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Prof Susan Oosthuizen

@DrSueOosthuizen

May 8, 2022

Short🧵. As many people know, Laxton, in Nottinghamshire, is one of the few places in England where large-scale #medieval open #fields survive, still collectively organised & managed in the same way that they were 6 and more centuries ago. … /1

The term ‘open fields’ has become shorthand for large (often huge) areas of arable, subdivided into unhedged blocks (‘furlongs’), subdivided in turn into narrow strips (‘selions’). #medieval #landscape. /2

And the strips (selions) in each furlong were shared out, one by one in repetitive order, between the village’s farmers. This 1617 map from Balsham, Cambs., names of the farmer of each strip. By 1617 some had acquired & merged neighbouring strips, others had subdivided theirs. /3

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Prof Susan Oosthuizen

@DrSueOosthuizen

Sep 9, 2021

Pollard willows along a river bank are such a vivid reminder of centuries of unremembered famers’ labour in supporting the present with hope for a sustainable future. Here’s the story they tell… THREAD

2. Most obviously, willows are trees that prefer damp conditions so they’re often planted along rivers, streams & canals so that their root systems will help to keep the banks stable in times of flood (photo: John Sutton). But that’s the least interesting part of their story.

3. More interesting - at least to me - is their use for millennia as a crop, for making all sorts of things. Here are a few examples. Friends, I give you a reconstructed willow hurdle from fish weir c3934-2681 BC (exarc.net/issue-2018-4/e…).

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Prof Susan Oosthuizen

@DrSueOosthuizen

Sep 1, 2021

Every walk has a puzzle or more that might tell the story of how that landscape evolved. That’s what makes for so much fun. So here’s a 🧵about a recent amble in case you might enjoy it too.

2. We walked past this pair of houses, one set closely behind the other. Which was the earlier? How might one tell?

3. Well, there’s a rule of thumb in Cambs. that chimney location, shapes and materials are a good place to start:
(a) the earliest chimneys in ordinary houses were set along the roof line - not on the end walls. They mostly tend to date from the 17thC though they can be earlier

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Prof Susan Oosthuizen

@DrSueOosthuizen

Jun 6, 2021

The great historian G. M. Trevelyan on the enchantment of history:

‘The appeal of History to us all is in the last analysis poetic. But the poetry of History does not consist of imagination roaming at large, but of imagination pursuing the fact & fastening upon it. (1/n)

2. That which compels the historian to ‘scorn delights and live laborious days’ is the ardor of his own curiosity to know what really happened long ago in that land of mystery which we call the past. To peer into that magic mirror and see fresh figures there every day ... (2/n)

3. ... is a burning desire that consumes and satisfies him all his life, that carries him each morning, eager as a lover, to the library and muniment room. It haunts him like a passion of almost terrible potency, because it is poetic.

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Prof Susan Oosthuizen

@DrSueOosthuizen

Feb 4, 2021

THREAD. There’s so much water in the fields at present - fields are floating in water. Here in the east of England it’s a practical lesson explaining so much about land use before under-field drainage began in the 17thC.

2. Seasonal springs are suddenly bubbling with water ...

3. and everything is sodden underfoot.

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Prof Susan Oosthuizen

@DrSueOosthuizen

Dec 22, 2020

THREAD. A seriously muddy walk across one of the high, flat, clay plateaux of S Cambs. today, was full of reminders that this land, too heavy for ox-drawn ploughs, was medieval common pasture studded with managed woodland..

2. The fields were full of water despite being at the top of the hills - too flat to drain well, studded with small pockets of low land that made temporary ponds..

3. Coming across Eversden Wood in this waterlogged landscape reminded me of the great Oliver Rackham’s truism that #medieval #woods are not found on land that’s good for woods, but on land that’s no good for anything else - and of his advice on how to recognise them..

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