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Seeing the Vale as a verb not a noun   a.k.a. 'places as processes' Preamble My main aim with the Chronicle is to keep the entries lite and fluffy. But this does not mean the thinking which led up to the content was in the least welterweight or fuzzy. What follows is mostly a lightly-edited version of an article which has been published twice before. The aim is to provide a 'Regular and Comfy' introduction to how I – and some academics – think about places. And how I began to regard places as processes. At the end I have added some new remarks relating specifically to the Vale. Thinking about places Have you been anywhere recently? What sort of place was it? A town, a hill, a field, a beach, a river, or someplace else? What do we mean by ‘place’ anyway? It’s one of the those frequently-used words which has a slippery meaning. Etymologically, the core meaning is ‘spot’ or ‘courtyard’ – think Italian piazza or Spanish plaza – but even older is a sense of somewhere ‘broad’ (Greek plateia). The Anglo-Saxons had two words, stede and stow, with the same sense. So in Old English a churchyard was kirk stede. Stow on the Wolds, Padstow (originally [St] Petroc’s stow), Stowmarket and numerous other English place-names reveal the large number of notable stows. One would expect that the academics who study the names of places would have establish a ‘theory of place’ on which their discipline is based. But this is not the case. Only in the late 1970s did place-names scholars start to think that visiting the places the names referred to was necessary. The reality of place-name studies is an emphasis on names rather than the places the names refer to. Formidable linguistic skills are needed for this but there was no corresponding emphasis on geographical skills. So let’s step back a little. Place-names mostly relate to ‘places’, however conceived, which have some sort of topographical setting – such as beside a river or on the slope of a hill. They usually have a sense of centre and some concept of boundaries, although these are often vague or mutable. What we think of as a place is essentially a mix of topography (especially geomorphology and soil types) with the multiple ‘functions’ of the place (with plenty of scope for changes over time, or for multiple functions at the same time). For example, Waltons were once occupied by British-speaking slaves (Old English wahl, cognate with Modern English 'Wales'), though the name persisted long after everyone was using Old English. Waltons are typically on less well-drained soils, or heavier clays, or had less reliable water sources – very much ‘second-best’ locations. Topography and functions come together in a different manner at the various places called Bradford, self-evidently located where a river was once crossed without using a bridge or ferry. The designation ‘broad’, originally meaning ‘great’ rather than ‘wide’, affirms these were important. Indeed, such crossing places bring together land and water transport so market towns developed around them. But of course not all market towns are located at fords called ‘Bradford’ – even if a ford was once key to the location, as at Melton Mowbray. Place-names usually refer to settlements or other human ‘constructs’ which either have an exact location – as with fords, wells, hill tops, small shrines (weohs, stapols), churches, or something quite specific, such as smithies. Or the places have an implicit centre – as with settlements and larger shrines (heargs). But in reality this distinction often blurs, as when the implicit centre is a church or other ‘specific’, with the ‘specific’ giving its name to the settlement and, in many cases, to the surrounding parish. Most commonly this is where the village takes its name from the church – Peterchurch, Padstow or Westminster and such like – although there are parallel examples based on river crossings, such as the various Bradfords or Bristol, originally the ‘bridge stow’. But there’s a problem. Many settlement names refer to nucleated villages. But these were formed several centuries after the coining of the name. What did the name initially refer to? Presumably an ‘estate centre’ – think of a large farm – near the most reliable water source, on well-drained sand or gravel, probably with a separate water course for effluent. Just such a location would be ideal for the later nucleated village. So, presumably, the name remained the same even though the settlement changed dramatically. Some of those small villages later became planned ‘new towns’ and expanded into neat toft-and-croft plots for the families recruited to form part of such planted market towns. Not all of these new towns took off so some remained ‘mere villages’, while others expanded greatly over the following centuries, becoming the market towns and, later, industrialised factory towns. If this sounds like a blindingly obvious summary of English settlement patterns then you’ve missed the point. Despite all these changes the name of the place has remained more or less the same. Places often evolve to a much greater extent than the names. If you go to a Bradford you are unlikely to take much interest in the crossing of the river, still less wonder when the broad ford was replaced by a bridge. If you visit places with equally common names – such as Drayton, Eaton, Grafton, Kingston, Moreton or Stretton – I suspect you will have little idea why they were so called (read Cole 2010 and Bourne 2017 if you want to know). So while we use place-names on a daily basis, we rarely stop to consider either their original meaning or the ways in which the places have evolved since the name was given to the locality. Centres have circumferences Places aren’t simply centred on somewhere, they also have boundaries with other places. In recent centuries such boundaries tend to be tightly defined, as with parishes and counties. But that was not always the case – the Anglo-Saxons carefully managed areas of ‘no man’s land’ which were grazed by several adjoining parishes. These were the sorts of places also used for seasonal gatherings. Before that major Roman roads, such as Watling Street and the Fosse Way, mostly follow watersheds seemingly crossing though long-standing ‘no man’s land’ as these roads rarely pass by Iron Age hill forts – commonly found on just such high ground between valleys. What was the sense of boundary before the granting of charters and later tithes and precursors to ‘Council Tax’ made exact bounds more essential? Boundaries are needed – but they also need to be crossed by administrators, merchants, pilgrims and others. They may also be crossed for more nefarious reasons – toll-dodging, cattle raiding and related ‘protection rackets’, or by armies passing through on their way to or from a major battle elsewhere (Weber 2005: 14–15). The boundaries of the Vale. We now think of rivers as good boundaries, but this seems to have been an innovation during the middle Anglo-Saxon era, as the oldest land units seem to be associated with valleys, with the boundaries along the watersheds (Whittock and Whittock 2014). This is true for the Vale of Belvoir and Rutland. Longer rivers seemingly were regarded as a series of valley territories (Trubshaw 2015). Places as processes Attempting to shed light on all the questions which arise when thinking about places leads to the inevitable conclusion that the concept of place is the sum total of all the functions and activities in the locality. In other words, places are social constructs, albeit almost always with various topographical constraints. This makes places more like verbs than nouns. If that sounds odd then think about the core reason for place-names: to distinguish one place from other places. Places – and their names – are not so much inanimate ’things’ as ongoing ‘differentiations’. And here I am using the word ‘differentiation’ in the technical sense of referring to the process of becoming different by growth or development, as when biological cells and organs acquire specialised features during embryonic development. If you are looking for a snappy sound bite then perhaps ‘places are processes’ comes close. Sacred Places is available as a free PDF. Back in 2005 I published a whole book looking at the invention of the idea of prehistoric sacred places. The first chapter looked at the roots of such numinous locations: the invention of the English rural idyll in the period from the 1890s to the 1930s. But secular and downright functional places have been ‘invented’ too. The Vale as a process Crucial to understanding places – or even just their names – is an awareness of what a place is, and the various phases and functions which underlie the modern place, whether unremittingly urban or remotely rural. To once more state the blindingly obvious, the main 'process' in the Vale of Belvoir has been farming. Until the mid-twentieth century the majority of the population would either have been directly involved in arable and pastoral agriculture – and I include cheesemaking and other dairy activities within that scope – or would have been supporting those people as blacksmiths, millers, waggoners and carters, shopkeepers, dressmakers, butchers, bakers and, yes, candlestick makers too. Manners Arms, Knipton, in 2025. There was a significant diversification when the Vale benefited from the commercialisation of fox hunting, after the Belvoir Hunt was founded 1760–2 by the 3rd Duke of Rutland. However, unlike around Melton Mowbray, only a small number of hunting lodges were built in the Vale, such as the Georgian building which is now the Manners Arms on the outskirts of Knipton. The six inches to one mile 1883 OS maps provide a detailed insight into the evolution of the 'agricultural process', while the revised editions during the first half of the twentieth century almost 'bookend' many thousands of years of changes. Agriculture is still important in the Vale. But since about 1950 the number of people directly and indirectly involved has dropped to a small proportion of the Vale's population. Cheesemaking and other food processing has moved from farms into towns, such as Melton Mowbray, or to a small number of Stilton dairies. From the 1970s onwards many of the villages and towns of the Vale evolved into dormitories for people working elsewhere – although since 2019 that is shifting to more people working mostly from home – and as homes for people of retirement age, including people who have lived in the villages all their lives. Overall this makes the settlements much wealthier than, say, a hundred years ago. This in turn supports an assortment of shops and pub restaurants. All of this is consistent with changes elsewhere in much of the East Midlands, excluding the cities, larger towns and former coal mining areas. Similarly the ongoing process of commercial development in the Vale broadly match those elsewhere. The substantial growth of Bingham in recent decades has resulted in the town centre shops remaining viable and pitching at the wealthier end of people living in nearby villages. One, presumably unexpected, outcome is that Bingham now has a substantial Cantonese population in contrast to the predominately Caucasian residents elsewhere in the Vale. I look forward to dragon dances in Bingham market place at Chinese New Year… Bingham and Bottesford planners have created areas devoted to industrial units. Some businesses are primarily warehouses or for manufacturing but in Bingham there is a good mix of retail activities, such as tyre sales and an independent DIY store. Solar farms are steadily being added to the Vale – so far not too intrusively – although planners have recognised the scenic attraction of the area so applications to install wind farms have been turned down. Belvoir Castle's web site in 2025. One contemporary 'process' is surprisingly almost absent, with one notable exception. In the last fifty-or-so years tourism has developed in the Vale, but to a much lesser extent than might be expected for somewhere so picturesque. Events at Belvoir Castle and the associated 'retail therapy village' are the main attraction. The church in Bottesford seems to attract a steady stream of visitors in the warmer months, perhaps because it provides an 'extra attraction' for visitors to the castle. But the Vale does not offer what tourism promoters term an 'interconnected tourism cluster' whereby different independent 'attractions' feed visitors to each other. For a good example, think of how the Great Central Railway is, at its southern terminus, close to the National Space Centre and Abbey Pumping Station while, at Loughborough, is within walking distance of the John Taylor Bell Foundry Museum and Charnwood Museum. A recently-constructed branch line to Mountsorrel terminates at a Heritage Centre with an extensive cafe. Within a few years the GCR will also operate from Loughborough to the transport museum at Ruddington. Unfortunately plans for a nationally-significant railway museum at the southern terminus were cancelled. While there are museums nearby in Grantham, Newark and Melton Mowbray there is only a modest one in the Vale itself, at Flintham, which is only open by appointment. However the Eastwell Heritage Centre, with a focus on ironstone quarrying, is in development. Lord Granby, a former quarry locomotive, will be the centrepiece of Eastwell Heritage Centre. Why so little tourism? As a somewhat tendentious aside, it is worth thinking about why the Vale of Belvoir has surprisingly little tourism. A main reason is that the local authority, Rushcliffe BC, devotes its attention to the suburb of West Bridgford where its offices are – and, presumably, where most of its staff live – and seemingly has no inclinations or incentives to develop and, more importantly, promote the history and tourism amenities of the many rural villages in the Vale which by far make up the largest part of the borough. Nottinghamshire CC's Visitor Economy Strategy of 2022 makes reference to Rufford Abbey, Sherwood Forest and Clumber Park. But not a single mention of the Vale of Belvoir. And not a single quantifiable target or goal anywhere in the document. So an undiluted waffle-fest! Rushcliffe BC's 'hands off' approach contrasts sharply with Melton BC's ongoing promotion of the 'heritage foods' associated with Melton Mowbray. And similarly contrasts with Leicestershire CC's long-standing support for the county's heritage attractions and tourism generally. Significantly, the heritage centre developments at Eastwell are supported by Melton BC and Leicestershire CC as the parish is not in Rushcliffe. Whatever the reasons, the Vale has yet to effectively engage with adding tourism to its other 'processes'. Indeed, with the exception of odd-ball web sites such as this one, no one is attempting to create an 'identity' for the Vale of Belvoir, other than putting the eponymous castle centre-stage. Estate agents promote the Vale as having high-status, and thus inflating property values, but their fuzzy ideas of the Vale extend beyond the actual boundaries into the Wreake valley, thereby undermining any attempts to give the Vale a well-defined identity. The Vale is within Rushcliffe BC because of a pragmatic 'fix' made in AD 950. Seriously. That fix no longer makes sense 1,075 years later. Heretical as it might seem to some, but Rushcliffe BC should be split up with the suburb of West Bridgford and all places to the west of the Fosse Way joining Nottingham City Council (which should have happened long ago, to the benefit of the city) or Nottinghamshire Council. Then the substantial easterly 'rump' of Rushcliffe BC, including Bingham, can be renamed the 'Vale of Belvoir Borough Council'. And, yes, I do realise the extreme north and south of the Vale will remain under Newark and Melton administration, as they are currently. The benefits of the 'processes' that this injection of realism would trigger need serious consideration. Back to the main plot… While this entry started with some 'deep thinking' about places and how they continually evolve it ends with a pen portrait of quite rapidly-changing 'processes' in the Vale during the twenty-first century, and where those 'processes' are – or are currently not – heading. While the 'processes' which make up the Vale have increased in recent decades, so far there have been few radical changes, least of all ones which are different to most of the East Midlands. Further reading If yopu feel the need to get up to speed with informed ways of thinking about places then back in 2019 I published a free PPF called (don't die of surprise!) Thinking About Places. Sources Although not explicitly cited, key ideas in this entry come from the insights of the 'Two Tims' – Tim Cresswell and Tim Ingold. The latter's book Being Alive is simply packed with new ways to think about how we experience places. Tim Cresswell's book Place: an introduction is indeed an introduction but also an update and assessment of earlier attempts to think more 'formally' about place. Bourne, Jill, 2017, The Place-name Kingston and Royal Power in Middle Anglo-Saxon England, BAR Reports. Cole, Ann, 2010, The place-name evidence for a routeway network in early Medieval England. Dphil thesis. University of Oxford; free PDF available online at ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f098ff71-7f78-45a8-b8a2-efd9c0e26345 Cresswell, Tim, 2015, Place: an introduction, 2nd edn, Wiley. Gelling, Margaret, 1978, Signposts to the Past: Place-names and the history of England, Dent; second edition 1988. Gelling, Margaret, 1984, Place-Names in the Landscape: The geographical roots of Britain's place-names, Dent. Gelling, Margaret and Ann Cole, 2000, The Landscape of Place-Names, Shaun Tyas. Ingold, Tim, 2011, Being Alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description, Routledge. Trubshaw, Bob, 2005, Sacred Places: Prehistory and popular imagination, Heart of Albion; online at www.hoap.co.uk/sacred_places.pdf Trubshaw, Bob, 2015, Minsters and Valleys: A topographical comparison of seventh and eighth century land use in Leicestershire and Wiltshire; online at www.hoap.co.uk/general.htm#m&v Trubshaw, Bob, 2017, ‘Ruminations from Elsewhere: From Walton to Alexandria', Northern Earth No.149, p20–5. Trubshaw, Bob, 2019, Thinking About Places, Heart of Albion; free PDF online at www.hoap.co.uk/thinking_about_places.pdf Weber, Elka, 2005, Travelling Through Text: Message and method in late medieval pilgrimage accounts, Routledge. Whittock, Hannah and Martyn Whittock, 2014, The Anglo-Saxon Avon Valley Frontier: A river of two halves, Fonthill. Back to top of this page     Back to home page   This website does not gather or store any visitor information. Copyright Bob Trubshaw 2025 No unauthorised copying or reproduction except if all following conditions apply: a: Copy is complete (including this copyright statement). b: No changes are made. c: No charge is made. www.hoap.co.uk/chronicle

Chronicle entries home page what's new? the geology of the Vale the boundaries and rivers of the Vale long, long ago prehistory in the Vale prehistoric boundaries in the Vale north-south prehistoric routeways Romans roads in the Vale Roman settlements in and near the Vale long ago introduction to Anglo-Saxons place-names of the Vale waterborne transport around the sixth century Orston's early church Anglo-Saxon sculpture in the Vale why Orston lost out to Bingham and Bottesford what the Normans did for the Vale Granby's importance in 1086 Granby's lost castle the Vale's watermills in 1086 Romanesque sculpture in the Vale St Remigius why Bottesford is in Leicestershire the Vale in medieval times medieval gargoyles of the Vale Eastwell's chancel screen St Ethelburga's church other early saints Elston's old chapel Muston and Long Clawson saltways of the Vale the Vale's medieval tile collection the Vale in Tudor times Dissolution in the Vale not that long ago the Vale in the C17th the 'great and the good' of the Vale Bottesford's effigies 'wicked practice and sorcerye' the whales on the Whalley memorial Car Colston's bigoted GP cum JP the Vale's very own regicide Wiverton Hall five rare C17th fonts in the Vale pinfolds and pounds in the Vale dovecotes in the Vale the Vale in the C18th turnpiking the Vale gravestones and C18th trade routes goodbye 'Belvoir Angels' C18th gravestone carvers in the Vale Daffy's Elixir the Marquess of Granby Stilton from the Vale springs and spas of the Vale outstanding organs in the Vale Grantham canal changes in the Vale's agriculture since 1800 Eastwell's recusant priest house and chapel Colston Bassett's ruined church seems like yesterday windmills in the Vale stained glass in the Vale village life in the southern Vale 1850 to 1880 folklore of the Vale Flintham museum lacemaking in the Vale gypsum pits in the Vale brick and tile works in the Vale ironstone quarrying in the Vale ironstone railways ironstone quarries of Leicestershire (YouTube video) The Vale's railway stations Orston's famous architect Mothers Union banners of the Vale redundant telephone exchanges in the Vale WWII airfields and pillboxes in the Vale the Vale in 1944 location shooting at Belvoir Castle Screveton's giants researching and writing local history the Vale as a verb getting started free advice from 2005 asking curious questions (YouTube video) local history groups in and around the Vale Aslockton (Cranmer LHG) Bingham Heritage Trails Association Bottesford Eastwell Harby Harlaxton Hickling Redmile archive Belvoir Villages History and Memories Group Belvoir Angel Society Grantham Canal Society you may also be interested in free PDFs written by Bob Trubshaw Earliest Churches in Nottinghamshire How Anglo-Saxons Found Their Way Anglo-Saxon Leicestershire Conversations in Churchyards Little-known Leicestershire and Rutland Bob Trubshaw's YouTube channel Introduction to medieval carvings Anglo-Saxon and Romanesque carvings How Anglo-Saxons found their way Anglo-Saxon shrines at fords Meetings at triangles Rota's Land and Franni's Land Reading Romanesque fonts Church and manor The significances of square headdresses Early churches and waterborne trade Charnwood slate gravestones and C18th trade routes Ironstone quarries of Leicestershire Roman roads in north-east Leicestershire Salt ways in Leicestershire Why Melton Mowbray needed to called 'middle town' Evolving Anglo-Saxon agriculture Nottinghamshire's earliest churches Ploughs not piety? Economic regeneration in the C7th Were Anglo-Saxon weaving huts women-only places? Barrowby Until Now website Rutland Village by Village website Sepulchral Effigies of Leicestershire and Rutland