Monument record MBC45263 - Medieval and/or post medieval ridge and furrow cultivation, Barton Hartshorn parish

Extensive contiguous medieval and/or post medieval ridge and furrow cultivation blocks, plough headlands 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 Barton Hartshorn parish and centred at SP 63383 30354, about two thirds of the ridge and furrow blocks are aligned roughly W-E, with the remainder with a focus in the NE corner oriented aligned roughly N-S. 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 over three quarters of the mapped earthwork blocks have now been plough-levelled, probably by intensive post-war agricultural practices. The 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 (1-12).