Wild plants have suffered greatly from modern farming, but they have thrived in the medieval field system still being used in Laxton in Nottinghamshire, dating back several hundred years. Big open fields are divided into strips, shared between local farmers, with big grassy borders originally used for turning horses, and grassy lanes for moving between fields and the nearby village. The grassy areas have never been contaminated by artificial fertilisers or pesticides and are outstanding sites for wildflowers such as cowslip (Primula veris), pignut (Conopodium majus) and bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), as well as wild grasses with evocative names such as creeping soft-grass (Holcus mollis) and quaking grass (Briza media). These are all mown for hay at the end of the season and sold for animal feed.
The survival of Laxton’s medieval fields is an accident of history, but elsewhere strip farming vanished when fields were enclosed, especially during the late 18th and 19th centuries. However, another strip farming system has been revived on farmland at Vile on the Gower Peninsula in south Wales. The National Trust has turned six fields into a patchwork of plots, and has seen the number of wildflower species increase by a third, bringing a huge boost to birds and insects.
