A charter and survey of

THE VILL OF PURTON – AD 796

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The Lost Forest Chronicles | Chapter I

In the year AD 688 Abbot Aldhelm of Malmesbury was granted thirty manentes (holdings) of the eastern part of Braydon Forest. This land was then taken away (pilfered) from the Abbey by King Offa of Mercia. Offa’s son Ecgfirth then made restoration through a charter of the land (now the Parish of Purton in Wiltshire) in AD 796 at the request of his sister’s husband, Beorhtric of Wessex, but first required the Abbey to pay a sum of two thousand shillings of pure silver to acquire the land.

This work, The Vill of Purton is the first and complete chapter in my opus of The Lost Forest Chronicles.

The photographic work for The Vill of Purton was created after having spent some considerable time first researching and mapping the translations of the original AD 796 boundary charter survey for Purton of ~21 miles. An exercise that involved mining through archival material and contemporary documentation, utilising modern mapping and physically exploring areas of the boundary. This charter is specifically relevant to The Lost Forest Chronicles series, as this is one of the first recorded mentions of the existence of the now disafforested Braden Forest. Then over two days in late December 2018 I walked the entire boundary making images at what are considered to be the named points in the boundary charter survey records, with additional observational images also made at interspersing points on or very close to the boundary route. Without accompanying maps though, an artefact not generally created until many centuries after, some degree of latitude must be used in identifying some of the locations where more transitory references were used.

The images presented here form a subset of the complete work.

Charter translation (extract) 

“In the name of the Lord. Thus, as the Apostolic pronouncement attests, we have brought nothing into this world, nor are we able to carry anything away. Wherefore, I, Ecgfrith, king of the Mercians, in the first year of our reign granted by God, at the request of Beorhtric, king of the West Saxons, and Archbishop Æthelheard, have returned to Abbot Cuthbert and to the brethren of the monastery of Malmesbury land of 30 hides in the place that is called Purton, on the eastern side of the wood that is called Braden for the remission of my sins and for the repose of the soul of my father, Offa, which while he was alive he took from them… And this was executed in the year from the incarnation of Christ 796, in indiction 4. May”

Charter survey translation (extract)

First from the place which is called Lortingesburna; to Teow’s thorn-tree,

And from that place to Heremod’s thorn-tree.

And from that to black pond,

And from that place to the rough land with coarse grass.

and from there northwards to the ditch which is called old ditch.

and along that ditch straight to the rush-bed.

and from there to the waterway called Worf.

and thus straight along the stream to the spit of land,

… and so the survey goes until complete

Text extracts are sourced from the Electronic Sawyer: S149 & S1586