English: A simple rural view which reveals 4000 years of history This view shows a number of parallel features running in a North South direction

The Photographer is standing on a bank of spoil from the Grand Union Canal cutting (opened 1799). The far side of the wheat field is a bank of spoil from the railway cutting. The railway (hidden from sight in the cutting) was opened in 1837. Beyond the railway Northfield Road may have been created as part of an enclosure prior to 1766. On the other side of the fields there is a bridleway which is almost certainly a thousand years old and perhaps much older. Just inside the boundary of the wood is Grim's Ditch, believed to be an Iron Age boundary ditch 2000 or more years old. In the wood on the top of the ridge there are two Bronze Age barrows – probably 4000 years old.

In addition an ancient trackway (almost certainly established by Saxon times) diagonally crosses from the bottom right towards the top left. The features in the foreground (up to the railway spoil heap) have all been lost due to modern ploughing. Originally a track ran from Pendley Farm and entered what is now the wheat field to the right of the photographer. Old maps show it was diverted to start by the canal bridge when the cutting was created. A bridge (still there, but hidden by the spoil bank) was built over the railway line. On the other side of the railway a farm track still runs beside the hedgerow until it reaches Northfield Road. Between Northfield Road and the bridleway the track is marked by an impressive avenue of ancient horse chestnut trees, known to have existed circa 1830. The track continues over the ridge through a break in Grim's Ditch.

(It is planned to write an article, when all relevant images have been posted on Geograph, to record this history in more detail.)