Monument record MBC45138 - Ridge and furrow field systems in the parish of Addington

Ridge and furrow field systems of medieval date are visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data as extant earthworks and levelled earthworks and were mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located within the parish of Addington and centred at SP 75396 28594. Earthworks are clear on 1940s aerial photographs but remain only in woodland, visible on lidar visualisations, and plough headlands cross some of the earthworks. Addington estate, which covered most of the parish, was inclosed in 1710 and modern land use of arable or improved grassland for horses has levelled the earthworks. Any that do remain are in woodland and in what was formerly a small square field near Bridge Farm, which has been split in two by the railway. (1-11)

Almost contiguous medieval and/or post medieval ridge and furrow cultivation, boundary ditches 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 the west half of Addington parish and centred at SP 74091 28818, 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, with the remaining blocks surviving as earthworks in closes and fields around Addington village. Many of the ridges and furrows of these cultivation blocks are aligned generally N-S or W-E, 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. Whilst some of the linear banks respect the boundaries of the mapped ridge and cultivation blocks, others pass through the extant ridge and furrow, possibly indicating former medieval cultivation boundaries that were subsequently readjusted (12-18).