To the casual visitor of today, Sandwich appears as simply a small inland market town on the bank of a modest river. But locals and historians have long known that in the Middle Ages it was a strategic and commercial seaport of great significance, trading with northern Europe and the Mediterranean and growing prosperous on this business.



The medieval fabric of the town has been preserved to a remarkable extent, but historians and archaeologists have never agreed on quite where the first settlement was located. Nor has there been close study of what the surviving medieval buildings can tell us about Sandwich's development.



It is the physical development of Sandwich that forms the focus of this volume, providing new theories on how, when and why the town came to take its present form. As well as providing a great amount of detail on the houses, churches and defences of medieval Sandwich, the authors apply the material evidence in order to draw out important social, economic and cultural facets in the evolution of the town.



The study of Sandwich also has much wider implications, as despite being largely affected by its location, it also shared much with other English medieval towns in terms of its physical growth and the role of its major institutions. The story of the town, therefore, is both particular and general, and this detailed study gives new insights into the influences affecting urban development, both in the formative period of growth and in later periods in which towns adapted to new circumstances. The method presented here could therefore, be equally applicable to studies of other medieval towns. Maps, plans and photographs, all in full colour, supplement the text and graphically underline many of the conclusions.

• Cover
• Maps
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Summary
• Résumé
• Zusammenfassung
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Part I: Introduction
  • Chapter 1: Background to the Sandwich project
    • 1.1 The project and its aims
    • 1.2 The research area
    • 1.3 Methods
    • 1.4 Previous research and publication
• Part II: Origins
  • Chapter 2: Environmental background and origins
    • 2.1 The geology of the Sandwich area
    • 2.2 communications and the location of Sandwich
    • 2.3 The site of earliest Sandwich
    • 2.4 A hypothesis for earliest Sandwich
  • Chapter 3: Sandwich in the eleventh century: the establishment of the medieval town
    • 3.1 Urban beginnings: Sandwich at the turn of the tenth and eleventh centuries
    • 3.2 Evidence for urbanisation in the first half of the eleventh century
    • 3.3 The second half of the eleventh century
    • 3.4 The topographical development of Sandwich in the eleventh century
    • 3.5 conclusion
  • Chapter 4: Sandwich in the twelfth century: the growth of an urban society
    • 4.1 The developing town
    • 4.2 Sandwich haven and Stonar
    • 4.3 The churches
    • 4.4 The Christ Church Priory site
    • 4.5 The topographical development of Sandwich
    • 4.6 Conclusion
• Part III: 1200–1360
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 5: The port and town: consolidation and outside influences
    • 5.1 The growth of independence
    • 5.2 Sandwich and the Cinque Ports
    • 5.3 Population
    • 5.4 Sandwich people
    • 5.5 The economic background
    • 5.6 The defence of Sandwich
    • 5.7 Sandwich Haven and the route through the Wantsum Channel
  • Chapter 6: Religious buildings
    • 6.1 The parish churches
    • 6.2 new religious foundations in the thirteenth century
    • 6.3 Conclusion
  • Chapter 7: Secular buildings
    • 7.1 Excavated buildings
    • 7.2 Stone buildings
    • 7.3 Timber-framed buildings
    • 7.4 Building materials used in the construction of domestic buildings in Sandwich
    • 7.5 The function of rooms and the size of plots
    • 7.6 Conclusion
  • Chapter 8: The topography of the town by the mid-fourteenth century
    • 8.1 From the priory headquarters to Harnet Street
    • 8.2 The town centre
    • 8.3 Strand Street and the waterfront
    • 8.4 The town south of the Delf
• Part IV: 1360–1560
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 9: Trade and the haven
    • 9.1 Sandwich haven and its ships to the end of the fifteenth century
    • 9.2 Trade through Sandwich haven in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
    • 9.3 Sandwich haven and its ships in the first half of the sixteenth century
    • 9.4 Trade through Sandwich haven in the first half of the sixteenth century
  • Chapter 10: The life of the town
    • 10.1 The governance of the town
    • 10.2 Population and property
    • 10.3 People and occupations
    • 10.4 Conclusion
  • Chapter 11: War, rebellion and defence
    • 11.1 war and civil unrest
    • 11.2 The defences
    • 11.3 Conclusion
  • Chapter 12: Secular buildings
    • 12.1 Large courtyard houses
    • 12.2 Open halls
    • 12.3 The town centre: open-hall houses
    • 12.4 The outskirts of town: open-hall houses parallel to the street
    • 12.5 The size of houses
    • 12.6 Houses of the poor
    • 12.7 Changes in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries
    • 12.8 Commercial and industrial buildings
    • 12.9 The function and use of medieval houses
    • 12.10 The proportion of surviving medieval houses
    • 12.11 Conclusion
  • Chapter 13: Churches and hospitals
    • 13.1 The churches
    • 13.2 The religious life of the town
    • 13.3 The hospitals
    • 13.4 Conclusion
  • Chapter 14: The landscape of the town
    • 14.1 The waterfront: access and facilities
    • 14.2 Strand Street between Pillory Gate and Davis Gate
    • 14.3 The Fishmarket
    • 14.4 The Butchery
    • 14.5 Love Lane
    • 14.6 The Cornmarket
    • 14.7 Luckboat
    • 14.8 The streets and property in the west end of town
    • 14.9 The streets and property in the east end of town
    • 14.10 The ramparts, watercourses and land south of the Delf
    • 14.11 Conclusion
• Part V: 1560–1600
  • Chapter 15: The town
    • 15.1 Trade and Sandwich Haven
    • 15.2 The influx of religious refugees
    • 15.3 The governance of the town
    • 15.4 Sandwich society
  • Chapter 16: The buildings
    • 16.1 The school
    • 16.2 The new court hall and related buildings
    • 16.3 Homes for the increasing population
    • 16.4 Surviving houses
    • 16.5 Probate inventories and the function of rooms
    • 16.6 Probate inventories, houses and Sandwich society
• Part VI: Conclusions
  • Chapter 17: Sandwich in the context of wider studies of historic towns: an assessment
    • 17.1 Archaeology and topography
    • 17.2 Surviving buildings
    • 17.3 Heritage management and future research
    • 17.4 Evaluation of the methods used in the project
• Appendix 1: Sandwich archaeological sites, 1929–2007
• Appendix 2: Sandwich houses that appear on the maps
• Notes
• References and abbreviations
• Index