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Prof Susan Oosthuizen Profile picture
@DrSueOosthuizen
Dec 3, 2019 • 7 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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Tugging at a short THREAD. I came across this lovely mid/late 19thC painting by a Dutch artist yesterday of a paddle #sluice in pasture - the paddles are lifted up to let the water through or to keep it in (to feed the grass) or let it out (to relieve flooding)... Image
2. The painting was on the wonderful Dutch website for images of cultural heritage mentioned yesterday by @Henk_Baas beeldbank.cultureelerfgoed.nl/alle-afbeeldin…. It’s by J H L de Haas (1832-1906).
3. Thing is, I’d seen this before - these sluices/weirs controlled by paddles & rymers were common once & 3 still survive on the upper Thames W of Oxford at Northmoor, Rushey & Radcot - this photo is of Northmoor the-river-thames.co.uk/locks.htm. Image
4. The photographer Henry Taunt photographed the paddles in the late 19thC.. viewfinder.historicengland.org.uk/search/referen…

They’re sometimes called flash locks because lifting the paddles causes the water to rush across the weir like a flash flood. Image
5. And then I found this: a flash lock drawn in section in a 16thC map made in pursuit of a legal dispute about fishing & milling rights - more about it here oxoniensia.org/volumes/2008/s… (and photos from Wiki). ImageImage
6. I think it’s just so exciting not only to see how something worked in practice but also to find examples stretching into the past - 500 yrs in this case, though almost certainly much older. I bet #twitterstorians will add many more and (especially) #medieval examples #CantWait Image
6a. Last image is Streatley Weir near Goring via britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101393483-stre…. END

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More from @DrSueOosthuizen

Prof Susan Oosthuizen Profile picture
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
Read 9 tweets
Prof Susan Oosthuizen Profile picture
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…).
Read 23 tweets
Prof Susan Oosthuizen Profile picture
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
Read 20 tweets
Prof Susan Oosthuizen Profile picture
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.
Read 8 tweets
Prof Susan Oosthuizen Profile picture
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.
Read 17 tweets
Prof Susan Oosthuizen Profile picture
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..
Read 17 tweets

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