The story of Bolton

TAKE a stroll down Churchgate and you are in the heart of old Bolton. This is where our town began.

It's a good spot, raised high and protected to the north, north-west and east by the steep sided valleys cut by the River Croal some 12,000 years ago, when the glaciers from the last Ice Age were melting.

The land still falls away sharply down to the car park by St Peter's Way, and also down past Prestons to the bottom of Bank Street.

In times past, the whole area must have stood proud like an island, with good views as well as good land and good fishing. Water came from the Spa Well (on Spa Lane) and the Silver Well (on, surprisingly enough Silverwell Street). The southern approaches were guarded by bogs and marshes. All in all it was the ideal spot for a village.

It's perfectly possible that Churchgate was inhabited as far back as the Bronze Age. But when it comes to the Saxon era all speculation must cease. There definitely was a Saxon settlement in Bolton. And furthermore it was called Bolton -- or something very like it.

When the Roman army pulled out in 406 AD, the local Britons had to look after themselves.

Their high king, Vortigern, finding himself beset on all sides by barbarian invaders, hired Anglo-Saxon and Jutish mercenaries from Denmark and north Germany. Tradition has it that the first boat load, under the command of two brothers called Hengist and Horsa, arrived at Thanet in Kent in 448 AD.

After quickly trouncing Vortigern's enemies, they looked around the island and liked it so much that they decided to keep it. The ensuing war was the time of King Arthur, but despite his great victory at Mount Badon the Anglo-Saxons were eventually triumphant.

The native Britons were forced back into Wales and Cornwall. The Jutes settled in Kent, the Saxons in Essex, Sussex, Middlesex and Wessex, and the Angles everywhere else.

In time, the country came to be called Angle-land or England.

Bolton is a Saxon word. Our town was known in its earliest days as Botheltun -- "bothel", in Old English, is a dwelling and "tun" is an enclosure. This name (one of 13 Boltons in the north country) confirms that we were around in Anglo-Saxon times. But those times lasted from 450 to 1066. Can we be more specific?

Unfortunately, the early history we have is confused and confusing. The Anglo-Saxons probably arrived in the middle of the Sixth Century. At that time their world was split into a large number of warring petty states.

The infant Bolton may have been in Deira, one of the three Kingdoms of Northumbria. Starting from a base in Yorkshire the Deirans seem to have edged west over the Pennines, meeting stubborn resistance from the resident native Britons all the while.

The war was long and nasty, but in the end Deira consumed most of what is now Lancashire up to the Fylde coast, and also Cheshire, Anglesey, and the Isle of Man. Perhaps this was the origin of Botheltun, with the a band of Saxon heavies taking over a small British village and changing its name.

They would have kept the locals on as slaves or serfs and settled down to enjoy the finer things in life -- drinking ale, listening to epic poetry, and polishing weapons while waiting for trouble.

Alternatively we might imagine a band of frontiersmen finding the site above the Croal, throwing down their packs and saying: "This'll do." In which case they would have spent less time boozing and more time farming. But they still probably kept their weapons handy, and waited for trouble to start.

They wouldn't have had to wait for too long. The Anglo-Saxon period was full of war, Kingdoms rose and fell, and were consumed.

Deira became part of the midland kingdom of Mercia in the reign of Offa (757-96.) Later still Mercia, and the rest of Saxon England fell under the control of Egbert of Wessex, (802-829), the first "King of the English".

Then, as if civil war wasn't enough, an external threat loomed in the formidable shape of the Vikings, who first sailed into English history in the 790s.

At first they looted, burned and pillaged and then sailed off back to Denmark or Norway, heavily laden with gold and slaves. But they, too, liked the look of England and decided to take a piece of it.

By 876, most of England, except for Wessex, was dominated by the new conquerors.

Did the Vikings come to Botheltun? There's no evidence one way or the other. Perhaps the little village contained nothing worth stealing or burning and was thus left in peace. Or perhaps it was saved by the rugged nature of the surrounding country and the equally rugged nature of its inhabitants. A later account from a manuscript at Furness Abbey describes both in the following terms. The land was "almost inaccessible, infested by a great number of wolves, and its inhabitants thinly scattered, uncivilized and ungovernable". No wonder the Vikings stayed away.

By 918 AD our area had been re-conquered. And from this subsequent late Saxon era come the few tangible remains of that time to be preserved in Bolton.

The present, grand building of the Parish Church of St Peter dates from 1871. Its square-towered predecessor was built in the 15th century between 1412 and 1442, and demolished in 1866. The demolition process unearthed not only evidence for a yet earlier Anglo-Norman Church, but also artefacts from Anglo-Saxon times.

The best known is the great wheel-head cross, now preserved in the modern Parish Church. It stands two yards high and is decorated in a crude but vigorous style.

Perhaps, in those early days, the uncivilized inhabitants congregated every Sunday on the spot where the banks of the land island that was their home fell away down to the Croal. There, they heard the good news preached, and received communion in the shadow of their very own cross. Then, it being the Sabbath, they would spend the rest of the day in amusements.

As the sun set, they turned in, listening to the not-so-distant cries of the wolves. Monday meant a return to the fields and back-breaking labour.

In 1066, a great comet appeared in the skies. Our Botheltonians will have watched it uneasily, wondering if it was a good or a bad omen.

Meanwhile, on the coast of Normandy the invasion fleet of Duke William was gathering in harbours and inlets. The world was going to change, again.