Long Mead and the River Thames before Tudor times
The river Thames was first given the name Thamesis by the Ancient Romans when they arrived in Britain. It was the most important waterway flowing from a spring in Gloucestershire all the way to the capital city, London, and then out to the sea. It is 215 miles long.
[see map]
From ancient times people used the Thames as a source of water for themselves and their animals and the crops they grew, and to transport themselves and their goods down the river to sell in London. And with the money they earned in the city they could buy other things to bring back to their homes in the Upper Thames area.
What did people bring down the river to London?
Coal, stone, sheep’s wool, grain in sacks, chopped wood.
People didn’t build their village in Long Mead because the houses would flood so close to the river, so they chose to go half a mile away to Eynsham where the ground is higher and there was a big flat space, unlike at Wytham where the wood goes straight down to the river in a slope that would be difficult to build houses on.
What was life like here in the Middle Ages – the time before the Tudors?
This was after the time of William the Conqueror (whose Norman soldiers conquered the Anglo-Saxon King Harold at the battle of Hastings in 1066) up to the time of the Tudors. The first Tudor king was Henry the Seventh (Henry VII), father of the more famous Henry the Eighth (Henry VIII), the man who had six wives.
Ordinary farming people
Most people lived by growing food on the land or keeping cows, pigs and sheep. They had fruit from apple trees ever since the Romans brought the apple tree to Britain and they could also find nuts and berries in the forest which at that time covered much more more of the area than Wytham wood today. Wood was chopped down from the forest and not only used for their own buildings and fuel but also sent to market down the river.
People fished in the river Thames for trout, salmon and eel. Also the soil near the river Thames was particularly good for growing things. Long Mead itself has never been farmed for crops as it floods with water. But the floodwater leaves the fertile earth from the river on the ground and that makes the best sort of hay for cattle to eat. So Long Mead has always been used for making hay and grazing cattle. But other fields nearby were used to grow grains, such as barley and wheat, and vegetables.
Wheat and barley and also the hay grown on Long Mead were cut down with long, sharp metal blades called ‘sickles’ ,which were later replaced with bigger and better tools called ‘scythes’. You can see a collection of scythes at Long Mead. It would be quite easy to cut yourself with one of these! The grains were then removed by ‘threshing’ , beating or trampling on the wheatsheafs.
Bread flour was made by grinding the grains down to a powder between enormous flat stones; this is called ‘milling’. It’s hard work turning the millstones to grind the grain, so mills were built next to the river so that the power of the water could be used to turn the millstones. The water was made to run through weirs to increase its force. You probably wouldn’t like the bread as it was nearly black in colour and very hard. But when bad weather ruined the grains, poor people had to eat a bread made of peas, beans and lentils and that was even harder to chew.
The ridge and furrow in the landscape
Since the time of the Anglo-saxons people ploughed the earth into high ridges of soil like lines of hills and in between each ridge there would be a valley or furrow. Seeds were planted along the top ridge so that when rain fell it watered the seed but didn’t drown the seed with too much water because excess water just trickled down to the furrow. The lines of ridge and furrow can still be seen in the landscape today. Have a look at the map of land around Long Mead.
The monks of Eynsham Abbey
In the Middle Ages up to the time of the Tudors there were groups of monks living in abbeys, religious centres, at all the major points along the Thames. Eynsham Abbey was smaller than the great abbeys at Abingdon and Osney in Oxford, but it was quite rich. Unfortunately for the monks born in the age of the Tudors, Henry VIII decided to get rid of all the monks and their abbeys and give the land and the stones of the building to other people. Today you can’t see anything of the Abbey in Eynsham but you can see bits of Abbey stones built into the house walls of the villagers.
By the end of the Tudors there were not very many people living in this area: the monks had been sent away, other people had died in some terrible diseases that killed whole villages, and others wanted to move into towns like Oxford and get away from a life of farming. For some people life changed a lot and the river Thames saw some changes as people began to travel more and more over the next 400 years. But Long Mead hasn’t changed in all that time.
© Catherine Kneafsey
The river Thames was first given the name Thamesis by the Ancient Romans when they arrived in Britain. It was the most important waterway flowing from a spring in Gloucestershire all the way to the capital city, London, and then out to the sea. It is 215 miles long.
[see map]
From ancient times people used the Thames as a source of water for themselves and their animals and the crops they grew, and to transport themselves and their goods down the river to sell in London. And with the money they earned in the city they could buy other things to bring back to their homes in the Upper Thames area.
What did people bring down the river to London?
Coal, stone, sheep’s wool, grain in sacks, chopped wood.
People didn’t build their village in Long Mead because the houses would flood so close to the river, so they chose to go half a mile away to Eynsham where the ground is higher and there was a big flat space, unlike at Wytham where the wood goes straight down to the river in a slope that would be difficult to build houses on.
What was life like here in the Middle Ages – the time before the Tudors?
This was after the time of William the Conqueror (whose Norman soldiers conquered the Anglo-Saxon King Harold at the battle of Hastings in 1066) up to the time of the Tudors. The first Tudor king was Henry the Seventh (Henry VII), father of the more famous Henry the Eighth (Henry VIII), the man who had six wives.
Ordinary farming people
Most people lived by growing food on the land or keeping cows, pigs and sheep. They had fruit from apple trees ever since the Romans brought the apple tree to Britain and they could also find nuts and berries in the forest which at that time covered much more more of the area than Wytham wood today. Wood was chopped down from the forest and not only used for their own buildings and fuel but also sent to market down the river.
People fished in the river Thames for trout, salmon and eel. Also the soil near the river Thames was particularly good for growing things. Long Mead itself has never been farmed for crops as it floods with water. But the floodwater leaves the fertile earth from the river on the ground and that makes the best sort of hay for cattle to eat. So Long Mead has always been used for making hay and grazing cattle. But other fields nearby were used to grow grains, such as barley and wheat, and vegetables.
Wheat and barley and also the hay grown on Long Mead were cut down with long, sharp metal blades called ‘sickles’ ,which were later replaced with bigger and better tools called ‘scythes’. You can see a collection of scythes at Long Mead. It would be quite easy to cut yourself with one of these! The grains were then removed by ‘threshing’ , beating or trampling on the wheatsheafs.
Bread flour was made by grinding the grains down to a powder between enormous flat stones; this is called ‘milling’. It’s hard work turning the millstones to grind the grain, so mills were built next to the river so that the power of the water could be used to turn the millstones. The water was made to run through weirs to increase its force. You probably wouldn’t like the bread as it was nearly black in colour and very hard. But when bad weather ruined the grains, poor people had to eat a bread made of peas, beans and lentils and that was even harder to chew.
The ridge and furrow in the landscape
Since the time of the Anglo-saxons people ploughed the earth into high ridges of soil like lines of hills and in between each ridge there would be a valley or furrow. Seeds were planted along the top ridge so that when rain fell it watered the seed but didn’t drown the seed with too much water because excess water just trickled down to the furrow. The lines of ridge and furrow can still be seen in the landscape today. Have a look at the map of land around Long Mead.
The monks of Eynsham Abbey
In the Middle Ages up to the time of the Tudors there were groups of monks living in abbeys, religious centres, at all the major points along the Thames. Eynsham Abbey was smaller than the great abbeys at Abingdon and Osney in Oxford, but it was quite rich. Unfortunately for the monks born in the age of the Tudors, Henry VIII decided to get rid of all the monks and their abbeys and give the land and the stones of the building to other people. Today you can’t see anything of the Abbey in Eynsham but you can see bits of Abbey stones built into the house walls of the villagers.
By the end of the Tudors there were not very many people living in this area: the monks had been sent away, other people had died in some terrible diseases that killed whole villages, and others wanted to move into towns like Oxford and get away from a life of farming. For some people life changed a lot and the river Thames saw some changes as people began to travel more and more over the next 400 years. But Long Mead hasn’t changed in all that time.
© Catherine Kneafsey