Kilham : Potential For Further Research

The outstanding significance of the extant late prehistoric and Romano-British monuments in Glendale and the Cheviots needs no emphasis. Several recent surveys undertaken by English Heritage as part of the Discovering our Hillfort Heritage Project have revealed just how many elements of the more extensive landscape can be traced around these sites and demonstrated the progress which can be made in phasing the various different components through detailed survey. However major questions of chronology, site hierarchy, settlement transition remain unresolved and when set against the outstanding survival international quality of these historic landscapes it is extraordinary how little has been carried out in recent decades.

The late Antique/Early Medieval Period is still especially poorly understood. Significant progress has been made in understanding the overall pattern of estates known as 'shires' or 'multiple estates' and something of their historical development. Some of the major estate centres have been investigated or are known from aerial photography (e.g. Ad Gefrin, Maelmin, Sprouston) and a few lesser sites have been excavated, notably Thirlings. However the processes by which shift was accomplished from the numerous hilltop or hillside settlements of the Romano-British period to the nucleated villages - like Kilham - located in the valley bottom, which are apparent in the 12th and 13th centuries, remain very unclear. This shift undeniably represents a substantial reordering of settlement and society over time.

The Kirkham Cartulary contains a great deal of detailed information, not only about the extent and location of the priory's holdings in Glendale, but also regarding the way the institution was managing its land and, in particular, the livestock it maintained there. In most cases the locations named in the cartulary are not immediately identifiable with any current place names, however more prolonged and systematic study, involving detailed scrutiny of all the available estate maps and their attached schedules might begin to yield positive and highly significant results which could then be validated by field examination.