The old field names of Steventon
The mystery of Coldharbour
Amongst the cornucopia of field and place names appearing in the various records of Steventon, a few are sufficiently intriguing to command greater research. One such name appears on the 1884 Tithe Award and 1893 Ordnance Survey maps and is located where the footpath crosses the East Hendred – Steventon boundary a hundred yards north of the Ginge Brook. The name is Coldharbour Barn and looking into its meaning is like putting key into the lock of a long hidden door, and turning slowly in the anticipation that there is something enthralling on the other side.
There is a line of academic research that suggests Coldharbours (cold resting place or shelter) are of Roman origin and they were often situated a mile or so outside towns and villages, often on the boundary between two settlements, and in proximity to a Roman road or track. The supposition is that they provided a very basic form of shelter from the elements perhaps nothing more than a stand of trees or a hollow in the ground and were an alternative to paying for accommodation in the nearby settlement. Similar place-names include Caldecott in Abingdon and there is another Coldharbour just outside Ardington. The significance of caldecotts and coldharbours is that not only do they offer shelter to a traveller, but that the shelter would only be needed if the traveller was coming from a distance. And the fact that the name has prevailed over many centuries, suggests that the shelter they offered was well known and recognised amongst travellers.
The Coldharbour Barn of Steventon is a classic example of the type. It stands on the parish boundary between East Hendred and Steventon, a boundary, which is confirmed as existing in AD 964 by a charter issued by King Edgar in favour of Abingdon Abbey. It also stands on a track of some antiquity. If the theory of the origin of the coldharbour name is correct, then it hints that Steventon lay on an ancient well-used route, possibly linking the Berkshire Downs and the lands beyond, to the river Thames.
However, as always, it is wise to cautious with such speculation. In 1984 along came researcher Richard Coates, who poured cold water on the whole coldharbour thesis, categorically dismissing the Roman road connection by arguing that of the three hundred or so known Coldharbour placenames, their use was very rare before AD1600. In fact, he proposed, the name owed its origins to a rather sordid and notorious block of tenement properties erected on London bank of the Thames around the end of Elizabeth I’s reign. In Coates’ words it became ‘a fashionable derogatory name for a miserable house’.
So, all this seems to leave us in a bit of a quandary. Was it just a jokey name for a miserably cold barn used by a 17th century farmer along the lines suggested by Richard Coates, in the same way that a modern home owner might, tongue in cheek, name their residence Toad Hall? Or is its use of much greater antiquity but never recorded? It all seems like mere speculation.
Or is it? A small and apparently insignificant two-line note appears in the 1952-3 volume of the archaeology journal, Oxoniensia. The entry says, ‘Steventon, Berks. Miss Keef found sherds of Samian, imitation Samian and Romano-British coarse wares in a field by Coldharbour Barn’. Even if Coldharbour Barn is of relative recent origin, what we do know is that there certainly was Roman activity at this very spot.
