Day 83 - Feeding a nation: Part 1

Source: Geograph.org.uk

Two work days in a row, and while both have involved walks around town, they have not been anything too extensive. So, today and tomorrow, Phil and I are going to discuss with you some interesting things about how Britain has fed itself in the past and continues to do so today.

Source: Geograph.org.uk

This idea comes from our walks in the area. At least once on almost every walk in the Cotswolds we find ourselves trekking across pastureland that is undulating. Now, what makes this so unusual is that the undulations are man made. These two pictures will give you an idea of what I'm talking about. It's really quite fascinating, and in all cases, the land we are crossing is not being farmed with vegetables; it's often empty or being grazed on by sheep.

This made me curious and I had to discover why these rather large, long ridges were there. Now, how do you even begin to research this when you're an ignorant urbanite. I googled "undulating hills," "humps across farmland," "bumpy row in fields." Well, you get the idea: I won't be winning any research awards, so the Nobel Prize people can cast their gaze elsewhere.

I finally hit on it when I typed in "ridges in fields" and discovered this is known as ridge and furrow, a pattern of farming used by the Romans who lived in Britain and then used into the Middle Ages. At that time it was a type of communal farming, with each family having one of the ridges to farm. The ridges were formed over time as a plough used only turned the soil in one direction. As a result, when the got to the end of the row, they picked the plough up, walked a few steps, dropped it back down and started ploughing again, pushing the soil back in a small hill toward the previous strip they had ploughed. After a time, this sort of clockwork-style ploughing started to build up small mounds. Today, the mounds are about a couple of feet high, but when they were in use, they would have been much higher -- up to six feet. Traditionally, they would be a furrow long (the origin of the word "furlong"), about 220 yards (200 metres). Crops that needed better drainage, such as wheat, would be grown at the top, while things such as peas that could tolerate damper soil would be grown in the furrows.

Its rather amazing to think you are walking over mounds created from such extensive human effort. People lived and worked here. Somewhere nearby would have been their homes. All that effort to ensure you and your family were fed. But according to The Guardian, in the east Midlands part of the UK, about 94% of ridge and furrow left by medieval farmers was destroyed in the 1990s by modern farm machinery. Occasionally that has meant the destruction of burial mounds, intricate Roman tiles, stone circles, and who knows what else. Like driving a combine through a museum!

In a previous blog, I talked about a TV show about metal detectorists. When I cross these fields, I now understand the desire to know what just might rest beneath waiting to be rediscovered. Hey, Christmas is coming, if anyone is wondering what to buy me!