A field, an area of land that has not changed over the centuries, but what stories can it tell? In this story, we look at one field in Warwickshire in five different historical periods. From being a runway in World War II to being a homestead and villa in the second century of Roman times, the field doesn’t change. It is a campsite in the English Civil War in 1642, a site for hiding Templar treasure in 1307, and where a Viking warrior settles down having rampaged through the country from the Orwell River.
Geoff Knight is a tenant farmer in the present time and wonders why some parts of his field are barren, his best man is an archaeologist and wants to do a survey. He is interested, and the more he surveys, the more the history comes to the fore.
The village of Oxhill that is central to these stories is an actual village situated in South Warwickshire, between Banbury and Stratford Upon Avon, just off the Fosse Way, and in sight of the ridge that Edgehill is on. In its history, it has had a second-century Roman villa in a field on its outskirts, it is mentioned in the Doomsday Book, has a twelve-century church, and land was given to Bordesley Abby, a Cistercian institution.
This is a work of fiction, none of this happened, but maybe it could have.