Around the time the Romans left, Britain experienced a change in climate. It turned colder and wetter – temperatures fell by around 1.5°C, and rainfall increased by around 10%. Crop returns were lower and the growing season shorter. It’s thought that tribes from northern Europe experiencing the same climactic changes may have come here looking for new lands, cashing in on the power vacuum left by the Romans.

One of the biggest impacts the Saxons had on life in Britain was the introduction of the heavy plough. It meant more of the places on heavier soil could grow food, where previously this hadn’t been possible. New Christian monasteries formed some of the biggest communities, and needed to feed them. They became influential in developing new methods of crop rotation, irrigation and ‘manuring’.

The Germanic Saxons liked to get organised. They structured the country into ‘Hundreds’. These were areas of land that could sustain 100 households. Each Hundred was named after its main meeting place. Longnor was in the Condover Hundred. Each Hundred collected taxes and had a monthly court that usually met outdoors. A hierarchy developed, with a Lord of the Manor and peasants who paid him taxes in cash, produce or labour.

The Saxons built small wooden churches and developed market places. Around these grew settlements. At the centre of the settlement there was an enclosure called a ‘tun’, from which we get the word ‘town’.

Administrators of the Hundreds set about naming places in their own language – the ‘new’ English. Shropshire has a rich heritage of these Saxon names, which often reflected the natural surroundings, activity or location of a place. It’s pretty clear that the area around Longnor was still heavily wooded: