Whitfield

65 WHITFIELD

(OS 1:10000 ^a SP 63 NW, ^b SP 53 NE, ^c SP 64 SW)

The narrow parish occupies only 583 hectares, on the N.W. side of the R. Ouse which here forms the county boundary with Buckinghamshire. The higher N. part, between 140 m. and 130 m. above OD, is covered by Boulder Clay, but along the sides of the Ouse valley limestone, silts and sands are exposed.

Medieval and Later

^a(1) Settlement Remains (SP 610395), formerly part of the village of Whitfield, lie behind the existing houses on the S. side of the E.-W. main street. The remains consist of long rectangular closes bounded by low banks and ditches and are presumably abandoned gardens and paddocks. At each end of the village there are indications that the street once ran on beyond its present extent. At the E, end (SP 614395), a long curving terrace 1.5 m. high extends E. from the bend in the street and presumably once gave access to the E. part of the parish. At the W. end rutted tracks continue the line of the street and meet a raised headland curving N.W. which joins the present road to Radstone at its junction with the A43 (SP 602395). (RAF VAP CPE/UK/1926, 2222–4; air photographs in NMR)

(2) Cultivation Remains. The common fields of the parish were enclosed by an Act of Parliament of 1796 (NRO, Enclosure Map, 1797). No details of the open fields are known. Ridge-and-furrow of these fields exists on the ground or can be traced from air photographs over wide areas of the parish, arranged mainly in interlocked and end-on furlongs, many of reversed-S form. In some places (e.g. SP 602394) it is notable for the great variation in the widths of ridges within a single furlong. A number of well-marked headlands survive (e.g. SP 614396 and 608403). (RAF VAP CPE/UK/1926, 2219–26, 4219–22; CPE/UK/ 2097, 3157–8)