Braunton's Great Field is one of it's finest assets and, although it has always been prized as an almost miraculously fertile area that 'teemed with incessant crops' , it is now treasured as one of only two surviving medieval open strip field systems in England. Such fields were the norm for our ancestors but virtually all were sacrificed in the name of development. The surviving Great Field is special indeed and it is said that to walk on land that has seen such little change for so many years is to walk into the medieval past.

Braunton Great Field is a hedgeless tract of arable land. some 360 acres in extent, lying between the village on the west and the reclaimed marshlands of the River Taw.

The Great Field is divided into some 200 strips varying in size from 3/4 acre to 6 acres, but in 1889 there were double that number.

The lands are separated from each other by baulks, locally termed "landsherds" and "launchers". In 1840 there were 490 strips under cultivation.

The Great Field has been in existence for many generations and is one of three existing fields, originally cultivated under the Open Field system in this country.


That it existed in 1324 is shown in the entry in the Calendar of Close Rolls 1323-7 where many of the existing lands in the Great Field are mentioned.