Wild Goose Chase: in Search of the Tocan Stanæ (“Tocca’s Stone”) and Joining Up Dots on a Map

Not having learnt my lesson from previous failed searches for named Anglo-Saxon stones, I go out in search of the Tocan Stanæ (“Tocca’s stone”). Knowing Tockenham in Wiltshire is somehow related to it I start there with the church and its remarkable Genius Loci statue in the wall of the church, an ancient Roman statue that once belonged in the giant Roman villa nearby.
I then start getting overenthusiastic joining dots on a map: it is lucky I don’t have an academic reputation to lose!
These history walk videos are about the English landscape in and around the south west of England (though I make the odd foray into Wales). I often use ancient charters (such as Saxon charters) to give me insight into the way the landscape was viewed in the past.
But it is not the Saxons that interest me the most (though they do) but the prehistoric world and its ancient monuments, trackways and ditches.
#Archaeology #oldenglishcharters #antiquarians #historywalks #britishhistory #romanbritain #tockenham #saxon

[@poltergeistbingo9144]

your videos are so evocatively and interestingly shot, they're lovely to watch. you were brave not breaking into a trot when the cows started coming over! Good luck with finding the stone (careful at those dangerous boundaries :)

[@johngough4172]

Just fascinating thank you, I live in Tockenham and have never heard of Tocca’s stone although new the village name meant Tocca’s ham I assumed the Roman road/route out from the villa site followed the byway towards little park farm Very interested in any other insights you have on Tockenham and it’s history Thank you

[@AllotmentFox]

Thanks, John. A lot of what I do is based on fragments and there is no Saxon charter for Tockenham that talks of the boundary and it is the Saxon's desire to make sure everyone understood exactly where his property is delimited meant that where there is a boundary charter we can learn a lot about the early English and how they saw the land. The early English are very similar to the modern English when it comes to property. The Tocan stone is in the charter of Clife which is Clyffe Pypard and Broad Town combined. You can read it here -- esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk/charter/846.html# The part in Latin is the legal stuff and then you will see some peculiar English starting with Aerest ('ere-iest, earliest first), this is the land boundary description: go here then here, etc I have just noticed I have made a small error in my translation. It is a fortunate error because it means that Tocca's stone must be at the meeting of the three boundaries if that junction existed. I need to go back.

[@WC21UKProductionsLtd]

Do you have anything to suggest the stone is still there? I've read the comments below and understand that you've now identified its location - look forward to finding out if it still exists. The Roman carving in the church wall was rather wonderful. It's fascinating when you find these Pagan symbols in a Christian church.

[@AllotmentFox]

It’s a challenge to my self-imposed rules being 50 yards from the public footpath, and the livestock (and a house on the corner) trouble me enough to not want to use the drone. I’m thinking about it. I have hoisted myself on my own petard with my righteous outbursts. I do want to see it, if it is still there but as you might remember many of them aren’t. Nonetheless I am pleased with figuring it out. There is another god in a church in Marlborough, actually inside this time, but heavily mutilated by the comrades in Cromwell’s army. The silly ba*****ds.

[@sswan5271]

Try again in winter?

[@AllotmentFox]

I know where it is now, see my reply to johngough4172

[@johngough4172]

@@AllotmentFox what’s happening at chaddington can see on some old maps 5 tracks or roads all converged at chaddington