Medieval
Acklam
The
Medieval Town of Acklam probably lies directly
underneath the Acklam of today. A once thriving
village was economically destroyed by the Norman
invasion. A new settlement was built at this time,
taking on a very Norman look to it. However this
didn't change the villages luck because in the
14th century disaster struck again with a combination
of disasters.
intro | gallery | reports |
further information
In
1066, Acklam was an important and thriving settlement,
with its estates valued at £48. By the time the
settlement was recorded in the Doomsday Book around
1086, its value had plummeted to a mere 40 shillings.
This
was a direct result of the Norman’s deliberate
policy of destroying the existing political and
economic infrastructure of the area, as a means
of establishing full control over the still rebellious
north of England.
The
exact location of this early settlement is not
known, but is assumed to be somewhere very close
to, if not underneath, the later ‘medieval’ village
of the same name. The core of this new settlement
appears to have taken the traditional Norman layout
of two rows of farmsteads separated by a green,
or broad road (now Church Lane). A little distance
from the settlement, the lord established his
manor house (later to become Acklam Hall) , with
a private chapel built beside it. In the 14 th
century, a time when people had to endure very
poor harvests, and the destructive effects of
both the plague and Scottish raids, a moat and
fishponds were added to the manorial complex.
The
earliest map of the settlement is a large 14 foot
square plan dated 1716, now on display at the
Dorman Museum, Middlesbrough. This shows a landscape
dominated by the 17 th century hall, but also
revealing a clear outline of the remnants of this
two row settlement.
The
Archaeology
Two
small-scale excavations took place at Acklam Hall
in the mid-1960’s, establishing the presence of
archaeological deposits beneath the topsoil, and
recording a number of features, including post-holes,
ditches and a rubbish pit.
Finds
recovered from the site, including a silver penny
of Henry VIII, several potsherds and a large amount
of pottery, dated the site to between the 12 th
and 16 th centuries.
Further
archaeological work was carried out in 1997, with
a number of evaluation trenches being opened across
the Swedish Mission Playing Fields, a plot of
land fronting the south side of Church Lane. This
revealed well-stratified medieval deposits across
the site, with significant amounts of 12th-13th
century pottery. One of the trenches provided
evidence of a late medieval dwelling fronting
to Church Lane in the form of a rubbish pit with
animal remains and a tumbled wall. The pottery
from this trench was later than that recovered
elsewhere and dated to the 15th and 16th centuries.
Taken
together, the known documentary archaeological
and aerial photographic evidence, suggests that
Acklam comprised at least 12 properties on the
south row and 13 on the north, possibly more.
Presuming that each farmstead contained an extended
family of around six people this would indicate
a population of around 150 if all the farmsteads
were occupied at once, not counting the cattle,
sheep, pigs, goats and hens!
intro | gallery | reports | further
information |
