Strip Lynchets
This weekend's post combines both history and landscape. During the Middle Ages, farming was one of the most important livelihoods in Dorset, just as it is today. Many examples of Medieval farming practices still exist in the form of strip lynchets. You can see them in this photo as horizontal lines across the distant hillside that is known as "West Man" just above "Winspit Bottom" close to the village of Worth Matravers.
A lynchet is a bank of earth that builds up on the downslope of a field ploughed over a long period of time. The disturbed soil slips down the hillside to create a strip lynchet. Some believe that they were passively formed under the long-term action of gravity and weathering on the loosened soil of a ploughed slope. Others think they were intentionally formed, to prevent erosion and further slippage.
In this photo it is also easy to guess that previous lynchets have been ploughed out in the next field over.
Strip Lynchets
This weekend's post combines both history and landscape. During the Middle Ages, farming was one of the most important livelihoods in Dorset, just as it is today. Many examples of Medieval farming practices still exist in the form of strip lynchets. You can see them in this photo as horizontal lines across the distant hillside that is known as "West Man" just above "Winspit Bottom" close to the village of Worth Matravers.
A lynchet is a bank of earth that builds up on the downslope of a field ploughed over a long period of time. The disturbed soil slips down the hillside to create a strip lynchet. Some believe that they were passively formed under the long-term action of gravity and weathering on the loosened soil of a ploughed slope. Others think they were intentionally formed, to prevent erosion and further slippage.
In this photo it is also easy to guess that previous lynchets have been ploughed out in the next field over.