In 1635, a surveyor called Mark Pierce was employed to map the farmland around Laxton, which he did in four sheets, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Each shows one of the enormous open fields around the village, between them divided in 2,280 strips of land.
Open-field farming, with land divided into small parcels between villagers, who were forced to farm in co-operation, was still practised much as it had been in the Middle Ages. Extraordinarily, the system survives to this day, but only in Laxton.
It was unpromising, clay land, one reason subsequent landowners never stirred themselves to enclose it. Better land was shared out equally with the worst. The sides of the valleys, too steep to plough, became ‘sykes’, or useful pasture, and neat blocks of woodland provided an invaluable resource.
Everywhere else in England, open fields were eventually enclosed and divided with hedges. Laxton became first an oddity, then a rarity, before being recognised as precious; it was owned by the Crown Estate until 2020, when it was sold to the Thoresby Estate.
How to visit Laxton
Laxton is in the heart of rural Nottinghamshire, roughly half-way between Newark and Worksop, and just a few minutes off the main A1. There is a visitor centre located in the local pub, The Dovecote Inn; see www.laxtonvisitorcentre.org.uk for more details.
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