Anglo Saxon History Home Background Landscape Changing Landscape and Language Sea Levels in AD400(Pevensey) Sea Levels in AD400(The Wash) Sea level changes last 2000 years Andredsweald and Anderida Where are the Roman Roads History of the Romney Marsh The Great Storm 1287AD List of Landscape Documents Local The Haestingas The Cinque Ports 914AD Alfred the Great's fort in Hastings Battle Museum Battle History Society Villagenet Local Gazeteer World War 2 Tank database Simon the Piman(Raspberry Pi) Tourist Guides for the area Romans First Invasion 55BC Second Invasion 43AD Roman roads in Britannia Ptolemy Geographica Tribes MAP-Margary Roman Roads MAP-Roman Roads South East MAP-Roman Roads South West MAP-Roman Roads Wales MAP-Roman Roads South Midlands MAP-Roman Roads South Yorkshire MAP-Roman Locations Norfolk MAP-Roman Locations Essex MAP-Wealden Roads/Bloomeries Wealden Bloomeries 1st Century Wealden Bloomeries 2nd Century Wealden Bloomeries 3rd Century Wealden Bloomeries 4th Century MAP-Antonine Itinery I Roman Industry in the Brede Valley Decline in Roman Wealden Ironworking The Gallic Empire 260AD - 274AD Types of Roman Fortification List of Roman Documents Saxon Chronicles 449AD Hengest & Horsa arrive 455AD Hengest & Horsa defeat Wurtgern 457AD Hengest & Horsa take over Kent 460AD Hæstinga Saxons arrive 477AD Cymensora 485AD Suth Saxons Mercredesburnan 491AD Suth Saxons Pevensey 914AD Burghal Hideage Locations - 449AD Ebbsfleet Locations - 455AD Agelesþrep Locations - 485AD Mearcredesburnan Stede Locations - 914AD Eorpeburnan List of Saxon Chronicles Documents 1066 Battle Documentary Evidence Available Documents  1 Anglo Saxon Chronicles  2 Battle Abbey Chronicles  3 Bayeux Tapestry  4 Carmen Guy d'Amiens  5 Florence of Worcester  6 Henry of Huntingdon  7 Master Wace  8 Orderic Vitalis(Gesta)  9 William of Jumièges(Gesta) 10 William of Malmesbury 11 Quedam Exceptiones Reference to Locations Phases of the Events Phases 1066AD  1 Background 1066AD  2 In Normandy 1066AD  3 Channel Crossing 1066AD  4 The Landing 1066AD  5 Feast after Landing 1066AD  6 Building the Forts 1066AD  7 Raiding the Area 1066AD  8 Warning to Harold 1066AD  9 Stamford Bridge 1066AD 10 Harold returns to London 1066AD 11 William is Alerted 1066AD 12 Exchange of Messages 1066AD 13 Defenses 1066AD 14 Harold Reconnoitres 1066AD 15 Preparations 1066AD 16 The Night Before 1066AD 17 The Battle 1066AD 18 Harold is Killed 1066AD 19 The English Rout 1066AD 20 After the Battle 1066AD 21 The Malfosse Warriors, Weapons & Snippets Saxon - Huscarl Saxon - Fyrd(Fyrð) Senlac Hill The Malfosse The Hoar Apple Tree The Shield Wall Salt Production near Hastings The Battle of Jengland 851AD William's Ship List Norman/Viking Ships and stuff Norman bows and crossbows Harold was NOT killed by an arrow The Time Team view of the Battle 1066AD Landscape Details 1066AD Sailing from Normandy 1066AD Norman Landing 1066AD Possible Fort 1066AD to Pevensey and Hastings 1066AD Manors Wasted 1066AD Manors All 1066AD Warning to Harold 1066AD Harold to Hastings  List of 1066AD Documents List of 1066AD Weapons 1086AD Domesday Boundary of Anderida Domesday Hursts Post Domesday Hursts Domesday Manors Wasted UK Norfolk Salt Production Salt Production near Hastings The Wash at 1086 The Humber estuary at 1086 Domesday County details B Bedfordshire Domesday Population Berkshire Domesday Population Buckinghamshire Domesday Population Domesday County details C Cambridgeshire Domesday Population Cheshire Domesday Population Cornwall Domesday Population Domesday County details D Derbyshire Domesday Population Devon Domesday Population Dorset Domesday Population Domesday County details E Essex Domesday Population Domesday County details G Gloucestershire Domesday Population Domesday County details H Hampshire Domesday Population Herefordshire Domesday Population Hertfordshire Domesday Population Huntingdonshire Domesday Population Domesday County details K Kent Domesday Population Domesday County details L Leicestershire Domesday Population Lincolnshire Domesday Population Domesday County details M Middlesex Domesday Population Domesday County details N Norfolk Domesday Population Northamptonshire Domesday Population Nottinghamshire Domesday Population Domesday County details O Oxfordshire Domesday Population Domesday County details R Rutland Domesday Population Domesday County details S Shropshire Domesday Population Somerset Domesday Population Staffordshire Domesday Population Suffolk Domesday Population Surrey Domesday Population Sussex Domesday Population Domesday County details W Warwickshire Domesday Population Wiltshire Domesday Population Worcestershire Domesday Population Domesday County details Y Yorkshire Domesday Population Place names Translate my Location Celtic name snippets Jutish name snippets Roman name snippets Saxon name snippets Viking name snippets Norman name snippets Modern name snippets Villages containing EY/EYE/SEA Villages containing HAM Villages containing TON Villages containing CASTLE Sussex Locations with ING Domesday Sussex with ING Kent Locations with ING Sussex Locations with HURST Loads of Village Translations Res Background to this website   Explanation While looking at the Village names in the South East of England for another of my web sites VillageNet(https://villagenet.co.uk), I noticed that some of the names appeared to have a pattern to them. The village/town names containing ham appeared to be associated with water either the sea or rivers. The village/town names containing ton appeared to be associated with hills. The village/town names containing ye,eye or sea all appear to be associated with islands. A bit more research and these villages all appear to be Saxon in origin. So I firstly mapped the hams onto an ordnance survey map, however this brought up a lot of anomalies where hams were found inland today and not near water. So a bit more digging and overlaying a high tide mark of +5 metres on the land today and the hams started to again show their links to water. There are obviously some hams that have moved over the last 1600 years, due to pestilence, flooding etc but these are relatively few, and the majority show the influence of water. The Saxons are believed to have spread from Kent to Dorset and Kent to Lincolnshire over time so the area in East Sussex near Rye was settled relatively early in the process. When plotting the hams from this area on a map, it became obvious from the number of hams and their proximity to each other that these settlements could only have been farmsteads with a safe mooring for their vessels. So to see if this logic worked I looked at the area around Cambridge, nowadays many miles from the sea, but applying a +5 metre high tide mark the majority of hams in this area showed the same water influence. So it would seem that the Saxon term ham originally meant a settlement that you could park your boat at, and as time went by the term began to mean a settlement near water. ================ Now to the tons in our area we have very few tons, as there are lots of river estuaries so we mostly find hams. So I decided to look at the South Downs, and all the village names found on the hills are named tons, so I applied this logic to East Kent and again the ton, ham names show either hill or water influence. So it would seem that the Saxon term ton originally meant a settlement that was on a hill. ================ Lets look at the ey,eyes,seas, seys etc these all appear to have been islands if the water level is raised by +5 metres, aproximately high tide at the present day, and allowing for significant sea defence work in the last 2 centuries. There seem to be a number of derivations for island, these include eye, sea, sey and ye at least, examples are Horse Eye(on the Pevensey Marshes), Rye(on the East Sussex coast), Pevensey(again on the East Sussex coast), Brightlingsea(on the coast in Essex) and Ely(Inland in Cambridgeshire, a long way inland but on the fens) . So it would seem that the Saxon suffix eye,ye,sea and sey originally meant an island. ================ Right so i have worked out what these names are for, but now I noticed that some hams, tons and seas were actually ingham, ington or ingsea, and also that there were villages ending only in ing, so what did the ing mean ?. It must be important or all villages would be ingham, ington and ingseas, so is unlikely to mean something like 'the village of' or 'XXXX's settlement', as that could be applied to all village names. Therefore another map is in order, one that shows the locations of ings,inghams,ingtons and ingseas and again I looked in detail on the Ordnance Survey maps for Hastings and Rye and can see that there are quite a few of these village names(we have no ingseas in East Sussex), but they appear to be in strategic positions, overlooking rivers, estuaries and other places. This again got me thinking that perhaps these were fortified positions, but why are they located in these places. This is the reason for this website, to prove or not prove that the Saxons were militarily skilled, and that they built defensive places on strategic sites to protect their land. so now we need to find out where the roads and ports were, so I guess this means we need to go back to Roman times possibly earlier. so click here. Copyright saxonhistory.co.uk 2013 - 2024 Contact Simon Author Simon M - Last updated - 2024-03-13 13:16:05 All pages on our site (Sitemap)