The area around Dorchester in the Upper Thames was the nucleus of the West Saxon folk. There can be no doubt upon this point, for the evidence seems irrefutable; nowhere else has archeaology brought to light as many as or as early West-Saxon remains. On the evidence of cremation and brooches alone there must have been a settlement on an extensive scale round about 500 A.D. This is not surprising, for this district had always been able to support a heavy population.

It is worth noting that Dorchester itself became the residence of Birinus when he evangelised the West Saxons and the centre of the first West Saxon bishopric.What is puzzling is the conflict of evidence about the way in which the West Saxons arrived there. Three routes at various times been suggested. (A) Along the Icknield Way. This was not a Roman road but a line of communications between the Fens and the Thames valley already some two thousand years old when the Germanic invasion began. The argument that the Saxons entered by the Wash, went south along the Bedford Ouse to the area around Cambridge, and thence travelled along the Icknield Way to where it reaches the Thames near Goring, is strongly supported by archeaology; grave goods, dated early by the cremation rites, and pottery and jewellery lie along the route, and the Cambridge and Dorchester districts have remarkably close cultural affinities.

From the point of veiw of geography there are no natural obstacles to make such an advance even slightly difficult. (b) Along the Thames valley. There is no good reason, speaking geographically, why the Saxons should not have travelled along the whole line of the Thames, and cremations and place-names bear witness to a connexion between North Kent and Surrey and the Upper Thames district. There is certainly a sudden break in the settlements along the Thames before the Goring gap is reached: perhaps it was there that the woodlands and heathlands pressed too closely upon the riverbanks to make habitation advisable.But though this prevented colonization, it constitutes no bar to an advance through it to the district beyond.However, the ties of the Dorchester area with the Lower Thames were by no means as strong as those with the Ouse.(c). Overland from the south coast.

This was the route hallowed by tradition, recorded in the only literary evidence we have and therefore naturally accepted by historians who had no other sources of knowledge. In 495, two Saxon chiefs, Cerdic and his son (or more correctly his grandson) Cynric, landed at the head of Southampton Water, went north-west as far as Charford (Cerdicesford, Cerdic's Ford) -on- Avon and then struck north to Old Sarum in Witshire. The important point to notice is that it was not until a generation later, not until after 550 A.D. that these Saxons are said to have reached and to have established themselves in the district of the Upper Thames.

Though most historians have been reluctant to abandon this story as the foundation of the West Saxon people, some have rejected it in its entirety, and there can be no doubt it will not stand detailed criticism: the artificial scheme of chronology; the suspiciously British names of the leaders and the artificial names of their colleagues; the two distinct and contradictory versions provided; the disagreement between an early genealogical table of West Saxon kings and that contained in these 'Early English Annals'; the ignorance or suppression of the victory at Mount Badon; above all, the evidence of archaeology which finds slight, if any, early West Saxon occupation of Hampshire and Wiltshire - and this is corroborated by the scarcity of early West Saxon place-names - but overwhelming proof that West Saxons were settled in large numbers on the Upper Thames many years before the 'Annals' place them there. Perhaps, since the advent of the metal detector, we may find evidence to substantiate that these districts really were fairly occupied. Where archaeology fails the detectorist will triumph. It has happened before and there is no reason to beleive it will not happen again. In the next page I will mention north of the Humber.

The Foundations Of England.