Avon Valley: Frontier & War Zone!

This illustrated talk explores how the Avon Valley, now a peaceful landscape, was once a contested frontier between Wessex and Mercia and, at times, an active war zone. Martyn Whittock examines why the valley’s character differed either side of the Limpley Stoke Valley and how this unusual political geography can be understood through the wider history of the late Iron Age, Roman rule and the emergence of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

The lecture looks at evidence from coinage, written sources, Roman colonial policy and post-Roman conflict to explain the valley’s role as a geo-political anomaly. It is based on Whittock’s co-written book, The Anglo-Saxon Avon Valley Frontier: A River of Two Halves, and brings together history, archaeology and geography to show how power and identity shifted across this part of the West Country.