Stevenage
Toponymy
"Stevenage" may derive from Old English stiþen āc / stiðen āc / stithen ac (various Old English dialects cited here) meaning "(place at) the stiff oak".
Toponymy
The name was recorded as Stithenæce in c. 1060 and as Stigenace in the Domesday Book in 1086.
Pre-Conquest
The first Saxon camp, a little to the east of the Roman sites, was in a clearing in the woods where the church, the manor house and the first village were later built. Settlements also sprang up in Chells, Broadwater and Shephall. Before the New Town was established, Shephall was a separate parish, and Broadwater was split between the parishes of Shephall and Knebworth.
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