Once the Roman legions, garrisons and naval forces left Britain to defend Rome against the Teutonic armies from Northern Europe, it was left open for invasion. This came about some 60+ years after the last Romans departed these shores, and it came in the form of the Saxons.

 

Highdown, Saxon burial glass goblet

 

The first recorded landing of the Saxons was in A.D. 477 and they slew many of the inhabitants and moved slowly across the country. As the raids grew, the people migrated away from the advancing Saxons, even going afar as France. There are many burial sites between Shoreham and Pevensey and this is indicative of much fighting in this area.

 

Sussex at this time became isolated from the rest of England and little changed upto the seventh century. The Wealden forest became a more effective barrier than it had been to Celt or Roman. Stane street and other wealden highways were abandoned, and there is no evidence of even Saxon iron workings.

 

Due to the different way of life the Saxons led. After the existing Romano-Celtic population had fled or were put to the sword, things changed throughout the area. With few exceptions, place names were replaced and the way of life altered dramatically. Being community centered people, the Celtic upland farms and hamlets on the Downs were abandoned and left to decay, and settlement was concentrated on coastal plain, the valleys and along the Greensand belt under the North side of the Downs.

 

When St.Wilfred landed near Selsey in the year 681, and converted the South Saxons to Christianity, the Sussex landscape had changed considerably. Selsey, by the end of the seventh century became one of the most important places in Sussex, and culturally the most important. Throughout the eighth and ninth centuries other towns assumed prominence as market centres. Towns such as Pevensey, Steyning, Lewes and Hastings developed into towns of craftsmen and traders.

 

During the ninth century however, just as the Saxons themselves had plundered the land on which they now lived, came new plunderers, in the form of the Danes, better known as the Vikings. Fear and uncertainty returned to Sussex and continued until Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons checked the Danish conquest. For a few decades security was restored. With the reign of Ethelred, the Danish terror returned and burning, plundering and killing returned to send terror into the hearts of those who heard the name `Vikings`.

 

This continued until 1016, Ethelred died and the Saxon Witan chose the Dane Canute as their king, and a Saxon renaissance followed and peace reigned for a while.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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