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DaneAttack

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 11 months ago

Did the Danes burn down Yateley's Saxon Church?

contributed by Peter Tipton with help from Geoff Hoare

 

The Legends

Long before the Norman Conquest local legend has it that marauding Danes burned down Yateley's Saxon Church. This, it is said, explains why only the Saxon north wall remains in the present Church.

 

Perhaps linked to the legend of the burning of the Church is another myth that there was an battle in Yateley, just north of Blackbushe Airport. The exact location is said to have been the public open space off Monteagle Lane on which now stands the Red Cross Headquarters and the Scout building. The story is that Farmer White, bailiff of Monteagle Farm, ploughed up a hundred human skulls when that field was first converted from pasture to arable at the turn of the 20th century.

 

The Danes attack Wessex

The first documentary record in which we can identify the ancient boundaries of what we now call Yateley was recorded in 976 in King Edgar's gift of the Manor of Crondall to the Old Monastery of Winchester. Since today we still have the remains of a Saxon Church as well as a Saxon description of the manorial boundaries, we can be sure that there was a Saxon settlement at Yateley. Since King Alfred himself once owned the ancient manor of Crondall, Yateley was included in the Kingdom of Wessex.

 

After the Danes started settling Britain in 865 they pushed further and further south and west, which eventually resulted in a series of battles with King Alfred in our area. The Danes were in Reading in 870 and fought several battles in this region before being defeated by the Saxons at Ashdown Hill in 871. But by 878 Alfred had been driven back again into the swamps of Somerset, before re-emerging to defeat the Danes conclusively at Edington, Wilts. The Danish king Guthrum was baptised and the country was divided into two by treaty.

 

Although it is therefore probable that marauding Danes did visit Yateley in King Alfred's lifetime, before they began to accept Christianity, there is no current evidence, either documentary or archaeological, that the Danes burned down Yateley Church. Nor is there any written account of a battle in Yateley.

 

The legend is most probably either Victorian speculation made over a glass of beer in a pub which has now grown into an established fact, or possibly misinterpretation of Stilwell's History of Yateley. The legend of the battle of Monteagle Lane appears to be a case of gentle leg-pulling, and illustrates the care which local historians must take when dealing with oral history recording and local myths and legends.

 

Hnaef's Shelf

The Saxon charter of 976 names the gravelly plateau we call Blackbushe as Hnaef's Shelf. Until the Second World War this same area had been known for centuries as Hartfordbridge Flats. Hnaef is the name of a legendary character occurring in both Beowulf and the Finnsberg Fragment. These sagas recount how Hnaef, King of the Half Danes, visited his sister who was married to Finn, King of the Frisians. A bloody battle broke out in Finn's court between Hnaef's sixty thegns and their hosts. Hnaef was killed. Hengest assumed the leadership of the Danes, and after a truce avenged Hnaef's death by slaughtering King Finn in the following spring. This Hengest is almost certainly the same warrier who was invited to Britain as a mercenary in 449, after the Romans finally left, to help defend parts of Britain from invaders. But Hengest overthrew the local British leader he was supposed to protect, and himself became the first King of Kent.

 

Even though Hengest gave his name to Hengistbury Head near Bournemouth, it seems unlikely that our heathland was named after the most famous Hnaef, King of the Half Danes, and Hengest's former leader. Many people were later named Hnaef, including Saxons. It is more likely that Hnaef's Shelf was named after one of these later leaders.

 

The Saxon Church in Yateley

The Saxon church consisted of a nave about 28ft by 16ft (the footings of the west and south walls were found during the excavation made after St Peter's was burned down. The Saxon north wall, still existing as part of today's church, had a door and window. During the renovations of 1878 the footings of an apsidal chancel were found and assumed to be Norman. At that time the church's Saxon origins were unknown, St Peter's being then thought to be of Norman origin. The Saxon origin of the church was not discovered until the rendering of the north wall was stripped in 1952. As no other chancel footings were found, and it is highly probable that the Saxon church did have a chancel, it is reasonable to assume that the apse was built onto the Saxon church, or possible that a Norman apsidal sanctuary was added to a Saxon rectangular church.

 

In the paintings (in the exhibition) Geoff Hoare has illustrated how Yateley's Saxon church might have looked, basing his thinking on the Saxon church at Boarhunt, Hants.

 

The darker tiles in the present church floor show the extent of the Saxon building with its south wall extending in a line from the chapel south wall, and the west wall joiningthe north wall where they new wooden font stands. The Saxon doorway was where the first (Tudor) window is.

 

Battle of Monteagle Lane?

What is the truth behind the story that one hundred skulls were ploughed up in the field now occupied by the Red Cross Headquarters and the Scout Building? The story was first recorded about twenty years ago in an early attempt at oral history recording, and was accorded credability since it originated from a person who had lived as a child in the close vicinity.

 

For the story to stand up the skulls must have appeared as a result of the field being ploughed for the first time. Before that alleged first ploughing in the early 1900s, the field must have always been pasture, allowing the skulls to remain just below soil level.

 

Fortunately the Society now has the means to check the agricultural history of Yateley's fields. Richard Johnston has spent many hours at the Public Record Office at Kew transcribing the records of the Valuation Office for a land duty in 1910. The data added into the Society's database comprises over 103,000 words on nearly 1,000 pages. The 1910 starting date of this valuation is conveniently some 5 years after the date of the alleged ploughing up of the skulls by Farmer White of Monteagle Farm.

 

But the evidence which really disposes of this battle myth is the Tithe Apportionment made in 1844. Every field in Yateley is listed giving its owner, occupier, name or description, its size and its agricultural use. Field no 21 (Carthouse Filed) is now occupied by the Red Cross, the Scouts and the children's play area. Field 22 (Bottom Field) is the lower field to the west, also now public open space. Fields 8 (Spring Field) and 9 (Old House Field) are now known as Fox Farm. The use of all these fields is given as arable -- implying that in 1844 they had recently been ploughed. Therefore Farmer White was not the first to plough these fields, and it follows that, when he ploughed, he would be unlikely to have ploughed up any skulls.

 

This legend is most likely to be a gentle legpull directed at an earnest oral history recorder.

 

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