The later Anglo-Saxon settlement at Bishopstone. A downland manor in the making

Thomas, G. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0311-8218 (2010) The later Anglo-Saxon settlement at Bishopstone. A downland manor in the making. Research Report (RR163). Council for British Archaeology, York, pp280. ISBN 9781902771830

Abstract/Summary

This volume reports on the excavations from 2002 to 2005 designed to investigate this transition, with the focus on the origins of Bishopstone village. Excavations adjacent to St Andrew’s churchyard revealed a dense swathe of later Anglo-Saxon (8th- to late 10th-/early 11th-century) habitation, including a planned complex of ‘timber halls’, and a unique cellared tower. The occupation encroached upon a pre-Conquest cemetery of 43 inhumations. The report provides a comprehensive analysis, interpretation and academic contextualisation of the archaeological discoveries brought to light by these excavations, the first to sample a later Anglo-Saxon rural settlement in East Sussex on an extensive scale. The inter-disciplinary approach appraises the historical and topographical evidence alongside that recovered during the excavations.