Sprouston, Roxburghshire: an early Anglian centre of the eastern Tweed Basin

Abstract

Evidence for English settlement in the Tweed Basin from the seventh to ninth centuries is mainly circumstantial, but on the south side of the Tweed, near Sprouston, aerial photography since 1970 has shown a township which can be positively identified as Anglian. The cropmark evidence is transcribed and tentatively subdivided into three broad periods (prehistoric, Romano-British/early historic, Anglian). Each is appraised and the elements identified are qualified by reference to parallels drawn from a limited radius in North Britain. The likely origins and status of the township are discussed; it may have functioned as an urbs regis or royal centre, one of the first to have been founded in the Tweed Basin during the westward English expansion in the late-sixth or early-seventh century.