ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



THE existing Anglo-Saxon remains in Lancashire are few : they 

 consist chiefly of hoards or isolated finds of coins, some interesting 

 ornaments, and sculptured Christian monuments. The coins alone 

 afford any dates, but none of these apparently are earlier than the 

 ninth century. Most of the other remains may be deemed as late or even 

 later, but in the present state of local evidence an appearance of exactitude 

 as to date could only be misleading. Hence archaeology can offer little direct 

 help to history in the study of this period. The evidence of place-names, 

 if this were available, coupled with what is known of the condition and 

 natural features of the county reflected in the account of the Domesday 

 Survey, might enable the historian and archaeologist together to unravel the 

 story of this period almost stage by stage. While the etymological section 

 of this evidence is still to be furnished by special research, some points of 

 interest may nevertheless be elucidated by an examination of the monuments 

 themselves, having due regard both to their nature and to their disposition. 



The sites of these remains are indicated on the map which accompanies 

 this section. The county itself requires no further geographical description.^ 

 At the close of the period that portion which lies between the Ribble and 

 the Mersey contained, as Mr. Farrer has shown from the account of the 

 Domesday Book,* 246,480 acres of wood in a total area of about 700,000 acres, 

 of which about 56,865 acres were cultivated. The area of woodland 

 according to this account was thus more than a third of the whole when 

 the survey was made. The greater part of this woodland lay in the hundreds 

 of Newton and Salford, with the forests of Rossendale and Pendle in the 

 hundred of Blackburn, and it embraced also a considerable area in the hundred 

 of Leyland. The lowlands around the coast, with extensive tracts higher up 

 the Mersey, were probably marshy. 



To judge from the scanty notes of the survey, the area of forest-land 

 in the tract which lies between the Ribble and the Sands (particularly in the 

 middle and north) must have been even larger in proportion, as it is to-day. 

 The most habitable portions were the fertile plains of the modern Fylde, in 

 which possibly the work of reclamation had been already begun during the 

 Roman occupation. The district around Lancaster also, and thence along the 

 coast, seems to have early attracted settlement. 



Beyond the Sands the land of hills and lakes to the north was still closely 

 wooded, but in the promontory of Furness and the vicinity of Cartmel there 

 seem to have been attractive sites for settlement. Here, at any rate, in a 

 naturally defended home the Celtic element certainly survived. 



1 See Article on the Domesday Survey in this volume. ^ Lane, and Ches. Antiq. Soc. Trans, xvi, 



I 257 33 



