This article was written by John Wright for the Baldons 2001 Local History Exhibition
The Baldons probably had some settlements in the Roman period as evidenced by pottery fragments found over time and the proximity of Roman Dorchester, but it would seem that the main colonisation came with the Saxons. The name 'Baldon' had it's origins in the Saxon "Bealda's Hill" and it is probable that the first villages to be settled were the higher ground of Toot and Baldon St Lawrence (i.e. the Row). Toot in Saxon means "lookout-hill".
The first reliable information on Baldon comes with the Doomsday Book. To the Doomsday clerks the villages were collectively known as "Balderdone" and it was not until the 13lh Century that the individual villages of Marsh, Toot, Little and Baldon St Lawrence were separately identified. After the Norman Conquest the land was quickly taken over by the Norman masters and the Doomsday record shows seven separate estates belonging to five different Norman lords (e.g. Count of Evreux, Bishop of Bayeaux) amounting to 30 hides (about 3,000 acres).
The land mainly consisted of three very large fields, cultivated in the conventional medieval strip system, with ridge and furrow, open plan and one of the three left fallow annually. Information from the year 1279 suggests that the land under active cultivation (including that left fallow) growing turnips, beans, barley, oats etc, was some two thirds of the total land available, the balance being desmesne property, grazing and heath land.
At Doomsday time the three fields referred to above were known as ''North Field" lying to the North East of Toot Baldon, "East Field" to the East of the bridleway from Little Baldon to Toot Church (known in subsequent documents as "The Flitway") and "South Field" which was situated at Little Baldon, to the South of the road to Chislehampton. These were later given the names of "Hill Field", "Catsbrayne" and “Appledore Field" respectively. Subsequently in 1769 Catsbrayne, by far the biggest field, was divided into two, "Middle Field" and "Ham Field", thus enabling three crops to be grown a year, in place of two, leaving one field fallow.
A sketch map of I830, made for The Queen's College by Richard Collinson, shows the four fields quite clearly as well as the two manors of Marsh and Toot. At one time Catsbrayne Field contained a windmill. A field map of the Baldons c 1700, held in The Queen's College archives, names an area called "Great Windmill Hill", with Catsbrayne Field siruated on the high ground towards Goatham, but to the west of Baldon Brook. It is reasonable to assume that this was the location of the windmill.
Apart from the changes of field names and some small enclosures the medieval field system seems to have remained largely intact over many centuries until the 19th. This system entailed communal decision making on all aspects of managing the land within the old manorial structure, communal grazing on common land and common access to firewood, etc. The Enclosures Act of the 1830s changed all that.
Field Map of the Baldons C 1700. Source:The Queen's College Archive.
