The Prehistory of Cheshire
The archaeology
of Cheshire’s deep past
|
Return to the Home Page of the Bakers Family part of the website |
The Bakers of Highfields Story
The Story of the Dods and Bakers and of Highfields,
Fenton House and Hasfield Court. A journey through the history of Cheshire
and Staffordshire, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman who retained his lands after the
Conquest, pottery at Stoke on Trent, an encounter with Elgar, and the history
of an Elizabethan manor house at Audlem |
The family tree of the Bakers of Highfields |
The Family Tree of the Dods, predecessors to the
Bakers of Highfields |
The Bakers of
Fenton House and Hasfield Court
The Family Tree of the pottery Bakers of Stoke on Trent |
The Family Tree of the Bellyse Family |
The main part
of this website tells the story of the Farndale family from Yorkshire Descendants of Arthur Baker, the story of the Farndale
ancestry is told through the main part of this website You can also return to the Farndale
website home page |
The genealogy of the family of James Hall, linked to
the Baker family through marriage to Arthur Baker |
Headlines of are
in brown.
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to
other pages are in dark
blue.
References and
citations are in turquoise.
Context and local
history are in purple.
Mesolithic
c 8,000
BCE
Cheshire has no caves or rock shelters of the
type that, elsewhere in Britain, have produced remarkable Palaeolithic evidence.
The earliest finds consist of scatters of small Mesolithic struck flints and
waste material from too making; debris from groups of hunter-gatherers after
the seventh millennium BC as they moved seasonally, exploiting coast and upland,
riverbank and forested plains. Sites on the Wirral reveal links with North
Wales in their use of chert originating there. Comparably rich evidence on the
Pennine fringe indicates contrasting patterns of raw material and of movement.
Prior to rises in sea level, the landscape extended beyond the modern coastline,
so that the inter-tidal and inundated zone affords the potential for
exceptional preservation of evidence for activity and environment in these
periods. (Hartwell, Clare and others (2011), Cheshire
in The Building of England series originated by Nikolaus Pevsner, Yale
University Press, page 7).
Neolithic
c 3,500
BCE
The Bridestones is a Neolithic
chambered long cairn and ancient burial monument located near Congleton,
Cheshire, on the border with Staffordshire. Constructed between 3500 and 2400
BC, it is one of the oldest surviving field monuments in the British landscape,
predating the Great Pyramid of Giza. (Historic
England Monument 1011115).
It
features a crescentic forecourt layout, a design typically found only in
Scotland and Ireland, making it unique on the English landscape. It is also very
unusual because the burial chamber faces west (The
Majesty of the Bridestones near Congleton, Cheshire Life, 8 March 2023).
There is evidence of land clearance during this period.
Excavations at Oversley Farm in Styal,
Cheshire (near Wilmslow and Manchester Airport), revealed a significant
multi-period agricultural farmstead with continuous activity spanning from the
Early Neolithic through to post-medieval times. (Garner,
DJ (2007), The Neolithic and Bronze Age Settlement at Oversley
Farm).
3,000
BCE
Maiden Castle is one of the richest early
Neolithic sites excavated in southern Britain. Excavations in the 1930s showed
that activity on the hilltop began about 3,000 years before the first hillfort
was built. Neolithic farmers sailed to Britain from mainland Europe, bringing
the first cereal crops, cattle, sheep, timber buildings, pottery, and new types
of stone tools. They built Britain’s first surviving monuments: ‘long barrows’. About 5,500 years ago, the early farmers
built a large gathering place, surrounded by banks and ditches, at the eastern
end of the hill. Around 90 such ‘causewayed enclosures’ are known in Britain,
so called because their banks and ditches had frequent gaps, leaving causeways
of untouched ground. Remains in the ditches suggest that people
gathered here – probably at key points in the farming year – to celebrate
rituals, share food, exchange items including livestock, and make stone tools
such as flint axes. A scatter of flint arrowheads found around one of the
entrances hints at an attack, perhaps explaining why the earthworks were
levelled after a few decades. About 100 years later, the community built a
‘bank barrow’ – a mound that stretched for 546 metres along the spine of the
hill. Later ploughing almost flattened it, leaving it barely visible today. The
purpose of this unique monument remains unclear. While apparently not a burial
monument, it may have been built over an earlier burial mound. Human remains
and other offerings were placed in the deep ditches flanking the bank. (History
of Maiden Castle, English Heritage).
Bronze Age
2,000 BCE
The Early Bronze Age burial site at Shaw Cairn at Mellor was built
approximately 4,000 years ago.
The Bronze Age archaeology at Arthill
Heath Farm in High Legh, Cheshire, near Knutsford, features a prehistoric
sub-rectangular enclosure containing a rare two-phase palisade structure. There
is evidence of four round houses, which persisted into the Roman period, with
settlement beginning in the Bronze Age. It overlooks the Cheshire Plain and
commands a strategic position between the Goyt and Etherow
river valleys on the border between Manchester and Derbyshire.
Away from the Pennine fringe, good grave goods
have been excavated at Astbury, Grappenhall and Macclesfield. There is also
evidence of extended groupings or cemeteries at Seven Lows in Delamere, at Church
Lawton, at Withinghton Hall near Prestbury, and near
Jodrell Bank. (Hartwell, Clare
and others (2011), Cheshire in The Building of England series originated
by Nikolaus Pevsner, Yale University Press, page 8).
At Maiden Castle, after the Neolithic monuments were abandoned,
the hilltop remained almost deserted for over 1,000 years. During the Bronze
Age, beginning about 4,300 years ago, farming intensified, leading to
widespread deforestation. After centuries of grazing by sheep and cattle,
Dorset’s chalk hills were probably as treeless as they are today. Probably over
4,000 years ago two round barrows – circular burial mounds – were built on the
hilltop, where they could be seen from the surrounding farmland. Originally
about waist-high, they were gradually flattened by later ploughing, making them
difficult to see today. One of them was crudely excavated in the 1860s by local
archaeologist Edward Cunnington. Like many round barrows, it contained the
remains of a single skeleton lying in a crouched position, with a simple brooch
and pot. (History
of Maiden Castle, English Heritage).
Iron Age
With the Iron Age, the visible field evidence
is revolutionised. Gone are the prominently marked barrow burials; instead,
there is a group of impressive enclosures conventionally grouped under the name
hill forts (Hartwell, Clare and others (2011), Cheshire
in The Building of England series originated by Nikolaus Pevsner, Yale
University Press, page 9).
Maiden Castle
in Cheshire is an Iron Age hill fort on Bickerton Hill, occupied from around
600 BCE until the Roman conquest in the 1st century CE. It sits at 211 meters
above sea level on the southern end of the Mid Cheshire Ridge (Bickerton Hill),
offering views over the Dee valley. It is one of only seven Iron Age hill forts
in the county of Cheshire.
119 BCE
Lindow Man, nicknamed Pete Marsh by archaeologists, is a
remarkably well-preserved Iron Age bog body, discovered on 1 August 1984,
by commercial peat cutters at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow, Cheshire. He was a
young adult male in his mid-20s, of average height, about 5 feet 6 inches, and
well-built. Analysis of his remains showed his fingernails were neatly trimmed
and manicured, and his hands showed no signs of heavy manual labour, suggesting
he may have been a person of higher social status or importance rather than a labourer
or slave. He suffered a brutal, ritualistic death often referred to as a triple
death. Evidence indicates he was hit on the head with a heavy object, garrotted,
or strangled with a cord, and had his throat slit before being placed face-down
in the bog pool. Archaeologists believe he was killed as part of an Iron Age
ritual sacrifice, possibly to appease gods or mark a significant event. The
acidic, oxygen-free, anaerobic water of the peat bog prevented bacteria from
decaying his soft tissues. This preserved his skin, facial features, beard,
close-cropped hair, and even fingerprints after nearly 2,000 years. He has been
dated to roughly 2 to 119 CE. (British Museum
Number 1984,1002.1).
Bibliography
Garner, D. J, (2007), The Neolithic and Bronze Age Settlement
at Oversley Farm, Styal, Cheshire, BAR British
Series, No. 435. Oxford: Archaeopress. *
Garner, D. et al, (2016), Hillforts of the Cheshire Ridge,
Oxford: Archaeopress Archaeology. *
Harris, B. E. & Thacker, A. (Eds.) (1987), A History of the
County of Chester, Volume 1: Physique, Prehistory, Roman, Anglo-Saxon,
and Domesday, Victoria County History. *
Hartwell, Clare and others (2011), Cheshire in The
Building of England series originated by Nikolaus Pevsner, Yale University
Press.
Morgan, V. & Morgan, P, (2004), Prehistoric Cheshire,
Ashbourne: Landmark Publishing Ltd. *
Varley, W. J. & Jackson, J. W. (1940), Prehistoric Cheshire,
Chester: Cheshire Rural Community Council. *