The Real Sceaftesige

The work below is mostly taken from existing sources with some suppositions of my own. Sceaftesiege is very much linked to Cookham and its history and there is a wealth of information and finds concerning this town and the area. The details below are a summary and I hope to expand on them with time.

The name Sceaftesige (shaftsey) or Sceaftesege is thought to derive from "Sceaftes", a personal name and "ege", a common name ending for small islands on the Thames, also for nearby water meadows. The current name for the area is Sashes Island, through the years there has been many variations on the spelling and form.

There have been buildings found preserved in peat from the Maidenhead area dating back to around 620AD. The local place names of Cookham, Waltham, Bisham, Hurley, Taplow and Holyport are all saxon in origin. At this point the Thames was a barrier between Mercia and Wessex, so Cookham was very much a frontier town. That the site was important is shown by the evidence of a monastery being passed between the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury throughout the 700's, sometimes passed on sometimes bequeathed and sometimes stolen!

Ethelred the Unready held a Witan at Cookham in 997. The palace used for this witan is thought to be under the paddock next to the old church (formerly Sceaftesiges practice site). The information on this Witan comes from a will whose adjudication was part of the Witan. Attending the Witan were 1 arch bishop, 3 bishops, 2 aldermen, 3 abbots and numerous lords from West Saxons, Mercians, Danes and English. As such there is plenty of evidence for Sceafesege portraying a mixture of backgrounds in the group. A number of burial mounds of individual people have been found in the area as well as the famous burial site of Taeppa in Taplow Court.

Sceaftesige came about in the late 800's, how long it remained for is unknown, It is first mentioned in the Burghal hildage documents of 914-8 so it must have been built by this point . If the Witan of 997 stayed at Cookham it was unlikely to be chosen in preference to a nearby fort, so Cookham had superseded Sceaftesige by this point. It was the only island fort of the Burghal hildage covering a roman road and the Thames. Not many years before its creation, the vikings had rowed up the Thames, past Sceaftesige and on to Reading, holding it from 870 AD to 871AD.

I've not been able to find a translation of the Burghal Hildage document, but sources say the fort had a palisade of 1,375 yards, enough to cover half of the 54 acres of the current island. As it was protected by water on most sides it already had good natural defences. I've frequently seen figures of one man per ten feet of wall used for defences which would make the garrison around 400 strong. This was a large army for the time so it was probably a lot smaller than this with many being vilagers called to the walls as needed. Cookham from Domesday was 20 hydes, about 2,400 acres.

The earliest owner I've found is the Shire Reeve (Scirefas) Aelpheah, who passed on his lands to the king between 965 and 975. From here it was a royal manor held. The Domesday book states the area was owned held by the King still.