OPEN FIELDS
Strips without hedges
In an open field system, the University of Nottingham explains, individual farmers work separate strips of land, but the whole field follows a strict crop rotation.
Follow the rotationWHAT THE ARCHIVES SAY
One field,
many strips.
Picture a huge field with no internal hedges, farmed by a whole village.
Follow the rotation
THREE FIELDSone shared rotation
Each farmer worked separate strips of land, but everyone followed the same crop rotation. Enclosure swept the system away almost everywhere, except in one Nottinghamshire village, Laxton, where it is still in use.
At a glance
- Separate strips
- Shared rotation
- A court to keep order
- Medieval farming, still working
3 fields
Open fields in the rotation
Farmers sow winter wheat in one field, other cereal crops in the second, and leave the third fallow, so crops are sown and harvested at similar times of year.
ROTATION · NOTTINGHAM
2p
Fine for not attending the Court Leet
A fine of two pence for not appearing at the court is still collected today. Common presentments were for ploughing up the common and leaving lumps of soil on it.
THE COURT · NOTTINGHAM
TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING
Old rules,
still enforced.
One figure for the shape of the system,
one for how long its customs have lasted.
A map of the village made in 1635 shows ploughs pulled by a pair of oxen and a leading horse. By the twentieth century only horses were used, and today the fields are worked with modern machinery.
A QUICK ROTATION CHECK
What grows
on a strip this year?
Pick a stage of Laxton's three-field rotation to see what happens to a strip. The bar shows how intensively the land is cropped.
Based on the University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections online exhibition on Laxton.
THE SHORT ANSWER
Work your strips,
follow the field.
Strips were private; the rotation was shared.
That needed rules, and a court to enforce them.
THE JURY
Stakes and inspections
In Laxton, boundaries are marked by simple stakes. Each autumn a Jury appointed by the Court Leet inspects the fields, and breaches are punished by fines.
How it is run
SYKES
Grass between the crops
The sykes, grassy areas within the open fields, are not sprayed with weedkiller or fertiliser. They are classed as unimproved grassland, and wildflowers grow there in spring.
Laxton today
HOW THE FIELDS ARE KEPT
A court,
a jury, a stake.
Open-field farming needs a lot of co-operation. In Laxton the manorial Court Leet oversees it, much as manor courts once did across Midlands villages.
Mark the strips
Boundaries between strips, roadways and sykes are marked by simple stakes, meant to last three years until the field is inspected again.
Inspect the field
Each autumn the Jury walks the field that was fallow and has just been sown with winter wheat.
Report the breaches
They report anyone who ploughed onto a roadway, sprayed a syke or failed to clear a ditch.
Fine at the Court Leet
The court meets afterwards and fines those found at fault.
LAXTON TODAY
The last of
its kind.
The University of Nottingham describes Laxton as the only place in Europe where open field farming is still practised across a whole village, with a functioning Court Leet. Most villages lost the system to enclosure.
The manor and open-field farms were sold to the Ministry of Agriculture in 1952, and in 1981 to the Crown Estate, which undertook to keep the system going while tenants are willing. A visitor centre in the village explains how it works.
Questions
Questions people ask
What is strip farming?
In the open field system, individual farmers work separate strips of land in large unhedged fields, but the whole field follows a strict crop rotation that everyone must keep to.
Where can you still see it?
In Laxton, north Nottinghamshire. The University of Nottingham says it is the only place in Europe where open field farming is still practised across a whole village.
What is a furlong in farming?
In the open fields, a furlong is an area of land made up of a number of strips. The University of Nottingham's glossary says the word comes from 'a furrow long'.
What does the Court Leet do?
It regulates the open fields. A Jury it appoints inspects the fields each autumn and reports encroachments, such as ploughing onto a roadway, which the court punishes with fines.
Why did most open fields disappear?
The University of Nottingham says that in most places they were swept away by the process of enclosure, which did away with the need for communal control of farmland.
Sources
Where the facts come from
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