Spring line village

Spring line settlements occur where a ridge of rock lies over impermeable rock and there will be a line of springs along the boundary between the two layers.

It sometimes happens that a sequence of spring line (or springline) settlements will arise around these springs, becoming villages.

In each case to build higher up the hill would have meant difficulties with water supply; to build lower would have taken the settlement further away from useful grazing land or nearer to the floodplain.

Spring line villages are often the principal settlements in strip parishes, with long, narrow parish boundaries stretching up to the top of the ridge and down to the river but being narrow in the direction of adjacent spring line villages.

...
Wikipedia