This short article was published by the Wandsworth Historical Society in The Wandsworth Historian, no. 60, 1990. It is transcribed here from scans of the two printed pages. Wording, spelling and punctuation are as printed. The original page numbers are shown in the margin, and the note numbers link to the references at the end.
Bailey is replying to Graham Gower’s article in no. 58. He gives up his earlier idea that the boundary crossed Stane Street near Bedford Hill, and argues that the 10th-century boundary was the same as the 19th-century parish boundary, with Bernard’s Burials by Trinity Road.
I READ WITH GREAT INTEREST Graham Gower’s recent closely-argued paper on the southern boundary of the great Battersea estate described in two lists of names in the pre-Conquest period1. Especially interesting was the evidence for a ‘holy well’ close to Roman Stane Street, and also a possible settlement named Pagingworth. This note merely seeks to reiterate some of the problems associated with the boundary clauses and to come down in favour of one of the alternative routeings suggested in my earlier paper2.
The fundamental problem is that although the grant of a very large tract of countryside called Battersea, Wandsworth and Washingham was very likely made by Eorcenweald, Bishop of London, to his foundation at Barking in or about 693, a long list of bounds in the vernacular cannot have been appended to such an early document3. They have clearly been added to the manuscript in the Westminster muniments, and probably date from the period 950–1050. They do not, therefore, tell us anything about the Balham area in the 7th century. The list of 957 also presents problems, since it exists in vacuo, attached to a charter of that date granting land to Lyfing at Loðeresleage in Middlesex, which also survives in a later, twelfth-century copy at Westminster4. It is impossible to tell whether the sixteen points of the ‘693’ list predate or postdate the twelve points of the ‘957’.
That said, the question of the route followed by the boundary of the Battersea estate between Rushmere, which seems certain to have been on Clapham Common, and Blacan mor, which lay to the east of the Wandle, remains to be resolved. My suggestion that it ran across Stane Street to a point near Bedford Hill seems in retrospect unlikely. Not only does it bear no relationship to later parish and manorial dvisions, but it seems improbable that such a major landmark as the Roman highway would not have been mentioned in the perambulation, even though it was only touched upon twice. (The less important road now marked by Upper Richmond Road, Putney, appears in the ‘693’ list.)
If the Battersea estate lay wholly to the north-west of Stane Street, then it seems at least possible that its boundary followed that of the later parish, at least in general terms. This would, of course, leave Holyweli within Streatham, rather than on the boundary. Features with religious attributes were common on boundaries, but not invariably. Holywell Priory in Shoreditch lay inside the parish, for example. The criteria for the siting of boundary marks on a long perambulation were probably related to intervisibility in an area such as this in the 10th–11th centuries, since agriculture does not appear to have been practised at the periphery of the various estates in question. Key turning-points must also have been named, either from permanent features such as barrows, or impermanent ones such as trees and thorn-bushes. Balham at its first appearance seems to have been an area of meadow rather than a permanent settlement.
If the later Battersea boundary was being used, the principal turning-points would have been at the southern end of the crossing of Clapham Common, in the vicinity of Bellevue Road and by Crockerton Road, before the long straight section to the Wandle. To account for these points we have Leoddebeorge, Uckebyrge and Bernneardes byriels in ‘693’, and Bælegenham and Bernardes byrielse in ‘957’. This would suggest that Balham was considered to be quite a large area. If Leoddebeorge was at the top of Balham Hill, close to, but not apparently on, Stane Street, and Uckebyrge marked the turning-point at the beginning of the long narrow salient of Battersea beyond Ravenslea Road, then Bernard’s Burials would have been by Trinity Road, where Graham Gower places the second of the three burial features. I agree that the slight indentation of the Streatham boundary further west may well indicate a feature such as a tumulus which it was desired to retain within the Battersea estate, but it seems less likely that this would have been used as a boundary feature in the charters since there is a clear sight-line from Trinity Road to Garratt Lane at Blacan mor, assuming that at least one of Bernard’s Burials was ten feet (3m) high, or that one of the mounds was used [p. 22]for a forward sight from Uckebyrge and another for sighting the Wandle.
In broad terms, allowing for subsequent variations in the detailed line of the boundaries as woodland was cleared and farming extended so as to require more definition, these three locations for the burial features would enable us to argue that the boundary as it existed in the 10th century was the same as that of the 19th, and would avoid the need to hypothesise some quite major changes at some time between c.1000 and c.1500.
The name Pagingworth is potentially significant for the study of settlement history in this part of Surrey. Despite its late appearance in 1326, there seems no reason to doubt that it has an Anglo-Saxon origin, containing a group-name *Pagingas (‘the people of Pæga’), a well-attested and possibly early personal name5), and the element worð (‘an enclosure’), often associated with early names and definitely used locally in Wandsworth before A.D. 7006. If Pagingworth is such a name, then it represents another early Saxon settlement close to the line of Stane Street (cf. Tooting), and analogous to the position of Washingham on the probable Roman road from Clapham through to Putney and beyond. One or more of the burial mounds which feature in the charter boundaries may possibly be connected with this group, either as primary burials or as secondary intrusions in earlier tumuli.
References
- G. Gower, ‘Some observations on the Battersea boundary through West Streatham’ Wandsworth Hist 58 (1989) 9–13 (transcribed here). ↑
- K.A. Bailey, ‘Balham and Tooting in the Dark Ages’ Wandsworth Hist 40 (1984) 1–7. ↑
- K.A. Bailey, ‘Battersea in the Dark Ages’ Wandsworth Hist 3 (1971) 1–8; M. Gelling, The Early Charters of the Thames Valley (1979) 151, 166, where this charter is considered to ‘embody the substance of the original, but having some material spurious or genuine, substituted or interpolated’. ↑
- Gelling, op cit 109. The authenticity of this charter is not in doubt, despite being available only in a later copy. ↑
- E. Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names 4th ed. (1960) 356; W.G. Searle, Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum (1897) 385. ↑
- A.H. Smith, English Place-name Elements II (1956) 272–5. ↑