Where did it all begin? In 2009 a series of workshops was held across the county in which participants explored the idea of 'Sense of Place in Anglo-Saxon England'. Hence the acronym SPASE. The idea of Anglo-Saxon England, of course is not without its problems. Anglo-Saxon influence spread beyond the modern limits of England and into Scotland. Thus, Anglo-Saxon England is used as a shorthand to refer to this larger political and cultural entity. No offence is meant to those north of the border. These workshops were funded by the Arts and Humanities Reseach Council.

The workshops brought together historians, archaeologists, historical geographers, and place-scholars all working on different aspects of settlement history with a particular emphasis on village and hamlet origins. They began with a simple premise: that the settlements in which we still live present perhaps the greatest legacy of the major social, economic and landscape upheavals that took place in England during the early medieval period.  The majority of these places continue to be referred to by names coined over a thousand years ago. And they tend to occupy the same locations chosen by their founders.  They therefore provide us with an unbroken link to the past. As we appreciate, around these focal points have grown strong senses of community identity. It seems only appropriate, then, that when we explore their origins we should try to understand what their creators thought about these places too.

Evidence for the scale of settlement between 800 and 1100 at Wicken, Northants.

The workshops set out, then, not only to understand the early phases of settlement formation, but to trace broader changes in the English countryside in the Anglo-Saxon period.  In this, the workshops can be deemed a success. For they offered a new way of exploring the creation of secular, ecclesiastical and administrative landscapes, emerging social hierarchies, and the agrarian exploitation of the land.  As we had expected, we found that by starting with the place-names themselves, we had a way in to unlocking deeper understandings of Anglo-Saxon attitudes to their landscapes and social structures, but only when used in conjunction with archaeological and topographical studies of settlement. 

But these workshops also revealed just how much more work needed to be done. Often the evidence upon which we have built our current understanding is very slim. This is why participants began to look for a way forward, one in which we might add significantly to the available corpus of information. And it is why we have turned immediately for help from those of you who know these places best and who already hold the information we need, or who would be able to extract it given the right guidance. This is the purpose of public SPASE, to promote and facilitate the expansion of knowledge regarding village and hamlet origins through independent local interdisciplinary study undertaken within a national framework.