalk known as Totternhoe Stone. Some of this stone was used in the building of many churches in the area, including Luton's Parish Church.
Within the upper deposits of chalk, silica formed into bands of flint. Here again, inhabitants of the area around Luton have, over many thousands of years, used fragments found lying on the surface or dug from the ground to shape tools and weapons for hunting, for making fire, for building and, in medieval times, for decorative work known as flushwork.
Long after the chalk was laid down, there was a series of Ice Ages, known as glaciations, that sometimes reached as far as the south of England. During these periods the land was partially covered by massive sheets of moving ice which flowed out from the ice-sheet to carve deep, wide, U-shaped valleys. When the ice retreated, dry valleys with steep sides and flat bottoms were left behind. We can see such valleys today at nearby Barton Springs and at Pegsdon. From high ground, say at the top of Stockingstone Road, the shape of a wide valley can be made out, bordered by Blow's and Dallow Downs and Warden and Hart Hills. The river Lea flowed through this valley when the last Ice Age ended about ten thousand years ago. In the area of Luton Hoo the valley is around a mile wide and 197 feet deep.
The Stone Ages
Glaciers pick up all kinds of material from the ground over which they move. This material is then redeposited. The debris is called glacial drift and large rocks that have been brought far from their places of origin are known as erratics. A ridge of glacial gravel, known as a moraine, ran from Warden Hill through Bramingham to Leagrave. Water-borne, glacial and wind-blown deposits accumulated in the Lea valley and on the surrounding hills. Some of this material became the brickearth (clay) that was dug out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (until 1939) for the local brick making industry. These areas of clay have produced an abundance of artefacts that have given us information about the people who lived in the Luton area. Archaeologists have searched spasmodically for what has been buried in the clay pits at Caddington, Round Green, Ramridge End and Mixes Hill and some of their finds are on display at the Stockwood Discovery Centre. Known as Palaeolithic (or Old Stone Age) people, they may have lived near the marshy ponds or dolines where they hunted deer and maybe an occasional elephant or rhinoceros and also gathered wild plants, berries and roots. Deep down under the brickearth, hundreds of flint tools known as handaxes, once used by these Palaeolithic people, have been found.
Much later, after the retreat of the glaciers, the climate improved and birch and pinewoods grew, followed by forests of oak, elm and lime. Accumulations of small microlithic flint tools found on the land surface suggest that Mesolithic people may have come to live in natural clearings at various spots and at different seasons, beside the river Lea and its marshes, and also along the hilltops around Blow's Down, Leagrave and Stopsley. There they fished and hunted wild fowl, cattle, boar and deer, collected the eggs of water birds and harvested berries and fungi.
Around 5,500 years ago, Neolithic people who had learnt to cultivate cereal crops and herd domesticated animals for meat and milk arrived in Britain. They settled on open downland, in woodland clearings and by the water meadows. Forest clearances provided timber for building and fuel, and local flint and clay were used for tool and pottery making. In this area, although small farmsteads probably existed, only stone tools and weapons have been found.
About 3000 B.C., Neolithic folk decided to settle beside the springs of the river Lea; the site they chose is near the modern Sundon Park Recreation Ground. It is known today as Waulud's Bank and forms a Dshaped enclosure, about seven hectares in extent, with its curving sides running down from the crest of the moraine to the Lea marshes on the west below. Excavations in 1954 and 1972 showed that a massive bank of gravel, clay and turfs, faced with stout wooden posts, was constructed. The material was obtained from an external ditch, 8 feet 2 inches deep and 16 feet 4 inches wide.
It was clearly built to impress travellers as they passed along the Icknield Way but its purpose remains uncertain. The excavator, James Dyer, sees it as a domestic enclosure, but others have suggested that it may have belonged to a class of public monuments known as henges, which were frequently constructed close to a river and used for ceremonial purposes, such as feasting, ritual observances and tribal gatherings. As of now, the interior of Waulud's Bank has not been excavated and a recent geophysical survey (2009) has done little to clarify the mystery.
Excavations at the summit of Galley Hill have found the mutilated remains of two young Neolithic men and there is evidence for the existence of long burial mounds (barrows), now destroyed, at the foot of Galley Hill, beside the Icknield Way and at Biscot Mill. The Icknield Way was an ancient track which was in use in Neolithic times. It was probably a wide stretch of open ground rather than a recognised roadway, which travellers could use as and when the vegetation and weather conditions allowed. It connected the east coast (and Europe) to southern central Britain, passing through Leagrave where it crossed the river Lea and following the low ridge of gravel, the glacial moraine, that stretches roughly south-west to north-east across the northern end of the Luton gap between Leagrave and Warden Hill. It is followed today by Bramingham Road and is cut through by Marsh Road opposite the Territorial Army Headquarters.
Over thousands of years, the Icknield Way became an important trackway, constantly in use by traders who moved across the country between the continent, East Anglia and the south of England. The word 'Icknield', derived from the name of the Iron-Age Iceni tribe, is still preserved in the names of modern roads and schools.
The Metal Ages
After 2000 B.C. metal became widely used and we pass into what is known as the Bronze Age. Tools and weapons from this time have been found in the upper Lea valley but the precise locations of any settlements in our area have not been found. However, we can be sure that mixed farming was practised, with the growing of cereal crops and the rearing of cattle, pigs and sheep. Farmsteads were usually built in sight of ancestral graves or barrows, examples of which have been found between Galley Hill and Lilley Hoo and on the Dunstable Downs.
By the Iron Age, from about 700 B.C., there was much more activity in the area. At intervals along the Icknield Way, formidable boundary dykes acted like toll-gates and separated the countryside into individual territories. At Dray's Ditches, on the northern edge of Luton, dykes were constructed with three deep V-shaped ditches, separated from each other by massive wooden stockades backed with turf and chalk. Each territory was between 2.2 and 3.4 miles wide, and was apparently controlled from a hillfort (perhaps Ravensburgh Castle or Sharpenhoe Clapper) which may have dominated our area. In spite of their names and prestigious defensive appearance these 'forts' were more likely to have been 'townships' or trading centres, with the added capability of protecting the local population if the need arose.
There were many Iron-Age farmsteads on the hills throughout our area, and it is possible that grain or animals were taken to the 'forts' for marketing, storage and redistribution. One farmstead was excavated by Albion Archaeology beneath the University of Bedfordshire building at Butterfield, Stopsley, in 2005 and consisted of two circular wooden huts, one 39 feet in diameter, set in a farmyard with watering holes for livestock, and fences, hedges and droveways to keep the farm animals and children in and wild animals out. Numerous fields and paddocks would have stretched towards Bradgers Hill and Lilley, and clearings in the woodland provided pannage for pigs. A more extensive farmstead was excavated at Puddlehill, north of Dunstable, in the 1950s.
During the digging of a quarry on Blow's Down in the 19th century, Worthington Smith found evidence for a group of about two dozen Iron-Age huts overlooking the Icknield Way. Their owners probably grazed their sheep on the adjacent downland. At Leagrave, near Willow Way, huts were built on a clay-covered wooden platform beside the river Lea, high enough to keep them out of the water at times of flood. From there folk could have fished and fowled, and perhaps paddled small canoes downstream for trading purposes.
Today, in the 21st century, we tend to think of Luton's trade and transport links running north-south towards the Midlands and London but, in the early Iron Age, London and the Midland cities did not exist. The movement of people and trade were with southern Britain and the European continent, and were conducted along the edge of the Chilterns, largely along the Icknield Way. A second route ran into central Britain via the Thoidweg or Ede Way, which branched off from the Icknield Way at the foot of Galley Hill and headed through Chalton and Chalgrave towards Oxford and beyond. Initially the first 'Luton' settlements looked east and west for trade; only in the later Iron Age did they begin to turn towards the south and the St Albans area.
As well as the farmsteads and riverside dwellings at Leagrave, there would have been a good deal of movement along the Icknield Way to 'forts' at Maiden Bower (Dunstable) and Ivinghoe Beacon, to Sharpenhoe Clapper, the local territorial capital of Ravensburgh, and further east to Baldock, where there seems to have been a late Iron-Age township (oppidum), the regional commercial centre. During the late Iron-Age and early Roman periods, pilgrims would have made visits to a probable cult centre on Pegsdon Common. There, over many years, rich offerings to a water-god have been found near a spring, consisting of gold coins, a bronze mirror, fine-quality imported pottery and a number of cremation burials.
The Romans
By the first century B.C., different tribes had emerged in Britain and the people that lived in the Luton area were called the Catuvellauni. There was plenty to occupy the minds of these people: there was the work of everyday living, growing crops and caring for domestic animals, metal working, potting and weaving but also they had to be constantly on their guard as inter-tribal relationships were not always friendly. Hillforts had to be kept ready so that whole communities could retreat to these places of safety when other tribes became hostile.
Another threat was about to come this way in the form of an army from across the sea. This was a very different kind of challenge, for these soldiers were Romans, very disciplined and organised, and commanded by their famous leader, Julius Caesar. These incursions, in 55 and 54 B.C., were actually reconnaissance visits during which Caesar was gathering information about this island, so very far from Rome. He recorded his findings so we know that, on his second visit to the British Isles in 54 B.C., he attacked the stronghold of Cassivellaunus, leader of the Catuvellauni. This may have been at the place we now know as Ravensburgh Castle, near Hexton, although other possible sites included Colchester or Wheathamstead. If it was Ravensburgh, then it is just possible that Caesar and his men came to the area via the river Lea and the Icknield Way. With a bit of imagination we can picture the colourful Roman legion marching along the wooded river valley that is now Luton.
After Caesar left, the Catuvellauni established a new tribal capital at St Albans under the leadership of Tasciovanus, where from 10 B.C. he was minting his own coins, some of which have been found in the Luton area. It was a good time for the more enterprising native farmers to deal with Roman entrepreneurs and exchange their cattle, dogs, furs and grain in return for fine metalwork, pottery and glassware, wine and olive oil. The more prosperous native farmers and merchants soon flaunted their wealth by rejecting their circular wooden huts in favour of Roman-style houses built in brick and stone.
The Roman army did not return until A.D. 43, but this time they meant business. They were strong and organised, well armed and much to be feared. They taxed the local population and it would have been a foolish person who dared to challenge the power of Rome. Although they dominated the area, there was a positive side to their occupation for they also established a stable and relatively peaceful way of life and it has been said that, under the Romans, the British people enjoyed a more settled and secure life than they were to experience for centuries to come. The Romans believed in a civilised life with a centralised government and an organised lifestyle. The administrative centre for the Luton area would have been at St Albans (Verulamium), 12 miles to the south.
They built towns and villas (usually farming estates) and introduced Roman ways. One 'luxury' to be found in the villas was under-floor heating, something which was forgotten when the Romans left our shores and not revived until the 20th century. So far, there is no real evidence for any villa in the Luton area, the nearest known being at Totternhoe and Hitchin. Rather, the people of Luton lived in farmsteads, and artefacts discovered indicate that they were living in the Gooseberry Hill and Round Green areas. Traces of Roman buildings close to St Mary's Church beneath the Arndale Centre (now known as the Mall) were destroyed without record in the late 1970s.
The Romans were famous for their roads that were necessary for maintaining order and for trade. One major road, known as the Watling Street, went from London to Chester, taking a similar route to the modern A5. It passed through Verulamium and Dunstable (Durocobrivis), where it crossed the Icknield Way. Although the road did not touch Luton, local people no doubt used it since it was probably regarded as the M1 of the day. However, a lesser Roman road did come our way. It branched off the Watling Street near Flamstead and ran north through the Farley Hill estate and Biscot to Rosslyn Crescent. From there it continued to the Runfold estate, where burnt remains of wooden buildings of the second to fourth centuries A.D. were excavated in the 1950s, and then to Streatley, Sharpenhoe and Greenfield and beyond.
In order to pay the Roman taxes in coinage, the population had to learn to trade. Wine and oil were carried in jars called amphorae and transported across the Roman Empire. Glass beads were bought and sold. Other commodities traded were: cattle, corn, fish sauces, gold, hides, hunting dogs, iron, silver and slaves. In the Stockwood Discovery Centre in Luton, there are artefacts that demonstrate the kind of buying and selling that went on. Pottery was always in demand and some pieces have been found along the banks of the river Lea between Stockingstone Road and Barnfield College. Roman pottery was made in a kiln and was of a higher standard than that which had been made in the Iron Age. Wares from Gaul have been discovered at Limbury and metal tableware has also been found.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "A History of Luton"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Anne Allsopp.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
About the Author,
List of Illustrations,
Illustration Acknowledgements,
Acknowledgements,
Preface,
Introduction,
I A Settlement on the River Lea,
II Medieval Luton,
III Seventeenth- to Nineteenth-Century Luton,
IV Country Houses,
V Education,
VI Industry,
VII Luton at War,
VIII Migration,
IX Leisure,
X Luton, the Town,
Appendix I: Population figures,
Appendix II: Mayors and Members of Parliament,
Bibliography,