MEDIEVAL

Conclusion

We have identified compelling evidence from both archaeology and written records to suggest a sizeable settlement existed at Tulwick during the medieval period. Tulwick lies within the ecclesiastical parish of Wantage, but for both farming and civil administration purposes we suggest it was regarded as a separate community in its own right with an independent field system.

Although the archaeological evidence that has come to light indicates the site was occupied between the twelfth and early sixteenth centuries, an earlier settlement may have existed here. In our Anglo-Saxon Investigation we discuss how the place-name wic refers to the production of a specialised commodity within a wider estate unit and suggest that Tulwick, (Tulla’s dairy farm) is so named because of its relationship with the Saxon royal estate centre at Wantage. By the late Anglo-Saxon period large estates had fragmented and the relationships which supported the development of specialist functions were broken. Land grants (charters) of this period indicate that outlying settlements bearing wic place-names were becoming communities in their own right with their own field systems.

There is also an increasing amount of archaeological evidence which suggests that in some areas a dispersed settlement pattern was being supplanted by the increasing nucleation of villages in the middle and later Saxon times. This trend seems to be accompanied by the development of open field systems. Our investigation reveals indications of this process at work in the landscape at Tulwick.