Early Fields and Medieval Furlongs: Excavations at Creake Road, Burnham Sutton, Norfolk

Abstract

A number of landscape historians have suggested that, in some areas of England, the basic framework of the medieval landscape – the pattern of roads, fields and furlong boundaries – had prehistoric or Roman origins. Their arguments have, however, generally been based on the approaches of topographic analysis and landscape stratigraphy. This article presents evidence of a more conventional archaeological nature – from excavations. It suggests that the distinctive 'coaxial' furlong patterns found in parts of north Norfolk may in part have developed from organised field systems of late prehistoric or Roman date.