Sutreworde was a village and manor in historical record, also noted as Suðeswyrðe, located within the

Teignbridge Hundred Teignbridge Hundred was the name of one of thirty two ancient administrative units of Devon, England. The hundred was listed in the Domesday survey of 1086 as comprising 34 settlements. The parishes in the hundred were: Ashburton, Bickington, ...

. The modern identity of this village has been the subject of academic debate, but is thought to have been within the parish of

Lustleigh Lustleigh is a small village and civil parish in the Wray Valley, inside the Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. It is between the towns of Bovey Tracey and Moretonhampstead. The village has often been named in various publications as be ...

, but not at the location of the current village.

Suðeswyrðe

The village was recorded as Suðeswyrðe in the 899 will of King

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great ( ; – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfr ...

, being left to his youngest son

Æthelweard Æthelweard, also spelled Ethelweard, Aethelweard, Athelweard, etc., is an Anglo-Saxon male name. It may refer to: * King Æthelweard of the Hwicce (''fl''. 7/8th century) * King Æthelweard of East Anglia (''fl.'' mid-9th century) * Æthelweard ( ...

Domesday book

This was later recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as Sutreworde,

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

for 'south of the wood'. The manor was controlled by

Ansgar the Staller Ansgar the Staller or Esegar (c. 1025 – 1085) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful nobles in late Anglo-Saxon England. He escaped badly wounded from the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, then led the defence of London. His family wer ...

as part of a 1,200 acre farm holding (4.9 km²) plus a large area of forest. Unusually for the Domesday Book,

beekeeping Beekeeping (or apiculture, from ) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in artificial beehives. Honey bees in the genus '' Apis'' are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as '' Melipona'' stingless bees are ...

was mentioned as a key activity of the parish.

Identity

Scholars have previously identified Sutreworde as being the modern village of

, but this was disputed by others. Oswald Reichel identified Sutreworde as Lustleigh in his 1897 work on the Domesday hundreds, citing that it was the unaccounted land held in the Honour of

Marshwood Marshwood is a village and civil parish in west Dorset, England, situated on the northern edge of the Marshwood Vale approximately northeast of Lyme Regis. Dorset County Council estimate that the parish had a population of 310 in 2013. Figures ...

later identified as Levestelegh (Lustleigh). He rules out other places which might be named 'south wood', as they were in other honours. Other historians, including

Michael Swanton Michael James Swanton (born 1939) is a British historian, linguist, archaeologist and literary critic, specialising in the Anglo-Saxon period and its Old English literature. Early life Born in Bermondsey, in the East End of London, in ch ...

, accepted Reichel's identification. Noted antiquarian and Lustleigh resident

Cecil Torr Cecil Torr (11 October 1857, Mitcham, London – 17 December 1928) was a British antiquarian and author. Early life Torr was the son of a solicitor and was educated at Harrow School. Cecil Torr matriculated on 7 June 1876 at Trinity College, Camb ...

disagreed and believed that Suðeswyrðe and Sutreworde refer to other settlements. Torr asserts that the settlement mentioned has features much larger than Lustleigh has ever been, and that the main evidence supporting the assertion is incomplete matching of records from the

estates. Historians

W. G. Hoskins William George Hoskins (22 May 1908 – 11 January 1992) was an English local historian who founded the first university department of English Local History. His great contribution to the study of history was in the field of landscape history. ...

and J.V. Somers Cocks both thought that Sutreworde was more likely to be Widecombe-in-the-Moor. Later scholarship by historian Ian Mortimer has suggested that Sutreworde was in Lustleigh parish, but not at the current location of the village, but rather near the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

hill fort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...

at Hunter's Tor in Lustleigh Cleave on the edge of the parish, making Sutreworde a

deserted medieval village In the United Kingdom, a deserted medieval village (DMV) is a former settlement which was abandoned during the Middle Ages, typically leaving no trace apart from earthworks or cropmarks. If there are fewer than three inhabited houses the conve ...

. At the time of the Domesday Survey, there were around 155 people living in Sutreworde.

References

{{Reflist former villages in England Iron Age England Former populated places in Devon Villages in Devon