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Cottage Tofts
Each house in the village was built in a rectangular enclosure called a toft. The house stood at the end of
the toft nearest the road. Behind the house, toft would have been used for keeping chickens, and growing the
vegetables. The yard and all the buildings in it (barns, outhouses) were separated from the neighbours by an earth bank with a fence or wall
on the top.
The tofts often show up in aerial photographs or earthwork surveys, although the houses
can only be discovered by excavation. At Thrislington, tofts to the north of the main street were excavated. To the south of the road, it was not possible for the archaeologists to see or excavate the tofts,
as the land had modern cottages on it.
In built-up areas that once were medieval villages, it is sometimes possible to see the original tofts in the layout of later buildings
with narrow frontages but long plans.
Explore other cottage reconstructions,
return to previous cottage reconstruction, enter
the Vrml model,
or watch the 'fly by' movie clip of the cottages.
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