which was narrowed by the leading oxen turning while the others kept pulling the plough.
This led to both ends being bent. I believe this was caused by the leading pair of oxen
pulling the others to the side, which over the years gave rise to this bent end. In a short
field this could be described as a reversed S. This is often seen preserved by the side
roads where they joined a Roman road. The ditches of the side road were most easily
dug in the low ways between the ploughlands - that at the ends was of course curved.
Most of the ridge and furrow land was split among small family farmers who had a few of
these strips as well as rights on the parish waste and common. The ploughing was usually
done by a communally owned ploughs well as a small number of simple tools, These areas
were the main ones where the enclosure of land took place and this marked the start of
great improvements in the use of land, as well as larger holdings. A great improvement
was under-draining the land, which meant higher yields and easier working of the soil. The
raised land produced by the ridge and furrow system was no longer so important. New
equipment was designed that needed level land, especially the new seed drills.
We are used to seeing the present tramlines that make it un-necessary to run on the
growing crop. This is nothing new. A system was designed to do this even better than
today's tramlines. The land was ploughed in narrow lands or stetches, A full stetch was
fifteen feet, a half stetch was seven feet six inches; this was the most used on heavy
London clay to help the drainage. The closing furrows were still valued for this (deeper
drains and mole ploughing were still in their infancy). The drill wheels ran in the closing
furrow, in which also walked the pulling horses. Every other implement was the same
width to stop the horses walking on the crop. The next time the field was ploughed, the
centre of the land or head was made in the low way or closing furrow. This entailed
putting two furrows together, which filled the low way so making the top of the stetch
level, just like the previous year.
Today this can be seen in grassland if the land has not since been ploughed by another
system. The low way often cannot still be seen, but may be obvious because it collects
more water and shows as strips of greener grass. As I demonstrated at Jaywick, this can
also be shown by driving a car at right angles over the stetch, when we could easily feel
the regular unevenness. The age of this stetchwork was most likely to be about ninety
years, when nearly all land was ploughed during the Great War. It is not likely to be later
because some of the adjacent houses date to before the last war.
Little horse ploughing was done in the last war but that does not mean stetch work was
not created then. This was still done with a normal tractor, with the later work done by
one with wheels set at seven feet six inch centres. A friend of mine has done stetchwork
ploughing with a crawler-pulled plough of the correct width, which was drawn both
sides of a head drawn by a single furrow plough.
The last time I saw stetchwork was in 1965.
14
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 58, January 2009