Cratendune

Reading from the Liber Eliensis MS folio 2, which is a 12th  century Benedictine history of Ely written in Latin, Bentham describes Æthelberht of Kent, Chief of the Saxon Kings, founding a church at the insistence of Augustine (died 26  May 604). The church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was located about {{Convert|1.6|km|mi|0}}Bentham (1771) p. 11 says about a mile distant from the present city from what is now Ely Cathedral at a place called Cratendune.{{Sfn|Bentham|1771|p=11}} The date mentioned for this founding was the year 607,The date is given in Chronicon Abbatum et Episcoporum Eliensum, which depends in part on Liber Eliensis and shares the same source material. However, the date is not consistent with the death of Augustine of Canterbury in 604 three years after Augustine's death. This incongruity was attributed by Bentham to a mistake by the monk transcribing this history.{{Sfn|Bentham|1771|pp=11 12}}

Fairweather, translating the same Latin text, records the site {{convert|1.6|km|0}}{{Sfn|Fairweather|2005|loc=p. 4 Note source is 1 mile; the article is using British Units as per manual of style}} from the present site of the Cathedral:

In times of old, so it is said, there was a vill, that is, in Latin, Vallis CractiHere the translator Janet Fairweather inserts 'the down of Cactus' a mile away from the city which now exists. There one frequently finds implements of iron-work and the coinage of past kings, and the fact that it was for a long time a place inhabited by men is clear from various pieces of evidence. But after Æthelthryth, beloved of God, chose to dwell there, ...she sited her living-quarters near the course of the river, on higher ground{{Sfn|Fairweather|2005|loc=book I, pp4f.}}

Staffed by Benedictine monks, the church was abandoned, perhaps destroyed in around 650 by or on the orders of the pagan Penda of Mercia.{{Sfn|Bentham|1771|p=11}}{{Sfn|Atkinson|Hampson|Long|Meekings|1953|pp=33–40}}

No direction is indicated in Liber Eliensis; a number of archaeological sites, therefore, are candidates for this lost village. Two candidate locations are based on the survival of the toponym Cratenden. One, Cratendon Field, was identified as the lost site by the antiquarian James Bentham just south of the city of Ely,{{Sfn|Bentham|1771}} and the identification was repeated by James Sargant Storer, in The Antiquarian Itinerary, 1816.{{Sfn|Storer|1816}} Janet Fairweather notes that in the Ely Coucher book Cratendune Field is listed next to Grunty Fen, corroborating this identification. Cratendune also survived as a toponym associated with Chettisham in a 1251 survey.{{Sfn|Fairweather|2005|loc=p. 4 note 19}}

As there is no documented direction for Cratendune, the place could be anywhere. These modern places are all within {{convert|4|km|mi|0}} of the present day site of Ely cathedral. The cathedral is built on boulder clay resting on a Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay bed; the old course of the River Great Ouse is {{Convert|2|km|mi|0}} south-east. The highest point in the area at {{Convert|26|m|ft|0}} is {{Convert|0.8|km|mi|1}} south-west towards Witchford aerodrome, now disused. At Witchford, {{Convert|3|km|mi|0}} south-west, Fowler found an Anglo-Saxon cemetery: see below.

{{Geographic location

|Centre = Ely Cathedral

|North = Little Downham

|Northeast = Queen Adelaide

|East =

|Southeast = River Great Ouse

|South = Little Thetford

|Southwest = Witchford Aerodrome{{Citation |title=Bomber Command:Witchford |url=http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/s50.html |publisher=Royal Air Force |accessdate=20 August 2010 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090412123401/http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/s50.html |archivedate=12 April 2009 }}
(site of)

|West = Witchford

|Northwest = West Fen Road, Ely

}}

The search for Cratendune continues, though evidence that any one site is the lost village remains sparse.{{Citation|last=Smith|first=Lisa|title=25, Broad Street, Ely, Cambridgeshire Construction of Residential Dwellings|url=http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/oasis_reports/archaeol7/ahds/dissemination/pdf/archaeol7-62442_1.pdf|publisher=Archaeological Solutions Limited|accessdate=20 August 2010|year=2007}} In 1999 there was media attention during preparation work for new buildings at West Fen Road, Ely.{{Citation|title=Anglo-Saxon village uncovered|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/502789.stm|accessdate=19 August 2010|newspaper=BBC News|date=2 November 1999}} The archaeology work subsequently undertaken indeed shows Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon occupation.(1999–2000) Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Record [http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MCB15472&resourceID=1000 Late Iron Age/Conquest period settlement, West Fen Road] However, it was shown that the site was still active in the 13th century and there were no signs of an earlier Anglo-Saxon settlement here. This makes the West Fen Road site an unlikely Cratendune location.{{Sfn|Regan|Ballantyne|Berger|Clerk|2001|p=25}}

During World War II whilst constructing an aerodrome at Witchford, near Little Thetford, a cemetery was discovered.(1953) Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Record [http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MCB8370&resourceID=1000 Cratendune] Major Gordon Fowler reports witnessing a bulldozer leveling off ground and in so doing was crushing skeletons. The urgent war effort could not be stopped so little archaeological work could be undertaken. He was, however, able to recover some objects from the graves, which were later dated by Lethbridge to be consistent with the period AD 450–650.{{Sfn|Fowler|1948|p=71}} Recent survey work has not repeated the 1943 report of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery here, instead of finding Iron-Age and Roman period domestic and other remains.CHER report 2008–9 p. 7 It has been suggested that an Anglo-Saxon settlement within Ely was perhaps more spread out, with no single core settlement.{{Citation|last=Stubbington|first=Paul|title=Ely Master Plan|url=http://www.urbed.com/cgi-bin/get_binary_doc_object.cgi?doc_id=276&fname=extra_pdf_2.pdf|publisher=Cambridgeshire Horizons|accessdate=20 August 2010|page=3|date=January 2008|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717175121/http://www.urbed.com/cgi-bin/get_binary_doc_object.cgi?doc_id=276&fname=extra_pdf_2.pdf|archivedate=17 July 2011}}

• Anglo-Saxon England
• Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain

{{Reflist| group="nb" | colwidth=30em}}

{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

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• {{citation|author-first=Roderick |author-last=Regan|author2-first=Rachel |author2-last=Ballantyne|author3-first=Mark |author3-last=Berger|author4-first=Andrew |author4-last=Clerk|author5-first=Chantal |author5-last=Conneller|author6-first=Natasha |author6-last=Dodwell|author7-first=Lorrain |author7-last=Higbee|author8-first=Gwladys |author8-last=Monteil|author9-first=Chris |author9-last=Stevens|author10-first=Robert |author10-last=Scaife| title = West Fen Road, Ely, Cambridgeshire:Cornwell Field, assessment report | publisher = Cambridge Archaeological Unit, University of Cambridge |volume=413|date=January 2001}}
• {{citation|last=Storer|title=Ely, Cambridgeshire, The Antiquarian Itinerary: comprising specimens of architecture, monastic, castellated, and domestic; with other vestiges of antiquity in Great Britain|year=1816}}

• {{citation|last1=Barrowclough |first1=David |last2=Morrison |first2=Kate|title=Ely, The Hidden History|publisher=The History Press|year=2013}}
• {{citation|last=Watson|first=William|title=An historical account of the ancient town and port of Wisbech, in the Isle of Ely, in the county of Cambridge: and of the circumjacent towns and villages, the drainage of the great level of the fens, the origin of the royal franchise of the Isle of Ely &c. ...|publisher=H and J Leach|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t7gLAAAAYAAJ|year=1827}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110710184802/http://elyinternet.com/cratendune/craten.html Cratendune Controversy]
• {{cite news|last=Wells|first=Matt|title=Doggies bagged Dig throws new light on Anglo-Saxon attitudes|newspaper=The Guardian|date=5 November 1999|page=9|id={{ProQuest|188422498}}}}{{subscription required}}

Category: Former populated places in Cambridgeshire