Laxton

A unique survivor from medieval England: the ancient farming practices of Laxton in Nottinghamshire.

The Norman Castle at Laxton in Nottinghamshire may be only a small mound now but some of the ways of those days live on at the Dovecote Inn, which acts as the nerve centre for the local farming community. The new lord of the manor is the Ministry of Agriculture. Can the only English village that still operates an open field system administered by an ancient Court Leet survive in this era of mechanisation, European subsidies and high yield fertilisers?

Originally a single strip of land represented the area that could be ploughed in a single day. Over time and with increased mechanisation these strips were combined but Laxton still operates a system in which these strips are farmed collectively. The Enclosure Act of 1773 allowed land owners to apply to parliament to have areas of common land enclosed.