| Abstract: |
The Historic Field Systems of East Anglia Project was carried out with support from English Heritage's Monuments Protection Programme. The project formulated a way of analysing the historic landscape in terms of eight basic 'land types' that could be further broken down into eighteen sub-types. Of especial significance were common fields and their antithesis, ancient 'block holdings' or holdings in severalty (farmsteads surrounded by their own group of fields). This form of analysis was applied to twelve detailed case studies of historic land use that were carried out across the region: three in Norfolk, four in Suffolk, three in Essex and one each in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire. In each place the landscape was categorised, mapped and quantified according to the land types. The varying percentages of all the land types was calculated and common fields were shown to be most prevalent in the north and west of the region, while block holdings dominated in the south, with some areas showing no evidence of ever having had common fields. By using trend lines derived from the computer-based Historic Landscape Characterisation mapping (recently carried out in the region under another English Heritage sponsored project) in conjunction with a variety of other data sets, it was possible to suggest a wider context for the case-study based conclusions. Of particular, and unexpected, importance was a division running diagonally across the claylands of central Suffolk, approximately on the line of the River Gipping. To the south of this there is gently undulating land which had a high potential for arable farming in pre-modern times, while to the north there is mainly flat land, with an historic tendency towards dairy farming. It was also possible to demonstrate a high incidence of block holdings in the southern area and, conversely, a link with a form of common fields to the north. But beyond these topographically explicable differences, it was also apparent that the 'Gipping divide' was a significant cultural boundary. This can be seen in vernacular architecture, both in constructional methods and in plan forms; in the terminology used to describe greens and woods; and in inheritance customs. The patterns seen in south Suffolk extend into Essex and those in north Suffolk extend into Norfolk, indicating that this was a boundary of regional importance that has a greater cultural significance than the existing county boundaries. The report has therefore pulled together a key collection of historical descriptions of the nature and management of field boundaries across the region, as an aid towards the informed conservation of the East Anglian landscape in the twenty-first century. |
