What is ridge and furrow?

What ridge and furrow is

Each ridge was built up as the plough turned the soil towards the centre of the strip; surviving ridges are usually 3 to 20 metres apart and up to about 60 centimetres high. Ridges were grouped into blocks called furlongs, and the plough was turned on unploughed headlands at the ends, which survive as low banks across the ends of the ridges. Medieval ridges often curve in a reversed S-shape, caused by the plough team turning at the end of each strip, while later narrow ridges, about 4 metres apart, are ruler-straight and in places are thought to come from 19th-century steam ploughing. The best-preserved areas are in the English Midlands, often on land turned over to pasture and not ploughed again.

How ridge and furrow looks on LiDAR

Ridge and furrow is very common on terrain models of the English Midlands, where it shows as fields of evenly spaced parallel ridges, grouped in blocks running in different directions and often crossing modern field boundaries. A local relief model shows it best because the ridges are low and the model removes the general slope, while hillshade shows it well only when the light falls across the ridges rather than along them. The headlands, the reversed-S curve and the way blocks meet help to separate medieval ridge and furrow from later straight ridging.

See LiDAR visualisations explained for what each method shows.

What can look like one

Straight, narrow ridging from 19th-century steam ploughing, water-meadow bedworks on valley floors, modern field drains, spade-dug cultivation ridges in the uplands and forestry ploughing can all look like ridge and furrow. Forestry ploughing furrows are usually much closer together and very straight.

Protection

Ridge and furrow is rarely scheduled on its own; some areas are protected as part of scheduled deserted villages, and most survives without statutory protection.

Examples on the LiDAR

Where they are

Counties with the most ridge and furrow that have a page here.