Back to home page.
Some of the group examining documents beneath a large scale map of Thriplow. Photograph taken by David Ward and used with kind permission from the Countryside Commision. Landscape archaeology is the study of features visible on the surface.  What we see is the result of a series of interconnecting systems, evidence being found in many different kinds of archaeology.  Despite the fact that there has probably been continuous occupation of the area around Thriplow for thousands of years we only have documentary evidence for about a thousand years.  Listed below are our principle sources. 
  • The earliest mention of Thriplow is in two books , Liber Eliensis and Liber Ramsiensis which, while giving no clue to the shape or layout of the village, tell of Earl Byrhtnoth.  He bequeathed his estate of Thriplow to the monks of Ely.  (Cambridgeshire Collection)    
     
  • 1086  Domesday survey which recorded land tenure.  The acreage of common fields given for Thriplow is the same as that of 1840 suggesting that the common fields may have been in place some time between 917 (The Hidation of Cambridgeshire, Cyril Hart, 1974) and 1086. By this time Thriplow had two manors, The Bury and Barenton's.                      
     
  • 1279  The Hundred Rolls, a survey of occupants, the amount of land they held and what labour services they owed.  By this time there were twice the number of people holding the same amount of land as earlier.  The Rolls also contain the first mention of a church in Thriplow.   (Latin copy in Cambridgeshire Record Office)
     
  • 1284  Bishop of Ely granted the tythes of Thriplow church to found the first college in Cambridge, Peterhouse.  (Document in Peterhouse College Archives)
     
  • 1356    Arable land is mentioned as being cultivated on a 3 course rotation.  (Joan Thirsk, Rural Economy of England, 1984)
     
  • By the early 14th century manor names appear in documents, The Bury, Bacons, Crouchmans and Pittansaries.
     
  • 1537  The first Terrier or survey for Crouchman's Manor.  (Trinity Hall archives)
     
  • 1471-1857  Thriplow's wills
     
  • Parish records  Overseers Accounts, Churchwardens Accounts.
     
  • Census Returns
     
  • Hearth Tax Returns
     
  • Manorial court rolls
     
  • Enclosure award 1840
     
  • Sites and monuments register, in Shire Hall
     
  • Victoria County History, in Cambridge Central Library
     
  • Aerial photographs, University Department of Aerial Photography, Cambridge Record Office
     
  • Geological survey maps of the area.
     
  • Early maps...1824 Baker, 1830 Thomas Moule, 1840 Enclosure map,  1883 First Ordnance Survey large scale map,  1803 Draft Ordnance Survey 1" map.
A large portion of a Roman funery pot found by R.C.Neville in the tumulus at Thriplow. In 1846 R.C. Neville excavated the tumulus at Thriplow.  His original notebooks along with a copy of his book Sepulchra Exposita are held in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge.  Terry Hoare and Sharon Webb from the museum helped some of the group to examine these, together with some of the pottery and flint finds from the site.

 

 

 
Links to more details....
Documentary evidence Plane table surveying
Place name analysis Resistivity surveying
Aerial photography analysis Dowsing and pond dipping
Geology Courses and visits