EROP Double Header: Origins of the Roman and Saxon landscape

the evolution of fields, roads and towns in the Dengie Hundred

Part 2 of our historic double header.

You can book our morning and afternoon talks individially or together at a discounted rate.

For details of our morning talk "New Discoveries in the Life of John Ball", click here.

Speaker: Professor Stephen Rippon, University of Exeter

How old are the fields and roads that make up our present-day countryside? In various parts of Essex, today’s fieldscape appears to be regularly arranged such that it has a planned appearance, and in places this dates back to the Roman period. But what of the area east of Chelmsford, on the Dengie Peninsula? This talk will explore the origins and development of this landscape and its relationship to important Saxon sites such as the church at Othona and royal forts at Maldon. The potential extent of a distinct type of medieval field system – ‘open fields’, managed through the three-course rotation system – will be revealed for the first time in a region that was not previously thought to have been managed in this way.

Stephen Rippon is Professor of Landscape Archaeology at the University of Exeter. His current research focusses on understanding what happened when Britain ceased to be part of the Roman Empire, and his recent books that consider the Essex landscape in this period include Kingdom, Civitas and County, and Territoriality and the Early Medieval Landscape: The Countryside of the East Saxon Kingdom.

Registration, tea and coffee from 1:30pm with our talk starting at 2:00pm