Wallingford, Oxfordshire

Wallingford developed around an important crossing point of the River Thames. There is evidence of Roman activity in the area who have left traces of occupation, burials, roads, coins and pottery. The Anglo-Saxons built the first settlement. Wallingford has been fortified since the Anglo-Saxon period when it was an important fortified borough of Wessex with the right to mint royal coinage. It was enclosed with substantial earthworks by King Alfred the Great in the ninth century as part of a network of fortified towns known as burhs, or burghs, to protect Wessex against the Vikings. These defences can still be clearly discerned as a group of four roughly square areas around the centre of the…

Wallingford provided refuge for the Empress Matilda's party during the civil war that began after her father Henry I's death. After the fall of Oxford Castle to Stephen in 1141, Matilda fled to Wallingford, according to some historic accounts in the snow under a moonlit sky. Wallingford Castle was besieged unsuccessfully a number of times, with the Treaty of Wallingford ending the conflict there in November 1153. The town was granted a Royal Charter in 1155 by the new king, Henry II, being the second town in England to receive one. During Prince John's unsuccessful revolt against his brother King Richard I whilst Richard was involved with the Third Crusade, John seized Wallingford Castle in…