oxlease
1 · What I want to see here
Oxlease is one farm and the ground it works. The lane comes in from the east and ends in a yard of bare earth, and everything the farm owns stands round that yard: the house on the north side, the big thatched barn at the west end, the bread oven beside the house and the well in the middle where it is the same walk from either door. South of the yard are the plots - three long strips side by side, the same size to the yard: one of corn gone gold and ready, one of something still green, and one turned over and bare. Along the bottom of them is a row of sunflowers, because somebody wanted one thing here that was only to look at. The hay is stacked behind the barn, out of the way of the yard. Past that it is grass, and the trees have been kept well back from the ploughland.
2 · How to show it
- A working farm and not a cottage: the barn is bigger than the house, and there is more ploughland on the map than there is yard.
- One household: one house, one lane, and the lane goes nowhere else.
- Ploughed, not worn: the plots are ruled - straight-sided, the same size, in a row - where the yard is a blob. The bare one is the same earth as the yard and only its shape says field.
- A rotation, and late in the year: three plots at three stages, gold, green and fallow, which is a farmer deciding things and not a meadow. The hay is in.
- Cared for: the sunflowers, in a line, where they do no work at all.
3 · What it needs
- a farmhouse somebody lives in
- a barn, visibly larger than the house
- bare earth in two shapes: a yard and one ruled strip
- a standing crop, in two colours
- haystacks and bales
- a bread oven
- a well
- sunflowers
- barrels and a tarpaulined heap by the barn
- a chopping stump
- boards
- trees at the edges only
- Not in the pack: Rows. The field sheet is catalogued now (2026-10-09) and two plots are standing crop, but the sheet draws a crop as a flat-topped block with a bank along its south side: no drills, no furrows in the bare plot beside it, no stooks, nothing half cut. It is corn the way a map key shows corn.
- Not in the pack: Fences and gates round the plots and the yard. The rail fence on the house sheet is a kit of pieces like the stone wall, and is not in the catalogue.
- Not in the pack: Animals. A place called Oxlease with no ox.
- Not in the pack: A cart, a plough, a trough, a dog.
- Not in the pack: A door on the barn. Its one drawn face is a gable with a shuttered window.
4 · The arrangement
A yard with everything turned toward it, and ruled ground beyond. The yard is the one focal point: the lane ends in it, both buildings front onto it and the well is in the middle of it. The plots are a separate block to the south, parallel to each other and at right angles to the yard. Storage - hay - goes behind the barn, on the side away from the yard. Trees only round the outside.
5 · What that means in (x, y)
40 x 30 squares. The yard is roughly cols 8-25 by rows 11-16 and is deliberately not a rectangle. The lane leaves it eastward at rows 12-14. The house is at cols 16-19, rows 8-10, so its door row touches the top of the yard; the oven is on row 10 beside it. The barn is cols 8-11, rows 8-12, five rows tall against the house's three, and the yard reaches round under its foot on row 13. The plots are three strips, each six squares wide and seven tall (rows 19-25), with two squares of grass between them - two, because one square of grass between two patches of earth is all rim and reads as a stripe, not a headland. West to east they are corn (cols 7-12), the green crop (cols 15-20) and bare earth (cols 23-28): the gold one is furthest from the lane so the eye has to cross the other two to reach it. The sunflowers are on row 27 from col 7 to col 28, every other square. Hay is west and north of the barn, cols 1-6.
7 · What it looks like
Read this against the paragraph at the top. That comparison is the only check that catches a map which is perfectly valid and is of nowhere.
6 · What was actually written
The same two grids as flat colour — earth, grass, and a block for every footprint. Anything in the render that is not here, the translation invented.
........................................ ......NNNN.............................. YYYY........tt......NNNN......YYYY...... ..........................tt............ ........................................ ..tt.................................... ............RR.....................NNNN. ............................RR.......... ........BBBB....OOOO....RR.............. .HHH.hi.BBBB....OOOO.................tt. ........BBBB...bOOOO.KKK..++............ ..h.....BBBBcc......b................... ....HHH.BBBBcc.......................... .................WW..................... ......h................................. .HHH.i.................................. ........................pp......tt...... ...i.................................... ...................................YYYY. ........................................ ........................................ .NNNN..........................NNNN..... .....................................tt. ........................................ ........................................ ..................................YYYY.. YYYY.................................... .......s.S.s.S.s.S.s.S.s.S.s............ ...tt............................tt..... ........................................
What is in it
| 8 | tree_small | tree living small |
| 6 | bale | prop hay farm |
| 6 | sunflower | prop flower farm |
| 5 | tree_pine | tree living conifer large |
| 5 | tree_green | tree living broadleaf large |
| 5 | sunflower_b | prop flower farm |
| 3 | tree_round | tree living orchard |
| 3 | haystack | prop hay work |
| 2 | barrel | prop goods barrel |
| 1 | barn_thatch | structure intact thatch farm |
| 1 | house_orange | building intact window doorway |
| 1 | kiln | prop kiln work landmark |
| 1 | stump_cut | prop stump felled |
| 1 | goods_covered | prop goods covered |
| 1 | well_clay | prop well clay landmark |
| 1 | planks | prop timber |