Abstract

3. The relationship benveen ridge and furrow- and n1apped strip holdings Della Hooke Many valuable maps survive from the later historical enclosed in 1803. Within one of the post-enclosure period which show details of surviving open field fields lay portions of four open-field furlongs: the systems. It is tempting to utilise such evidence to linear holdings of Upper Crabs Piece and Lower investigate how such systems may have developed Crabs Piece, together with Town Furlong, ran from and how the management of such systems was north-west to south-east, while a smaller parcel of physically organised. The strips were frequently strips, known collectively as Town Butts, ran from ploughed by the characteristic 'ridge and furrow' north-east to south-west. Apart from Town Butts, method, not least because this facilitated drainage the furrows ran down-slope and a headland lay on heavy soils before land drains were widely alongside the road from Alcester to Kinwarton, available. The long linear ridges and their intervening running along part of the bottom of Lower Crabs furrows must also have conveniently helped to Piece. The eighteenth-century maps also show a demarcate strip holdings. road running between the furlongs north-westwards Map evidence has been used by many scholars