THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, UK. 

First published in Along the Furlong in January 2000

Copyright Valerie Martin 2000.

How did the inhabitants working the quiet fields of medieval Findon greet the first millennium? Did the community have a big knees-up to celebrate the year 1000 AD or did it quietly pass unnoticed? What was the settlement in Findon like? These are difficult questions to answer a thousand years on.

I have heard that Eddius was a writer living a little earlier, in the 8th century, and he described our Sussex area as a territory that —

These agricultural workers of the early Findon farming community would have cultivated the soil using heavy ploughs, maybe harnessing eight or even ten oxen.

The beasts ploughed long furrows in open fields, which were farmed in strips. These were demarcated by flints or turf and each strip was approximately a furlong (220 yards) in length, and a chain (22 yards) wide, thus giving the area of an acre, 4,840 square yards, as the land unit.

These field systems can be detected from the summits of the Downs, especially in the evening light and confirm that the area was certainly populated by a civilisation of intensive farmers. Their open-field system of cultivating continued for some 900 years (until the middle of the 18th century) — so called "open" because neither hedges or walls were constructed.

The farmers at the beginning of the eleventh century would have concentrated on growing crops (corn and vegetables), as well as animal husbandry (including geese and hens). Cattle and sheep would have been kept on the common land belonging to the village and pigs were left to rummage and root around in the woods — truly free range.

Findon would have been a relatively large sized community in 1000 AD compared with others nearby and, no doubt, boasted a mill of its own for grinding grain — but no positive record of individual property in Findon goes back anything like this far.

Doubtless there was a certain amount of law and order at the beginning of the first millennium. A thane (a kind of Lord of the Manor) would have been in charge, and there may have been even sub-manors, say at Sheepcombe or Muntham.

Christianity was slow to penetrate this pagan Sussex area cut off by a barrier of thick forest to the north and a dangerous sea to the south. To be Christian was to be very modern as the end of the tenth century approached. Any church would have been a primitive affair built by the thane on his land. Early churches were whitewashed, so there is no reason to doubt that the Findon church was different. The little white building would have stood out below Church Hill beckoning the worshippers from the surrounding countryside.

Emanating from the simple thatched church building there would have been the haunting echo of chanting when the people gathered together.  The chant lifted the villagers spiritually.   The medieval Findonians would have perhaps grown just a little nervous as the prospect of the first millennium approached. There was the possibility of Viking aggression on the horizon and there was a prediction that the end of the world was nigh and would come "a thousand years after Christ". This was a somewhat fuzzy term given to the terrifying thought. I t could have meant a thousand years after the birth of Christ, or a thousand years after his death. T hus, there were two occasions for their fears for the end of their world — the first in 1000 and again as the year 1033 approached — the traditional number of years that Christ lived on earth.

An ancient contract held at Magdalen College in Oxford was drawn up in the year 1053 for wood to be supplied for a church in Findon. This definitely confirms the existence of a church here by that date. Did the supplying of heavy timbers for this church indicate that they were to supersede an earlier religious building?

So here we have a church, a thane, labourers and dwellings, together with tilled fields and undoubtedly a wooded area affording pasturage for pigs.

The life of the Anglo-Saxon Findonians stirs the imagination and they can be visualised going about their daily tasks of working in the fields and "shopping" at the local market place, and returning to their enclosed dwellings with their produce and animals. From the little we know about these early communities, we can imagine the folk in their woollen clothes; the men wearing coats, long trousers and cloaks, and sometimes tunics down to their knees. The womenfolk were attired in long tunics and cloaks over their shoulders, with strings of beads made of glass and amber, and if lucky they had brooches, clasps and rings made of bronze. t is thought that the inhabitants were also surprisingly tall in stature and often had good teeth, indicating a sufficient diet. As dusk fell and the evenings drew in, they would have retreated to their dwellings where perhaps they had barrels of ale. Their animals accompanied them and they all retired to sleep.

The life of the Findonians at the commencement of the eleventh century can be imagined but their individual names are lost forever. The first person we have a name for was a John Baudefard who is listed as the Rector of Findon — but that was not until the year 1234.

Continue if you would like to read about Domesday Findon.