Saxon Maccaton.

Time Machine dial shows '1,100 years ago'. Children standing on unrecognisable site of school. Heathy, open, rather desolate country, stony soil, few bushes and trees. But forest all round, great oak trees, tangled undergrowth. Smoke to east. Walk across to rough stake and wattle fence : turned soil within is light and sandy. Very large field, children follow continuous fence : all ploughland except for single baulks left between holdings. 8-ox plough team visible on far side.

Men sowing barley broadcast, each on own strip, furlong in length. At clear, bubbling spring, children with clay pots, leather and wooden buckets. Small, tousled fair hair, dirty, rough woollen clothes, few of them. Circular villages, inside wide ditch holding water - puddled clay bottom, plank drawbridge, inner bank and stout palisade.

Oblong houses, low and thatched, grouped about central space where stock kept at night. Macca's house larger than rest - Hall, single large room, stone hearth in centre, smoke louvre.

About three dozen people, harsh Saxon speech. Few tools and weapons of iron - no local supplies, obtained by barter. Mostly self-supporting, many tasks of women. Very rough life. Children learning adult work - farming, husbandry, building, crafts. Our pair shown around by Macca's son. Three large open fields on dry, light, sandy soil - reason for settlement, clear site in forest, easy ploughland, south slope, spring, meadows.

Elder Field to west, now being barley-sown, Rye-Eddish Field to north, bounded by tracks, fallow this year, used as pasture for sheep and cattle, and Ridding Field to west. Only part of this on sand, nearer part cleared by Saxons - hence name, ridding of trees : sown with rye. Meadows to brook divided by hurdles - like fields, each man had his own part for pasture and hay. Brook ponded for fishing. Eel-gratings. Swine in nearby forest. Common land on stony heath to north.

Map: Early Settlement of the Sheldon District Mackadown in AD900 (conjecture).

Arrival of party from neighbouring Yardley. Discussion about boundary. All but a few go to watch marking of bounds by use of erratic boulders, marked trees, and a long ditch linking with tiny brook flowing to Cole. Peaceful settlement of long quarrel between two different tribes - plenty of land for few people. Celebration in both vills - travellers leave them to it, return to Machine in blazing torchlight.