Misty morning on Sowerby Flatts at Thirsk, North Yorkshire

            Sowerby Flatts with the morning sun highlighting the medieval undulating rig and furrow cultivation marks.

Sowerby Flatts is an open public space preserved for the benefit of all. It is popular with people walking their dogs and farmers for grazing cattle and sheep. The lush common land of the Flatts has its origin in medieval ploughland that was eventually given over to pasture.

Long a parish in its own right, the village of Sowerby was once a chapelry of the parish of Thirsk. There is in its name, evidence of its ancient Danish origins in which language the syllable "by" signified originally a single estate or farm, later a town or village.

In medieval times the land would have been cultivated using a wooden plough and a team of oxen. The action of ploughing over the years left furrows where the earth was cut along the length of the land and ridges where the soil heaped up beside the furrows. 

The corrugations increased the land surface in which crops could be grown and the furrows helped with water drainage in wet weather.

Seed was scattered by hand and local children acted as scarecrows over the following months by scaring away birds that would try to eat the seed and young crops, which were mainly wheat, oats, barley and peas. Evidence of ridge and furrow farming can still be seen today in the area known as Miss Warner’s Field* and in other fields along the Cod Beck.

A much wider variety of crops would have been grown in the past for local trade and manufacturing, including flax for weaving into linen, long-stemmed wheat for roof-thatching and hemp for rope making.

In 1798 an Act of Parliament was passed for enclosing the open town fields of Sowerby, most of which were converted from arable to grassland or "flatts", the term used for open grazing land.

*A grand looking residence called Thorpe House overlooks part of the Sowerby Flatts. It was the home of Miss Marjorie Warner. She is more widely renowned as Mrs Pumphrey, who with her Pekinese dog called Trickywoo, featured in the “All Creatures Great and Small” books written by local vet Alf Wight, using the pen name James Herriot. 

Miss Warner bought the field opposite Thorpe House in order to preserve her view eastwards towards Sutton Bank and the Hambleton Hills. In 1976 she gave the field to the Thirsk & Sowerby Flatts Preservation Trust. Native plant species have been encouraged to grow in the field. In the meadowland and hedgerows can be seen plants that, under traditional farming practices, were a source of food and medicines. The area also provides a rich habitat for wildlife.

Taken in: UK / England / Hambleton / Thirsk (show map)

Taken on: December 26, 2024

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Sets appears in: • Sowerby • Thirsk

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