8 Plant-life of the Oxford District 



east, almost due N. and S. along the higher ground, through Beckley and 

 Stow Wood, ultimately to cross the Thames at Wallingford. There is no 

 special evidence of earlier cultivation or settlement in the valley, though 

 ancient British, as also Roman colonists, may have occupied higher ground 

 on the adjacent hills. 1 Early West Saxons of the sixth century cleared the 

 lower levels as meadow and pasture- land, replacing the original scrub of 

 the valley swamp-area ; and the names of villages and hamlets following 

 the margin of the old flood-line sufficiently indicate the mode of settling 

 in this river-valley; cf. Marston, Cassington, Yarnton, Kidlington, Kenning- 

 ton, Appleton, Eaton, and Botley, Bagley, Cowley, Iffley, Radley, Medley, 

 suggesting meadow clearings, 2 Binsey, Hinksey, Osney, water flood- 

 meadows, and minor islands in winter. Older river-names (Thame, Thames, 

 Windrush, Ray, Evenlode) go back to prehistoric times, and the more 

 upland villages apparently indicate remains of British and Celtic settlements 

 on higher ground (300 ft. or more), Cumnor, Cuddesdon, Baldon, Foxcombe, 

 and possibly Headingt(d)on, Garsingt(d)on. 3 



The Saxon town, as central for a wide meadow area, with unlimited 

 pasturage for cattle and horses at all seasons of the year, became an 

 important royal city of Mercia, at the limit of its junction with Wessex, 

 commanding the approach from the West to the North in the angle of the 

 river (seventh centuiy). Taken by Wessex (752), and back again by Offa 

 of Mercia (7 79), it again finally reverted to Wessex (912) under Edward the 

 Elder. Burnt three times by the Danes (979-1010), and occupied by them in 

 the eleventh century, it had been again wrecked before the Norman Conquest, 

 and half the houses were derelict at the time of the Domesday Book. 

 The population at this time has been estimated at 1,700, and it is sufficiently 

 obvious that it was self-supporting. The military significance and political 

 importance of the town was probably due to its value for camping ground ; 

 a fact which lent it an increased significance as a convenient centre for 

 meetings and conferences. 4 The City and the beginnings of the University, 

 said by University College to date to the time of King Alfred, grew up 

 more definitely from the time of the Norman occupation, under the control 

 of a Norman Castle commanding the river-approach (1071). In these early 

 times much of the land had already passed into the control of the Church, 

 as represented by Abingdon Abbey, which also collected river-tolls, and 

 the original city was a walled area occupying gravel mounds emerging but 

 a few feet above the winter floods, with Carfax as centre. The cultivated 

 areas of the outlying townships passed under the Feudal System of Norman 

 times, the Saxon small holders becoming villeins of the Norman manors. 

 The city received a charter from Henry I about 1130, and the first University 

 lectures (Theology) are recorded for H33. 6 



1 Remains of a Roman villa at Beckley, pottery on Hinksey Hill ; pottery at Sandford, and 

 a Roman horseshoe at 18 ft. deep in the gravel of New Hinksey (1922). 



Saxon place-names showed a general appreciation of ecological factors, owing to the fact that 

 they were essentially a cattle-rearing people, dependent on the maintenance of horses, cattle, sheep 

 and pigs, which also required to be fed. Woodland was wood, not forest ; a ley indicates an 

 artificial grazing ground as cleared land, as it is still used for artificial grassland (clover-ley). Open 

 rough grazing in the field (feld, feldt) implied open grassy waste, which when dry became heath- 

 land, and when permanently wet and waterlogged, moor. These terms have their equivalents in 

 Low German ; but for the upland pastures of rolling hill country, not a feature of the older German 

 formations, they borrowed the British word dun, as down, as also coombe (cwm) for a deep valley- 

 ravine : cf. Otmoor, Northmoor, Littlemore, and Cumnor, Coombe Wood. 



8 Cf, Alexander (1913), The Place-names of Oxfordshire, for the obscurities of philology. 



4 Plot (1705), Natural History of Oxfordshire, p. 21. 



5 The oldest building known is the church and convent associated with St. Frideswide, said to 

 have been founded 727, placed on the rising ground immediately above the flood-area north of the 

 ford, now Christ Church (Cathedral, E. end). The castle-mound is the remains of an ancient earth- 

 work on the flood-margin , probably dating to the time of the Danes. 



The oldest tree in the district is undoubtedly the Yew in Iffley Churchyard, possibly as old as 



