Medieval Strip Farming in England

Medieval strip farming was a feudal system for equitably dividing farmland among villagers. Farmers would be allocated long narrow strips scattered across an open field—some in sandy soil, some in clay—ensuring everyone got a mix of soil types. As they ploughed, soil would ridge up the center of each strip, leaving furrows at the edges. Atlas Obscura reports the practice has largely died out, but it persists in a few places: Laxton in Nottinghamshire still operates with its own manorial court, while Braunton in Devon and Laugharne in Wales maintain the tradition. The most obscure survivor is around Haxey on the Isle of Axholme. The isle remained surrounded by marshland until seventeenth-century drainage, so the dry high ground kept the old farming system even as the newly drained areas switched to larger enclosed fields. Today, the ridges and furrows remain visible enough that the local authority created a cycling route to showcase them.

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