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Ridge and furrow is an
archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
pattern of ridges (
Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...
: ''sliones'') and troughs created by a system of
plough A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...
ing used in Europe during the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, typical of the
open-field system The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually several hundred acr ...
. It is also known as rig (or rigg) and furrow, mostly in the North East of England and in Scotland. The earliest examples date to the immediate post-
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
period and the system was used until the 17th century in some areas, as long as the open field system survived. Surviving ridge and furrow topography is found in Great Britain, Ireland and elsewhere in Europe. The surviving ridges are parallel, ranging from apart and up to tall – they were much taller when in use. Older examples are often curved. Ridge and furrow topography was a result of ploughing with non-reversible ploughs on the same strip of land each year. It is visible on land that was ploughed in the Middle Ages, but which has not been ploughed since then. No actively ploughed ridge and furrow survives. The ridges or ''lands'' became units in
landholding In real estate, a landed property or landed estate is a property that generates income for the owner (typically a member of the gentry) without the owner having to do the actual work of the estate. In medieval Western Europe, there were two compet ...
, in assessing the work of the plougher and in
reaping Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper. On smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labo ...
in autumn.
George C. Homans George Caspar Homans (August 11, 1910 – May 29, 1989) was an American sociologist, founder of behavioral sociology, and a major contributor to the social exchange theory. Homans is best known for his research in social behavior and his works ' ...
, ''English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century'', 2nd ed. 1991: "The Skills of Husbandmen" pp44ff.


Origin

Traditional ploughs have the
ploughshare In agriculture, a plowshare ( US) or ploughshare ( UK; ) is a component of a plow (or plough). It is the cutting or leading edge of a moldboard which closely follows the coulter (one or more ground-breaking spikes) when plowing. The plowshar ...
and mould-board on the right, and so turn the soil over to the right. This means that the plough cannot return along the same line for the next furrow. Instead, ploughing is done in a clockwise direction around a long rectangular strip (a ''land''). After ploughing one of the long sides of the strip, the plough is removed from the ground at the end of the field, moved across the unploughed ''headland'' (the short end of the strip), then put back in the ground to work back down the other long side of the strip. The width of the ploughed strip is fairly narrow, to avoid having to drag the plough too far across the headland. This process has the effect of moving the soil in each half of the strip one furrow's-width towards the centre line each time the field is ploughed. In the Middle Ages each strip was managed by one family, within large open fields held in common, and the locations of the strips were the same each year. The movement of soil year after year gradually built the centre of each strip up into a ridge, leaving a dip, or "furrow" between each ridge (this use of "furrow" is different from that for the small furrow left by each pass of the plough). The building up of a ridge was called ''filling'' or ''gathering'', and was sometimes done before ploughing began. The raised ridges offered better drainage in a wet climate: moisture drained into the furrows, and since the ridges were laid down a slope, in a sloping field water would collect in a ditch at the bottom. Only on some well-drained soils were the fields left flat. In damper soil towards the base of the ridge, pulses (
pea The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species ''Pisum sativum''. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and d ...
s or
bean A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes th ...
s) or dredge (a mixture of
oat The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other cereals and pseudocereals). While oats are suitable for human con ...
s and
barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley pr ...
) might be sown where
wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
would have become waterlogged, as
Thomas Tusser Thomas Tusser (c. 15243 May 1580) was an English poet and farmer, best known for his instructional poem ''Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry'', an expanded version of his original title, ''A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie'', first publishe ...
suggested in the 16th century: For wheat till land Where water doth stand. Sow pease or dredge below in that redge. The dip often marked the boundary between plots. Although they varied, strips would traditionally be a
furlong A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one eighth of a mile, equivalent to 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, 10 chains or approximately 201 metres. It is now mostly confined to use in hor ...
(a "furrow-long") in length, (220 yards, about 200 metres), and from about up to a chain wide (22 yards, about 20 metres), giving an area of from .David Hall, "Medieval fields in their many forms", ''British Archaeology'', 33
/ref> In most places ploughing continued over the centuries, and later methods (especially the reversible plough) removed the ridge and furrow pattern. However, in some cases the land became grassland, and where this has not been ploughed since, the pattern has often been preserved. Surviving ridge and furrow may have a height difference of in places, and gives a strongly rippled effect to the landscape. When in active use, the height difference was even more, over in places.


Curved strips

In the early Middle Ages ploughing was done with large teams of small oxen (commonly eight oxen in four pairs), and the plough itself was a large, mainly wooden implement. The team and plough together were therefore many yards long, and this led to a particular effect in ridge and furrow fields. When reaching the end of the furrow, the leading oxen met the end first, and were turned left along the headland, while the plough continued as long as possible in the furrow (the strongest oxen were
yoke A yoke is a wooden beam sometimes used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do; some yokes are fitted to individual animals. There are several types of yoke, u ...
d at the back, and could draw the plough on their own for this short distance). By the time the plough eventually reached the end, the oxen were standing lined up facing leftwards along the headland. Each pair was then turned around to walk rightwards along the headland, crossing the end of the strip, and they then started down the opposite furrow. By the time the plough itself reached the beginning of the furrow, the oxen were already lined up ready to pull it forwards. The result of this was to twist the end of each furrow slightly to the left, making these earlier ridge and furrows into a slight reverse-S shape. This shape survives in some places as curved field boundaries, even where the ridge and furrow pattern itself has vanished. If the oxen had been turned right at the end of the furrow, they would immediately have had to turn right again down the returning furrow, making the line of oxen cut across the top of the ploughed strip and thus pulling the plough out of the ground before it reached the end of the furrow, as well as having potential difficulty from two adjacent lines of oxen moving in opposite directions. Alternatively, if lined up rightwards along the headland, some would already be past the beginning of the new furrow, and these would have to be moved awkwardly sideways into the furrow to be ready to plough. Turning to the left made one turn at a time and avoided a sideways move. As oxen became larger and ploughs more efficient, smaller teams were needed. These took less room on the headland, and straight ploughing became easier – and easier still when
heavy horses ''Heavy Horses'' is the eleventh studio album by British progressive rock band Jethro Tull, released on 10 April 1978. The album is often considered the second in a trio of folk rock albums released by the band at the end of the 1970s, alongsi ...
were introduced. Late Middle Ages ridge and furrow is therefore straight.


Surviving locations

Some of the best-preserved ridge and furrow survives in the
English counties The counties of England are areas used for different purposes, which include administrative, geographical, cultural and political demarcation. The term "county" is defined in several ways and can apply to similar or the same areas used by each ...
of: *
Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
*
Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...
*
County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly â€About North East E ...
*
Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
*
Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...
*
Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...
*
Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...
*
Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...
*
Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...
*
Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...
*
Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...
*
West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...
In Scotland, 4-600 acres of rig and furrow survive in one area outside the town of Airdrie. Ridge and furrow often survives on higher ground where the arable land was subsequently turned over to sheep walk in the 15th century and has not been ploughed out since by modern ploughing methods, today surviving still as pasture and grazing for sheep where the effect is clearly visible, especially when the sun is low or after a dusting of snow. It is often associated with deserted medieval villages.


Similar agricultural landforms

*
Cord rig Cord rig is the name given by archaeologists to a system of cultivation practised in prehistoric and later upland Britain. Spades were used to excavate raised banks for cultivation with channels running alongside for drainage. Where it survives, i ...
, cultivation ridges created by spade digging *
Lazy bed Lazy bed ( ga, ainneor or , gd, feannagan ) is a traditional method of arable cultivation. Rather like cord rig cultivation, parallel banks of ridge and furrow are dug by spade although lazy beds have banks that are bigger, up to in width, ...
s, cultivation ridges created by spade digging *
Lynchet A lynchet or linchet is an Terrace (earthworks), earth terrace found on the side of a hill. Lynchets are a feature of ancient field systems of the British Isles. They are commonly found in vertical rows and more commonly referred to as "strip lyn ...
s, sloping terraces on steep hillsides, created by gravity on hillslopes subject to ploughing *
Raised bed gardening Raised-bed gardening is a form of gardening in which the soil is raised above ground level and usually enclosed in some way. Raised bed structures can be made of wood, rock, concrete or other materials, and can be of any size or shape. The soil is ...
, a modern system of raising cultivated land above the surrounding ground *
Run rig Run rig, or runrig, also known as rig-a-rendal, was a system of land tenure practised in Scotland, particularly in the Highlands and Islands. It was used on open fields for arable farming. Its origins are not clear, but it is possible that the p ...
and
rundale The rundale system (apparently from the Irish Gaelic words "Roinn" which refers to the division of something and "Dáil", usually meaning meeting or assembly) was a form of occupation of land in Ireland, somewhat resembling the English common fiel ...
, Scottish and Irish land-use patterns named after their characteristic ridges and furrows * Water-meadows, grassland with ridges and dips to control irrigation – superficially similar to ridge and furrow, but the origin, pattern and use were very different


References


External links


Examples of ridge and furrow in photos on geograph.org.ukVideo footage of ridge and furrow.
{{Authority control History of agriculture European archaeology Landscape history