Appleby History > In Focus > 5 - A Planned Villlage

Chapter 5

A Planned Village

by Richard Dunmore

When Wulfric Spot endowed Burton Abbey in AD 1004 with ‘that land at Appleby that I bought with my money’ there were far reaching consequences for the village and its surroundings. From the historian’s point of view, vital clues were given about the origins of the village.

The Derbyshire Boundary

Before 1897, the north-western half of Appleby Magna and several other parishes to the north-west were in a detached part of Derbyshire, surrounded to the south, east and north by parishes in Leicestershire. This appears to have come about as a result of the ‘detached’ parishes being part of Derbyshire estates at the time that the counties were formed in the early 10th century. Chilcote, Measham and Willesley were part of the royal Derbyshire estate of Repton and Stretton en le Field had early connections with Repton too. Although at first in Leicestershire, the north-western half of Appleby Magna became part of the Derbyshire estate of Burton Abbey, when Wulfric Spot bequeathed it to the Abbey at its foundation in AD 1004.

The division of Appleby between Leicestershire and Derbyshire persisted from the time of the Abbey’s endowment until 1897, when the recently created county councils (1889) simplified the administration of many villages in this area by drastic realignment of the boundary. The earliest known large scale map of Appleby parish showing the boundary in detail is dated 1838. This shows the parish as it must have stood invisibly divided down the centuries in amazing complexity (see illustrations). During the 19th century much of this complexity was removed: the 1887 6‑inch OS map shows a single, if tortuous, line through the village. It seems likely that this was done to assist the 1841 (and later) census enumerators. In 1897, as part of a wholesale revision of the boundary to remove the anomaly of the detached part of Derbyshire, Appleby (Derbyshire) became part of Leicestershire as the parish of Appleby North, but still distinct from Appleby South. This unnecessary separation was eliminated the following year with the reunion of the ancient parish now to be known as Appleby Magna.

Click image for larger view

When Wulfric Spot made his land purchase at Appleby Magna, a simple division of the estate might have been expected and on the whole this does appear to have been the case. Across the heath and outlying farmland of the parish the dividing line was indeed straight forward. From No Mans Heath, the boundary headed directly to the heart of the village picking up a drainage line behind the present-day Recreational Ground and aiming for the brook just downstream of Wren Close. On the north-eastern side of the village the boundary followed the edge of the meadow land running alongside the brook as it flowed towards the Mease. The land north west of Appleby Magna village became Burton Abbey’s in Derbyshire, whilst that to the south east presumably remained with its previous Saxon owner in Leicestershire. Appleby Parva, established by the Danes, remained a separate estate also in Leicestershire.

But when it came to defining where the line ran through Appleby Magna village, there were many subtle deviations from a direct course as the 1838 map shows. The complexity of the situation was such that, not only did the line take a tortuous route around individual plots, but several ‘islands’ of each county lay isolated within the other. How, and more importantly when, did this complexity come about?

Is it possible that the original division really was quite simple and that the complexity of the boundary was acquired at a later date? It is difficult to see how this could have happened. The 1772 Enclosure Award confirmed ‘ancient’ enclosures and exchanges of land that had taken place at unspecified times in the past. It seems improbable that such enclosures and exchanges would have made the county boundary line more complex, as it would require the presumption that county designation rested with the allegiance of the owner rather than with the location of the parcel of land. This may have been true when the boundary was first laid down, but it hardly seems probable once the boundary had been defined.

The most likely explanation therefore for the complexity of the county boundary line is that, when he bought part of the Appleby Magna estate, Wulfric Spot (and hence Burton Abbey) also acquired the peasant workforce who had their own cottages and enclosed plots in and around the village. Each villein’s or bordar’s land went with that of his lord and master, whether that was the original Saxon landlord or the new owner, Burton Abbey. What the convoluted line on the map appears to be showing is the location of these peasants’ cottages and crofts according to the allegiance of their lord at that date.

The Planned Village

Trevor Rowley has discussed the views of historians on the age of planned villages, ie those whose streets and plots of land were laid out in a methodical way. Many believe that these came into being as late as the 13th century, largely on the basis of absence of archaeological evidence of Saxon activity. Other historians maintain that growth of population in the late Saxon period (from AD 750 onwards) led to increased pressure on land use which resulted in two related effects: the reorganisation of agricultural methods by the introduction of common fields; and the concentration of housing in one place - the ‘nuclear village’ - which often shows a planned layout. By this means all the resources of the estate would be more easily controlled for the benefit of the community. These resources were, on the one hand, the land communally organised as meadow, pastoral and arable land, common and wood, and on the other hand, the workforce, now grouped together in the village rather than scattered about in dispersed farmsteads and cottages.

This seems to be what happened at Appleby Magna, a village which shows clear signs of planning. The map reveals the extent of this planning, but also suggests that earlier features may have been incorporated into the plan. There are two streets roughly parallel to the brook and lying either side of the narrow valley through which it flows. These streets, Top Street and Church Street (using their modern names), are linked by two cross-routes: Mawbys Lane and Stoney Lane/Blackhorse Hill. Property boundaries are generally defined by land strips running across the village at right angles to the brook and the main streets (see map).

Blackhorse Hill cuts the corner of an otherwise rectangular layout. This is apparent from the boundaries of the plots of land outside its diagonal line. From the point at which Black Horse Hill veers down the hill, a lane accompanied by field boundaries (and lengths of the county boundary) continued the line of Top Street northwards, thus completing the rectangle. The diagonal route of Black Horse Hill may have been dictated by the steep gradient of the land and must have come into use quite early. It may have been there before the property boundaries were superimposed. Similarly, Mawbys Lane is not quite parallel to the strips of land. This may be because, along with the adjacent land of the nearby manorial home farm, it already existed before the strips were defined. Another case, which I shall look at in the next article, is the detour of Church Street around the Church, suggesting that the site of the church was also in place before the village grid was laid out.

The evidence of the county boundary division of the parish suggests very strongly that, at the time of Wulfric Spot’s legacy to Burton Abbey, the village was already nucleated and the fields and streets were also in place. Detailed examination of the map shows small plots of land cut off by the boundary line and known later to be occupied by cottages, as for example on the south side of Mawbys Lane. Also evident are larger plots, many of them showing the characteristic curved elongated shapes of strips associated with open field arable cultivation, apparently grouped together in piecemeal enclosures. This is particularly evident from the course of the boundary east of Black Horse Hill, where it passed to and fro around or alongside these groups of strips. All of these enclosures and strips must have already existed when the boundary line was defined.

In many instances, the line followed or changed direction at the village streets. This applied to Black Horse Hill, Bowleys Lane, Church Street, Duck Lake, Mawbys Lane, Top Street, Snarestone Road and Botts Lane and must indicate that the village streets too were already in place at the time the boundary was drawn. Many of the streets occupy hollow lanes, with high banks on either side, evidence of their great antiquity. Stoney Lane and Black Horse Hill are obvious examples but not the only ones. These hollowed ways must have come about by centuries of erosion. The feet of people and animals, the wheels of carts and carriages as well as the effect of water draining to the brook must all have contributed to the relentless erosion of the surface. These streets were already in place when the village was divided between the shires: the evidence of the course of the county boundary therefore points to their existence for at least a thousand years.

Magna and Parva

The planned village at Appleby Magna seems to have extended northwards to the end of Old End and was bounded to the south by a line defined by the two tributary streams which converge behind Wren Close and Didcott Way to form the village brook. The western edge of the planned village is marked by the line of Church Street and the eastern by Top Street, although a north-south line extending the eastern limb of Botts Lane would also appear to be part of the planned area. The planned parts of the village lay around the central core of manor and church. Elongated enclosures of land, clearly groups of strips, are particularly evident north of Mawbys Lane and, on the southern side of the manor, between the two main streets.

At the southern end of this area, there are abrupt and parallel changes of direction in both Church Street (just beyond Wren Close) and Top Street (near the old Baptist Chapel). Near this point, where the two streets cross well-defined water courses, both pass across the old boundary line (into Leicestershire) and enclose an area whose fields display a fine set of field strips and are known as the Flatts. Clearly the streets around the Flatts were laid out on this plan deliberately, but they link with the streets of Appleby Magna in an articulated manner, suggesting a different agency at work in their planning. The boundary line round a Derbyshire ‘island’ followed the line of Top Street near the (later) school, so the street must have existed at that location at the time the boundary was defined. But the evidence of an old water course cutting across the ridges of the Flatts suggests that changes may have been made later to the line of the stream and of Church Street.

As I noted in the last article, the word flattis Old Norse for furlong or sub-division of an arable open field (and itself divided into strips). This was nominally an area of ten acres, ie one eighth of a mile (confusingly also called a furlong) square. As the word occurs only sparingly in the parish’s field names, its use here suggests that this particular furlong was a sub-unit of an open field established and cultivated by the Danes. In that case, theFlatts could first have been laid out during the Danish occupation in the late 9th or early 10th century.

Unlike Appleby Magna, Appleby Parva appears not to have been subjected to planning in the Saxon period. There is no particular planned regularity about it (New Road was clearly 'planned' but dates from the 1830s). The smaller settlement simply grew around a junction of radiating roads and lanes. The reason for this may lie in the differences in society apparent at the time of Domesday. Of Danish origin, the sokemen worked under quite different conditions from the Saxon serfs of Appleby Magna. To a large extent they were free men and could run their small farms as they wished without the burden of an over-bearing lord. With no powerful lord to organise their farms, no planned village was imposed on the settlement.

The evidence of the County Boundary and the date of Wulfric Spot's bequest shows that the planning and layout of Appleby Magna village occurred before AD 1004. Could the Danes have dominated the Anglo-Saxons to the extent that they re-planned the village? As they appear to have made their own settlement (Appleby Parva) alongside the Anglo-Saxon village (c. AD 900), this seems unlikely. The probability must be that the streets and fields of Anglo-Saxon Appleby Magna were established well before the arrival of the Danes, perhaps around AD 750 - 850.

Sources and Notes

Nichols = J. Nichols, History & Antiquities of Leicestershire, Vol. IV, part 2, 1811

VCH = Victoria County History of Leicestershire

LRO = Leicestershire Record Office

Will of Wulfric Spot, AD 1004, Staffordshire Record Office (formerly in Burton Library)

Denis Stuart, An Illustrated History of Burton upon Trent to the 18th Century, Burton upon Trent Civic Society, post 1993 (pp 3,5 Wulfric Spot and his Will)

F R Thorn, ‘Hundreds and Wapentakes’ in The Leicestershire Domesday, Alecto Editions, 1990, pp 28-29 (origin of parishes in detached part of Derbyshire)

Kelly’s Derbyshire Directory, 1895, p 12 (creation of County Councils)

Map of the Parish of Appleby Magna, 1838 (showing the complex county boundary line). Grateful thanks to Mr Charles Ward for allowing access to the map.

One-inch OS Map 1st Edition (c 1835) suggests some of the detached Derbyshire islands but lacks detail because of the small scale.

Six-inch [1:10560] OS Map 1st Edition, Derbyshire (Det.) Sheet LXIII & Leics. Sheet XXII, 1887 (showing simplified boundary). View on-line at http://www.old-maps.co.uk

1841 Census returns for the two halves of Appleby show that a simplified boundary was used, almost certainly as a result of the errors made in 1821 and discovered in 1831 (VCH III, 1955, p 204).

1851 Census returns for Appleby show further apparent changes to the boundary. A sequence of properties in Church Street listed in 1841 as being in Derbyshire, was recorded in 1851 under Leicestershire. Other properties in Over Street (Top Street), formerly in Leicestershire, were listed in Derbyshire.

VCH Leics III, 1955, p 180 (union of the separate Appleby parishes)

Appleby Enclosure Award 1772, LRO 15D55/44; see also Nichols op.cit. pp 430-31

Trevor Rowley, Villages in the Landscape, Alan Sutton, 1987, Chap 4: ‘The Villages of Anglo-Saxon England’

The 1785 Bosworth School Estate Map (LRO DE 633/49) shows a tantalising glimpse of the beginning of a 'foot road' setting off diagonally across the Flatts from the corner of Church Street near the present Wren Close aiming directly for Appleby Parva via the 'Old Road'. This may be the remnant of an older route from Appleby Church to Appleby Parva, ie before Church Street was laid out around the Flatts.

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