Sites of Power and Assembly in the Thames Valley

This article examines three sites of elite and royal power in the early 2nd millennium AD in the Thames valley: Kingston upon Thames in Greater London, Westminster in the City of London and Runnymede in Surrey. Using a backdrop of comparative material from medieval Scandinavia, these sites are examined in terms of their landscape qualities, particularly their liminal nature. On this basis, it is shown that they demonstrate attributes and features that are frequently connected to assembly sites. It is therefore argued that these sites may well, earlier in time, have been assembly locations that were consciously adopted and developed as royal ritual sites as part of the legitimising process of power.