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Sitting on the veranda after a hot and long day of cycling, I admire the view before me at Margaree Harbor. The B&B we are staying at sits on a long strip of land which extends a mile or so to the sea.

These strips of land were known as seigneurie. The word derives from traditional inherited divisions of the countryside reassigned as local jurisdictions known as manors or seigneuries; each manor being subject to a lord (French seigneur), usually holding his position in return for undertakings offered to a higher lord.

In the generic plan of a medieval manor the strips of individually-worked land in the open field system are immediately apparent. In this plan the manor house was set slightly apart from the village but equally often the village grew up around the forecourt of the manor.

This particular property is I was told the last such strip of land, unmarred by any major development since the 17th century. The only real addition are a couple of telephone poles which I purposely left in and a one room cottage by the sea. What a view.