MDE21804 - Medieval field system at West Lyn Farm (Monument)

Extensive area of former medieval strip fields suggesting the area consisted of many more homesteads at one time. The surviving pattern of hedgerows on the farm preserves the main infield boundary and northern strips' outline.

The remains of a very extensive strip field system of medieval date are clearly visible on aerial photographs of West Lyn as levelled earthworks centred approximately on SS 7227 4828. Visible only in low light and on infrared aerial photography, the sinuous and curvilinear earthworks extend in an arc of almost 30 hectares from the southwest of Manor Farm to the northeast of West Lyn Farm. The strip fields may have formed the cultivated infields of one or more small hamlets or townships around West Lyn during the medieval and earlier post-medieval period. This suggestion may be supported by the place name `North Town' on the First Edition Ordnance Survey map, to the north of West Lyn Farm. [1] It is clear that the modern field system has fossilised elements of the curved medieval field pattern. However, we can be confident that the field system was enclosed into the form visible on aerial photographs of the 1940s by the 19th century, when the gutters of catchwater water meadows were cut through many of the relict boundary banks. Nonetheless, the process of field boundary removal continued in the years following the Second World War. [2-6] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [7]