![]() In the first half of the 10th century, the Viking threat having receded, royal reforms were made by kings Edward and Athelston giving impetus to the development of the burhs, which had hitherto been developed with defence in mind, as centres of commerce for a more confident local population and improving, safer communications. The standard 'pole' measure applies to many of the plots fronting the High Street which measure one or more poles in width. The pattern of streets and plots established in the late 9th century is still discernible today (below right). The Saxon town was rebuilt with its streets laid out in a grid pattern aligned with the roman wall and street plan (below left) but not formed on the Roman chequer board pattern, the focus being on the length of the High Street which formed the backbone of the town with connecting service and secondary parallel streets formed to serve this band of dense, prime plots adjacent the main thoroughfare with its river crossing and city gates to the East and West. The Roman town of Venta Belgarum (market place of the Belgae) was largely abandoned in the 4th century, then rebuilt and revitalised during the reign of Alfred as Wintan ceastre (today's Winchester) the capital of Wessex, a strategic and ready made fortification. Both provided key defensive centres in the burghal hidage system. The Anglo-Saxon centres of Winchester (left) built within the walled roman town and (right) the earthwork bank and ditch at Wareham, originally topped by timber-faced ramparts. In Scotland, the earliest boroughs, including Edinburgh, were established in the 12th century during the reign of David I. The burh had a greater structure of organisation, a public stronghold for the district, its defences sometimes upgraded. While most traces of these original structures have gone, the echo of the original burh sometimes remains in the pattern of streets, burgage boundaries and drainage systems. Some of these early burhs were built on the remains of Roman defensive structures or towns, some on bronze age fortifications, others built new with earthen ramparts. Theoretically, each burh could militarily support its neighbouring burh, each being within a days march of the other. The 'Burghal Hidage' is an Anglo-Saxon document providing a list of over thirty fortified burhs, most being in the Kingdom of Wessex, some in south Mercia, as the key strategic strongholds in Alfred’s strategy of ‘defence in depth’ as a response to the threat of Danish raids and possible invasion. ![]() In England a series of ‘burhs’, small strategically placed defensive urban centres, were developed by the Anglo-Saxons during the reign of Alfred the Great (871 to 899) some characterised by a planned layout in grid form dating from the late 9th century. The burgage system in Britain originated before the Norman conquest and continued during the medieval period throughout Europe, its impact on the urban plan of many of our market towns and cities evident today in the freehold plots which still adopt the boundaries and overall design laid out many hundreds of years ago.īurgage plots in England partly owe their existence to a strategic plan to combat large scale Danish invasion in the second half of the 9th century. ![]()
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