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| | | From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
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Lincolnshire farming
"It is better to know a little bit of the world remarkably well, than to know a great part remarkably little."
Thomas Hardy
This week Richard Uridge visits one of England's largest counties, Lincolnshire. It's also one of the country's largest agricultural areas, producing 20 per cent of the country's food - three out of every five vegetables in British supermarkets are grown there. And, although it's such a huge area, Richard discovers that if you look closely at individual areas, you can discover that the most inconspicuous places hold secrets of the county's agricultural history.
Lincolnshire agriculture
Richard begins his visit on the top of a windswept mound at Brackenborough Hall near Louth. Eleanor Bennett moved there in 1953 and found that there was a deserted medieval village on the land which had been in the family since 1908. There was a notebook, compiled by the master of the local school, which contained his research notes on the site, and this sparked Eleanor's interest in researching it herself. She's since written her own book, and has discovered that the land has been farmed continuously for over 1000 years. Domesday records show that 16 households lived in the village, but by 1565 the village was totally deserted. Historians believe a series of disasters in the early 14th century were to blame, including war, taxation, heavy rain and flooding, famine - the Black Death was only the last straw.
Brackenborough Hall and the deserted village
Farming archeology
The ear-shattering noise of military jets taking off and landing is the sound that greets Richard in the little village of Harmston. There's an airfield just a few miles away, and it's a topical reminder of the 21st century as Richard meets up with local historian Rob Wheeler to talk more about the development of agriculture in the county. On the surface, Harmston looks like a pretty little village, but as they walk around Rob explains that the patterns of the streets show that once it was a gathering of tofts. We tend to think of farms being scattered, and farmers living outside more settled areas. But these little farmsteads, clustered together, are how the land here was once farmed - the ground outside being used only to grow crops, and all other farming happening in the settlement. But over time, land use changed and eventually farmland was consolidated into much larger farms. However, in Harmston, there's a toft that remains undisturbed even as the hi-tech jets scream overhead.
Travelling to the south of the county, Richard meets Sue Haimes, Property Manager of Woolsthorpe Manor. This is where Sir Isaac Newton grew up, and where he came back to during the plague years to formulate some of his major works. A farmer's son, Isaac showed no talent for farming, and to begin with wasn't even a particularly bright student at school. Richard decides to eat one of the apples off the tree that was there in Newton's day and discovers it's a cooker! And while it's a myth that Newton's theory of gravitation came to him after a passing blow from such a falling fruit, the theory was one of many which sprang out of Isaac's experiences and observations on the farm. And hidden in a barn, Richard discovers numerous experiments which scientist Alan Lievesley uses to demonstrate many of Newton's ideas. Woolsthorpe Manor
And turning full circle, Richard returns to Brackenborough Hall, this time to talk to Eleanor Bennett's son, Paul. He's still farming there and talks to Richard about the pluses and minuses of Lincolnshire agriculture in the 21st century - and casts an eye towards the next 1000 years.
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