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The Suther-ge (Suth Rig / Surrey)
Saxons were moving west along the lower bank of the Thames to create settlements
there after the Britons had been forced back north of the river and west towards
Aylesbury and Durocornovium (Swindon).
Permanently settled by the invading Saxons in circa AD 480. Suth Rig
is Old English for South Ridge (pr. suth-re), while Suther-ge means
southern region, and both names indicate a link to the
Middel Seaxe to the north of
Londinium.
Although the direct link was probably a brief one, as the association had passed
out of memory before the days of written records, the region was controlled
by the kings of the East Seaxe
at the same time as they controlled the Middel Seaxe, from circa AD 600.
By the 670s the region was described in the Tribal Hidage (a record of settlements
and land holdings) as a provincia with a subregulus - a sub-king -
of its own. It may have been home to the mysterious folks called the Noxgaga and
the Ohtgaga.
By 1086, the region was named as Sudrie in Domesday Book. |