A drive around the New Forest in the 1040's

Really interesting, lead me to a Wikipedia search about Brockenhurst. However, I didn't see as many Anglo-Saxons as I would have thought for 1040.

Really interesting, lead me to a Wikipedia search about Brockenhurst. However, I didn't see as many Anglo-Saxons as I would have thought for 1040.

Anglo-Saxons were more eastern areas, I thought. This region was more Celtic tribes. When I first moved here in 1971 I noticed that there seemed to be more dark-haired short people around than there were in Essex. I had been used to tall blond specimens.

I so need glasses

I so need glasses

Years of abuse can do that. My wrist will never be the same again

Why did everyone wear a suit back then? Rich, poor, it didn't matter.

And white shirts. Its almost as if everything was in black and white.

Why did everyone wear a suit back then? Rich, poor, it didn't matter.

That's what men did, even through the 60s. I have family photoraphs of uncles and grandads lying in deckchairs on the beach and they were wearing suits.

Wessex or the land of The West Saxons was essentially Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire parts of Gloucester and most of Devon. What is today Cornwall was by 1040 the main Celtic stronghold in Southern England. Essentially the Celts had been pushed to the fringes, Cornwall, Wales and Ireland by the successive invasions of the Angles and the Saxons in the South and West and the Vikings in the North and East. So the New Forest would have been Anglo Saxon, the predominance of blonde hair is a red herring when it comes to Angles and Saxons.

I’m part way through reading England’s Lost Eden: Adventures in a Victorian Utopia by Philip Hoare; it focuses largely on a weird religious sect called the Girlingites (aka New Forest Shakers) that descended on Hordle, near Lymington in the 1870s, and also on the construction, about the same time, of Sway Tower, which can be glimpsed on that footage. The book also provides some interesting insights into the New Forest during those times.

NB. This is the second time in less than a month that I’ve mentioned one of this author’s books on here – the other one was Spike Island, which was mainly about Netley Military Hospital. I promise I’m not his agent or one of his relations; indeed, I’ve never even met the bloke! Notwithstanding, his books are very interesting and well written, imo.

Wessex or the land of The West Saxons was essentially Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire parts of Gloucester and most of Devon. What is today Cornwall was by 1040 the main Celtic stronghold in Southern England. Essentially the Celts had been pushed to the fringes, Cornwall, Wales and Ireland by the successive invasions of the Angles and the Saxons in the South and West and the Vikings in the North and East. So the New Forest would have been Anglo Saxon, the predominance of blonde hair is a red herring when it comes to Angles and Saxons.

That's true, but I go back further than most

Blonde hair is nice though It was just an unscientific observation of mine but I have noticed a greater predominance of fair hair in Denmark, but that was more Juteland.

Didn't the Jutes also invade IOW? There is a Saxon hill fort at Tatchbury Mount, Totton. A battle took place at Netley Marsh, just west of Totton.