The Making of Dorney: Landscape and Settlement through Time

Introduction

Dorney’s story is written into its land. From the gravel “islands” of the Thames floodplain to the commons and meadows that still shape its village character, every feature tells of centuries of change.
Julian Munby’s archaeological and landscape research reveals how the area evolved—from its early riverside settlements and medieval open fields to the enclosed farms and greens of the modern parish.
What follows is a summary of his study, tracing how the land itself shaped the people, and how the people, in turn, shaped the land.

A landscape shaped by rivers and gravel “islands”

Eton and Dorney sit on a chain of gravel “islands” in the Thames floodplain. Ancient and shifting river channels guided every stage of settlement and still shape today’s fields, commons and meadows. While the area can be studied alone—and has seen intensive archaeological work—it also fits within a wider regional pattern.

The regional setting: long parishes from Chilterns to Thames

North of the river, the Eton/Dorney area forms the southern tail of the Burnham Plateau. Historic parishes here typically stretch in long strips from Chiltern wood-pasture down to the Thames meadows. Settlements often lie near the 45-metre contour on the Boyn Hill gravel terrace, with extensive riverside meadow below and woodland and commons above. Fisheries were important; woodland even more so.

Key early map sources include:

• Estate maps: Dorney (1812, Bucks RO Ma/63/4T) and Eton (1742, Eton Archives S1/135)

• Ordnance Survey drawing (OSD 153, 1811) and one-inch Sheet 7 (1822)

• First edition 6-inch OS maps (1875–83) for parish boundaries and topography

• Victoria County History for manorial links

Hundreds, liberties, and outliers

Administrative geography mirrors these long parishes. Burnham Hundred extends north to the Chilterns; Stoke Hundred occupies the south-east. Many riverside manors held detached outliers up in the hills—echoes of ancient grazing rights rather than tidy late divisions. Examples include Dorney's in Dorney Wood, Taplow’s outlier in Penn, Farnham at Seer Green, and Eton’s medieval reach to Wexham and Hedgerley.

Local geology and the settlement pattern

Dorney, Boveney, and Eton occupy low gravel islands amid alluvium. Here, unlike many medieval villages, commons sit centrally and arable runs to the margins—even along the Thames. Former channels often survive as hay meadows and pasture.

Early medieval framework (before and around Domesday)

No Anglo-Saxon charters survive locally (apart from Datchet), but 19th-century parish boundaries often fossilise earlier estates. Of the riverside parishes, Eton alone reads as a “natural territory,” bounded by the Thames, Boveney & Roundmoor Ditches, Chalvey Ditch, and Willow Brook. Dorney’s limits broadly follow Roundmoor Ditch and the Thames, with some artificial, step-like boundary lines across furlongs and a long-standing common at Dorney Green [Common].

Boveney was a Liberty within Burnham parish—an exempt jurisdiction with detached pieces (notably around Lake End). It appears separately in Domesday as a manor, though without full parochial status.

Domesday snapshots (1086): people, ploughs, meadows

• Tenant counts are modest: e.g., Boveney 1 villager; Dorney 11; Eton 21; Burnham 37; Taplow 24.

• Arable potential (“land for ploughs”) varies: Dorney 3; Boveney 3½; Hitcham 6; Eton 8; Upton 10; Burnham 15; Taplow 16—yet value did not track ploughland neatly (Taplow’s 16 ploughlands valued at £8; Burnham’s 15 at £10).

• Meadows were prized: Boveney had meadow for 3 ploughs—more than Eton or Upton (2 each), and more than Taplow or Hitcham (1 each).

• Dorney’s horse pasture is unusually noted, foreshadowing later royal stud activity at nearby Cippenham.

• Mills are oddly scarce here: only at Eton (20s) and Upton (4s), despite Taplow’s proximity to the Thames.

The medieval working landscape

By the high medieval period, large open fields were divided into strip furlongs. Communal rules opened fields to grazing after harvest and apportioned hay meadows—vital on this flood-prone ground—along active or former channels (Roundmoor, Boveney/Cresswell [Cress Brook], and the Amerden Grove ditch).

Manorial holdings overlapped across parishes. At least eight major manors (Taplow, Amerden, Huntercombe, Burnham Abbey, Dorney, Cippenham, Eton, Upton) and others (Weston, Boveney) held dispersed pieces; courts regulated use.

• Eton likely operated a two-field system (“North” and “South”).

• Dorney shows a more complex pattern: North Field, South Field, Thames Field, and possibly Upcote/Oak Stubbe (the last perhaps a later name). Closes near the church and along the Burnham road add to the mosaic.

• Cippenham’s “Le Parke” (from 1272) enclosed c. 308 acres with a large moated site—first for deer, then (by mid-14th century) a royal stud under Edward III.

Enclosure and the post-medieval shift

Change was gradual and often by agreement (c.1550–1800), with later Parliamentary Acts finishing the job in many parishes. Eton and Dorney were never enclosed by Act. Dorney enclosed Pound Green by agreement in 1790; by 1811–22 OS mapping shows no surviving subdivided open fields. Nearby Acts: Taplow (1779), Hitcham (1778), Upton (1808), Stoke Poges (1810), Farnham Royal (1821). A bid to enclose Dorney Common in 1869 failed; it survived to be registered in the 1960s.

Into the modern era

Tithe and Enclosure maps, plus large-scale OS (c.1875–80), bridge medieval patterns to the present: still largely rural settlements (Upton is the exception, quadrupling in population by 1861). Major landholders in 1873 included the Grenfells (Taplow Manor), the Dukes of Sutherland and Westminster, Sir Charles Palmer (c.1,482 acres), and Eton College (c.1,007 acres). Early 20th-century ownership is traceable via the 1909–10 Lloyd George “Domesday” and the 1940–43 national farm surveys.

Dorney in detail (c.1812): settlement, fields, water

The 1812 Dorney map (“A Plan of Boveney lower side, with the lower side of Part of the Parish of Dorney”) is crucial.

Houses & greens

• Settlement is dispersed: around the church and manor, straggling along Dorney Green [Common], and clustered at Lake End Green [Common]; Boveney has a smaller line around its common.

• Many plots look like regular tofts (traditional peasant holdings) rather than encroachments. Lake End properties feel more like late arrivals edging into former open space.

• Archaeology at Lot’s Hole hints at shifting focus over time; field names such as Great/Little Somertons suggest a lost hamlet.

Fields & meadows

• North Field and Thames Field preserve the footprint of the old open fields (though divided by 1812).

• Prime hay land—Dorney Mead, Lower Meadow, Calves Leys—likely once allotted in strips (tenancies in 1812 include Perryman, Want, Trumper).

• Numerous closes north of the church may mark former demesne, a reduced third field, or a separate hamlet focus (e.g., paddocks by Lot’s Hole; West Farm Common hints toward West Town Farm in Burnham).

Watercourses

• Open ditches are still shown, rising as ponds/springs at the north and flowing south to the Thames—by then functioning more as local drains and meadow-makers than through-flowing river channels.

Sources & acknowledgements

Adapted from:
Julian Munby, Gathering the People, Settling the Land, Oxford Archaeological Unit.
Additional references include Campbell (1971), Chenevix Trench (1973), Higham (1990), Hall (1982), Victoria County History (1925), and archival holdings at the Buckinghamshire Record Office, Eton College Archives, the British Library, and The National Archives.