Everything about Inkpen totally explained
Inkpen is a
village and
civil parish in the
English county of
Berkshire. It is situated in the south-west of the county, close to the
Wiltshire and
Hampshire border. It is located at .
Amenities and landmarks
There are no shops in Inkpen. The only public commercial establishments are two
public houses, the Crown & Garter and the Swan. There is a village hall and a small primary school, Inkpen County Primary School, with approximately eighty students. There used to be a
Post Office, but it closed down during the
1980s.
The highest point in the
south-eastern region of England,
Walbury Hill, is situated half within the parish, only 1.5 miles (3km) to the south of the village, within the
North Wessex Downs area of outstanding natural beauty. It stands 974 ft (297m) above sea-level, dominating the whole area, and is surmounted by the
Iron Age hill fort of Walbury Camp, the start of both the
Test Way and the
Wayfarers Walk . On the adjacent Gallows Down, but just within
Combe parish, are
Combe Gibbet and the incorrectly named Inkpen Long Barrow. Up on the Down, skylarks may often be heard and hang gliders and paragliders seen circling high above the ancient landscape.
Archaeology
Prehistoric
The area used to be part of
Savernake Forest, one of the first landscapes to appear when the last
Ice Age receded at least 10000 years ago. The ice was also responsible for the deposits of heavy clay soil found in Inkpen that give rise to the boggy lowland areas. From the Downs, pockets of ancient woodland scattered in and around Inkpen may still be seen today.
The earliest sign of habitation in Inkpen dates to the Mesolithic period, between 10000 to 4500 BC. Only a single artefact has been uncovered, to the west of the gibbet, but even this helps confirm the traditional view of small groups of Mesolithic people following established cyclic seasonal trails through the forested countryside, often along hilltops. They may have attempted to manipulate resources through forest clearance.
There were people living on the Downs of Inkpen some 5000 years ago. Intact pots by the
Beaker People have been unearthed at the
Hungerford end of Craven Road in Inkpen, opposite Colnbrook Copse, as well as on the Downs. They show skill and artistic design and now reside in the
West Berkshire Museum. Early Beaker People flint tools have also been found close to the old saw mills at the end of Folly Road, along with evidence that suggests they were manufactured nearby. The pottery finds at Craven Road were found in a layer of sand close to where an ancient brook known as the
Ingeflod would have run. At the bottom of the hill on the Hungerford Road leaving Inkpen, flooding in wet weather, still sometimes re-enacts the meanderings of this river through the fields to the north-east. It seems likely that this fresh water attracted the beaker people to settle down and live in their round houses there, using the fertile soil for crops and livestock grazing. Evidence of an ancient field system is certainly still visible not far from the Inkpen Long Barrow. The West Berkshire Museum has a number of bone tools and a bronze knife found in Inkpen that date from this period. In
1908, trenches dug at Sadler's Farm, the site of a ploughed-out barrow, revealed a large quantity of animal and some human bones, horns and some
early or
pre-Romano-British potsherds. The beaker people buried their dead in simple stone mounds since called
round barrows, often with a beaker alongside the body. Several of these remain on the hilltop to the west of the Gibbet. Four were explored in 1908 when
Neolithic tools and small urns with burnt human bones, suggesting cremation, were found. Later, in the
Bronze Age, communal
long barrows were used, like the one under Combe Gibbet.
Iron Age and Roman
In the
Iron Age, burial mounds and circles gave way to permanent fields and
hill forts such as Walbury Camp on
Walbury Hill adjacent to Gallows Down. It was built in around 600 BC and remained in use until about the time the
Romans arrived in Britain. The construction of its massive banks and ditches, encircling some eighty acres, would have been an enormous feat. It would have been defended by a timber fence or
palisade and populated with round houses and maybe pens for livestock. Walbury Camp was built, not only for the protection of the locals from attack by warring groups, but also in response to the increasing importance of the hilltop tracks for trade and the movement of livestock.
There isn't much evidence of
Roman activity in Inkpen. Some of the hill trail trade was diverted down to the
Ermin Way and Romanized
Brythons certainly lived in the area. In
1984, archaeological finds were discovered near Lower Green suggesting the presence of a Roman dwelling of some kind, possibly not unlike the
villas found at nearby
Kintbury and
Littlecote. During building work near Combe in
2003, a Roman burial was also found.
Saxon
The
Roman army left Britain in around
410 and the settlement of
Anglo-Saxons from
Denmark and Northern
Germany followed soon afterward. At the foot of the Inkpen Beacon sits what some believe to be the eastern end of the
Wansdyke, a long ditch and bank (or linear defensive earthwork) constructed sometime between
400 and
700. Current theory suggests a date around
470 when some hill forts were also being refortified by the
Romano-Britons. It runs east-west, from the Inkpen Beacon all the way to
Portishead near
Bristol. Although its eastern end is generally thought to be just south of
Marlborough, this small section is named 'Wansdyke' on Inkpen's
enclosure award map of
1733. Its construction clearly points to danger from the north, perhaps from the first Saxons of what is now Berkshire, who settled around
Abingdon. Early Saxon coins known as '
sceattas' have been found on the Downs.
History
The earliest record of Inkpen is contained in the Cotton Charter viii, dated between
931 and
939. This includes the will of a Saxon
thegn named Wulfgar, whose name means 'wolf-spear'. Wulfgar owned "land at inche penne" which he "had from Wulfric, who had it from Wulfhere who first owned it", his father and grandfather respectively. Wulfgar left this to be divided amongst named heirs: three quarters to his wife, Aeffe, the other quarter to "the servants of God" at the holy place in Kintbury. Following Aeffe's death, her share was also to go to the holy place at Kintbury "for the souls of Wulfgar, Wulfric and Wulfrere".
Below is a selection of subsequent spellings of a dictated 'Inkpen' interpreted over a period of some three hundred years by various scribes:
- Ingepenne 935.
- Hingepene 1086.
- Ingepenna 1167, Ingepenn 1167, Ingepenne 1167, Yngepenn 1167, Yngepenne 1167.
- Ynkepenee 1230, Yngelpenne 1235, Ynkepenne 1241, Ingelpenne 1241, Hingepenna 1242, Ingepepenn 1242, Ingelpenn 1252, Enkepenne 1282, Inckepene 1292.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Inkpen'.
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