Entry tags:
Local history
Book Review: A Tale of Two Towns - Calleva and Reading, by John Mullaney
An email from Reading Museum nudged me in this direction. After all, we live near the remains of Calleva, and it's a good spot for an occasional walk. But why is it there at all? I hoped this book would enlighten me. To some extent it did. Beginning in the Bronze and Iron Ages, Mullaney surveys evidence for settlement at both locations. Reading was a good river port, at the confluence of the Thames and the Kennet; also a viable crossing point, but also potentially a boundary between two tribes. Calleva isn't near any major rivers, but it's a decent defensive site with good farming land around it. The Romans chose to build a town at Calleva (Calleva Atrebatum to give its full name), on top of earlier settlements, being close to roads linking London and Winchester. Perhaps there was some influence given their existing relations with the extended Atrebates tribe in the area. Reading was inhabited by Britons, with evidence of burials in the environs of Cemetery Junction.
Mullaney goes into some depth on the downfall of the Roman Empire and the withdrawal of Roman forces from Britain. Describing the ensuing period as the Dark Ages doesn't seem unfair given the lack of clear evidence, written or archaeological, for what followed. The conjecture is that the Saxons and others preferred the river site and Calleva, although defensible against invasion, was left to decay. Reading was something of a frontier town at times during the period of the Danelaw. This book ends some years after the Norman conquest, Henry I chose to build Reading Abbey (likely on the site of earlier religious buildings) and his mausoleum in Reading. It's interesting reading but I found it quite heavy going, trying to balance the style between popular and scholarly.
An email from Reading Museum nudged me in this direction. After all, we live near the remains of Calleva, and it's a good spot for an occasional walk. But why is it there at all? I hoped this book would enlighten me. To some extent it did. Beginning in the Bronze and Iron Ages, Mullaney surveys evidence for settlement at both locations. Reading was a good river port, at the confluence of the Thames and the Kennet; also a viable crossing point, but also potentially a boundary between two tribes. Calleva isn't near any major rivers, but it's a decent defensive site with good farming land around it. The Romans chose to build a town at Calleva (Calleva Atrebatum to give its full name), on top of earlier settlements, being close to roads linking London and Winchester. Perhaps there was some influence given their existing relations with the extended Atrebates tribe in the area. Reading was inhabited by Britons, with evidence of burials in the environs of Cemetery Junction.
Mullaney goes into some depth on the downfall of the Roman Empire and the withdrawal of Roman forces from Britain. Describing the ensuing period as the Dark Ages doesn't seem unfair given the lack of clear evidence, written or archaeological, for what followed. The conjecture is that the Saxons and others preferred the river site and Calleva, although defensible against invasion, was left to decay. Reading was something of a frontier town at times during the period of the Danelaw. This book ends some years after the Norman conquest, Henry I chose to build Reading Abbey (likely on the site of earlier religious buildings) and his mausoleum in Reading. It's interesting reading but I found it quite heavy going, trying to balance the style between popular and scholarly.