A history of Laxton : England's last open-field village

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A history of Laxton : England's last open-field village

J.V. Beckett

B. Blackwell, 1989

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Note

Bibliography: p. [327]-330

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Laxton in Nottinghamshire is the last unenclosed village in England. Here, open field farming - once in operation across the entire Midlands and much of northern Europe - has survived into the modern era. In Laxton today, farmers carry on a thousand-year-old tradition, working their land in strips within large open fields, and remain subject to the authority of a manorial court. This book is a history of this village over the last millennium. J.V.Beckett focuses on two central questions: why has Laxton escaped enclosure for so long, and how has its medieval system of open field farming evolved to the present day. Drawing upon a wide and varied range of sources, he describes its inhabitants and their lives, its pattern of demography and migration, the working of the system of open field farming in the village, including ownership of land and its relation to local power structures. The author closes with a consideration of the ways in which farming in Laxton has responded to the demands of modern agriculture, and also of the features which remain unaltered. Whether Laxton's system of open field farming can survive in its present form amidst a rapidly changing rural scene is the concluding theme of this portrait of a unique part of England's heritage.

Table of Contents

  • Medieval village
  • open field farming
  • the village in the early 17th century
  • prosperity and depression 1635 -1736
  • opportunities missed
  • wartime revival - peacetime recession, 1789 -1840
  • Victorian village
  • prosperity and improvement 1840 - 73
  • the agricultural depression and the reorganization of the open fields
  • 20th century village
  • the survival of the open fields. Appendix: the population of Laxton before 1801.

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