Laxton is a small
villageA village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet, but smaller than a town or city. Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in...
in the
civil parishIn England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and in some places the lowest tier of local government, below districts and counties. A civil parish can alternatively be known as a town, village, neighbourhood or community by resolution of its parish council; and in a limited number of...
of Laxton and Moorhouse in the
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of
NottinghamshireNottinghamshire is an English county in the East Midlands, which borders South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire...
, situated ca. 25 miles northeasternly of
NottinghamNottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire, England and is one of only eight members of the English Core Cities Group....
city centre.
Laxton is best known for having the last remaining working
open field systemThe open field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe from the Middle Ages to as recently as the 20th century in places. Under this system, each manor or village had several very large unfenced fields, farmed in strips by individual families...
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
. The
Beth Shalom Holocaust memorial Centre is just outside the village to the west.
The village has the remains of a
NormanThe Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William of Normandy in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...
motte and bailey
castleA castle is a defensive structure seen as one of the main symbols of the Middle Ages. The term has a history of scholarly debate surrounding its exact meaning, but it is usually regarded as being distinct from the general terms fort or fortress, in that it describes a residence of a monarch or...
(
Laxton CastleLaxton Castle is a late-11th or early-12th century medieval castle located north of the village of Laxton in Nottinghamshire, England. According to an early 20th-century report by the British Archaeological Association, the site is notable not only as "the most striking specimen of a mount and...
) and a small Holocaust Museum.
Laxton is a small
villageA village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet, but smaller than a town or city. Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in...
in the
civil parishIn England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and in some places the lowest tier of local government, below districts and counties. A civil parish can alternatively be known as a town, village, neighbourhood or community by resolution of its parish council; and in a limited number of...
of Laxton and Moorhouse in the
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of
NottinghamshireNottinghamshire is an English county in the East Midlands, which borders South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire...
, situated ca. 25 miles northeasternly of
NottinghamNottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire, England and is one of only eight members of the English Core Cities Group....
city centre.
Laxton is best known for having the last remaining working
open field systemThe open field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe from the Middle Ages to as recently as the 20th century in places. Under this system, each manor or village had several very large unfenced fields, farmed in strips by individual families...
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
. The
Beth Shalom Holocaust memorial Centre is just outside the village to the west.
Features
The village has the remains of a
NormanThe Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William of Normandy in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...
motte and bailey
castleA castle is a defensive structure seen as one of the main symbols of the Middle Ages. The term has a history of scholarly debate surrounding its exact meaning, but it is usually regarded as being distinct from the general terms fort or fortress, in that it describes a residence of a monarch or...
(
Laxton CastleLaxton Castle is a late-11th or early-12th century medieval castle located north of the village of Laxton in Nottinghamshire, England. According to an early 20th-century report by the British Archaeological Association, the site is notable not only as "the most striking specimen of a mount and...
) and a small Holocaust Museum. In addition, there are the remnants of a substantial system of fish-ponds (possibly belonging to the castle, or to the later
manorManorialism or Seigneurialism or Feudal Society was the organizing principle of rural economy and society widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe...
built on the site), two mediæval mill mounds, and ridge-and-furrow earthworks. The village church mostly dates back to the 12th century; after this, the earliest known standing structure is a 1703 farmhouse. Most of the village architecture sits firmly in the local vernacular tradition, with nearly a fifth of the buildings dating from the 18th century, and around 40% from each of the 19th and 20th.
Open Fields
Laxton parish today has much conventionally-farmed land, but retains also a significant part of the mediæval open field system. Fields, divided into strips, are farmed in common between the landowners of the village . Today, there are three open fields remaining; the Mill Field, the South Field and the West Field. A 1635 survey of the parish carried out by Mark Pierce (still extant, and held in the
Bodleian LibraryThe Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
) shows that these three fields were in use at that date, but that they were significantly larger than their current size. There was also a fourth field, the East Field, which was considerably smaller than the others, and farmed as part of the West Field. This was fully
enclosedEnclosure or inclosure is the process which was used to end some traditional rights, such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on land which is owned by another person, or a group of people. In England and Wales the term is also used for the process that ended the ancient system of...
, and today is a number of small fields.
The strips within the fields have also changed significantly, with changes in technology. Originally, a single strip would have represented approximately a single day of
ploughThe plough is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture...
ing; such a strip today would be far too small to be really practical for a
tractorA tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
-drawn plough. Instead, over time strips have been consolidated to provide workable parcels of land; the result today is that the average strip size has increased significantly over mediæval times. However, the practical aspects of open field farming are still very much what they would have been 500 years ago.
Laxton is unique because the open field system is still alive and in daily use. Although the village is now recognised as an important heritage site, it is home to working farmers who rely on the land for their income. While modern expectations and needs mean that all the farmers also own land outside the open fields, the open fields are not part of a museum or showcase, but a living part of the agricultural landscape. The system is protected today by a Parliamentary undertaking given by the
Crown EstateIn the United Kingdom, the Crown Estate is a property portfolio owned by the Crown. Historically the possession of monarchs, it is no longer the private property of the reigning monarch and cannot be sold by him/her, nor do the revenues from it belong to the monarch personally. It is managed by an...
Commissioners on their 1981 purchase of the Laxton estate, and by a Countryside Stewardship agreement held between the Court Leet and the then-
Countryside CommissionThe Countryside Commission was a statutory body in England and Wales, and later in England only...
. The sykes, four areas of grassland, are also protected by
SSSIA Site of Special Scientific Interest or SSSI is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based...
status.
Laxton’s strip fields were depicted on a postage stamp designed by
David TressDavid Tress is a British artist noted particularly for his deeply personal interpretations of landscapes in and around his home in Pembrokeshire, southwest Wales...
that was issued in 1999 by the Royal Mail as part of their
Millennium stampA Millennium stamp is a postage stamp issued by a postal administration commemorating a millennium associated with that country's history but several countries issued stamps for the beginning of the 3rd millennium in same cases depicting some of their country's achievements over the preceding...
series; the stamp also doubled as Royal Mail’s contribution to that year’s
Europa postage stampEuropa stamps have been issued annually since 1956. First sets representing the founding 6 members of the ECSC, European Coal and Steel Community, then by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations in 1959, and by PostEurop since 1993...
issue with the theme of Parks and Reserves.
Beth Shalom
Opened in September 1995, Beth Shalom Holocaust Memorial Centre was the first venue in Britain dedicated to the Holocaust as its primary purpose rather than sections of other museums. The venue is based around an old farm house which has a purpose built exhibition centre with lecture theatre, and a Memorial Garden. A feature of the garden is a black stone on which are inscribed the names of the Nazi death camps.
The vision for the centre came when Stephen and James Smith visitied Israel with their parents. Some time later, on another visit, they saw
Yad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament.The origin of the name is from a Biblical verse: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and...
, and were inspired to build a memorial in Britain.
The centre is also home to the
Aegis TrustAegis Trust, founded in 2000, is the leading British NGO which campaigns to prevent genocide worldwide. Based at the United Kingdom’s Holocaust Centre, which opened in 1995, the Aegis Trust coordinates the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group for genocide prevention and is responsible for the Kigali...
, an all-party group working for genocide prevention. One of their interests is in Kigali,
RwandaThe Republic of Rwanda is a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa, bordered by Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. Home to approaching 10 million people, Rwanda supports the densest population in continental Africa, most of whom...
.
External links