EARLY OCCUPATION
The earliest recorded mention of
the village is from the Domesday Book of 1086, but archaeological
evidence suggests that there’s been
a settlement here since early Saxon times. Further fieldwork in
the 1960’s revealed flint axes and
beaker pottery unearthed at The Devil’s Hump, a Neolithic burial
mound that also housed the bones
of four adults and a goat.
BENEDICTINE MONASTERY
Ravenswood had it’s own Benedictine
Monastery which flourished during the Middle Ages. It survived
until 1536 when Henry VIII brought
about The Dissolution of the Monasteries, when the King broke
away from Catholic Rome to form
The Church of England (and to increase funds for the Kingdom…and
his divorces!). Ravenswood was one
of the last Monasteries to be plundered and was a very violent
affair…luckily, some of the monks
escaped and formed a travelling song and dance troupe to disguise
their true origins.
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| Arthur's Door |
Monastery window |
Monastery Priest hole |
ENGLISH CIVIL WAR
The English Civil War came to Ravenswood
in 1643. Oliver Cromwell himself visited the village for his
Parliamentarian cause to recruit
young men in fighting against Charles I Royalists. Cromwell famously
noted ‘that there are more sheep
in the village than people!’
SAMUEL PEPYS
The Diarist Samuel Pepys wrote in
1664 that Ravenswood ‘hath as much charm and beauty as the
much renowned Kingston-Upon-Thames…only
without the beggars and the smell!’
RAVENSWOOD GALLOW’S
The notorious highwayman, Jack the
Bull was imprisoned here in 1743 whilst awaiting trial for robbery
and murder. For ten days and nights
the villagers continually hounded Jack, throwing rotten fruit and
hurling abuse through the bars of
his cell. Jack was undeterred by this however and would prefer to play
an early version of dominos. Jack
was found guilty of his crimes and was hanged from the gallows’s on
April 12th 1744. He once described
rival highwayman Dick Turpin as ‘an undemanding man with nothing
but a big pistol in his breeches.’
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| Ravenswood Gallows |
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FLOWER POWER
In the late 1960’s, the counter-culture
arrived in the village. Hippies, flower children and spiritual gurus
descended on this green and pleasant
land as word spread of the mystical power the landscape had
developed. The first Ravenswood
Fayre appeared in 1969 and attracted people from all over the country.
This modern pilgrimage is still
very evident today with the arrival of hippies, neo-pagans, druids,
ufologists, dowsers and new age
travellers.
Hippies invade in 1969 |
