Landscapes of Dispersed Settlement: Understanding People and Place in the Severn Valley, 1066-1500

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This project will focus on post-Conquest (AD1066 - 1500) landscapes of dispersed settlement in the middle Severn valley (from Ombersley and Shrawley, Worcestershire to Morville and Claverley, Shropshire). Generally, medieval settlement studies have focused on areas of nucleated settlement (large villages, with houses clustered together), stretching in a band from the south-west to the north-east of England through the East Midlands. In the Midlands, therefore, settlement research is underpinned by a series of important projects focusing on large nucleated villages in the east and central Midlands.Such settlements were not the norm in the west of the region. Here, isolated farmsteads and hamlets were more common - but the reasons for this remain unclear. Despite valuable studies of individual settlements and no shortage of data, there has been little investigation of patterns of rural settlement common in the middle Severn Valley. The interplay of physical and cultural factors is complex, and cannot be understood by historical, archaeological or toponomastic approaches in isolation. An interdisciplinary approach is required.This research will fill the geographical and intellectual gaps in our current understanding of rural settlement. A recent review by the Medieval Settlement Research Group (MSRG) outlined the following research priorities: post-Conquest settlement and landscape; dispersed settlement; the 'lived experience' within medieval rural settlements; interdisciplinary study.These priorities will be addressed through analysis of the dispersed settlements of the Severn Valley, framed around the following questions:1. Which factors were more influential on patterns of dispersed settlement: physical (e.g. soils, relief) or cultural (e.g. lordship, agriculture, industry)?2. How do patterns of dispersal compare and contrast across the region?3. Is it possible to determine a chronology of development for dispersed settlement?4. To what extent did small, isolated settlements subsequently develop?5. To what extent did colonization of cleared woodland generate later foundations of dispersed settlement?6. Did the region have a distinctive social structure, with special regard to lordship, peasant status, holding size, community, parish, farming regime and industry, that accounts for dispersed settlements?7. Two local case-studies - with surviving manorial records, and good corpuses of medieval settlement- and field-names - will examine the lived experience, outlook and culture of medieval occupants of small, dispersed settlements, and how it might have differed from that of people living in larger settlements.Assessing dispersed settlements and their occupants from the combined methodological perspectives of archaeology, history and toponomastics will enrich our understanding of these lesser-studied landscapes considerably. Medieval documents illuminate the lived experience of communities in post-Conquest England; their micro-toponymic detail permits the reconstruction of the medieval landscape at fine resolution and forms the basis for socio-spatial analysis. The archaeological survey will synthesise existing datasets (e.g. Historic Environment Records and Portable Antiquities Scheme data), aerial photographs, and LiDAR imagery, alongside a programme of field survey. GIS analysis will enable visualisation of dispersed settlements and their communities across space and time.The project will fill significant gaps in our understanding of medieval settlement and make a valuable contribution to medieval settlement studies. It will give Local Authority Archaeologists a solid foundation from which to consider the medieval landscape within the planning process. Accompanying public outreach and engagement (comprising talks, school resources, guided walks, and finds identification events), grounded in my existing existing expertise in the region's archaeology, will enable people to connect to past lives