Laxton, Nottinghamshire

The village has the remains of a Norman motte and bailey castle (Laxton Castle) and is also the site of the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre. In addition, there are the remnants of a substantial system of fish-ponds, presumed to have belonged to the castle or to the manor house built later on the site of it, two mediæval mill mounds, and ridge-and-furrow earthworks. St Michael the Archangel's Church, Laxton, mostly dates back to the 12th century; after this, the earliest known standing structure is a farmhouse dating from 1703. Most of the village's architecture sits firmly in the local vernacular tradition, with nearly a fifth of the buildings dating from the 18th century, and around 40% from…

Laxton parish today has much conventionally farmed land but retains also a significant part of the mediaeval open field system. Fields, divided into strips, are farmed in common among 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 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 enclosed, and…