Traces of the Past. Oft overlooked signs of farming in the Landscape

Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water.

Jack fell down and broke his crown

And Jill came tumbling after

Why? You usually find water in  valley bottoms. Is this just a  nonsense rhyme? No! The rhyme almost certainly originates in the chalk hills of Southern England.. At places in this area we find the phenomenon of dry valleys, which originated in the last years of the ice age, but have no stream running through them, as the extremely porous chalk allows water to sink through it with ease.  But why the upper slopes of these uplands? The answer is what are known as dew ponds. Not all dewponds are on hills, but many are on upper slopes to catch dew and fog droplets that condense on higher places.. Dewponds probably were first  constructed in the Neolithic Age, 4200 to 1900 BC. Neolithic Britons could not manage the dense woodlands  of the country and so preferred the more expansive chalk uplands of the south Downs, the Chilterns and Salisbury Plain, and the oolitic limestone of the Cotswold hills. But these had porous soils. The solution to the problem of water storage was to create large, shallow basins, waterproofed with puddled clay to store water.  

These ponds were not a source of water suitable for arable farming, which is water-intensive, but they could easily serve as watering holes for cattle in a pastoral economy. But surprisingly dew was probably not the source of the water, as scientists have tested them and found that very little dew is collected in them. But the ponds could serve well as reservoirs for rainwater storage. They could also be more aptly named dew or fog ponds. While dew is air-borne moisture which condenses out of the air, fog is already condensed water droplets that settles from the air much more easily than dew does. 

The dew ponds fell out of use in the twentieth century. In 1937 a dewpond builder died and his son wrote to clients promising that the family business of constructing dewponds, which the family had been conducting for two hundred and fifty one years, would continue. But then came the Second World War, and agriculture was affected by the urgent rush to modernize to survive. The dew pond is now a relic.   

Two young boys, who have been sent to the library by their mother with the strict injunction to stay away from the grubby pond that they would pass on the way back home, would ever divert from their route home and adventure round the stagnant pond. The elder of the two would take the lead. We went  round the mucky pool hanging from branches as we went, but  neither of us ever fell in, and mother never got to know. I always wondered why the pond had no source of water and no streamlet flowing from it.  But in later years I came to the conclusion that it was not a natural pond at all, but a redundant marl pit.  The marl pit was in a patch of woodland known as Hatchet Woods, a name that has nought to do with the local legend of the mad axman who stalked the woods at an unspecified time in the past and far more to do with the ancient British term Y Chet, the woodland. The wood is now an industrial estate, so small boys who went adventuring in the other ponds in the woods have no more frogs and newts to catch. 

Marl is found in a belt extending from near the Scottish borders down through the west of England to parts of southern Britain. It is a softish rock composed of carboniferous limestone fragments churned up by water and consequently mixed with ancient clay particles. It breaks easily  under the impact of farm tools and is a great and natural soil enhancer full of nutrients. The pits were dug from late Saxon times until the nineteenth century, when different sources of fertilizer, such as South American guano, bird dung, took over. The marl pits were deep, often deep enough for an  exit ramp to enable carts to be hauled out. They also provided a source of employment for some rough and tough characters who would appoint one of their number ,generally six, as Lord of the Pit, and he would lead the men in cajoling tips from passers by, and then he would lead them to the alehouse.    Digging a six foot deep pit was thirsty business.

The word holloway is best known as the name of a women's prison in London. But no, we were not in the habit of incarcerating women in great numbers, for the prison's name is taken from a local feature found mainly in England. Holloways still exist and are officially paths, but they are minor relics of an ancient road system. How old they are, no one knows. But they are a type of what is known as a green lane, an ancient path running through a rural district. But not all green lanes are Holloways.

Holloways are formed by the interaction between running water, soft soil and human and animal footfall over many generations. You do not find them on the hard granite of Dartmoor, but they are more common on the chalk and limestone of Southern England, they are known in Northern England and in areas where the bedrock is sandstone. I imagine that a Holloway began when someone walked a path and others followed the route. The land surface was slightly eroded. Soon the rains came and washed away some earth, and the path deepened. Trees soon adorned the sides of the path, but the way was kept open by traffic. Farm carts with their metal tyred wheels continued to wear out the soil.The way became a passage for occasional flood waters; and so the process .went on. Some holloways have reached depths of thirty five feet.

These paths are unsuitable now for all but foot traffic.Trees lining them sometimes yield to erosion and tumble down the sides. A blocked Holloway soon becomes a haven for bramble which quickly tangles the pathway. They are not part of the road system so there is no onus on landowners to maintain them. They can be a danger to unwary walkers and animals. Unleashed dogs have at times slipped into them, and in snowy conditions they can cause a very deep drift to develop.

But to walk down a tunnel of root-encrusted walls in a perpetual twilight of trees is to experience a time gone by. There is something Tolkienesque about them. Overgrown holloways are havens for wildlife. Foxes make their Earths there, wrens flit in the tangle, and birds nest in the tree branches.. Eldritch places indeed!

It was in Epping Forest when I first came upon the remains of a wood bank. The forest is 5900 acres donated by Queen Victoria to the citizens of London for recreation. I was seventeen and taking a day off college for a country walk. On the map  I had identified an earthwork and thinking that I would find a fort I strode through the oak, beech  and hornbeam  of the forest to find the relics of quite a small structure. A large square of land surrounded by an earthen bank about three feet high was the sum total of this archaeological site, but archaeological sites are rarely spectacular. But what you find out from background reading adds to the interest. It was a woodbank, a small enclosure dating from the Mediaeval period, a relic of the farming of that period.  

Woodbanks enclosed assarts. In the Mediaeval period forest was land for royal hunting, but monarchs were willing to get some cash by leasing tracts of forest land for agricultural purposes. These were known as assarts. But forests are difficult areas to map out, so there had to be means of delineating ownership of forest land. Fences were apt to be destroyed by hunting activities or wild animals such as deer. Hedges were easier  and more secure, but a hedge can be strengthened by being based upon a low earthwork. On top of this three foot high enclosure would be a wattle fence or dead hedge. This is an interweaving of pliable cuttings that make it hard for animals to pass.through. Pigs could be fed in the enclosure by letting them root in the ground, and cattle could also be safely contained. Occasionaĺy the bank could be planted with trees, which were then pollarded to keep them to a manageable size.   Pollarding is severing the crown of the tree at ten to twelve feet and aĺlowing regrowth, which produces lots of usable wood.

I did find a useful purpose for the woodbank. I used the earthen enclosure as a seat for having my sandwiches and a can of beer. Our mediaeval forebears would have fully approved.

Farming moves with the flow of time,  as technology evolves and new demands are placed on farmers. Sadly,not all change is necessary or good. But old ways leave their mark in the landscape. I have referred to some of them in this article. . Old ways might still have uses.It is better that they be not forgotten.

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