Fieldtrip, November 24th 2013

Laxton Field Trip.  Sunday 24th November 2013

Friends, family, etc welcome - including children who can cope with a bit of a walk!  Dogs will be fine if kept on a lead as we may encounter livestock.

Meet at the Visitors' Centre at 12 noon for a walk around the village and Church. 

Lunch in the Dovecote Inn (if required) food from 12.30pm Sunday (booking essential).  www.dovecoteinnlaxton.co.uk (nb 10% discount if booked on-line!). Tel: 01777 871586

Alternatively, picnic in the visitors' centre.

We will reconvene at 1.30pm to explore the castle and field system, finishing at dusk (about 4pm).

Directions

Sat-Nav: NG22 0SX (but allegedly unreliable)

From Nottingham take the A614 north to Ollerton.  At the outskirts of Ollerton take the 4th exit from the roundabout (marked A616 Ollerton).

At the next roundabout take the first exit (A6075) into Ollerton.  Continue through Ollerton on the A6075.

As you leave Ollerton, passing through some industrial and manufacturing buildings, the main road turns sharply to the left, with a minor road on the right (Cocking Hill) passing steeply uphill under a railway bridge.

Follow the minor road uphill (you are climbing up one side of the Mercia Mudstone ridge that forms the spine of Nottingham).

At the brow of the hill you enter Laxton parish, passing across the Westwood Common (enclosed in the 1950s).  The woodland on the left at the heart of the old common has existed since at least 1635 and was mapped by Mark Pearce.

Follow the road as it winds down into Laxton village.

Continue through the village, passing the parish Church on your right.

About 200 yards past the Church the road forks at a small triangular green (Crosshill).

You will see the Dovecote Inn ahead and to the right.  Follow the road round to the right and turn left into the car park.

Park at the far end of the car park (uphill).  The visitors' centre is immediately opposite the pub entrance.

Bring

Maps, notebook, camera, GPS

Warm, waterproof clothing

A flask and a snack.  There are no shops or tea shops in Laxton!

Walking boots and gaiters or wellington boots preferred. It can be muddy underfoot so shoes are NOT recommended
A good walking stick/staff/shooting stick is not a bad idea either if you have one.

Understanding the Archaeology of Landscapes

English Heritage's excellent and free introduction to landscape archaeology Undertanding the Archaeology of Landscapes is available to download from their website.

English Heritage also produce a wide variety of free guidance booklets, some highly specialist, but many of more general interest, which can be accessed from here.

Class 9: Preparing for Fieldwork

The slides for Class 9: Preparing for Fieldwork are available to download from here.

A Field trip to Laxton

In the Autumn of 1902 the Thoroton Society hosted a field visit to Laxton (in the rain!) and then the propert of Earl Manvers.  The visit was reported upon in the Transactions of that year.

After passing through Moorhouse, Laxton Fields, where the open-field system of agriculture still survives in a modified form, were traversed in a drenching shower.  This property belongs to Earl Manvers, and at a later period in the day, Mr. W. Stevenson took an opportunity of explaining the leading features of this old communal system of agriculture, which still holds its own in this partially unenclosed lordship. It was explained that the wheat field of this year would be a pulse crop next year, and then lie a year in fallow, in the latter case with the broad headlands of grass to become the com­munal sheep pasture of the lordship by which the land would be again prepared for corn... (Read More)

Mark Pierce, Laxton 1635

Below is one panel from Mark Pierce's great 1635 map of Laxton, held by the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Other panels and the terrier (accompany field book) can be viewed on the Oxford Digital Library website and also on their Treasures of the Bodleian website.

George Sanderson's Map of Laxton, 1835

George Sanderson's 1835 map of Twenty Miles Round Mansfield provides a fantastic introduction to historic mapping.  Published by subscription just before the first Ordnance Survey map of Nottinghamshire, but at a larger scale of about two and a quarter inches to the mile, Sanderson, who worked variously as a surveyor and Enclosure commissioner, based his map on his own surveys of the countryside.  Beautifully drawn, the map captures an early 19th century landscape in transition.  The open fields are largely gone, but Nottingham still sits among fields, the Park is still a deer park, and the railways just a threatened line across the landscape (often wrongly placed as the routes were changed after Sanderson published his map).

The whole map has been republished several times, most recently in 2001 as a two book reprint by Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Library Services, which is sometimes to be found in bookshops and is well worth having if spotted.  Below is a zoomable extract for the parish of Laxton, compare with the modern Ordnance Survey mapping to try and discern just what has changed in Laxton over the past 180 years.

Class 8: An Unexpected Corner

The slides for Class 8: An Unexpected Corner, Hoskins on Towns are now available from here.

Laxton Manuscripts at the University of Nottingham

The Manuscripts and Special Collections section of the University of Nottingham Library hosts a dedicated website presenting part of their extensive collection of documents relating to Laxton. The website explores aspects of life in Laxton between 1635 and 1908. Despite the fact that Laxton was never fully enclosed, it was a typical example of a Midlands open field village and its history can therefore shed light on life in hundreds of similar places.

• Theme 1: Landholding and enclosure
• Theme 2: The open field system and the manorial court
• Theme 3: The Village Population

The resources include images and transcripts of original archive materials including maps, surveys, manorial and ecclesiastical court records, correspondence and reports. 

Class 7: A Desirable Spot to Build

The slides for Class 7: A Desirable Spot to Build, are available for download from here.