Monument record MBC44965 - Medieval and/or post medieval ridge and furrow cultivation, Preston Bissett parish.

Block 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 along the western edge of Preston Bissett parish and centred at SP 65015 29097, three of the four blocks of the contiguous ridge and furrow blocks are aligned W-E, the fourth being aligned SSW-NNE. 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 three of the four mapped earthwork blocks have been plough-levelled by intensive post-war agricultural practices (1-3).

Almost contiguous medieval and/or post medieval ridge and furrow cultivation and furlong boundary banks, 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 Preston Bissett parish and centred at SP 65873 28518, almost all the ridge and furrow cultivation blocks are visible as extant earthworks on aerial photographs taken in the 1940s, but aerial photographs taken in 2019 and recent remote sensing data indicate that about two-thirds of the mapped blocks have since been plough-levelled due to changes to post-war agricultural regimes. In the north of the parish, the ridge and furrows of these cultivation blocks are aligned mostly between NNE-SSW or NW-SE, with only a few blocks aligned in other directions. In the south of the parish, the ridge and furrows of these cultivation blocks are aligned mostly between NE-SW or NW-SE, with only a few blocks aligned in other directions. The sections of linear earthwork furlong banks are 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 of the boundary banks may have earlier origins. They remain visible chiefly as extant, sinuous, parallel, plough-levelled earthwork sections on recent lidar remote sensing data (4-22).