The Walkhampton Enclosure (Devon)

At Walkhampton, west Devon, a continuous line of field boundaries apparently represents the remains of two sides and three corners of a roughly rectangular enclosure of c. 175 hectares. We argue on stratigraphic grounds that the Walkhampton Enclosure (WE) pre-dates the Norman Conquest. It was sited strategically — defended by watercourses to the west and south, and located where two important long-distance roads merged to cross the River Walkham. At its centre lies Welltown Farm (probably once Bickwell), whose earliest known form was a twelfth-century hall; it is set within a pear-shaped embanked enclosure. It is likely that the WE played a key role in West Saxon control of the area in the early ninth century, before the establishment of the burh at Lydford. Walkhampton was a royal manor at the time of the Domesday survey; we suggest that the old territory of Roborough hundred was ‘royalised’ by a West Saxon king, with its centre transferred to Walkhampton. The WE may be interpreted as a late Saxon inland, administratively a royal manor liable to render a contribution to the ‘farm of one night’, supporting a peripatetic royalty and other important officials.