More information : Egarton or Egerton, a hamlet of Wheathill (SO 6282), the site of which is unknown, is mentioned in a lawsuit of 1256 disputing the right to common pasture there. Johanna de Egerton, who took her name from this hamlet, is recorded in the Lay Subsidy Roll of 1327. The name last appears in a marriage settlement of 1573. (1-2)
The field centred at SO 6055 8118 is known locally as Egerton Town (3a) and appears to be the site of a DMV. A stream bisects the field from N-S and a short hollow-way runs from it eastwards. The whole field is uneven; there appears to be a house platform at SO 6052 8124, and perhaps others, but the land-owner (3b) was not prepared to allow a close examination of the site, nor of the field to the NE into which the DMV seems to extend. (Hollow-way and one house-platform sited by Air Revision). (3)
Clear indications of village earthworks are present in fields 241 and 242. The hollow way in the latter has at least three possible house sites on its northern side, apparently end-on to the track. There are no signs of earthworks to the south, where the slope increases. The northern edge of the field is occupied by large platforms and hollows aligned southwest-northeast, ie different to the hollow way. There are major platforms on both sides of the stream. This alignment is continued into the southern part of 241 where two scarps run west-southwest to east-northeast across the field, the southern one bisected by a hollow way running southeast. Slight traces of north-south ridge and furrow run north from the northern scarp at the east side. A curving terraceway and runs down the field from north to west, but may be part of the quarry workings, which otherwise seem to be filled in. (4)
"Edgerton Yarde" and "Edgerton Close" are mentioned in a Probate Inventory of 1683 and Egarton Wood in an Indenture date 1784 (a).
The field at SO 6040 8130 is named "Eagerton Meadow" on the Tithe Map (circa 1840).
SO 605 812: The earthworks of the deserted hamlet of Egerton covered an area of about 4 ha on a south-facing slope, just below the spring line at about 300m above O.D.
The site falls in three fields, and the earthworks in two of these (241 - SO 6058 8130 and 242 - SO 6155 8118) are as described above by Burrow (4). In the autumn of 1979 much of field 241 was ploughed for the first time, revealing at least three patches of large stones, and a considerable quantity of pottery scattered over the field. Field walking to collect this pottery is planned by Mr F Powell and Mr M Wide. The only surveyable feature visible in the rough ploughing is the scarp slope (Burrow's terraceway?) which bisects the field from north to south. During the ploughing filling of hollows is known to have taken place (a).
A linear hollow up to 2.8m in depth, which runs from the centre of the hamlet up the hillside to the site of a limekiln (a), has been deepened and cut into on the west side by quarrying, but the regular profile of the east side suggests that it was originally a hollow-way connected with the hamlet.
The field to the west (SO 6040 8130) - "Eagerton Meadow" - remains under pasture, and contains the best preserved earthworks, with at least six building platforms up to 1.8m in height, and associated hollow-ways up to 1.5m in depth.
Surveyed at 1:2500 on M.S.D. (5)
SO 6047 8130 (GCE). Earthworks to the N of Coveridge Fields Farm represent hollow-ways and farmsteads, allegedly the deserted medieval village of Egerton. Infact they represent a hamlet comprising upto two post-medieval farmsteads in the form of groups of platforms. The most clearly intelligible is at the N end of the site (surveyed at 1:500) and comprises a well-marked crew-yard with platforms arranged around it. On the N side are the turf-covered footings of a three-celled stone farmhouse.
This description is summarised from a detailed level 3 RCHME 1:1000 scale survey conducted in 1988. The products are held in the NMR archive. (6)
Published account of the RCHME 1988 survey, plus an appendix on medieval and post medieval pottery recovered from the site during fieldwalking in 1979 (7a). It is argued that the size and nature of the physical remains suggest that at least in its final stage Egerton consisted primarily of one or two farmsteads only, and formed part of a pattern of small dispersed hamlets within Wheathill parish. Although a lack of documentary evidence makes it impossible to know if a similar settlement pattern existed in the medieval period also, it is suggested that the probability is very strong. It would therefore "be wrong to call [Egerton] a deserted village - not because of its date of desertion or the late-occupied appearance of its earthworks - but because of a clear social and economic distinction that is too readily overlooked in dealing with abandoned physical remains...The hamlet is not simply a small village; it is something radically different in its organisation and its life."
Identifiable pottery recovered from the site comprised medieval wares of the 12th-14th century, plus post medieval wares of the 17th or 18th and of the later 19th centuries. (7) |