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Authors: Trevor Yorke
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the present day. The country house on the hill in the distance is now a business centre, but before its lord sold the estate he established tree plantations over much of it in an attempt to increase his income. To the right by the river the area around the mill has developed into an industrious village, leaving its original core isolated in the foreground. The church has been restored, with exposed stonework and Gothic details, while the manor house to its side is now a private house hidden behind trees and electric gates. Although at first glance the changes here are not as drastic as in previous periods, if you look closely, you can see evidence of the huge improvements to the standard of living for the villagers. Mains water, drainage and sewerage have brought hygiene and convenience, electricity powers heating and appliances, and tarmacked roads, pavements and street lights permit travel all year round .
C HAPTER 6
The Landspace
Fields, Woodland
and Parks
FIG 6.1: The church, cottages and farms which make up this rural village only existed to service the landscape around it. To understand a settlement you must first look at its surroundings and this chapter explains some of the features you can see today which can help piece together its past .
A village is more than just bricks and mortar. Its reason for being, the changes which have taken place within it and often its demise can sometimes be identified by looking at the landscape in which it lies. The fields, woodland and parks provided employment and shaped the type and layout of settlement which supported them. In this chapter we look at thesefeatures and the details you can see today which can tell us something about the past.
FIELDS
Ridge and furrow
The most easily recognisable remnants of the medieval open field system which you may be able to see around villages today are ridges and furrows. They were not formed to represent the individual strips, but are more a creation of the method used to plough it at the time. When working his long, thin strip the farmer would start in one direction with the mouldboard on the plough pushing the clods of mud inwards and then would repeat the process as he returned along the other side, which over a period of time caused the soil to build up into a low ridge. This may have been a deliberate policy, as some have suggested, to aid drainage, although the evidence for this logical theory is not always consistent.
FIG 6.2 ARLESCOTE, WARKS: Best seen in low winter sunlight these ridges and furrows, distinctive features of medieval open field farming, can still be found where there has not been later ploughing and the fields were probably turned over to pasture as soon as they went out of use (note the distinctive reversed ‘S’-shape) .
Another feature of ridge and furrow is the gentle curve or reverse ‘S’-shape they tend to form when looked upon from above. This is a result of the difficulty of moving the plough and the team of up to eight oxen onto the strip, which had to be done by turning them into it at an angle to avoid damaging the neighbour’s crop. Access to the strip was from the headland, which often developed into a substantial bank as the soil which fell off the ploughs built up over the centuries. Today it is possible to see the remains of these even where the ridges and furrows have been destroyed, or you mightnotice a slight bump in a long ridge which reveals where a farmer bought out a strip on the other side of the headland and ploughed it over to link his holdings.
FIG 6.3: A drawing showing how the ridges and furrows were formed by the turning in of soil as the plough went up and down the strip .
When the fields around a village were later enclosed by agreement, the new holdings would be made up of a collection of the old strips, so the new boundaries which the farmers erected around them would mirror their distinctive reverse ‘S’-shape. The fields they created were often quite
C HAPTER 6
The Landspace
Fields, Woodland
and Parks
FIG 6.1: The church, cottages and farms which make up this rural village only existed to service the landscape around it. To understand a settlement you must first look at its surroundings and this chapter explains some of the features you can see today which can help piece together its past .
A village is more than just bricks and mortar. Its reason for being, the changes which have taken place within it and often its demise can sometimes be identified by looking at the landscape in which it lies. The fields, woodland and parks provided employment and shaped the type and layout of settlement which supported them. In this chapter we look at thesefeatures and the details you can see today which can tell us something about the past.
FIELDS
Ridge and furrow
The most easily recognisable remnants of the medieval open field system which you may be able to see around villages today are ridges and furrows. They were not formed to represent the individual strips, but are more a creation of the method used to plough it at the time. When working his long, thin strip the farmer would start in one direction with the mouldboard on the plough pushing the clods of mud inwards and then would repeat the process as he returned along the other side, which over a period of time caused the soil to build up into a low ridge. This may have been a deliberate policy, as some have suggested, to aid drainage, although the evidence for this logical theory is not always consistent.
FIG 6.2 ARLESCOTE, WARKS: Best seen in low winter sunlight these ridges and furrows, distinctive features of medieval open field farming, can still be found where there has not been later ploughing and the fields were probably turned over to pasture as soon as they went out of use (note the distinctive reversed ‘S’-shape) .
Another feature of ridge and furrow is the gentle curve or reverse ‘S’-shape they tend to form when looked upon from above. This is a result of the difficulty of moving the plough and the team of up to eight oxen onto the strip, which had to be done by turning them into it at an angle to avoid damaging the neighbour’s crop. Access to the strip was from the headland, which often developed into a substantial bank as the soil which fell off the ploughs built up over the centuries. Today it is possible to see the remains of these even where the ridges and furrows have been destroyed, or you mightnotice a slight bump in a long ridge which reveals where a farmer bought out a strip on the other side of the headland and ploughed it over to link his holdings.
FIG 6.3: A drawing showing how the ridges and furrows were formed by the turning in of soil as the plough went up and down the strip .
When the fields around a village were later enclosed by agreement, the new holdings would be made up of a collection of the old strips, so the new boundaries which the farmers erected around them would mirror their distinctive reverse ‘S’-shape. The fields they created were often quite
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