The Saxons in Witnesham and Swilland.

The first wave of Saxons in about 450 AD looted and burned as they rampaged through the countryside, destroying the proud villas of the Romans, smashing and burning the furniture and carvings, taking away the iron to forge weapons. Not until around 650 AD did the settlers come, giving their name to East Anglia, dividing it between the North Folk and the South Folk – Norfolk and Suffolk. Wytnesham and Suinlanda probably remained untroubled by the Danish invasions, although they would have heard about them, possibly giving sanctuary to refugees. Our Saxons could have been among the later, peaceable settlers who came during the 6^th. Century seeking profitable work and peaceful lives in fertile lands. So Wittin or Wittal or Witgar came to our valley, bringing his language with him to supersede the Romano-Celtic. Perhaps another member of the same family settled a little further along, raising pigs. The area came to be known as Witnesham, Wittin’s place. The lower part of today’s village was a separate community, Ffynford, and the northern part ‘Suinlanda’ (Swilland) meaning swine-land, ‘the land where pigs are’. Pig farming has persisted in the same area for fourteen hundred years until the present day. Newton is of course ‘the New Town’ or ‘the new place where people live’.

The river might have been navigable at least up to the Tuddenham Bridge, although Lower Witnesham was named ‘Fynnsford’. Being a ford it could not accommodate boats. Redwald, family name Wuffing, taken from the ancient name ‘Wolfing’, is buried looking over the Deben, at Sutton Hoo. A Danish queen, Helming, the name an alternative to Wuffing, settled near here. Redwald’s longboats sailed up the Deben. Did Wittin venture into our smaller tributary in small boats? Did he go ashore around Tuddenham, making his way along what is now Strugglers lane, beside the water meadows, searching for his place? Or did he come from the Saxon settlement in Ipswich, a half a day’s walk away? Archeological sites in Ipswich have yielded finds that confirm Gyppeswick, as it was then named, as an important manufacturing centre for metalwork and jewellery, and the most important for Pottery. An example of Ipswich Ware has been found here;It is the most common found anywhere in the whole of the country. East Anglians were traders as well as farmers. Wittin took a piece of land to settle, which became known as Wittin’s field, or Witten’s Ham. ‘Ham’ names, meaning settlement or home, typically belong to the later Saxon period, say seventh century onwards, when the Saxon immigrants were less men of war and more farmers.

The settlers worked hard from dawn to dusk to clear the scrub and create the fertile fields that we see today. They grew wheat and barley, oats, coarse leaved cabbage and beans for the mainstay diet of pottage, made with lentils with occasionally a pigs head simmered in it for taste and protein. Not fancy, but solid homely fare that kept the villagers healthy, strong and content. Wittin, an important man, would have roast venison, pork or bacon, stew and sheep or cow’s cheese, washed down with ale and mead. The swine that are mentioned in the Domesday book were wild boar. He would have salt on his table as well, made by boiling sea water dry, or bought from traders from the north. Only in the worst years would they all have to survive as best they could on acorn and grass pottage, but during those starvation years many would die. Average life expectancy was 30 years. Clearly the well fed, and especially men who must defend the settlement, would live longer. There would have been a high neonatal death rate and maternal death rate, due to poor nutrition, hygiene and lack of medication. They enjoyed falconry; there was Maypole dancing, as there is still in the 21^st. century, at Witnesham School. The woods glowed with primroses and bluebells in the spring.

Imagine Wittin’s family fishing in the river below the ford. No fly fishing or maggots on hooks for them. Men used harpoons or the fish spears common in that period, children laying out fish traps in the deep still pools. Picture them talking together as they walked home to their round house village (now long gone) where the women would gut the fish and lay them on hot stones in the village fire to sizzle with rosemary, thyme, sage and salt. By fire-light in Witnesham and Swilland, at the end of the day there were stories, of Beowulf perhaps, stories full of myth to explain the mysteries of life. Someone would play the haerp, an early six stringed harp, similar to a lyre. It strikes up a rhythm, rather than a tune; an Anglo Saxon knees up involved tankards of beer, everyone stomping along, singing or chanting poems of Saxon heroes, spelling out Saxon values, ethics, and structures for living. In many Saxon villages there was a council of elders to make decisions affecting the community. The custom has survived through 1300 years until now, in the form of the Parish Council. Not a lot of ale or stomping though; papers from the County Council are not nearly as much fun!

There is some evidence that the original site of the medieval house on the Berghesh Estate, surrounded by a moat, (which still encircles the field), was probably the site of an earlier Saxon dwelling. The existing barn nearer the present house could also be originally Saxon with Medieval or Tudor additions. However, Wendy and Tim Parkes the present owners, are unwilling to embark on restoration. Wendy says ‘If we cannot restore the barn properly we should simply maintain it until someone can. It is too important to spoil with half measures’.

Swilland Hall next to the church endowed by Edith, Edward the Confessor’s Queen, probably had Saxon origins, and possibly Red House Farm in Swilland. Without confirmation that the barns have areas of Saxon wall, we cannot be sure. The situation and age of Red House Farm in Witnesham would suggest that as another likely site, although Tudor replacements were not necessarily built on the site of the original Saxon Longhouse.

But where did Wittin build his house? The Iron Age site in Finesford does not commend itself. Because there are not written records the only clues we have are the customs and practices of the time that we know about from other places. Following those two great invasions people became more settled. They have tended to build a new manor house on the site of or near earlier ones, typically near a reliable water source. Often the old house survives, becoming a barn. They have built their new church on or near the site of an earlier place of worship. Churches were not systematically recorded in Domesday, so the omission of a mention of one in Witnesham is not significant.

The names of our Saxon forebears are familiar, thanks to King William’s urgent need to impose taxes. Taxes levied on the land we own and the value of what we earn have been in place for almost a thousand years, thought up first of all by a Frenchman! One of his first acts was to dispose of the territory to his supporters; the second was to have recorded exactly who owned what. Immediately after his arrival here in 1066 the grand survey began, the ledger we have come to know as ‘The Book of Domesday’ (meaning ‘The final reckoning). It tells us who lived here under William, and the Saxons before.

Swilland

Queen Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor, owned the land. We do not know for sure which was the manor, but it is likely to have been Swilland Hall, because she endowed the church, which stands next door. The manor seems to have been owned by the church as well, the whole being one parcel. There were cattle here, arable land, grazing meadows and pigs feeding in the forest of Oak trees. The church owned 60 sheep. There is no record of the name of the Saxon tenant who farmed the land for the church.

Newton

Brictmer owned a manor here. Leofson, under the patronage of Stigard, owned a second manor. His name implies he was the son of Leofwin of Witnesham.

Witnesham

Leofwin was the only freeman; there were ten villagers and four smallholders, plus five slaves. The numbers suggest there was a main house with possibly a dozen cottages. It can be assumed that the ten villagers mentioned were households, not people. They survived as a community at least to the end of the eleventh century. The houses were most likely in the vicinity of the church and Manor Farm, if the ancient burial site there is anything to go by. The cottages were wood, brick and stone dwellings. There must be traces of them still, if the church burial ground and the plough have not entirely obliterated them. But the stones will have been recycled, and are there, somewhere, in walls built years later.

Finesford

There were possibly five large Saxon houses and at least twenty cottages. The name of one, Halden, a Saxon is recorded, and Tepekin, a freewoman, but no others. The whole village was under the patronage of the predecessor of Walter the Deacon, name unrecorded. The river was more full of water then, so houses would have been a little further away. No firm evidence has come to light to identify definite sites. We leave it to your imagination. The secrets of the houses around what was Finesford Bridge are still to be discovered.

Let us assemble our clues about Witta’s residence. First, a Roman urn was buried under our church, possible evidence of an earlier dwelling in that place. Second, we have some evidence from the mysterious burial uncovered in 1823 by Mr. Potter, who was the tenant of Manor Farm.

In ‘A Topographical Dictionary of England’ by Samuel Lewis, printed in 1831, is written: ‘A singular discovery took place some time in this parish, on removing some earth, the skeleton of a man in armour, seated on horseback, supposed to have been buried during some of the civil wars, was open to view.’

Pocket Histories (1922) mentioned:’ Whilst dealing with the King family it is well to mention the interesting relics possessed by the Rector at the beginning of the 19^th. Century, relics which seem to suggest that Witnesham was at one time the scene of a battle in the early days of our race. These particular discoveries include a human skeleton, beside which was found a horse with silver studded saddle and stirrup irons, and although history fails to leave any record bearing upon these mementoes, they are certainly connected with some dark episode long lost in the mists of time’.

In ‘Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon time’. Stephen Plunkett   writes: ‘Aristocratic values were expressed in individual burials of unusual wealth or custom. The distinctive Ritual of horse burial may bear witness to an equestrian class, where it is found in eastern England and northern Europe. An outstanding equestrian grave, hitherto largely unnoticed, was uncovered during crag diggingsin 1820 at Witnesham just North of Ipswich, on land belonging to Revd C Eade of Metfield.The farmer Charles Poppy, who was present and kept some of the finds, described his discovery to D.E. Davy in May 1824, to P, Meadows in July 1828 and to Major Moor of Bealings in September 1846.Both Davy and Meadows independently call him “very intelligent”. All that is known is recorded in Davy’s Suffolk Collections (Witnesham, Fols. 410-411).

On a side bank at the Farm, (Manor Farm, in Church Lane), within 6 ft. of the surface, was found the skeleton of a man about 5 ft.5 ins. Tall carefully laid out east and west, with a lance alongside, a helmet with a silver ornament in front of it, and “other perfect specimens” and “military accoutrements”. Within a yard’s distance were the bones of a horse of full riding size with saddle and bridle. Of the bridle only the bit curb and buckles remained, but the woods of the saddle and some of the leather remained in perfect shape; it was raised some 4 or 5 inches at the back, where the edge was covered with iron or copper. In front the saddle pommel was high, with a round silver “plate” on each side; the finder described it as “similar to cavalry saddles of the present time” (1828). There were also two larger plates on the hind part, described as “button-like ornaments, the tope of them covered in tin foil, circular, an inch and three quarters in diameter”, A stout iron ring and supposed stirrups were buried with the saddle. On a separate occasion at the same pit the labourer found and reburied “many pieces of armour”. Mr. Poppy saw “a breast plate or two and some other portions’’. The labourer explained “he was not aware what these iron things were”. Perhaps they were shield bosses and similar equipment from a surrounding cemetery. They should not be confused with the full cart load of bones found on the opposite side of the valley in around 1800.

‘This burial is consistent with Anglo Saxon burials. Similar finds .include the sixth century burials at Sutton Hoo, Lakenheath and Snape. As in Witnesham, the Lakenheath horse wore it’s saddle and bridle in death. It also had a bucket of provender, and the mouthpiece of the bit had silver attachments’.

Rector King took possession of the Witnesham relics, but their whereabouts are now unknown.

Now we have more questions than answers.

If there had been a battle there would have been more, not so well organised remains. The burial of a man next to his horse is ceremonial. Why there? It was a special place. If our man was Saxon, he was buried on a holy site. Was it Christian or Pagan? Was a shrine in Roman times, used later by the Saxons, in whose religion water was an essential part? The Saxons built a Christian church in Swilland in the second half of the 11^th. Century, surely at least a shrine in Witnesham? Was the Norman Church built there specially to eradicate all signs of an ancient religion, or an improvement to an existing place of worship?

Were the remains found by Mr. Poppy those of Wittin, our founding father, buried with ceremonial due to a man of his standing in the community? Did he sail up the river from the settlement on the Deben, where Redwald was buried at Sutton Hoo, to stake his claim on our fertile valley?

Where did he live? Only one find from Witnesham or Swilland is registered as Saxon, a sherd of Ipswich Ware pottery, date approximately 500- 1065 AD. A descendant, Leofwin owned the lands around the church, now Witnesham Hall, Manor Farm etc. How many retainers were with him, and were they the ‘cartload of bones’? Could the knight be Leofwin, perhaps fighting and dying with his men to defend his meadows, or fighting alongside Harold to repel the Danes, or at Hastings.

How many Saxon homes were here? In 1086 there were 10 villagers, 6 smallholders and ten slaves.. Finesforda was a bigger settlement. We don’t know where those Saxons lived either. Where were the other dwellings? Why did they disappear? And has anyone any more information on the Mystery of the Witnesham Burial?

In 1066 William of Normandy crossed the channel with his armies to claim the throne that had been promised by Edward the Confessor. At the battle of Hastings, Harold was killed and the Normans became masters of the English. The Saxons were stripped of the fertile meadows and woodland by the Norman conquerors. The church at Witnesham was built in the Norman style: Swilland church, once a simple early Christian edifice, was rebuilt in the Norman style. Traces of Saxon heritage were eradicated from the ruling establishment, remaining only in the memories and customs of cottagers. East Anglians came to uneasy terms with the Normans, both sides fearing the threat of Danish invasion.

Dr. Sam Newton, www.wufflings.co.uk

Museum of London.

Meals through the Ages – Peter Moss – George G. Harrop and Co, Ltd.

Domesday Book. 1986 translation.

In ‘Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon time’. Stephen Plunkett   (Thanks to Nick Wiggin)

In ‘A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis, printed in 1831 (Thanks to Ian and Pam Williams)

Ipswich Archeological Society.

Simon Young: ‘A.D. 500’ placenamesuk@yahoo.co.uk (East Anglian Daily Times.)

Suffolk County Archeological Unit, Bury St. Edmunds.

Recorded Finds.

July 1993: One sherd stamped Ipswich ware. Witnesham

Early Medieval/Dark Age - 410 AD to 1065 AD

Middle Saxon - 650 AD to 849 AD