Mysteries uncovered
- Interpreting population statistics
- Piecing together the evidence of Thriplow's landscape
The Group have reached some important (though, they emphasise, 'tentative') conclusions. The humps and bumps in the meadows which had so intrigued us may be the platforms (level bases) of medieval houses running off an ancient sunken lane leading from the village green to the church and perhaps deserted after the Black Death in the mid-14th century, when up to half the population of England died.
The aerial photographs indicate that long before the Norman Conquest there were several distinct settlements surrounding the present village, but that sometime during the late Saxon period Thriplow was remodelled as a single nucleated settlement surrounded by its fields. Traces of earlier boundaries, common in many other villages, are also visible in the village.
'We also discovered the curious right-angled twist in the village stream was man-made ...'
These include the pollarded (heavily cropped) ashes, which were used to form ancient boundaries. We also discovered the curious right-angled twist in the village stream was man-made and was probably formed when the wet centre of the village was drained to form the present 'nucleated' village, where the village lies in the middle of farming land.
These are some of the answers the group has provided, but the project is still in full swing. We are hoping to do much more surveying and have recently received a grant from the Local Heritage Initiative Fund to buy surveying equipment. The next project will be to make all our findings and research available to the wider world.
We want to share the fruits of our research and tell people what we found on the local history trail. After four years of engrossing research, steeping ourselves in many aspects of Thriplow's past, we realised that we had the makings of a publication and have set out to publish our findings.
About the authors
Published: 2005-03-03
