Monument record MBC44964 - Medieval and/or post medieval ridge and furrow cultivation, Chetwode parish

A contiguous swathe of medieval and/or post medieval ridge and furrow cultivation blocks, remnants of the former common open-field system, is visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data as earthworks and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located across Chetwode parish and centred at SP 64166 29427, most of the ridge and furrow blocks are aligned either NNW-SSE or generally W-E. The ridge and furrow cultivation blocks are visible as earthworks or plough-levelled earthworks on aerial photographs taken in the 1940s. Aerial photographs taken in 2019 and recent remote sensing data indicate that almost all of the mapped earthwork blocks have been plough-levelled by intensive post-war agricultural practices .

Blocks of medieval and/or post medieval ridge and furrow cultivation, field boundaries, boundary banks, plough headlands and furlong boundaries, remnants of the former common open-field system, is visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data as earthworks and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located in the N of Chetwode parish and centred at SP 64606 30480, the ridge and furrow blocks do not share a general alignment but are variously oriented roughly N-S, SW-NE or SE-NW. The ridge and furrow cultivation blocks are visible as earthworks earthworks on aerial photographs taken in the 1940s. Aerial photographs taken in 2019 and recent remote sensing data indicate that about three quarters of the mapped earthwork blocks have since been plough-levelled, probably due to intensive post-war agricultural practices. At Courtfield Farm are a network of interconnected linear field boundary ditches and banks that define are at least three small contiguous, rectilinear enclosures or closes, within two of which are small blocks of ridge and furrow. The linear earthwork furlong bank mapped is part of a much more extensive system of land division boundaries that extends eastwards through Bedfordshire and beyond into Cambridgeshire. Whilst many of these features originate in the medieval period with the establishment of the common field cultivation system, some boundary banks may have earlier origins. They remain visible chiefly as extant, sinuous, parallel, plough-levelled earthwork sections on recent lidar remote sensing data (1-10).