The articulation of burgages and streets in early medieval towns, part 1: the case of Bridgnorth, Shropshire

This study, of which this paper is the first part of two, examines one particular aspect of the planning process in new towns of the early medieval period in England which were set out on a rectilinear module. In all these planned towns, the way burgages were laid out at the corners of streets meeting at right angles will have always been problematical. The examples of five towns, ranging in date from the late ninth to the late twelfth century, are examined to illustrate one particular way in which these spatial problems were resolved. Deductions are made from this evidence concerning the contemporaneity or otherwise of streets and burgage systems, seen as inter-functional ensembles. These observations and deductions generate new historical narratives relating to both the morphogenetic development of the towns studied and, in some cases, the wider course of the development of urbanism in general. In the first part of this study, the case of Bridgnorth, Shropshire, is taken as an exemplar of the particular issues examined.