BURLEY IN THE DARK AGES Mike Whitehouse
This is a short summary of a substantial piece of work in progress. When complete, the full work, including all relevant references and sources, will be available from David Etchells at [email protected], or the author Mike Whitehouse at [email protected]. All relevant feedback, suggestions and corrections will be welcomed at the same addresses.
1. Introduction
As a newcomer to Burley, it was surprising to find no historic reference points relating to the village between the odd Roman find and a land transfer involving Roger de Borlegh in 1212. Though the familiar term “The Dark Ages” is used to refer to a relative paucity of historical evidence relating to the period from the Roman exit from Britain in the early 5th century AD until the Norman conquest from 1066, in reality there are numerous documents, archaeological finds, and a large body of scholarly work relating to England in the Anglo-Saxon era, especially from the reign of Alfred the Great and the later monarchs. The Anglo-Saxon kingdom came to be centred in Hampshire, at Winchester, and still nearer to home, while Ringwood, Wareham, Twynham (Christchurch), Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst are all known to have been established by the time of the Norman conquest, there appears to be absolutely nothing relating to Burley in this period, in the form of either documentary or archaeological evidence: our village’s “Dark Ages” seem especially dark, and especially long!
It is perfectly possible that there was no settlement on the site of modern Burley during the Dark Ages. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t seek to explore the possibility that the village could have roots in that era. The obvious starting point for looking at evidence of early settlement of sites in England is Domesday Book (DB) - a comprehensive survey undertaken by William I in 1086 to establish a foundation of knowledge for taxation, and also to recognise and legitimise the landholdings he had granted following the conquest. DB also provides an additional tool for historians, as those undertaking the survey were tasked with enquiring into who had held the land in 1066, before the conquest took place. Burley is not listed in the Hampshire volume, though this does not prove beyond doubt that there was no settlement on the site of our village in 1086: it would seem wrong to assume that the DB surveyors and scribes were infallible, and did not miss some small, isolated settlements. So, it is possible either that (a) no recognisable settlement on the site of Burley existed prior to the arrival of Roger de Borlegh on the scene in the 13th century; or (b) that a settlement did exist but was somehow missed from DB. The absence of any direct reference to our village in DB has not stopped the development by historians of three plausible accounts of an 11th century history of Burley, all of which are worthy of proper reconsideration.
2. Burley resettled on the site of Bile?
Historians agree that the establishment from 1079 onwards of William’s Nova Foresta as a royal hunting ground, the foundation of our New Forest (NF), involved the forced clearance (“wasting”) of a number of pre-existing settlements, though the extent of clearances remains a subject of debate.
One such settlement recorded in DB is named “Bile”. Alwold is recorded as having been Lord in 1066, but by 1086 the recorded Tenant-in-Chief and Lord of Bile is Ranulf Flambard – the symbolism of the shift from Anglo-Saxon to Norman in the names of the Lord is striking. No population is recorded for Bile in 1086, though this is not in itself decisive as to absence of population – it seems that many quite large settlements do not have their population recorded in DB. The value of Bile’s “4 ploughlands and 8 acres of meadow” in 1066 is recorded as 4 Pounds, but by the time of the 1086 survey the land is designated “waste” – “Now it is all in the forest, except 4 acres of meadow”.
Historians also indicate that there was in many cases a rapid repopulation of some sites that had been cleared in the course of the establishment of the NF, and several reputable academic sources in the field of landscape history and deserted mediaeval villages support a version of history which indicates that Burley may have been resettled on the site of Bile, though it is difficult to find any concrete evidence on which this belief is based. The etymology of Bile doesn’t offer us any obvious assistance – the word seems to relate to the Anglo-Saxon word for “bill” in the sense of a bird’s beak, or “pickaxe” (of course shaped like a beak) – so doesn’t offer any steer one way or another on the Bile/Burley theory. However, if the name is treated as two syllables, “bee--le” as it seems likely to have been, it is reasonable to see the second syllable as a version of “leah”, being the Anglo-Saxon terms for a “clearing”, which would allow the translation to modern English as being the name of a place “by a clearing”. It seems quite possible to imagine a Norman scribe of DB transliterating the Anglo-Saxon name “Bile” to a more Norman form, and it takes little imagination to view the modern name “Burley” as a modernised version of the old one, coming down to us via various different iterations between the 12th and 14th centuries.
In truth, in the absence of concrete evidence as to continuity of occupation or resettlement on the site of Bile, this must properly be viewed as interesting speculation. In the 1951 first edition of her book, the village’s pre-eminent historian Félicité Hardcastle sets out in some detail arguments supporting and opposing the version of events that places Burley on the site of Anglo-Saxon Bile. She declined quite to commit either way on the subject, but by 1975, she had fallen squarely behind a new and different account . . .
3. Was Burley included in DB as part of Ringwood’s entry?
A range of modern sources suggest that modern Burley was included in the DB return for nearby Ringwood (“Rincvede” in 1086). Ringwood’s return indicates a portfolio of land-holdings including some on the Isle of Wight, but of particular interest for our purposes:
On the 4 hides which are in the Forest dwelt 14 villagers and 6 smallholders with 7 ploughs; a mill at 30d; woodland at 189 pigs from pasturage.
The value of this holding was a substantial part of Ringwood’s value as a whole, which had reduced markedly between 1066 and 1086; as with the record of Bile, this could readily be accounted for by “wasting” as part of the clearances necessary to establish William’s NF. Originating in the mid-1970s work of NF historian David Stagg, and now given credence by a number of other sources, is the suggestion that Ringwood’s “land in the forest” was in fact a settlement on the site of modern Burley. This version of events is accepted wholeheartedly by Hardcastle, first in 1975 in Burley Village Magazine, and subsequently in the second edition of her book in 1987. She emphasises particularly that this entry (unlike that for Bile) includes a mill, which modern Burley has a site of, in a location which possibly could have been used for the purpose in or before the 11th century. She notes the most commonly presented version of the origin of Burley’s name as the “lea”, a meadow or clearing, associated with the “burh”, a town or fortified settlement, many of which were established during Alfred’s reign in response to threat of Viking invasion. This would be wholly consistent with the site of Burley being the meadow-land associated with Ringwood (or indeed the ancient fortifications at Castle Hill). The most commonly used modern translation of DB, the Phillimore edition, endorses this approach, noting that “the 4 hides in the forest” are “Most probably, as Stagg suggests, to be identified with Burley”. The widely used recent online version of DB, Open Domesday, mistakenly reproduces the DB entry for Ringwood under Burley’s name, giving the entirely false impression that Burley was a named, recorded settlement in DB.
The claims linking Burley to the Ringwood DB return seem to be underpinned by an assumption that Burley must have existed in the 11th century, and then reference to an account of the Ringwood return into which this assumption can readily be fitted. Though the assumption that Ringwood’s “land in the forest” would be in this direction is a reasonable one to make, there is no concrete evidence to support this. This version of history does support the possibility of settlement at Burley in 1066 or before. However, as with the version of history that identifies Burley as resettled on the site of Bile, the belief that Burley was a settlement at the time of DB and appears as part of the Ringwood return, in the absence of solid evidence of any kind to support it, ultimately must be considered entirely plausible but “not proven”.
4. Burley as Achelie in 1086?
A third possibility should also be noted. A single account dating back to the 1940s explicitly identifies Burley as being referred to in DB as “Achelie” (translated as “Oakley”, or “Oakwood”). Sources note two “lost” DB settlements of that name having existed in the NF, one of which is identified as being in the Boldre Hundred, so potentially in the vicinity of Burley.
The Achelie/Burley theory has failed to develop traction amongst later commentators. That said, at the end of Mill Lane, opposite Woods Corner, we have the house named “Oakley” (possibly not an uncommon house-name in this area?), which may, or may not be coincidental. Of course half a mile to the north of the house of that name, we also have South Oakley Inclosure and a little further north again, North Oakley Inclosure. Authoritative sources differ sharply regarding this theory: while the Phillimore edition of DB states that Achelie is “possibly related” to these inclosures, documentation from a leading authority on Deserted Mediaeval Villages states categorically that the Achelie in Boldre Hundred is “Not Oakley Wood”. The evidence underlying these contrary positions is unknown and requires further exploration.
It is certainly the case that we would be most likely to find early settlements, if not on a major river such as the Avon, then near to a stream, which a settlement near Oakley, and the mill stream would be. It is therefore possible, that the earliest site of modern Burley is to be found in the area of Mill Lawn, though without any concrete evidence, this would be no less speculative than the theories linking to Bile or Ringwood.
5. Looking for clues
No archaeological finds from the Dark Ages have been found in Burley, and a re-examination of historic documents does not offer any contemporary evidence to prove the existence of a settlement on the site of Burley in that era: wishful thinking, or even well-informed assumptions as to its existence (e.g. by Hardcastle), or extrapolations from DB (e.g. by Stagg or others) do not amount to evidence. We are therefore left with at least five possibilities as to Burley’s possible existence in the 11th century or earlier:
While it may be impossible to establish certainty as to which of these possibilities, or some other situation, is an accurate version of history, there are a number of avenues that seem worthy of exploration, or re-examination, in pursuit of greater confidence about possible, probable and acceptable answers.
a. Finds – No archaeological finds to date have so far linked Burley to a Dark Ages existence, but there is a paucity of finds from the Anglo-Saxon period across the NF as a whole. The Dig Burley exercise failed to unearth anything from the relevant period, but it did reconfirm much earlier, if possibly transient, presence especially in the Burley Street area. A degree of lateral thinking may be required in directing any search for artefacts or evidence of Anglo-Saxon structures away from the present village centre. (see d., below)
b. Documents – It seems that Burley does not appear by name in DB, Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, or the “hidage” documents or surviving land charters of that period. Further scrutiny might yet allow for informed extrapolation or inferences to be made. Though relatively well-known, it is possible that further scrutiny of early maps of the Burley Manor estate, and charters and transfer documents relating to it, especially in conjunction with consideration of existing landscape features, may be helpful in tracing the early lines of settlement.
c. Images – Aerial photography and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) imagery are well-established techniques for identifying sites of potential archaeological interest that may be difficult to see from ground level. This could be especially helpful in relation to the Anglo-Saxon era when, unlike the Roman and Norman periods which bookend it, little stone building took place. In an area such as ours, where timber was plentiful, vernacular building would have been made of wood, inherently short-lived and leaving relatively slight visible traces more than a millennium later. Careful scrutiny of such images for the area surrounding Burley may have much to offer. Unfortunately, moving on to survey sites using geophysics techniques, an obvious next step, is known to be of limited utility in relation to identifying built structures from the Anglo-Saxon period, but it may still be worth considering using such techniques on selected areas in a closely targeted manner.
d. Relocation – Archaeologists and landscape historians commonly note across England “shifted villages”, where the central focal point has moved over time. There is strong evidence in particular of a trend towards relocation from hilltop to valley settlements in the Dark Ages period. In association with Castle Hill Fort (presumed Iron Age), and the pattern of finds from pre-Roman periods illustrated both in Hampshire County’s Historic Environment Record (HER) and the recent Dig Burley exercise, it would be possible to draw a plausible hypothesis that any pre-DB occupation of Burley would be likely to be in the Burley Street area with the village centre shifted later to the area of The Cross. As indicated at 4, above, and 5e, below, the area east of Mill Lane may also be worthy of further consideration.
It is apparent that Burley today is a “polyfocal village”, without a strong historic central focal point such as a village green or pond, but rather consisting of multiple straggly developments, pointing towards the likelihood of development via multiple small encroachments into the surrounding Forest. Only the War Memorial serves as a central point, and unlike many villages, the church not at the heart of the modern village site. No evidence of early religious presence, pre-dating the mid-19th century church and deconsecrated non-conformist chapel of the same period, is to be found near to village centre, but place names such as Chapel Haye and Ladywell, towards the north-west end of Forest Road, may steer thought towards the northern end of the modern settlement.
e. Names – The widely accepted (if not wholly uncontested) understanding of the name “Burley” derives from the Anglo-Saxon words referring to “a clearing associated with a fortified settlement” though such an approach does not help in determining whether the fortification referred to is that of Ringwood, or Castle Hill. The situation is further complicated by the possibility that rather than being related to “burh” (fortification) the “Bur” element of the name may derive from the word “beorg” (barrow, or burial mound), a derivation which would fit equally well given the presence of barrows in the vicinity of the village. If the derivation is not from “burh”, the linkage to Ringwood for DB purposes is somewhat weakened. Just as the possible origins of the village’s name from Old English words offers no firm answers, likewise, consideration of a linguistic trope from “Bile” (possibly “by a clearing”) to “Burley”, though plausible, doesn’t really take us any further forward.
The first documentary evidence relating to the village is generally accepted to be the land transfer naming Roger de Borlegh in 1212. The similarity of the surname with “Burley” is striking, and might be thought to identify a place sufficiently established by the 13th century for a landholder to take his name from it. But we should also consider an alternative, which is that the village has, subsequent to 1212, taken its name from de Borlegh. Even a cursory glance at historical records seems to establish that the name de Borlegh is also associated historically with land in other parts of England (Devon, Somerset, Herefordshire and Essex), indicating that his name is not exclusively or especially linked with our village, and should not necessarily serve as compelling evidence of a well-established settlement as of 1212. This line of thought deserves some further consideration and research.
Mentioned in passing earlier in relation to the Burley/Ringwood DB theory was the possible significance of the mill-site, and also the existence of the Oakley house and inclosure name, which could connect to Achelie. In addition, reflecting a possible continuation of place-names associated with a mediaeval two-field farming system, we have Southfield Lane (Bennetts Lane/Bisterne Close) and North Farm (adjacent to Oakley, at the north end of Mill Lane). There are a number of sites, of varied and uncertain periods in this area (listed in HER and revealed on LIDAR imagery) that could point towards early settlement, and though subject to general survey by archaeologists in 1999 and 2009 might merit further closely focused investigation.
6. Concluding thoughts
Academics in the field of history we are involved in here refer to “the conundrum which are the Domesday entries and the New Forest”, and how in some ways “the Domesday evidence conceals far more than it reveals”, characterising our task in terms of “working within the thresholds of possibility, probability and acceptability as we move from the known towards the unknown”. The challenge facing us in establishing the early history of our village couldn’t be clearer!
If we are to take this task forward, we need to move away from relying on assumptions, and inferences based on unclear or unstable foundations, and though we may pursue and examine hypotheses, we should only draw conclusions from whatever evidence we can identify with confidence. It would be more honest to recognise the existence of uncertainty and the unknown, rather than to make claims based on flimsy evidence, assertion or assumption. That said, in such a field of history, we might pragmatically have to think in terms of “on the balance of probabilities” rather than demanding proof “beyond reasonable doubt”!
It seems right to conclude at present that there is no evidence in DB sufficient to prove the existence of a settlement as of 1086, 1066, or earlier on the site of modern Burley. But that is not surprising given the difficulty of interpreting the DB material, and the paucity of Dark Ages archaeological material in the NF generally, and it certainly does not prove that the site of modern Burley was not settled in that period. As indicated at Section 5, above, there are lines of enquiry that could help in ascertaining whether Burley does have Anglo-Saxon roots. Of course, whether it is indeed a “re-settled” or “shifted” incarnation of DB’s Bile, or Achelie, or a development on or near the site of Rincvede’s “land in the forest” may still prove impossible to determine even if conclusive evidence of an Anglo-Saxon settlement was to be found. But, seeking to shed some light on Burley’s Dark Ages, and specifically attempting to move beyond assertions and assumptions, instead seeking firm evidence, seems a very worthwhile agenda. Even if ultimately we have to accept that aspects of the past are uncertain, this reality is not really a problem, and indeed for some of us is exactly what makes history interesting!
MW - March 2023
1. Introduction
As a newcomer to Burley, it was surprising to find no historic reference points relating to the village between the odd Roman find and a land transfer involving Roger de Borlegh in 1212. Though the familiar term “The Dark Ages” is used to refer to a relative paucity of historical evidence relating to the period from the Roman exit from Britain in the early 5th century AD until the Norman conquest from 1066, in reality there are numerous documents, archaeological finds, and a large body of scholarly work relating to England in the Anglo-Saxon era, especially from the reign of Alfred the Great and the later monarchs. The Anglo-Saxon kingdom came to be centred in Hampshire, at Winchester, and still nearer to home, while Ringwood, Wareham, Twynham (Christchurch), Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst are all known to have been established by the time of the Norman conquest, there appears to be absolutely nothing relating to Burley in this period, in the form of either documentary or archaeological evidence: our village’s “Dark Ages” seem especially dark, and especially long!
It is perfectly possible that there was no settlement on the site of modern Burley during the Dark Ages. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t seek to explore the possibility that the village could have roots in that era. The obvious starting point for looking at evidence of early settlement of sites in England is Domesday Book (DB) - a comprehensive survey undertaken by William I in 1086 to establish a foundation of knowledge for taxation, and also to recognise and legitimise the landholdings he had granted following the conquest. DB also provides an additional tool for historians, as those undertaking the survey were tasked with enquiring into who had held the land in 1066, before the conquest took place. Burley is not listed in the Hampshire volume, though this does not prove beyond doubt that there was no settlement on the site of our village in 1086: it would seem wrong to assume that the DB surveyors and scribes were infallible, and did not miss some small, isolated settlements. So, it is possible either that (a) no recognisable settlement on the site of Burley existed prior to the arrival of Roger de Borlegh on the scene in the 13th century; or (b) that a settlement did exist but was somehow missed from DB. The absence of any direct reference to our village in DB has not stopped the development by historians of three plausible accounts of an 11th century history of Burley, all of which are worthy of proper reconsideration.
2. Burley resettled on the site of Bile?
Historians agree that the establishment from 1079 onwards of William’s Nova Foresta as a royal hunting ground, the foundation of our New Forest (NF), involved the forced clearance (“wasting”) of a number of pre-existing settlements, though the extent of clearances remains a subject of debate.
One such settlement recorded in DB is named “Bile”. Alwold is recorded as having been Lord in 1066, but by 1086 the recorded Tenant-in-Chief and Lord of Bile is Ranulf Flambard – the symbolism of the shift from Anglo-Saxon to Norman in the names of the Lord is striking. No population is recorded for Bile in 1086, though this is not in itself decisive as to absence of population – it seems that many quite large settlements do not have their population recorded in DB. The value of Bile’s “4 ploughlands and 8 acres of meadow” in 1066 is recorded as 4 Pounds, but by the time of the 1086 survey the land is designated “waste” – “Now it is all in the forest, except 4 acres of meadow”.
Historians also indicate that there was in many cases a rapid repopulation of some sites that had been cleared in the course of the establishment of the NF, and several reputable academic sources in the field of landscape history and deserted mediaeval villages support a version of history which indicates that Burley may have been resettled on the site of Bile, though it is difficult to find any concrete evidence on which this belief is based. The etymology of Bile doesn’t offer us any obvious assistance – the word seems to relate to the Anglo-Saxon word for “bill” in the sense of a bird’s beak, or “pickaxe” (of course shaped like a beak) – so doesn’t offer any steer one way or another on the Bile/Burley theory. However, if the name is treated as two syllables, “bee--le” as it seems likely to have been, it is reasonable to see the second syllable as a version of “leah”, being the Anglo-Saxon terms for a “clearing”, which would allow the translation to modern English as being the name of a place “by a clearing”. It seems quite possible to imagine a Norman scribe of DB transliterating the Anglo-Saxon name “Bile” to a more Norman form, and it takes little imagination to view the modern name “Burley” as a modernised version of the old one, coming down to us via various different iterations between the 12th and 14th centuries.
In truth, in the absence of concrete evidence as to continuity of occupation or resettlement on the site of Bile, this must properly be viewed as interesting speculation. In the 1951 first edition of her book, the village’s pre-eminent historian Félicité Hardcastle sets out in some detail arguments supporting and opposing the version of events that places Burley on the site of Anglo-Saxon Bile. She declined quite to commit either way on the subject, but by 1975, she had fallen squarely behind a new and different account . . .
3. Was Burley included in DB as part of Ringwood’s entry?
A range of modern sources suggest that modern Burley was included in the DB return for nearby Ringwood (“Rincvede” in 1086). Ringwood’s return indicates a portfolio of land-holdings including some on the Isle of Wight, but of particular interest for our purposes:
On the 4 hides which are in the Forest dwelt 14 villagers and 6 smallholders with 7 ploughs; a mill at 30d; woodland at 189 pigs from pasturage.
The value of this holding was a substantial part of Ringwood’s value as a whole, which had reduced markedly between 1066 and 1086; as with the record of Bile, this could readily be accounted for by “wasting” as part of the clearances necessary to establish William’s NF. Originating in the mid-1970s work of NF historian David Stagg, and now given credence by a number of other sources, is the suggestion that Ringwood’s “land in the forest” was in fact a settlement on the site of modern Burley. This version of events is accepted wholeheartedly by Hardcastle, first in 1975 in Burley Village Magazine, and subsequently in the second edition of her book in 1987. She emphasises particularly that this entry (unlike that for Bile) includes a mill, which modern Burley has a site of, in a location which possibly could have been used for the purpose in or before the 11th century. She notes the most commonly presented version of the origin of Burley’s name as the “lea”, a meadow or clearing, associated with the “burh”, a town or fortified settlement, many of which were established during Alfred’s reign in response to threat of Viking invasion. This would be wholly consistent with the site of Burley being the meadow-land associated with Ringwood (or indeed the ancient fortifications at Castle Hill). The most commonly used modern translation of DB, the Phillimore edition, endorses this approach, noting that “the 4 hides in the forest” are “Most probably, as Stagg suggests, to be identified with Burley”. The widely used recent online version of DB, Open Domesday, mistakenly reproduces the DB entry for Ringwood under Burley’s name, giving the entirely false impression that Burley was a named, recorded settlement in DB.
The claims linking Burley to the Ringwood DB return seem to be underpinned by an assumption that Burley must have existed in the 11th century, and then reference to an account of the Ringwood return into which this assumption can readily be fitted. Though the assumption that Ringwood’s “land in the forest” would be in this direction is a reasonable one to make, there is no concrete evidence to support this. This version of history does support the possibility of settlement at Burley in 1066 or before. However, as with the version of history that identifies Burley as resettled on the site of Bile, the belief that Burley was a settlement at the time of DB and appears as part of the Ringwood return, in the absence of solid evidence of any kind to support it, ultimately must be considered entirely plausible but “not proven”.
4. Burley as Achelie in 1086?
A third possibility should also be noted. A single account dating back to the 1940s explicitly identifies Burley as being referred to in DB as “Achelie” (translated as “Oakley”, or “Oakwood”). Sources note two “lost” DB settlements of that name having existed in the NF, one of which is identified as being in the Boldre Hundred, so potentially in the vicinity of Burley.
The Achelie/Burley theory has failed to develop traction amongst later commentators. That said, at the end of Mill Lane, opposite Woods Corner, we have the house named “Oakley” (possibly not an uncommon house-name in this area?), which may, or may not be coincidental. Of course half a mile to the north of the house of that name, we also have South Oakley Inclosure and a little further north again, North Oakley Inclosure. Authoritative sources differ sharply regarding this theory: while the Phillimore edition of DB states that Achelie is “possibly related” to these inclosures, documentation from a leading authority on Deserted Mediaeval Villages states categorically that the Achelie in Boldre Hundred is “Not Oakley Wood”. The evidence underlying these contrary positions is unknown and requires further exploration.
It is certainly the case that we would be most likely to find early settlements, if not on a major river such as the Avon, then near to a stream, which a settlement near Oakley, and the mill stream would be. It is therefore possible, that the earliest site of modern Burley is to be found in the area of Mill Lawn, though without any concrete evidence, this would be no less speculative than the theories linking to Bile or Ringwood.
5. Looking for clues
No archaeological finds from the Dark Ages have been found in Burley, and a re-examination of historic documents does not offer any contemporary evidence to prove the existence of a settlement on the site of Burley in that era: wishful thinking, or even well-informed assumptions as to its existence (e.g. by Hardcastle), or extrapolations from DB (e.g. by Stagg or others) do not amount to evidence. We are therefore left with at least five possibilities as to Burley’s possible existence in the 11th century or earlier:
- No settlement existed on the site of modern Burley.
- The DB surveyors and scribes failed to record a settlement which did exist here.
- Burley is resettled on the site of the “cleared” settlement of Bile.
- An occupied site at Burley was recorded as part of Ringwood’s DB entry.
- Burley developed from a settlement called Achelie, which was “cleared” for the NF.
While it may be impossible to establish certainty as to which of these possibilities, or some other situation, is an accurate version of history, there are a number of avenues that seem worthy of exploration, or re-examination, in pursuit of greater confidence about possible, probable and acceptable answers.
a. Finds – No archaeological finds to date have so far linked Burley to a Dark Ages existence, but there is a paucity of finds from the Anglo-Saxon period across the NF as a whole. The Dig Burley exercise failed to unearth anything from the relevant period, but it did reconfirm much earlier, if possibly transient, presence especially in the Burley Street area. A degree of lateral thinking may be required in directing any search for artefacts or evidence of Anglo-Saxon structures away from the present village centre. (see d., below)
b. Documents – It seems that Burley does not appear by name in DB, Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, or the “hidage” documents or surviving land charters of that period. Further scrutiny might yet allow for informed extrapolation or inferences to be made. Though relatively well-known, it is possible that further scrutiny of early maps of the Burley Manor estate, and charters and transfer documents relating to it, especially in conjunction with consideration of existing landscape features, may be helpful in tracing the early lines of settlement.
c. Images – Aerial photography and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) imagery are well-established techniques for identifying sites of potential archaeological interest that may be difficult to see from ground level. This could be especially helpful in relation to the Anglo-Saxon era when, unlike the Roman and Norman periods which bookend it, little stone building took place. In an area such as ours, where timber was plentiful, vernacular building would have been made of wood, inherently short-lived and leaving relatively slight visible traces more than a millennium later. Careful scrutiny of such images for the area surrounding Burley may have much to offer. Unfortunately, moving on to survey sites using geophysics techniques, an obvious next step, is known to be of limited utility in relation to identifying built structures from the Anglo-Saxon period, but it may still be worth considering using such techniques on selected areas in a closely targeted manner.
d. Relocation – Archaeologists and landscape historians commonly note across England “shifted villages”, where the central focal point has moved over time. There is strong evidence in particular of a trend towards relocation from hilltop to valley settlements in the Dark Ages period. In association with Castle Hill Fort (presumed Iron Age), and the pattern of finds from pre-Roman periods illustrated both in Hampshire County’s Historic Environment Record (HER) and the recent Dig Burley exercise, it would be possible to draw a plausible hypothesis that any pre-DB occupation of Burley would be likely to be in the Burley Street area with the village centre shifted later to the area of The Cross. As indicated at 4, above, and 5e, below, the area east of Mill Lane may also be worthy of further consideration.
It is apparent that Burley today is a “polyfocal village”, without a strong historic central focal point such as a village green or pond, but rather consisting of multiple straggly developments, pointing towards the likelihood of development via multiple small encroachments into the surrounding Forest. Only the War Memorial serves as a central point, and unlike many villages, the church not at the heart of the modern village site. No evidence of early religious presence, pre-dating the mid-19th century church and deconsecrated non-conformist chapel of the same period, is to be found near to village centre, but place names such as Chapel Haye and Ladywell, towards the north-west end of Forest Road, may steer thought towards the northern end of the modern settlement.
e. Names – The widely accepted (if not wholly uncontested) understanding of the name “Burley” derives from the Anglo-Saxon words referring to “a clearing associated with a fortified settlement” though such an approach does not help in determining whether the fortification referred to is that of Ringwood, or Castle Hill. The situation is further complicated by the possibility that rather than being related to “burh” (fortification) the “Bur” element of the name may derive from the word “beorg” (barrow, or burial mound), a derivation which would fit equally well given the presence of barrows in the vicinity of the village. If the derivation is not from “burh”, the linkage to Ringwood for DB purposes is somewhat weakened. Just as the possible origins of the village’s name from Old English words offers no firm answers, likewise, consideration of a linguistic trope from “Bile” (possibly “by a clearing”) to “Burley”, though plausible, doesn’t really take us any further forward.
The first documentary evidence relating to the village is generally accepted to be the land transfer naming Roger de Borlegh in 1212. The similarity of the surname with “Burley” is striking, and might be thought to identify a place sufficiently established by the 13th century for a landholder to take his name from it. But we should also consider an alternative, which is that the village has, subsequent to 1212, taken its name from de Borlegh. Even a cursory glance at historical records seems to establish that the name de Borlegh is also associated historically with land in other parts of England (Devon, Somerset, Herefordshire and Essex), indicating that his name is not exclusively or especially linked with our village, and should not necessarily serve as compelling evidence of a well-established settlement as of 1212. This line of thought deserves some further consideration and research.
Mentioned in passing earlier in relation to the Burley/Ringwood DB theory was the possible significance of the mill-site, and also the existence of the Oakley house and inclosure name, which could connect to Achelie. In addition, reflecting a possible continuation of place-names associated with a mediaeval two-field farming system, we have Southfield Lane (Bennetts Lane/Bisterne Close) and North Farm (adjacent to Oakley, at the north end of Mill Lane). There are a number of sites, of varied and uncertain periods in this area (listed in HER and revealed on LIDAR imagery) that could point towards early settlement, and though subject to general survey by archaeologists in 1999 and 2009 might merit further closely focused investigation.
6. Concluding thoughts
Academics in the field of history we are involved in here refer to “the conundrum which are the Domesday entries and the New Forest”, and how in some ways “the Domesday evidence conceals far more than it reveals”, characterising our task in terms of “working within the thresholds of possibility, probability and acceptability as we move from the known towards the unknown”. The challenge facing us in establishing the early history of our village couldn’t be clearer!
If we are to take this task forward, we need to move away from relying on assumptions, and inferences based on unclear or unstable foundations, and though we may pursue and examine hypotheses, we should only draw conclusions from whatever evidence we can identify with confidence. It would be more honest to recognise the existence of uncertainty and the unknown, rather than to make claims based on flimsy evidence, assertion or assumption. That said, in such a field of history, we might pragmatically have to think in terms of “on the balance of probabilities” rather than demanding proof “beyond reasonable doubt”!
It seems right to conclude at present that there is no evidence in DB sufficient to prove the existence of a settlement as of 1086, 1066, or earlier on the site of modern Burley. But that is not surprising given the difficulty of interpreting the DB material, and the paucity of Dark Ages archaeological material in the NF generally, and it certainly does not prove that the site of modern Burley was not settled in that period. As indicated at Section 5, above, there are lines of enquiry that could help in ascertaining whether Burley does have Anglo-Saxon roots. Of course, whether it is indeed a “re-settled” or “shifted” incarnation of DB’s Bile, or Achelie, or a development on or near the site of Rincvede’s “land in the forest” may still prove impossible to determine even if conclusive evidence of an Anglo-Saxon settlement was to be found. But, seeking to shed some light on Burley’s Dark Ages, and specifically attempting to move beyond assertions and assumptions, instead seeking firm evidence, seems a very worthwhile agenda. Even if ultimately we have to accept that aspects of the past are uncertain, this reality is not really a problem, and indeed for some of us is exactly what makes history interesting!
MW - March 2023