SOME RECENT ENCLOSURES.
UPTON ST. LEONARDS (NEAR GLOUCESTER).
This enclosure took place at the same time as that of Castor and
Ailesworth, and was completed in 1899. The common fields consisted of
1120 strips of arable land, total area 520 acres, and the “balks” or
“meres” separating the strips were estimated at 14 acres. There were
more than eighty owners.
No recognised course of husbandry had been followed for about sixty
years previously. It is believed that before that time a four-year
course obtained, but when mangel wurzels were introduced to the
neighbourhood the recurring fallow was discontinued. The right of
common after harvest was, however, still maintained. If any cultivator
chose he might grow turnips, but he did so at his own risk, and had to
keep a boy to guard them from the opening of the fields to the time
they could be pulled. Old mere stones are found in the meadows of this
parish, and various local traditions remain belonging, apparently, to a
period when the village customs resembled those described for Stratton
and Grimstone.
TOTTERNHOE (BEDFORDSHIRE).
The Enclosure Act was passed in 1886, and the award is dated 1891.
Before enclosure Totternhoe was a typical open-field parish; there were
only 370 acres of old enclosure, to 1797 acres of common field arable,
and 193 acres of common. The situation of Totternhoe is like that of
Clothall, on the steep northern slope of the Hertfordshire chalk hills,
which here have an almost mountainous appearance. The greater part of
the parish was in the ownership of the lord of the manor, but there
were forty owners of land altogether, the others being chiefly yeomen.
The movement for enclosure came from these yeomen. They took this
step in order to protect themselves against the tenants of the lord
of the manor, who, whether from ignorance or otherwise, endeavoured
to prevent the exercise of well-known rights of common over land in
their occupation. The hill top was saved as an open space, and is a
favourite picnic resort for the people of Dunstable. Recreation grounds
and land for allotments were also set out, as has been the rule since
the passing of the Commons Act of 1876. I asked one of the yeomen,
who had taken a leading part in bringing about the enclosure, whether
it had benefited the parish. He said undoubtedly it had done so, but
“the parish has not recovered from it yet.” Questioned as to how
this could be, he gave me to understand that the actual increase to
the cultivators in annual value was not equal to the interest on the
capital expended on carrying out the enclosure; that the assessment
had gone up, and the burden of rates and taxes was consequently
increased. The land allotted to the lord of the manor still, in the
summer of 1900, was mainly unenclosed, and one could get something of
the impression of the “champion” country, an impression of great open
fields sweeping up to bare downs.
NORTH AND SOUTH LUFFENHAM AND BARROWDEN (RUTLAND).
The first steps towards the enclosure of these three parishes were made
immediately after the passing of the 1876 Act; the Enclosure Act was
passed in 1878, and the awards were made in 1881 and 1882. Out of 5480
acres in the three parishes, 4800 were common-field arable, a heath
claimed by both Barrowden and South Luffenham occupied 390 acres, and
much of the remainder was commonable meadow and pasture. Two systems
of cultivation obtained. Part of the land being heavy clay was on a
three years’ course of wheat, beans, etc., and fallow, as at Laxton and
Eakring; the lighter land was under a six years’ course. The report
of the Enclosure Commissioners says of Barrowden that the 1240 acres
of arable land “is divided in 2790 strips, some not more than 12
feet wide, each divided from its neighbour by a green balk, which is
a nursery of weeds.” Old farmers, however, assured me that the balks
were mostly gone before enclosure. Field reeves were elected, and they
settled any dispute that arose in consequence of the absence of balks,
and individual farmers quickly detected, by pacing across their strips,
if a furrow had been appropriated by a neighbour.
Here, again, I asked whether the enclosure had been a benefit, and
I was told that the labourers had benefited by the allotments and
recreation grounds; that the lord of the manor of South Luffenham had
benefited, because he got the disputed moor, but that farmers, as
farmers, had gained nothing, and as common-right owners they had lost
through the enclosure of the moor.
Enclosure in this case originated in what may be called the normal
way, _i.e._, on the initiative of the lords of the manors. It was the
doubtful ownership of the Barrowden and Luffenham moor which had until
1876 prevented enclosure; then the respective lords agreed to combine
to obtain an enclosure of all three parishes, and let the Commissioners
determine to which parish the moor belonged. It was awarded to
Luffenham, but the Luffenham freeholders lost it just as much as those
of Barrowden; it is now the private property of the lord of the manor.
HAM FIELD.
A curious case of enclosure by Act of Parliament unconnected with the
General Enclosure Acts is that of Ham Field by the “Richmond, Petersham
and Ham Open Spaces Act, 1902” (2 Edward VII., c. ccliii.). It is
entitled, “An Act to confirm agreements for vesting common and other
land in the local authorities of the districts of Richmond and Ham,
and the Surrey County Council as public open spaces, and for other
purposes.” But while it does incidentally confirm these agreements,
the “other purposes” comprise the main object of the bill, which is
to allow the owners of Ham Common, of whom the Earl of Dysart is the
principal, to enclose Ham Common Field, and convert it into building
land.
The preamble is similarly misleading. The first sentence runs, “Whereas
the prospect from Richmond Hill over the valley of the Thames is of
great natural beauty, and agreements have been entered into with a
view to preventing building on certain lands hereinafter mentioned”--a
sentence admirably framed to disguise the fact that the effect of
the Act is to extinguish the common rights over Ham Field which had
previously prevented building, and so to convert the middle distance of
the famous view from Richmond Hill into an expanse of roofs, perhaps of
villa-residences, and perhaps----!
The agreements recited in the Act represent the consideration for which
the public authorities mentioned bartered away the beauty of the view.
Kingston Corporation gets nine acres for a cricket field; Richmond
Corporation is confirmed in the ownership of Petersham Meadows, which
was formerly a subject of dispute, and acquires a strip of land
along the river; and the Surrey County Council acquires 45 acres of
riverside land. The meadows and riverside land in each case are to be
maintained as open spaces by the authorities. Ham itself merely gets
the freehold of Ham Common, which means, in effect, that what slight
danger there might have been of the enclosure of this part of the open
and commonable land of the parish is removed.
The Earl of Dysart, at the cost of a sacrifice that is probably
apparent rather than real, obtains by this Act the right to convert
some 200 acres of arable common field into a valuable building estate;
the smaller owners acquire a similar right without any compensating
sacrifice at all; and the only losers by this profitable transaction
are the people of London, who were not consulted in the matter.
MERROW.
The parish of Merrow, adjoining Guildford on the east, is stated in
the return of 1873 to have had 350 acres of common field. The land
in question covers the lower slopes of the chalk hill, the higher
portion of which is Merrow Down; beneath it is Clandon Park, the seat
of Lord Onslow. Up to about the year 1873 this common field did exist;
the properties of Lord Onslow, the chief proprietor, were very much
intermixed with those of smaller proprietors; the farm holdings were
similarly intermixed with one another, and with a number of strips of
land occupied by labourers and cultivated as allotments. But no common
rights were exercised over these lands, either by the occupiers over
one another’s lands, or by the villagers, within living memory; nor,
except that the whole of the field was in tillage, was there any common
rule for its cultivation. The existence of a great extent of common
is in itself a sufficient explanation of the disappearance of common
rights over the tilled land.
In 1870 the present Lord Onslow came into the property, and when a year
or two later he attained his majority, he proceeded to consolidate
his property in Merrow Field, by buying out the other proprietors, or
giving them land elsewhere in exchange. The field is still bare of
hedges, and under tillage; but enclosure, in the technical sense, has
been completely carried without an Act of Parliament.
Since the enclosure the allotments, which had been numerous, have
generally been given up; but the labourers do not attribute this to
the enclosure, but to the industrial evolution. “There are no farmers
nowadays, only land spoilers. They’ve turned market gardeners, and they
sell _milk_” (with intense scorn). “The land ought to grow beef, and
barley to make good beer, that’s what Englishmen want,--yes, and wheat
to make bread. But now they all grow garden stuff, what’s the good of
an allotment to a man? If you have anything to sell, you can’t sell it.
It’s no good growing any more than you can eat.”
It may be added that along the river Wey, from Guildford down to
Byfleet, there are some very extensive lammas meadows, known by
such names as Broad Mead and Hook Mead. The holdings in these are
intermixed, individual pieces sometimes not exceeding an acre.
STEVENTON AND THE BERKSHIRE DOWNS.
That part of Berkshire which lies between the valley of the Kennet and
the Thames would appear, from the return of 1873, to be specially rich
in surviving open fields. The Blue Book assigns to
Brightwell 1000 acres of common field.
West Hagbourne 550 ″ ″
East Hendred 2794 ″ ″
West Hendred 1900 ″ ″
East Ilsley 1400 ″ ″
Wallingford St. Leonard 570 ″ ″
Yattenden 252 ″ ″
As Brightwell was enclosed in 1811, and East Hendred in 1801, the
statement with regard to these two parishes plainly is incredible; but
in view of the undeniable fact that Steventon, which lies almost in the
centre of this district, was not enclosed till 1883, there seemed so
much possibility of survivals in the other parishes that in July, 1904,
I traversed the whole district in search of such survivals. But the
search was entirely unsuccessful; it was plain that Steventon was at
the time of its enclosure the last remaining example of the old system
in this part.
Here, as in the Hertfordshire district described above, and in
the Wiltshire district dealt with in Chapter X., “Enclosure and
Depopulation,” enclosure is one aspect of a change of which the most
vital aspects are the engrossing of farms and the consolidation of
properties. In each parish this movement proceeds along the line of
least resistance; in one parish all impediments in the way of the most
profitable management of estates are swept away by the drastic remedy
of an Enclosure Act; in others they are removed gradually.
The latter method I was enabled, by the help of Mr. Bridges, to trace
in detail in the case of Yattenden. The Board of Agriculture return,
as we have seen, assigns 252 acres of common field to Yattenden. The
tithe map, dated 1845, on which this is based, shows in one corner
of “Yattenden Great Field” about 20 acres of intermixed ownership
and occupation, forming part of one “furlong,” remaining in the
characteristic common-field arrangement; the rest of the so-called
“Yattenden Great Field” and “Everington Field” were in part divided
into hedged fields, and in part into compact stretches of about 20
acres each, still unhedged, with here and there single acres detached
in the midst of them; many of these single acres being glebe.
An older manorial map, dated 1773, showed that at that date nearly
half the parish was open; the eastern part was already divided into
closes, except for a small stretch of lammas meadow, divided into small
intermixed holdings, by the river Pang; but the western part, Yattenden
and Everington fields, were almost entirely open, and divided in
furlongs, and the furlongs in acre and half-acre strips. These strips
on the map are all marked with the letters of the alphabet, to indicate
whether they are held by the lord of the manor, by his tenants, or by
other owners.
In other words, the process of gradual enclosure, which began before
1773, was continued afterwards, and was nearly complete in 1845. The
end came about the year 1858, when Frilsham Common, in an adjoining
parish, was enclosed. About half of the intermixed strips in Yattenden
Great Field belonged to a yeoman, who was, his brother told me, “a
great man for defining his boundaries.” The enclosure of Frilsham
Common gave the slight stimulus to the mind of Yattenden necessary to
overcome its mental inertia, and make change possible, so the yeoman
in question was able to effect the exchanges he desired, and others
following his example, the lay properties were all separated. But still
the glebe consists in part of an acre here and an acre there in the
midst of lands belonging to laymen. These are let with the lands in
which they lie; they have no mark to distinguish them, nor boundaries
to limit them; the tithe map and award preserve the record of them, and
the vicar receives their rent.
This circumstance of the glebe lying in part in separate unfenced
strips scattered over the parish, let with the lands in which they
lie, and so not influencing the agriculture of the parish, though
testifying to the past system, is by no means uncommon in the parishes
not enclosed by Act of Parliament.[15]
[15] Mr. A. N. Palmer, in “Ancient Tenures of Land in the Marches of
North Wales,” gives a list of parishes in one Hundred containing, or
known to have contained, “quilleted fields,” _i.e._ fields containing
strips of land belonging to a different owner from the rest of the
field, these strips being usually glebe.
In general the results of the two different methods of enclosure
in this district are practically identical. Superficially the
characteristic features of the “champaign” or “champion” country
remain. The population is concentrated in the villages; the sites of
which appear to have been originally selected for convenience of water
supply; outside the villages are the long sweeps of open fields of
barley, wheat or beans, lying generally open to the roads, and to one
another, and to the open down, though one notices a tendency to an
increased use of wire fencing. The monotony is broken by the beautiful
curves of the hill slopes, and by clumps of trees; here and there, on
steeper inclines, lynches are clearly visible, and occasionally what
looks like an inconsequent hedge, beginning and ending in the middle of
the field--an old “mere” or “balk” on which bushes happened to grow.
On the other hand, the farms run generally from 200 to over 1000 acres
each; machinery is extensively used; the supply of labour, though not
so superabundant as a generation or two ago, is still sufficient, the
customary wage being 2_s._ per day. The men themselves struck me as
being of finer physique than the agricultural labourers I have seen in
any other part of the South or Midlands of England; but they appear
to be as completely shut out from any rights over the land, from any
enterprise of their own upon the land, or from any opportunities for
rising into the farmers’ class as can well be conceived. Only one
man whom I met could remember a different condition. He, a labourer
of seventy-three, said that in North Moreton before the enclosure
(completed in 1849) every villager who could get a cow could keep it in
the open fields, and all the villagers also had rights of cutting fuel.
Under the Enclosure Act some moneys were set aside to provide the poor
with fuel in compensation for these rights, but latterly the amount
provided had much diminished.
Steventon, which lies in the centre of this district, is to some extent
exceptional. The manor has always been in ecclesiastical hands, from
the first time when the village was founded as a settlement from the
Abbey of Bec in Normandy to the present day, when it is held by the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In the intervening period it belonged to
Westminster Abbey.
No doubt it was in consequence of this that through the greater part
of the nineteenth century, while all the other parishes passed into
their present condition of large farms, the farms and properties in
Steventon remained small. Up to about 1874 there were some eighteen
yeomen farmers in the parish, which comprises 2,382 acres, fully
three-quarters at that time being arable. In addition, the lands
belonging to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were divided into small
holdings, and all these were intermixed. The system of cultivation was
very simple. The arable land was divided into two fields, one known
as the “white corn field,” growing wheat or barley, the other as the
“black corn field,” growing pulse or some other crop.
In the severe agricultural depression that followed 1874, culminating
in 1879, the yeomen were obliged to borrow in order to continue
farming, and they mortgaged their lands to certain gentlemen in the
neighbourhood who had money to invest. As one bad season followed
another, loan had to be added to loan, till the security was exhausted,
and the land passed into the possession of the mortgagee. In this way
the number of landowners was reduced to five. Then enclosure, which had
been proposed and rejected in the forties, was resolved upon. The Act
was obtained in 1880, and the award was made in 1883.
There was considerable disappointment among those who carried out the
enclosure at the results. They were surprised and disgusted at the
amount of land reserved for allotments and recreation ground; they
were also surprised at the expense, which amounted, I was told, to
nearly £10,000. Some were unable to meet the calls upon them, and went
bankrupt. But a large portion of the cost was for road-making, and
when this had been paid for, the chief advantage which had been gained
by the whole proceeding, economy in horse labour, was realised. Where
previously it had taken three horses to get a load of manure to a given
spot in the open fields, along the tracks assigned for that purpose,
one horse could draw the same load to the nearest point on the metalled
roadway, and a second horse hitched in front would enable it to reach
its destination.