This MPP project has been conducted to assess the survival and potential of earthwork remains of open field systems as, defined in the settlement classification study by Roberts and Wrathmell Terrain and rural settlement mapping (1995). The work has been undertaken by Northamptonshire Heritage on behalf of EH and the other local archaeological curators. The area covered comprises all or part of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, and Warwickshire. Air photographic interpretation being undertaken by Air Photo Services, and all mapping and analysis have been undertaken on computer using a GIS.
An earlier report, The Open Fields of Northamptonshire (1993) by Northamptonshire County Council) available at http://web.ukonline.co.uk/glenn.foard/webdoc9.htm characterised the remains of the open field systems which had dominated land use in the region from at least the tenth to the eighteenth century, and demonstrated the rapid rate of loss of ridge and furrow, and concluded that this was likely to lead to the destruction of the last coherent extensive areas of field system remains in the region within a decade. In response, EH commissioned the preparation of a Monument Class Description and a pilot study of Northamptonshire to enable a methodology for assessment to be established. This study showed that assessment should be by field system, which in this region was generally coincident with township and was typically associated with nucleated settlement. Three main classes of open field system could be recognised, those with extensive meadow, those with extensive woodland or other pasture resources, and those with neither. lt was found that two and three-field systems were dominant but that systems with more than three great fields tended to occur in woodland zones, and that such multiple field systems tended to be associated with the local regions of more dispersed settlement defined by Roberts and Wrathmell (1995).
The full project to assess the whole Midland core of the Central Province, a settlement zone of over 5,000 square miles characterised by nucleated villages associated with open fields began in 1997 and is still in progress. The extent of surviving areas of ridge and furrow earthworks has been mapped at 1:25000 scale using the most recent vertical aerial survey (1988-96) available for each county. The percentage of survival of each system in the form of earthworks has then been calculated using modern parishes as the initial assessment unit in the absence of consistent earlier evidence of townships, enabling an initial ranking of field systems. The initial mapping has shown that ridge and furrow survival is best along the Northamptonshire/Warwickshire and Northamptonshire/Leicestershire border, extending well into Leicestershire with an unexpectedly high degree of survival also being recorded in central Buckinghamshire. systems,. The broad medieval and post-medieval land-use zones have been established from post-medieval mapping of woodland, and former meadow areas were estimated from the extent of alluvial areas defined by the British Geological Survey 1:50,000 mapping. All scheduled monuments together with medieval settlement sites proposed for scheduling have also been added to the GIS map layers. The date of enclosure of each field system has been established where practicable. These factors, together with the local settlement regions defined by Roberts and Wrathmell, and visual assessment of the degree of fragmentation of the surviving areas of ridge and furrow, have been used to identify field systems to be subjected to more detailed documentary assessment. This should ensure that the sample is as representative as possible. In this next stage the extent of the chosen townships, the date of enclosure, the quality of documentation, and the current degree of survival will all be established or refined. This will also provide the opportunity for local knowledge to be taken into account in the form of the professional judgement of the local curators.
Field systems will then be scored according to the definition of the monument class description, and carried forward to the fieldwork stage of assessment for scheduling and other means of conservation as appropriate. The entire field system actually constitutes the monument, but because, even in the very best preserved townships, less than 50% of the system survives, it will also be necessary to carry out a programme of recording. This will ensure that the degraded and levelled parts of field systems, which still survive in the form of ploughed headlands and in some cases as soil-mark ridge and furrow, has been adequately recorded by aerial and ground survey. Only in this way can we ensure that the evidence for each selected complete field system is preserved either in the ground or as a record.
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