History

It would be an exaggeration to call the Barleywolds “the land that time forgot”, but time has certainly moved relatively slowly here over the last 1,000 years. The broad outlines of the villages and landscape are the same as they were 1,000 years ago. The area was developed early for agriculture, even during Roman times, because of the good soils, and the roads brought people and early wealth, but did not spawn towns because of the lack of navigable rivers. And the wealth brought by barley and malting petered out in the 19th Century. Thus, the Barleywolds still feels old, despite the huge changes brought by the Black Death, the enclosures and modernity.

In the map below, red icons mark Iron Age sites, orange Celtic and Roman towns, yellow Saxon churches, blue Norman castles, and green are later sites.

The visible history of the Barleywolds stretches back to the Long Barrow (c. 3,000 BC) and multiple Round barrows (c. 1,500 BC) on Therfield Heath. There were also Bronze Age settlements at Whiteley Hill and the Weston Hills. These all overlook the Icknield Way that runs along the northern border of the Barleywolds, and is the oldest known trackway in Britain, constituting one of the main routes to cross England in the Iron Age, Roman and medieval times.

But the history of human occupation of the Barleywolds goes back much further. Stone axe heads found at Weston (now at Hitchin museum) date back to about 5,000 BC, and indicate that people were chopping down trees and building houses on the Barleywolds, even before agriculture arrived. And stone spearheads (also from Weston, in Hitchin museum) indicate that Neaderthal humans were hunting mammoths around the Barleywolds, about 50,000 BC, at the time of the last ice age.

Prior to the Romans, the area was inhabited by the Cantivelauni, a Celtic-British tribe ruled by kings, who led the resistance to Caesar’s expedition, and the Cantivelauni were the main inhabitants during the Roman period. Excavations at Barley revealed what was apparently a large Celtic roundhouse with shrine and many pits for storing grain.

There were Celtic and Roman towns at Baldock and Braughing, and several Roman roads connecting Braughing, Baldock, Great Chesterford and Royston crossed the Barleywolds. And the Roman road, Ermine Street, connecting Royston, Braughing and Ware, became the main north-south road of the medieval period, then the “Old North Road”and is now the A10. These tracks and roads brought people and trade to the Barleywolds.

Near Ermine Street, on Periwinkle Hill, between Reed and Barkway, a Roman temple and hoard was found, dedicated to the god Mars. The edges of the Barleywolds were farmed by Romans, at Stevenage, Braughing, High Cross, Wendens Ambo, Ickelton and Baldock. A very fine gold ring was found at a Roman villa site at Weston. Wealth in the Barleywolds is also indicated by a burial, c. 200 AD, at Kelshall, where the cremated bones of a man were found in a glass jar, together with 3 Roman coins to pay the ferryman. The bones were accompanied by some very fine metal jugs and two extraordinary glass plates, probably from Alexandria in Egypt (now in Hitchin museum). Wealth in the area is also indicated by multiple gold and silver offerings to the godess Seluna at a Roman temple at Ashwell (now in the British Museum).

The Romans left Britain in the early 5th century AD due to attacks in Britain and elsewhere in the crumbling empire. The Anglo-Saxon invaders then fought with the Romano-British for at least a century, accompanied by plaques and famines, in the darkest period of the Dark Ages. The Bran Ditch at Heydon probably dates from this period (5th & 6th century AD) and is thought to be an Anglo-Saxon defensive wall against the Romano-Britons, and forms part of a series of such ditches and walls, including Brent Ditch, Fleam Dyke and Devil’s Dyke, which controlled the Icknield Way and protected the proto-East Anglian kingdom. However, recent excavations suggest the Bran Ditch lies on top of an Iron-Age triple ditch, dating to about 5th century BC. And this is part of a series of Iron Age ditches across the Icknield way, which may have been microterritorial boundaries at that time. 5 miles west of the Bran ditch was the Mile Ditches running down from Therfield Heath. And a further 4 miles west there were iron age ditches running down from Deadman’s Hill across the Icknield Way.

Above: Roman glass plates, from Egypt, buried at Kelshall.

Most of the villages of the area are recorded as existing at the time of the Norman conquest, and originated in the Anglo-Saxon period. Several churches still contain Anglo-Saxon structures. The manors of Ardeley and Luffenhall were given in 930 B.C. by Athelstan, the first king of England, to the church of St Pauls in London. And the manor of Therfield was given to Ramsey Abbey in about 1030, reminding us that the Church was one of the main landowners in the medieval period.

The Vikings raided and ruled the area roughly between 870 – 925 AD, but the Barleywolds was on the border of the Danelaw, Wessex and Mercia. And Danish kings invaded and ruled 1016 – 1042 AD, burning some villages. There are the meagre remains of about ten Norman motte-and bailey castles, which is a lot of castles for such a small and rural area with no record of resisting the Norman invasion. This suggests that the Barleywolds were well populated and productive (as documented by the Domesday Book), and the Normans acted as colonialists extracting the wealth of the area to themselves and Normandy. Count Eustace II of Boulogne came with William the Conqueror, and received lands in the Barleywolds. And his crusader son, Count Eustace III, probably built castles, such as Anstey, and a house in Chrishall, in which his daugher, Matilda of Boulogne, is reputed to have lived at some point in her hectic life. Matilda married Stephen, who became King of England in 1135, so Matilda became Queen of England from 1135 to 1152. However, most of that time was consumed in civil war with her name-sake Empress Matilda. Some of the Barleywolds castles were priobably built during that civil war.

The Barleywolds was productive for crops in part because the soils were light and well drained, particularly in the north or in the valleys, so that the land could be ploughed by the simple ploughs then available. The valleys of the Barleywolds were cleared of forest for crops early, while the higher land was left as forest until later, but used for wood, pigs and hunting. The lords of the manors enclosed some forest as Parks for hunting - the Park at Bennington was used by the lords of the Norman castle there, but the Park may go back as far as the Mercian King Beorhtwulf, who is reputed to have had a "palace" at Bennington in 850 AD. Weston Park was owned and hunted by Henry VIII.

The Templars refounded Baldock in about 1148, having been given lands around Weston, and rapidly developed trade and agriculture there, including vineyards around Weston. The Templars were a religious order of Knights, founded in about 1118, originally for the protection of pilgrims to Jerusalem, but they developed into Crusaders and a secretive, multinational organisation of great wealth and power, resulting in it being dissolved by the Pope in 1307. The Royston Cave has been suggested to be a Templar Temple, but this seems unlikely given the crudeness of the Cave carvings and its likely date of creation in the 14th century.

The Barleywolds was on the main routes from North to South and from East to West of England in medieval times, which would have brought significant trade and knowledge of the world to the area. Some of the main pilgrimage routes, including from London to Walsingham, went via Ware to Braughing and then either across the highlands to Royston or via Barkway to the Icknield Way (see The Pilgrims Tale in Myths). This would have brought large numbers of people from all over the country through the Barleywolds villages, some of which, such as Barkway, Buntingford and Royston, thereby developed into towns with Inns and markets. Markets were crucial for turning villages into towns, but the subsequent growth of towns was limited by the lack of navigable rivers.

Roads also brought plaque, and The Black Death in 1348 substantially reduced the population and permanently extinguished some villages, although some such as Weston returned later.

About 1605, James I established a hunting lodge/palace in Royston, and banned anyone else from hunting within 10-15 miles of Royston, covering the North of the Barleywolds. James I of England was James IV of Scotland, and his Scottish courtiers brought golf to England, with the first recorded game of golf in England being played on Therfield Heath on the Barleywolds outside Royston. Charles I also hunted on Therfield Heath and surrounding forest up until the civil war. But during that civil war, 20,000 roundhead soldiers, led by Oliver Cromwell, camped overnight on the Heath.

Above: Speed's Map of the Barleywolds area in 1611. Note the fenced hunting parks in the south. Hunting in the north was reserved for the King and court at this time.

Barley was the main crop from the mid 17th to mid 19th centuries, supplying beer to the growing population of London, but the lack of water for malting, power and transport meant the malting was mainly done in Hertford and Ware. However, there were local maltings in Aspenden, Sandon, Walkern and Buntingford.

Barley and wheat prices crashed in the 19th Century, partly because trade tariffs were removed, causing economic decline in the countryside. And new railways and roads bypassed the Barleywolds, leading to the contraction of towns such as Barkway, and emigration to the cities.

In the 1820’s, the journalist and reformer, William Cobbett described riding across the Barleywolds in one of his Rural Rides: “After you quit Ware... the land grows by degrees poorer; the chalk lies nearer and nearer to the surface, till you come to the open common-fields within a few miles of Royston [which] is at the foot of this high poor land.”

"The enclosures" was the process of enclosing and privatising the common land, and this did not occur until as late as the 1860s in the Barleywolds. Hence, William Cobbett saw open common-field on the Barleywolds, much as it was in feudal times. But when the enclosures came, they dramatically changed the look and feel of the land, from fields, greens, woods and waste land held in common and open (although subject to the Lord of the manor and church tithes), to almost everything enclosed and held privately. This and falling crop prices forced small holders off the land and into the cities.

The 20th century wars killed young men from the Barleywolds as elsewhere. There was a USAF airfield at Nuthampstead for the last two years of WWII, flying bombing missions and fighter support over the continent, including the first mission to reach Berlin. And there was an Italian prisoner of war camp on Therfield Heath, with prisoners working on the neighbouring farms.

Cities and large towns continued to expand in the 20th century, and started to encroach on the Barleywolds at Baldock, Bishops Stortford, Royston and particularly Stevenage. Large numbers of people commuted from the country into the cities, particularly London, every day for work. However, during the 21st century, the availability of the internet, plus city prices, have caused some people to move to the country, including the Barleywolds, to live and work. All of this, accelerated by the current government's drive to build houses, puts considerable pressure on the Barleywolds to transition from countryside to urban sprawl.

The Barleywolds has always been somewhat on the margins of history, partly because history has been written by those in the towns and cities, but partly because the Barleywolds has always been divided. Currently the Barleywolds is divided between Hertfordshire, Essex and Cambridgeshire, and therefore is at the margins of these counties and their concerns. And these county boundaries reflect the older boundaries between the Angles (Mercia and East Anglia) and Saxons (Essex) that ran through the Barleywolds. Hopefully, the Barleywolds will have a brighter future, in part by gaining a common identity and by recognising that it has something unique worth preserving.

Therfield Heath @ Nicky Paton

Burial hoard from Celtic Baldock. Baldock was the first town in Britain, and several local chiefs were buried there, between 100 BC and the Roman invasion, 42 AD.

Strethall church includes Saxon stonework.

Count Eustace of Boulogne (right) points out William the Conqueror, showing his face to his men, who fear he is dead, during the Battle of Hastings. Eustace and William went on to kill Harald, last king of the Saxons. Eustace, and William's brother, Bishop Odo, were rewarded with extensive lands in the Barleywolds.

Bishop Stortford castle, reconstruction of the motte and bailey. Ten such castles dominated the Barleywolds in Norman times.

Drawings of the Royston Cave carvings. The cave is a large chamber carved from the chalk below the central crossroads of Royston, and is decorated by dozens of religious figures carved into the walls. This was a sealed chamber, uncovered in the 18th century, unique in the world, and of unknown origin, but possibly a hermitage, leper colony, or Templar Temple.

James I's palace in Royston @ Royston Museum

Above: Malting towers in Bishop's Stortford. Growing barley, malting the barley and brewing this into beer were major industries in the Barleywolds. Below: the Sanger Institute Hinxton where the human genome was first sequenced, and potential souce of wealth and employment in the future.

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