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Originally Posted by Tinkerbell Lovely pic Fourwings - how long is it since the ridge and furrow practice ceased? |
Ridge and furrow produced by ploughing with either Oxen or horses is usually pre- 1500 in date. These ridges are quite large and always have a curved or lazy S profile.
The smaller more uniform ridge and furrow that can sometimes be found is produced by Steam ploughing, a Georgian/Victorian system that involved draging a huge plough backwards and forwards on a chain between two traction engines, one at each end of the field.
A really good clue to determining the age of ridge and furrow is to look at it and see if the ridges seem to carry on through the hedges, fences etc.. in some cases even on either side of the road. If this is the case then you are almost certainly looking at the remnants of a Medieval field system.
The more modern steam plough version, will match the existing field boundrys, this is because most hedgerows are a product of the mass enclosure acts of the 1700's, before this time much of the countryside was open with the boundrys between different plots of land being defined by a change in direction of the Ridge and furrow or a much larger ridge called a Baulk or Headland.