Anglo-Saxon Romsey and the Lower Test Valley
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The Fishlake - Romsey's Artificial Waterway
by Karen Anderson
Poster by Karen Anderson. Click to download pdf file
The posters on the Fishlake and Anglo-Saxon water management were designed for an exhibition held in November 2016. They summarise the conclusions of the research that had been done up to that time. Further research has provided firm evidence that the Fishlake was built before the Norman Conquest.
The Origin of the Fishlake by Karen Anderson
Map of the superficial geology over LiDAR hillshade with modern surface water. Brown represents the alluvium of the current floodplain. River terrace deposits alongside are a pale grey. The arrows point to the Fishlake, the artificial watercourse carrying water from the Test across the floodplain and onto the terrace towards Romsey. A section of the 1845 Romsey tithe map showing the town is superimposed. The raised banks containing the water are visible in the LiDAR. Also apparent is the Greatbridge Causeway on the west side of the Fishlake which carries the road heading north from Romsey across the floodplain.
The Fishlake takes water from the Test and carries it across the floodplain to the river terrace and then into Romsey. The waterway zigzags as it crosses the floodplain, contained within chalk banks. Its course was calculated to maintain a shallow gradient and reduce the rate of flow, protecting the banks from erosion. The particular topography of the Test valley made it possible to construct the Fishlake. Only a very experienced surveyor would have recognised the potential the bend in the river provided to divert water from the Test at a sufficiently high elevation that it could be channeled through a cutting on the river terrace. Once it reaches the edge of the the terrace it heads in a straight line through a cutting towards the abbey, dividing into two branches just north of the town.
1845 Romsey tithe map with modern surface water. Buildings depicted in red are, at least partially, residential. Industrial buildings and outbuildings are black. The Fishlake, arrowed, splits into an east and west branch on the northern edge of the town. The west branch runs through a culvert in Church Street.
The Test near the start of the Fishlake; May’s Island, where the waters divide; and the Fishlake south of May’s Island.
The Fishlake crosses the floodplain.
Greatbridge Causeway carries the road from the terrace north to a crossing of the Test at Greatbridge, a not particularly great bridge. The causeway and bridge might have acquired their names early in their history. The causeway would have been made of locally quarried gravel. The Old English word for gravel was greot. The word for bridge in Old English could mean either a bridge in the modern sense or a causeway.
In 2020 a structure was built at the start of the Fishlake to control the volume of water entering the watercourse. This will prevent water from overflowing the banks and flooding Greatbridge Road. In the past the flow was carefully managed by Romsey mill owners including the May family who gave their name to the island near the start of the Fishlake.
Dating the Fishlake
King Edgar with two saints, Æthelwold on the left and Dunstan on the right, from a copy of the Regularis Concordia, c. 1050.
An illustration from a manuscript of the Regularis Concordia shows King Edgar with Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury and Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester. The three men had a close relationship. Dunstan and Æthelwold were both monastic reformers (and both became saints). They were also water management experts. Dunstan is credited with the construction of two artificial waterways while he was abbot of Glastonbury. Æthelwold spent some time studying in Glastonbury before he became abbot of Abingdon. There he diverted water from the Thames into a kilometre-long leat to provide power for the abbey mill. Edgar had been sent to Abingdon as a boy to study under Æthelwold. As king, he appointed Dunstan as Archbishop and his former teacher as Bishop of Winchester. Æthelwold’s reorganisation of the boundaries of the Old and New Minsters and Nunnaminster involved changes to the existing system of water channels and the relocation of the town’s mills. Edgar would have witnessed the water management projects that were taking place around him.
King Edgar (born 943, reigned 959-975) seems to have had a close connection with Romsey. King Alfred’s son Edward the Elder was recorded as the founder of a nunnery at Romsey, an event traditionally dated to 907. Edward the Elder was Edgar’s grandfather. In a charter written in c. 972 King Edgar granted certain privileges to the nuns of Romsey abbey. A note at the end of the charter mentioned that Edgar’s son Prince Edmund, who died in 971, was buried in the minster at Romsey. Aged only 4 or 5, this son of his second wife, Ælfthryth, had been intended as Edgar’s successor. The charter included a boundary clause. It begins by heading up the street to where the Test scit. The street is Greatbridge Causeway. Scit means to run at a right angle and only makes sense in this context if it was referring to the Fishlake. The causeway and the Fishlake were probably built at the same time. They would have been very recent additions to the landscape when the charter was written, constructed after Æthelwold‘s appointment as Bishop of Winchester in 963. Improvements to the nuns’ estate might have included the rebuilding or refurbishment of their church as it was chosen for a royal burial.
Dating the construction of the Fishlake to the 960s, when both Edgar and Æthelwold were advancing monastic reform, fits in with the evidence. The combination of royal and ecclesiastical authority would have provided the resources and expertise required for undertaking and completing such a major engineering project. Their work was remarkably successful. The Fishlake continued to provide water power for mills in Romsey into the 20th century.
Stained glass window commemorating St Æthelwold in St Swithun-Upon-Kingsgate church, Winchester.
Photo by Karen Anderson