Roman Cheshire

This paper presents a case study of the eleventh-century elite landscapes of the now non-extant Nantwich Castle and the neighbouring hundredal head manor of Acton, both manors situated within Warmundestrou Hundred, in Cheshire, north-west England. It stresses that any preconceived assumptions about the direct continuity of temporal and spatial succession from a head manor of a pre-existing Anglo-Saxon estate to the site of an Anglo-Norman castle should be disregarded. Highlighting the dangers of an interpretative approach based on a myopic focus on one site for one particular period, this paper instead calls for a close examination of the wider landscape of castles and their sitings within their Domesday hundreds.

The research approach is interdisciplinary, thus examining all available architectural, cartographic, documentary, place-name, archaeological and topographical material. Initial conclusions point to a late eleventh-century paradigm shift of power from Acton to Nantwich; there is no evidence for an early-built baronial fortification at Nantwich, but there is evidence that Acton’s manorial landscape retained its elite significance without a castle build. Comparing Nantwich with the salt town of Droitwich in Worcestershire, the paper concludes that this apparent paradigm shift of power can be attributable to the semi-autonomous earls of Chester, and their freedom to control the economics of the county independently of the Crown.

This paper will contribute to future multidisciplinary research of castles and their landscapes, by demonstrating that any lack of continuity of site significance, can be experienced instead by the continuity of a zone of elite, social, political, and economic power.

Chester/fortress finds: catalogue and discussion with petrological analysis of terra nigra and 'imitation terra nigra' type wares in the so-called Gallo-Belgic tradition, as being continental and/or British products. Petrological analysis was by J R Timby, additional comments by V Rigby, K T Greene and P Carrington. The vessels were considered largely to have been products of the Neronian-Flavian period in France, the Rhineland or elsewhere, and also Britain.

Copyright lay with Chester City Council, now defunct.

The introductory pages of a history of the village of Christleton, near Chester, Cheshire, published in celebration of the year 2000. In this section, the village's Roman, 'Dark Age' and Anglo-Saxon evidence and Domesday records are briefly discussed. Of particular interest in the vicinity are the Roman camps, located 3 miles from the Chester fortress - and also the evidence for early Christianity in this eponymous 'enclosure, farm or village of the Christians.'