Laxton and Moorhouse
Laxton and Moorhouse is a small civil parish in the Newark and Sherwood district of Nottinghamshire, England. It covers about 6.3 square miles and had a population of 251 at the 2021 census. The parish includes two settlements: Laxton and Moorhouse. In 1990 Moorhouse was added to the parish name.
Laxton is famous for having the last working open-field farming system in the United Kingdom—a traditional method where villagers share and rotate fields before they were divided into individual plots. The name Laxton appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Laxintone and may come from an Old English name meaning the farmstead of the people of Leaxa. It is thought to be the namesake of Lexington, Massachusetts, and thus of other Lexington towns in the United States.
Moorhouse lies about two miles to the east of Laxton. The area is mostly rural, with farms, cottages and farmhouses clustered around a junction where Green Lane, Moorhouse Lane and Ossington Lane meet.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 05:59 (CET).