Agriculture Through Time

Mesolithic

Agriculture did not exist in the Mesolithic, as crops and animals had not been domesticated in Britain.  People gathered roots, berries, nuts and tubars, and hunted for their food from the wild.  However, people appeared to have managed wild game by making clearings in woods to attract animals to more lush vegetation.

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Neolithic

Sometime during the Neolithic, agriculture was introduced in the form of domesticated animals and crops.   While we are unsure about how farming came to the region, it was probably slowly adopted over time by indigenous people rather than brought in by new settlers.   Areas with easily cultivated light soils were probably favoured. Gathering and hunting would have still played a significant part in people’s lives.

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Bronze – Iron Ages

Later in prehistory, there is much more evidence for agriculture in the form of field systems and cairnfields surviving on the gritstone.  These survive best on the higher land which has been moorland since, but fragmentary remains also exist within some areas of more recent farmland too.  They appear to date from the early Bronze Age to the late Iron Age.

Favourable agricultural areas were cleared of stone to create small, irregular fields which were probably enclosed with hedges.  Cultivation was undertaken with wooden ards and spades and was really on the scale of horticulture.  Lighter sandy soils seem to have been chosen for this.  Cereal crops were grown in these fields during summer while livestock such as sheep and cattle were pastured beyond them in extensive areas of open ground.  Corn was ground on saddle querns made from gritstone blocks.

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Romano-British

Many fields survive from the Roman period.  Most are small, rectilinear fields situated close to nucleated settlements or within which houses are dispersed as seen here at Blackwell

They are defined by stony banks or large lynchets, the latter formed by ploughing moving soil downslope to be trapped along boundaries.

There is also a number of strip lynchets that date to the Roman period and some of these may have formed the basis for Medieval open fields.  By the Roman period, iron-tipped ploughs and rotary-querns were in use.

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Early Medieval – Medieval

On the limestone plateau and along the Derwent Valley extensive communal open fields associated with villages were established.  Strips of land defined by ridge and furrow were distributed amongst commoners.  They were used for growing hay in spring, crops in summer and pasturing livestock in winter.

Strip lynchets within a Medieval open field survive near Taddington.

Beyond the open fields on the gritstone moorlands and limestone heath were commons where livestock were pastured in the summer.  Where there were no villages there were also no open fields.  Here farmsteads were scattered or located in small hamlets and had small, irregular, enclosed fields which they farmed exclusively.  Crops were not so common, with more reliance on livestock.   Beyond the walled fields were extensive moorland commons.   The Black Death, cattle pestilence and worsening weather of the 14th century meant that arable-based communal agriculture declined, while sheep farming became more important.

Field barns dot this enclosed landscape at Wardlow.

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Medieval - Post-Medieval

Later in the Medieval period, open fields began to be enclosed with walls into strip fields which were not farmed communally.  This gathered pace during the 18th century with many open fields and commons enclosed by Act of Parliament or private agreement.  The main impetus behind this was to improve productivity as agriculture moved from providing largely local needs at market to supplying the greater numbers of people in cities and industry who did not farm their own land.  New livestock and crop breeds, farmbuildings, farming methods and greater mechanisation were also introduced.  It also removed access to land from many people with traditional common rights.

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Modern

Since the mid-20th century agriculture has become more intensive still with a move to larger fields, more chemical fertilisers and even greater mechanisation to increase productivity.

Many walls have been removed to increase field size and some farmsteads have been abandoned as farms have become larger.  Many upland farmers have found that their land cannot provide for the demands of modern, intensive farming.  While livestock farming still predominates, some farmers have diversified into tourism and others have turned to more niche markets with organic or hand-made produce aimed at visitors.

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