Sandridge Village History
by Reg Auckland

Celtic Sandridge
© Reg Auckland all rights reserved, no copying without permission.

Fifty-five years before the birth of Christ the great Roman soldier and politician Julius Cæsar invaded Britannia for the second time. His initial campaign had been in the previous year when the tribes who opposed him had been subdued and he received their submission and hostages. But with the weather destroying a number of his invasion ships and the realization that he did not have enough troops and with an insufficient food supply for a sustained occupation, Cæsar returned to Gaul after only a few weeks.

On his second attempt, however, he was better equipped with six hundred transports and twenty warships carrying two Legions as well as two thousand mounted soldiers plus auxiliary troops. Three Legions and another two thousand cavalry were left behind in Gaul as a reserve force. Landing near Deal, the Roman commander quickly disembarked his troops, set up a base camp and began to march inland by night. After two or three skirmishes with Celtic warriors he was summoned back to the shore camp where a storm had wrecked and made unusable much of the invasion fleet. For ten days or so, the troops were involved in beaching all the damaged ships and building a substantial fortified camp. When this was done Cæsar returned to a site he had captured a few days previously and which he fortified before returning once again to the base camp.

During the Romans' enforced re-strengthening of their defences, the Britons had gathered forces under Cassivellaunus, tribal leader and king of the Catuvellauni whose territory included Hertfordshire. This was a warlike tribe and had often fought against the Trinovantes in neighbouring Essex and had aggrandisement ambitions. The Catuvellauni defied submission to the enemy and had probably been involved in fighting the Romans the year before. This belligerent tribe, probably joined by other belligerent tribes, travelled to face the invaders somewhere south of the river Thames. The native force engaged the Romans in battle but it was beaten by the superior tactics and arms of a disciplined army and retreated across the river at Brentford, according to the majority of historians. Here palisades and concealed stakes were constructed to further impede Cæsar's progress but which proved unavailing, and the Romans once more attacked putting the enemy to final flight.

Information about Cassivellaunus' headquarters was received from tribes friendly to Cæsar and he marched his forces straight to it by the use of guides. The fortified place, or oppida as the Romans termed it, is strongly believed to have been at Wheathampstead. Whether this oppida was THE capital centre of the Catuvellauni or only one of a number of such places with the main oppida elsewhere has yet to be discovered. Its site of 80 to 100 acres may make it an inferior, a moderate or a superior settlement. It was defended on three sides by large deep ditches and on the fourth by the river and marshy land. The general attacked on two sides and the prize was soon won resulting in the capture of men and cattle. One of these ditches no longer exists, but the other two are Devil's Dyke and the Slad/Moat.

The Celts who were not killed or captured fled to the woods and bided their time until the Romans withdrew from the area. When this happened within a few months, they returned to the oppida and began life anew. The oppida has not yet been excavated and there is no way of knowing the extent of occupation until this had been done. However, crop marks immediately north of the river at Marford show that it was not only the oppida that was occupied and used. This northern area may have been in use any time from 500 BC to 50 AD.

Some historians say that after the Cæsarean defeat the Catuvellauni moved their settlement to Pré Wood at St. Albans and totally abandoned their life on the river Lea. This may be true, but the possibility cannot be excluded that several families remained on the old site and continued farming and trading. A group of people may have moved several hundred yards east down the valley of the Lea and settled by another ford, clearing and cultivating an area of land. The Lea rises in the Chiltern Hills and wends its crooked way through Hertfordshire to disgorge into the Thames at Canning Town. K. Rutherford Davis in "Britons & Saxons The Chiltern Regions" says that 'lea' (Lig(e)an in 880 AD) is certainly of British origin, from the Celtic root lug-; in Welsh goleu, lleufer 'light'; meaning 'bright river' or 'river sacred to the god Lugus.' This place by the second ford is known today as Waterend and is probably the first inhabited place of the manor of Sandridge. Manor is a comprehensive word. It can be known as a single farm or number of farms comprising the manor. Each is a sub-manor in itself (except where there is but a single farm) with the oldest and/or largest being the most important and where the manor house would normally be situated. No excavation has been done at this ford-site, but some Roman earthenware was found four hundred yards west of the modern ford by an amateur archæologist. Unfortunately the find was never recorded.

Shortly after the Romans made their third and final invasion of Britannia and colonised it in the middle of the first century AD, they made a road which started at the North-east Gate at St. Michael's village in St. Albans and traversed Sandridge to Coleman Green. Here the road descended on the south side of the Lea valley and crossed the river at a point about seventy yards west of the present ford. The ford - which shows no sign of paving - was ideal for tumbrils and carts. There may have been a foot-bridge or stepping stones. Such an involuntary stopping place usually attracted permanent people and from this may have developed a small settlement of people. The road continued to Welwyn and from there to the important road junctions at Braughing.

As far as I am aware, no Celtic coins have been found in the parish.

Author: Reg Auckland

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