Anglo Saxon Architecture:
Houses:
Anglo-Saxon villages were quite small and the whole population consisted in two or three families. In those times, however, families were quite large and all members lived under one roof.
Each village was made up of a few buildings: some houses built around a bigger one called the ‘hall’ and some workshops and store houses.
The hall was the building where people gathered on important occasions. Anglo-Saxon poems often describe the feasting of the warriors in their king’s hall
Houses and other civilian buildings had wooden walls reinforced with wattle and daub and tatched roofs. Inside, there were no internal walls, that means that houses had only one very large room.
In the centre of the house there was a hearth used for cooking, heating and light, the smoke went out from a hole in the roof.
The floor was made of pressed earth or of wooden planks suspended over a shallow pit as wide as the house perimeter. Archaeologists guess that this pit may have been filled with straw to keep the house insulated in the long and cold winters of northern Europe.
Almost all Anglo-Saxon buildings (except churches and towers) had one room and one floor and were made of simple materials, even kings’ halls.
Archaeological findings reveal that the greatest part of Anglo-Saxon houses had a rectangular or square shape, but some evidence of round houses had also been found.
Building dimensions varied greatly, from 3 x 3.5 metres to 23 x 79 metres.
Some settlements grew into towns and some of the abandoned and ruined Roman towns were inhabited again.
Town houses were built with the same materials as village houses and fire was a constant danger, because it could spread very easily. Some town houses had a ‘basement’ as deep as 2.5 metres beneath the suspended wooden plank floor. Probably it was used for storage or as temporary work place.
Only a few Anglo-Saxon houses had windows, they were covered with thin animal skins, in order to have protection from the cold wind but also to allow some light to penetrate.
Today, only very few remains of houses built by the Anglo-Saxons survive, both because they were built with non durable materials and because many of them had been burned down during the Danes and Viking invasions.
Religious architecture:
Among the few of buildings made by the Anglo Saxons using stone there were churches and monasteries, of which some surviving examples can be still seen today.
In the same periods, in England, celtic populations built churches using a different and characteristic style, while the biggest churches built in the southern Anglo-Saxon kingdoms are heavily influenced by the Roman tradition.
The typical Anglo-Saxon churches are quite small, with very simple decorative patterns in doors and windows.
The internal structure consists in a rectangular nave divided by a narrow arch from a chancel, also of rectangular shape.
The first Anglo-Saxon churches had non windows and illumination was provided by torches.
Church towers:
Church towers were built, as their name says, near churches, but these buildings had also a practical function.
Towers were used as a high look out post to watch out for coming enemies and in case of attack, villagers used them as a refuge, in fact there was a large room in the highest part of the tower where people could hide. Access to this room was possible through a retrievable ladder that, once removed, made the tower almost inaccessible.
Crosses:
At the beginning of Christianity in the British isles there were only a few churches.
Carved stone crosses were erected in certain sites, usually at the intersection of two or more roads, here the villagers gathered to attend mass and the preaching of itinerant monks or priests.
Crossroads were already sacred places both for the Romans and for the Celts and it is probable that crosses have been built in the same spot were some form of pagan worship was practiced before [L1] [L2] [L3] .
Burhs:
King Alfred ‘The Great’ defeated the invading Danes in and unified almost all the pre-existing Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. He was wise enough to realise that the Danes could attack again and organised a permanent and efficient defensive system to protect his domains.
Alfred planned, promoted and encouraged the building of fortified villages, called burhs, throughout Wessex, and especially along the coast and the kingdom’s borders, in order that no settlement was more than 20 miles far away.
New settlers were given free plots of land inside the new well protected villages, but they had to provide a defensive force in case of enemy attack.
To enhance the stability of this political and military institution the king granted the burhs special autonomy in order to become centres of commerce and local government.
King Alfred’s son, Edward the Elder, continued to encourage the construction of burhs; many of them were erected over the ruins of old Roman towns or along Roman roads that were still in use [L4].
London:
When the Romans ruled on Britannia, they founded a town on the river Thames and called it Londinum. It soon became the most important centre of the province, because of its strategic position.
The latin name Londinum transformed into ‘London’ over the centuries.
After the withdrawal of the Roman legions, however, the city of Londinum declined rapidly and was deserted by many of its inhabitants, who fled to take refuge somewhere else and a great part of the buildings fell into ruins.
The town, due to its strategic collocation, soon caught the attention of the new settlers and began to expand again in the 7th century. Beside new settlers, however, this prosperous town attracted also invaders, who periodically raided London after sailing up the Thames with their ships.
From the 7th century to the Norman conquer, the future capital of the United Kingdom was, alternatively, under Anglo Saxon and Danish control and periodically destroyed by Viking’s raids.
Althoug London soon became again the largest and richest town if the Island of Britain and also the seat of the royal residence, the capital was Winchester [L5].
Offa’s Dyke:
Among Anglo-Saxon architecture, the huge defensive building known today as Offa’s Dyke deserves to be mentioned.
Its construction began in the 780’s during the reign of king Offa, hence its name.
It was made of earthwork with stone and wooden fortifications on the top; its height was not constant and reached 7 metres and a half in some places tall and was 240 kilometres long.
It was an impressive building, and its realization must have been very difficult and time-consuming, if we think about the primitive building technologies of those times.
The dyke stood along the Welsh border and was used as a fortified barrier to protect the Anglo Saxon domains from the attacks of the Celtic people living in the area that today is called Wales [L6].
