Laxton, Nottinghamshire

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Laxton is a small village in Nottinghamshire, best known for having the last remaining working open field system in the UK. The village also has the remains of a Norman motte and bailey castle and a small Holocaust Museum.

[edit] Open Fields

Laxton parish today has much conventionally farmed land, but retains also a significant part of the mediaeval open field system. Fields, divided into strips, are farmed in common between the landowners of the village; each autumn, the Court Leet (a committee comprised of village farmers) allocates the strips for the following year^[1]. Today, there are three open fields remaining; the Mill Field, the South Field and the West Field. A 1635 survey of the parish carried out by Mark Pierce (still extant, and held in the Bodleian Library) shows that these three fields were in use at that date, but that they were significantly larger than their current size. There was also a fourth field, the East Field, which was considerably smaller than the others, and farmed as part of the Mill Field^[2]. This was fully enclosed, and today is a number of small fields.

The strips within the fields have also changed significantly, with changes in technology. Originally, a single strip would have represented approximately a single day of ploughing; such a strip today would be far too small to be really practical for a tractor-drawn plough. Instead, over time strips have been consolidated to provide workable parcels of land; the result today is that the average strip size has increased significantly over mediaeval times. However, the practical aspects of open field farming are still very much what they would have been 350 years ago.

Laxton is unique because the open field system is still alive and in daily use. Although the village is now recognised as an important heritage site, it is home to working farmers who rely on the land for their income. While modern expectations and needs mean that all the farmers also own extensive land outside the open fields, the open fields are not part of a museum or showcase, but a living part of the agricultural landscape.