Laxton History Group was established in Laxton, Nottinghamshire in December 2008.

Laxton History Group's project  “A Snapshot in Time, Laxton in peace and at war (1900 -1920)” funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund's 'Our Heritage' fund exceeded its planned deliverables. In June 2016 we published our planned four booklets on different aspects of the village during this period and launched them with educational materials for schools - the associated teaching and Learning pack for Key Stages I and II

At the Launch event we were presented with new material and leads through which to research more. At our review meeting we realised we had funds remaining to permit us to work with the new and remaining unpublished material to publish more. In January 2017 three new booklets were published looking at Laxton Folk, Laxton Buildings and The Variety of Village Life.

Click here to read about this exciting project and to download the resulting materials.

We continue to welcome information and photographs telling more about Laxton in the past.

Laxton, Notts, is unique in the country in having a surviving medieval open field farming system working a three field rotation managed by the last legally constituted manorial court in the country. The Court Leet appoints a Jury or 'Homage' each year to inspect the fields, roads and waterways of the field system and the findings of are reported to the Court where fines may be levied.

Several of the Laxton farmers who make up the Jury for each field and attend the Court are members of the Group. The farmers are tenants of the Crown Estate and have strips in the open fields as part of their land holding. Their tenancy agreements specify that they keep to the rules of the medieval farming system. 

Mark Pierce's 1635 map of Laxton is widely regarded as a very special survival. It is owned by the Bodleian Library in Oxford and has recently been identified as one of its 'Treasures' in an exhibition as the clip below shows: