C O N T E X T 1 4 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 6 25 Robert Huxford is director of the Urban Design Group. west, and on either side a row of around 10 rectangular house plots (or tofts), each 20 metres wide and 40 metres deep (or four by eight perches). This is the authentic 12th-century village of Riseholme, not rambling and informal but ordered, regular and rectilinear, with at least four roads providing access. How different it is from 21st century village-esque development, where there is often only a single access road, and an internal street pattern that is so irregular and contorted that, from the air, it looks more like a copy of an ornamental maze. Currently the names we give to new neighbourhoods or streets seem to be a mix of geographical places (some local but also randomly selected), famous persons, or something that sounds rural and wholesome such as Blossom Lane, Crabapple Street, Dunnock Drive, and so on.They reflect the things we value. Richard Jones of the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester introduced some of the names used in the past, including names that describe something about the settlement, including ham, tun, burgh, wic and worth; topographical names that suggest water, flora, island, common and so on; and qualifying names such as folk, group or personal names. He thought it important to draw a distinction between the modern worldviewwhere a distinction is drawn between nature and culture, and an Anglo-Saxon view, where everything was entirely embodied in the landscape. They did not differentiate between nature and culture, he suggested: names were used simply to make places recognisable. RichardMortimer of OxfordArchaeology took the ton/ ham suffix as his subject, and the curious preponderance of ton settlements to the north east, and hams to the south west, of an ancient lane running near the village of Oakington, not far from Cambridge. He hinted that this may have followed a very large feature running for over a hundred kilometres, and mentioned, intriguingly, a potential connection between the via Devana, the Fleam Dyke, the Mercian kingdom and a ‘Road to the Rhine’. Jeremy Lake of Historic England gave a presentation on houses, farmsteads and their landscapes, drawing on some of the important work that has been undertaken to identify and systematically classify different types of farmstead.The most important point he raised was that in many instances buildings may be substantially older than they first appear, with timbers from older buildings being reused, or the footings of previous buildings being retained. It was clear that the delegates held the view that only half of the buildings that should be listed, have in fact been. Clearly the extent of Britain’s heritage is much greater than is contained in the heritage list or historic environment records. It is a deficiency that should be redressed.There is so much more to be discovered and recorded before it is lost or destroyed. Some people may regard the study of the origins of fields, villages and towns as of peripheral interest. But this is where development is happening now. If a developer or housebuilder wishes to practice their trade, they first have to buy some land, and in the case of greenfield development, it is just that: a green field. They then employ someone to produce a master plan including new streets, houses and greenspace, that invariably incorporate existing features, such as mature trees, field boundaries and the boundary with any roads. The site is developed and the houses sold; then another developer buys the next field, and the process continues, field by field as the settlement expands.The key unit of development is the field, and the means of connection are the existing highways.Twenty-first-century development is being profoundly influenced by decisions that were taken perhaps 200 or 2,000 years ago, or even more. Let us hope that future years will bring further conferences where archaeologists can share their knowledge with built environment professionals, and perhaps encourage them to look at the 21st century as more of a system, where power governance, economics and social structure matter as much as physical design. Wolvercote Common, Oxford: commoners have had grazing rights since before the Domesday Book.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=