Probable Site of Wike Deserted Medieval Settlement, Coughton.

Description of this historic site

The possible site of the Medieval deserted settlement of Wike. It is situated 600m west of Coughton.

Notes about this historic site

1 ‘There are few at this day that know where it (Wike) lyes, it being totally depopulated, and included within Coughton Parke’.
2 Wikewood was not enclosed until 1550.
3 The lost hamlet of Wike lay W of Coughton, between Icknield Street and Danes Bank, with Wike Lane NE. Wike Wood is in the area emparked by Robert Throckmorton in 1486. By Dugdale’s time it had ceased to have any separate existence and is marked as a depopulated place in Beighton’s map of 1725. It survives now only in the name of Wike Lane and Wike moat (PRN 556).
4 No traces of desertion were seen at the approximate area described by the VCH.
5 Wike, from OE ‘wic’, ‘dairy-farm’. This lay in the W sector of the parish, in an area which formed part of the Forest of Feckenham in 1300, but it was also associated with ‘acres’ of open-field arable in 13th century.
6 Portable Antiquities Scheme find provenance information:
Date found: 2005-04-19T23:00:00Z
Methods of discovery: Metal detector

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