Agricultural History Review, Volume 63 Part 2 (2015), pp. 311–320

From Cambridgeshire west to Herefordshire and north to Yorkshire there are references in seventeenth-century visitation records and manorial court rolls to ‘town ploughs’ or ‘common ploughs’. Such references in manorial court records usually occur in relation to the customary duties of the commoners regarding drainage. In a few instances other documentary sources of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries describe in more detail such implements, but there appears to be only one place in England, Caxton, Cambridgeshire where there are all three record sources and a contemporary drawing to enlighten us about the implement known as the ‘town plow’ and its use. 

Complete Volume PDF