Gillingham and Wyke started life as farmsteads in Saxon times, i.e. post Roman, after AD430 to the Norman conquest in the 11^th c. Most Saxons arrived as mercenaries for the Romans in the 5^th century, the Romans struggling to maintain some hold over the British Isles. They arrived via the River Stour and colonised and intermarried, often with the local Celts and settled down to a farming way of life, becoming well established by the 8^th/9^th centuries. Wyke is therefore significant in the origin and development of Saxon England.

There is plenty of evidence of Saxon occupation in Gillingham. Although low lying and well watered, the Saxons were able to make better use of the land with their heavy ploughs than the Britons had been able to with their much lighter ploughs. Some Saxon ploughs used in the heavy soil were pulled by eight oxen and were very awkward to turn, so they used long narrow strips of land instead of square fields. Langham Lane follows the line of the plough in a typical inverted ‘S’ shape.

The probable date of the Saxon arrival in Gillingham is c.658 when there was a gradual movement this way from Selwood Forest after the Battle of Peonnum. There is a Saxon cross shaft dating back to 800-900AD in St. Mary’s church.

The ? map is marked in yellow with the familiar ‘D’ shape of a typical Anglo-Saxon farmstead, encompassing Wyke Hall and park (showing some evidence of typical ‘ridge and furrow’1.), bounded by what we now know as Wyke Road, (the B3081), Cherry Orchard Lane, Wavering Lane West and Pound Lane.

The place-name of Gillingham gives positive evidence of the Anglo-Saxon existence. The name Gillingham is first recorded in an Anglo-Saxon Charter of the 10^th century as ‘Gillingham’ and also mentioned with this spelling in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1016 describing a battle between King Edmund II and the Danish Vikings under Canute, being concluded at what we call ‘Slaughter Gate’ today.

The early spellings indicate a meaning of ‘homestead or village of the family or followers of a man called ‘Gylla’. The Old English word ‘ing’ meaning family or followers of, (in this case Gylla, living in a farmstead grouping, farming an open-field system), and ‘ham’ meaning village or homestead near water (in Saxon terms this was a loose collection of huts acting as farmhouses, farming an open field system in strips i.e. ridge and furrow) and ‘ham’ is also said to have a marked relationship to Roman roads. The name therefore implies settlement by a tribe or group of people dependent on their leader, ‘Gylla’, in this case, and therefore to be associated with the earliest phases of the Saxon occupation of Dorset in the 7^th century.

1.Ridge and furrow is a pattern of ridges and troughs created by a system of ploughing used during the Middle Ages. The result of ploughing with non-reversible ploughs on the same strip of land each year and is visible on land that was ploughed in the Middle Ages, but which has not been ploughed since then.