Field Systems On 1st April 2015 the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England changed its common name from English Heritage to Historic England. We are now re-branding all our documents. Although this document refers to English Heritage, it is still the Commission's current advice and guidance and will in due course be re-branded as Historic England. Please see our website for up to date contact information, and further advice. We welcome feedback to help improve this document, which will be periodically revised. Please email comments to [email protected] We are the government's expert advisory service for England's historic environment. We give constructive advice to local authorities, owners and the public. We champion historic places helping people to understand, value and care for them, now and for the future. HistoricEngland.org.uk/advice Introductions to Heritage Assets Field Systems May 2011 Fig. 1. Coaxial field systems, Salisbury Plain Training Area, Wiltshire. Fig. 2. Cord rig cultivation, Carshope Hill, Northumberland. Prehistoric ridged cultivation. Two partly superimposed prehistoric coaxial field layouts. INTRODUCTION Field systems are ubiquitous features of the British subject to changes through time which provide countryside. They represent a physical manifestation complicated layers of archaeological evidence. Only of farming, both animal husbandry and cultivation, where there is excellent preservation, such as on from its prehistoric origins to the present day and Salisbury Plain, is it possible to see one layout clearly the earliest examples may be identified from patterns superimposed upon another (Figure 1). The very of boundaries preserved in or buried beneath the ubiquity and extent of prehistoric and historic field modern landscape. Later field systems, medieval or systems creates issues in terms of land management post-medieval in date, may be more visible, and often and designation. remain in use in complete or modified forms. Even Field systems currently have a predominantly rural the most seemingly modern field-systems may retain distribution but have undoubtedly been present many elements inherited from the past. Reading in many other areas, perhaps destroyed by urban such landscapes can be a complicated business, even expansion, or submerged beneath later soil movement using modern archaeological tools such as aerial in river valleys. Different forms of field system vary photography and with the aid of old maps and other dramatically in outline and extent, depending on historic documents, since field systems exhibit an geographical location, the nature of farming in a given immense variety of forms depending on their age, area and the duration and development of related purpose and the extent of later modifications. They settlements. They are, inevitably, associated with a wide are also intimately connected with a wide range of range of other archaeological features and monuments. settlement forms, and like the settlements themselves, HISTORY OF RESEARCH DESCRIPTION The antiquity of various field systems has long been Prehistoric and Roman period fields recognised. Notably, early antiquarians such as William It must not be assumed that all prehistoric fields were cultivated Stukeley (1776) and Richard Colt Hoare (1810) observed, for arable crops. Charred grain, cereal pollen and quern stones for example, that fields under-lay Roman sites. The form and found on contemporary settlement sites shows that many extent of early field systems were discussed by H Toms in were, but others were built to contain livestock, and even those 1911 but OGS Crawford and, independently, EC Curwen first which were ploughed may have lain fallow, or returned to characterised prehistoric field systems in 1923 and coined pasture, for periods of time. the term ‘Celtic’. As a result, small ‘gridded’ ancient fields were differentiated from later ‘Saxon’ elongated strip fields, The earliest and most difficult field systems to characterise are cultivation terraces and ridge-and-furrow. Recent work, both unenclosed fields of prehistoric date, but as a class of fields landscape studies and detailed archaeological fieldwork has they are intimately related to cairnfields. Cairnfields – scattered refined our knowledge of early field systems and in the case heaps of stones and boulders – are generally found in upland of their extent and range in central and northern England, settings and result from surface clearance in advance of, or as a completely transformed our understanding. result of, agricultural activities. English Heritage Introductions to Heritage Assets Field Systems 2 Fig. 3. Bronze Age settlement, Plumpton Plain, East Sussex. Irregular fields and settlement Fig. 4. Reave system, Holne Moor, Dartmoor, Devon. Bronze Age field boundaries at Plumpton Plain. and settlement. Although the majority of cairnfields cover fairly discrete areas, of Dartmoor but there are similar sorts of field systems on larger spreads covering several hectares are not uncommon. moorlands elsewhere. They can extend across significant areas, sometimes as large as 200ha, and where excavated, have Often these early unenclosed fields, the earliest generally produced dates ranging from between 1300 BC and 1100 BC. dating from the second millennium BC, are only now Pollen diagrams indicate that some continued in use as pasture represented as areas of colluvium (deposits of soil displaced into the first millennium BC. by ploughing) sealed beneath later structures. Occasionally, where preservation is good, as in the Peak District, irregular Many prehistoric field systems are regular, almost grid-like, features related to early agriculture are apparent alongside the in their layout. Described as ‘cohesive’, ‘brickwork’ or ‘coaxial’ unenclosed elements, including low terraces, clearance cairns, field systems, they are found throughout England and are and short flights of lynchets (cultivation terraces), although characterised by uniformly small, conjoined, square/rectangular, these often do not form an obviously coherent patter. In the field plots and an adherence to a particular axial symmetry, Northumberland Cheviots, cord rig, that is, narrow linear i.e. the field system develops along a particular dominant axis cultivation ridges 1-1.5m in width, set within unenclosed, or at right angles to it (Figure 5). On occasion, and strikingly, rectilinear plots up to c. 0.5ha, is frequently associated with the axial geometry is adhered to regardless of the underlying settlements of the early 1st millennium BC and may well be topography. The size of individual field plot varies considerably, earlier still in a number of places (Figure 2). with some as small as 400 sq m in area (i.e. 20m by 20m): the largest can exceed 5000 sq m in size but there is much regional In some cases, as at South Lodge, Wiltshire, field systems variation; on the chalklands of central southern England, for appear well organised and structured; in others more irregular example, the majority of fields enclose between 0.2 and 0.6 accreted patterns predominate as at Plumpton Plain, East ha, whereas in north Nottinghamshire and south Yorkshire Sussex (Figure 3). In southern England these early field layouts they enclose between 0.5 and 2.8 ha. The size differential is are often found in association with settlements dating to c. due to longevity of cultivation and dominant land use – the 1500 BC, frequently underlying them, and there are hints of a longer the field was in cultivation using heavy ploughgear, the similar stratigraphical relationship with a small number of Early more substantial the field boundaries – pre-existing fields Bronze Age sites in Northumberland. These field systems were sometimes sub-divided into smaller units at a later date. cover small extents – perhaps a few hectares at most – and The overall extent of coaxial field systems varies considerably, the field plots are similarly small, sometimes only 25 square but ordinarily they may well cover more than 2 sq km. Some metres in area with straight and curving edges visible. It is extend to 15 sq km with the main spinal axis extending for a difficult to isolate the full extent of these fields as they are distance of 4-5km; clearly these fields would have supported often incorporated into later systems but these early layouts the livelihoods of substantial communities. Coaxial field plots contrast markedly with the broadly contemporary reave are defined in different ways in different areas: in stone-built systems found across the moorland of south-west England environments, field walls and rubble banks dominate, but (Figure 4). These comprise parallel-sided plots defined by elsewhere, combinations of embanked, ditched or lyncheted stone-topped banks, strip-like in their layout and consistency, boundaries can be seen. Most coaxial field systems in northern some with perpendicular sub-divisions of later date. Often the England lie on the periphery of the more exposed slopes in boundaries of these systems are fringed by more substantial upland areas. In lowland settings, however, coaxial fields are field divisions, terminal reaves, functioning in the same manner found in all locales but predominantly below the 250m contour. – to define the outer bounds of the system, and perhaps Indications that the original distribution was more extensive to exclude stock grazing on the rough land beyond – as are seen beneath some modern hedges which rest upon, and head dykes in medieval and post-medieval