Rig and Furrow

Look across the open ground in a low sun and you may pick out long, low parallel ridges running through the grass.

This is rig and furrow — the corrugated pattern left by centuries of ploughing, when the soil was turned inwards along the same strips year after year until each rig stood proud of the furrows either side. The ridges shed water into the furrows, which drained the ground, and each strip was worked by a different tenant.

Laser survey of the park from the air shows the pattern is far more widespread than it appears at ground level, covering the greater part of the park. Long before this was a public park, or a golf course, or a racecourse, it was worked farmland.