THE PROGRESS OF ENCLOSURE WITHOUT PARLIAMENTARY SANCTION.
A. FROM 1845 ONWARDS.
Any statistical account of enclosure without Parliamentary sanction
must necessarily be vague in comparison with the statements which it is
possible to make of enclosure by Act of Parliament, and must consist of
inferences from evidence of varying value. And, naturally, the evidence
in general becomes scantier in proportion as the period investigated is
more remote.
The Tithe Commutation maps and awards afford the richest mine of
information for the period since 1836. We have seen that according to
the analysis of them published by the Copyhold, Enclosure and Tithe
Commission in 1873, they indicated the existence at that date of
264,307 acres of common fields. We have already seen how untrustworthy
this estimate is if taken for a basis for calculating the area of
existing common fields, how inaccurate it was even at the date at which
it was published. But one great source of inaccuracy in it, as we
have seen, is the assumption that no enclosure, other than by Act of
Parliament, took place after the date of Tithe Commutation. If we could
eliminate all other errors, and also get a perfectly accurate statement
of the area of existing common fields, we should then know how much
enclosure of common fields has taken place without Parliamentary
intervention since the date of Tithe Commutation. This date, of course,
is different in different parishes, but the average date is about 1845.
To eliminate all other errors it would be necessary to go over all the
work again, a task which would take a single investigator several
years of continual labour, and would not then be accomplished unless
the investigator were himself infallible. We must therefore be content
with an approximate correction.[92]
[92] There are no less than 11,783 separate sets of awards and
apportionments, each with its map. The maps vary in size from about
six or seven to over a hundred square feet each. The apportionments
are bulky rolls of parchment.
The tithe maps and awards deposited with the Tithe Commission cover
about three-quarters of the area of England and Wales. The amount of
common field in the other quarter is estimated on the assumption that
in each county the part for which there are no tithe awards in the
custody of the Tithe Commission contained the same proportion of common
field as the part for which title awards existed. The common fields
thus estimated amount to about two-fifths of the total estimate. If the
particulars given in the return for the different counties were added
up, we should get the statement:--
Common Field Lands.
Acres.
Areas ascertained from the tithe documents 163,823
Estimated additional areas 100,484
───────
264,307
═══════
We have seen that assuming the total of 163,823 acres is correctly
“ascertained,” the estimate of 100,484 acres for the other parishes is
very excessive, because the most frequent reason for no title documents
existing in the custody of the Tithe Commission is that the commutation
of tithes was effected before 1836 by a local Enclosure Act, which
swept away the common fields.
In consequence, counties which were mainly enclosed by Acts of
Parliament are very partially covered by the tithe documents; counties
which have few or no Acts for enclosure of common fields are nearly
entirely so covered. For example, we have--
┌────────────────────────┬───────────────┬──────────────┬─────────────┐
│ │ Percentage of │ Area Covered │ │
│ -- │ Area enclosed │ by Tithe │ Area not so │
│ │ by Acts. │ Documents. │ Covered. │
├────────────────────────┴───────────────┴──────────────┴─────────────┤
│ │
│ COUNTIES OF PARLIAMENTARY ENCLOSURE. │
│ │
│ Northampton │ 51·5 │ 148,066 │ 485,220 │
│ Rutland │ 46·5 │ 37,728 │ 54,968 │
│ Huntingdon │ 46·5 │ 83,856 │ 146,630 │
│ Bedford │ 46·0 │ 104,357 │ 191,159 │
│ Oxford │ 45·6 │ 214,889 │ 252,417 │
│ East Riding, Yorkshire │ 40·1 │ 263,473 │ 479,228 │
│ Leicester │ 38·2 │ 158,889 │ 352,539 │
│ │
│ COUNTIES WITH LITTLE OR NO PARLIAMENTARY ENCLOSURE. │
│ │
│ Devon │ _Nil._ │ 1,611,710 │ 46,039 │
│ Cornwall │ _Nil._ │ 851,486 │ 6,122 │
│ Kent │ _Nil._ │ 973,726 │ 29,246 │
│ Shropshire │ 0·3 │ 788,108 │ 64,385 │
│ Monmouth │ 0·4 │ 329,430 │ 16,292 │
│ Cheshire │ 0·5 │ 599,904 │ 115,931 │
└────────────────────────┴───────────────┴──────────────┴─────────────┘
Fortunately there is another possible way of calculating the probable
area of common field land which would have been found in the parishes
not covered by tithe documents, if it had been investigated at about
the same date.
Out of the seventy-five parishes enclosed by Act of Parliament
since 1850--_i.e._, at a later date than almost all of the tithe
documents--the Tithe Commission had the maps and awards of
seventy-one--all, that is, but four. Common fields subsequently
enclosed were to be found in these two classes of parishes in the
proportion of 71 to 4; it is a fair inference that the total area of
common fields, whether subsequently enclosed or not, was distributed in
the same proportion.
On this assumption we should have the following calculation:--
Common Field Lands.
Acres.
Areas ascertained from the tithe documents 163,823
Estimated additional areas 9,229
───────
Total 173,052
═══════
No probable error in the additional estimate in this calculation would
have an appreciable effect on the total.
Next, as we have noticed above, the “areas ascertained” require
correction. This it is much more difficult to supply satisfactorily;
all that we can do is to determine--(1) whether the number given is
likely to err by excess or by defect; (2) whether the error is likely
to be large.
The main purpose of the return was to establish the total amount of
waste land subject to common rights, and the proportion of such land
likely to be capable of cultivation. This part of the work was done
with great care, and particularly with great care not to include any
land which was not certainly subject to common rights. The final figure
arrived at was certainly considerably in defect through the documents
on which it was based failing to mention common rights in all cases
where they existed.
The part of the return relating to common field lands, on the other
hand, was considered of less importance; the explanatory letter says
with regard to them:--
“The common field lands are generally distinguishable by the particular
manner in which they are marked on the tithe maps, and their extent
has been estimated by these maps.” This means that areas on the tithe
maps subdivided by dotted lines were assumed to be common field lands.
This method had the advantage of comprehensiveness--it is probable
that scarcely any common field land escaped notice, if there were a
tithe map for the parish in which it existed. I have only detected one
error of omission. The common fields of Eakring were very considerably
in excess of the 54 acres at which they were estimated. But on the
other hand it has the disadvantage of including with common field
lands numerous cases of properties or holdings which were inadequately
divided from one another by fences or hedges, but which were not common
fields. But it is very hard to say precisely what percentage ought to
be deducted to allow for this error. Generalising from all the cases
in which I have been able to put estimates for particular parishes to
a test, I should say that more than one-sixth, but less than one-third
of the total should be deducted. Taking the larger fraction, so as to
leave the remainder under-estimated, rather than over-estimated, we
have--
Acres.
Area of common field lands, by estimate above 173,052
Less one-third 57,684
───────
115,368
Parliamentary enclosure since 1873 has
reduced the area of common fields by 14,842
───────
100,526
═══════
The final remainder represents our corrected estimate of the area of
common fields arable and commonable meadows of intermixed ownership
which would now exist if there had been no enclosure except by Act of
Parliament since about the year 1845. The total area of such fields
and meadows actually existing almost certainly does not exceed 30,000
acres. We therefore may conclude that not less than 70,000 acres
have been enclosed as the result of the consolidation of farms and
properties and voluntary agreements and exchanges, since about the year
1845, and that not more than 100,000 acres have been thus enclosed.
The total area of common fields enclosed by Acts since 1845, together
with such meadows and commons as were enclosed together with common
arable fields, is 139,517 acres.
It would therefore appear that such voluntary methods of enclosure have
accounted in this period for an area something between half as large an
area as Enclosure Acts and five-sevenths of that area.
The proportion of villages in which common fields have been entirely
got rid of by voluntary enclosure during the same period would of
course be smaller; because wherever common fields exist they are
subject to continual diminution by gradual enclosure; and the final
application of an Act of Parliament may be merely the _coup de grace_.
Curiously, also, it may happen that a practically complete enclosure
may be effected, and years later resort be had to an Act, as in the
cases of Hildersham (Cambridge), and Sutton (Northampton).
B. BEFORE 1845.
The agricultural survey of Great Britain carried out by the Board
of Agriculture in 1793 furnishes us with much information about the
state of enclosure of some counties, and with scraps of information
about others. Where the information is fullest it may take the form
of estimates of the total area enclosed or open, or the form of
information with regard to particular villages. By correlating the
information thus supplied with that furnished by the Acts themselves,
and from other sources, we can in some cases obtain a fairly full
account of the enclosure history of a county.
BEDFORDSHIRE.
The “General Report on the Agriculture of Bedfordshire” gives the
following estimate of the condition of the county (p. 11):--
Acres.
Enclosed meadow, pasture and arable 68,100
Woodland 21,900
Common fields, common meadows, commons and waste 217,200
───────
Total 307,200
═══════
The area of Bedfordshire being 298,500 acres, a slight deduction should
be made from the figures under each head. But this does not affect the
two striking points about the estimate: (1) that over two-thirds of the
area of the county was open, and (2) that the open and commonable land
amounted to over 200,000 acres.
The author proceeds: “Every parish which is commonly understood to be
open consists of a certain proportion of antient inclosed land near
the respective villages, but that proportion, compared with the open
common field in each respective parish, does not on an average exceed
one-tenth of the whole” (p. 25).
He further says that Lidlington, Sundon and Potton had been recently
enclosed. Each was enclosed by Act of Parliament.
We can deal with the above information in two ways: (1) by translating
it into terms of parishes, and (2) by dealing with it in terms of acres.
In Bedfordshire very little common indeed existed apart from the open
field parishes. This is proved by the fact that from 1700 to 1870
there were only three enclosures of commons, apart from arable common
fields, comprising an area of 867 acres, and that the tithe maps only
indicated 507 acres more of commons in parishes where there were no
common fields. We may safely assume that at least 200,000 acres out
of our author’s 217,200 acres of open land belonged to open field
villages, and that these villages also had, in accordance with his
estimate, 20,000 acres of old enclosures, the area of all the open
fields parishes in 1764 was, according to the estimate, about 220,000
acres; that of the enclosed parishes about 87,200 acres. If the numbers
of the parishes enclosed and open were about in the same proportion,
out of the one hundred and twenty-one parishes in Bedfordshire, there
should have been eighty-seven open and thirty-four enclosed.
From the list of Parliamentary enclosures in the appendix, it will be
seen that seventy-three parishes were enclosed by Acts passed in 1798
and later. There were also seven other parishes in which the tithe
documents indicate common fields surviving up to the date of Tithe
Commission, making a total of eighty parishes, which we have previously
accounted for.
It would follow that about seven parishes were enclosed in Bedfordshire
between 1794 and 1845 without any Act. This is in accordance with what
we might reasonably expect.
Of the thirty-four parishes which by this argument were enclosed in
1790, seventeen had been enclosed by Acts passed between the years 1742
and 1783, leaving a remainder of seventeen parishes. There is obviously
a strong probability that the majority of these were enclosed in the
eighteenth century.
But in this calculation I have treated the 21,900 acres of woodland
as though it were part of the enclosed parishes. If it be considered
to belong indifferently to open and enclosed parishes, the above
calculation must be modified. We then have ninety-four parishes open
in 1793, and twenty-seven enclosed; fourteen out of the ninety-four
would be enclosed without Parliamentary sanction between 1793 and 1845,
leaving only ten parishes so enclosed at some unknown date earlier than
1793.
By dealing with the Bedfordshire estimate on the basis of acreage
instead of parishes, I arrive at the following statement of the history
of the enclosure of Bedford:--
Acres.
Ancient woodland and waste, which passed
directly into individual use, and ancient
roads, &c. 43,000
Common fields, meadows and pastures enclosed
before 1742 33,000
Ditto enclosed from 1742–1793 by Acts of
Parliament 23,883
Ditto ″ ″ ″ ″ not by Acts 26,000
Ditto ″ ″ 1793–1900 by Acts 114,430
Ditto ″ ″ ″ ″ not by Acts 58,000
───────
Total 298,313
═══════
Arthur Young, in June, 1768, travelled through Bedfordshire to St.
Neots, and then close to the boundary between Bedford and Huntingdon
to Kimbolton and Thrapston in Northamptonshire. He found from Sandy
to St. Neots the country chiefly open, and that it continued so to
Kimbolton and Thrapston; though with regard to the two latter places
he mentions enclosed pastures (“Northern Tour,” 2nd Ed., Vol. I., pp.
55–59). This, so far as it goes, tends to confirm our conclusions.
I am anxious not to lay any undue stress on the above arithmetical
calculations; but I think it is quite clear that up to the year 1742
the condition of the county of Bedford was that indicated by Leland’s
description.
Leland passed through Bedfordshire in his “Itinerary.” From Vol. I.,
fols. 116–120, we find that from Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire,
about 2 miles from the Bedfordshire boundary, to Bedford (14 miles)
was “champaine” from Wellington village, near Bedford, to Antchille
Castle (Ampthill), “12 miles almost al by Champayn Grounde, part by
corne and part by Pasture, and sum baren hethy and sandy grounde.”
Then “From Antchille to Dunstable X m. or more. First I passed partely
by woddy ground and Enclosures. But after most parte by champaine
Grounde.... And thens to Mergate al by Champaine a vj miles.” And so
out of Bedfordshire. A small part of the county was ancient woodland,
a smaller part was cultivated land reclaimed from the forest state,
which had never passed through the common fields system of cultivation,
but almost all was in the condition of the typical open field parish,
common field arable, commonable meadows, and common pastures, with a
certain amount of enclosure round the villages. It would appear that
during the 200 years following Leland’s journey only an insignificant
amount of progress in enclosure took place in Bedfordshire. This
conclusion is not contradicted, but on the other hand it is not
strikingly confirmed by Walter Blyth (“The English Improver,”
1649), who enumerates as unenclosed “the south part of Warwick and
Worcestershire, Leicester, Notts, Rutland, some part of Lincoln,
Northampton, Buckingham, some part of Bedfordshire, most part of the
Vales of England, and very many parcels in most counties.”
One further point may be noticed. In Bedfordshire the percentage
of the total area enclosed by Act of Parliament is exceptionally
high--46·0 per cent. We find that when we make allowances for (1)
contemporary voluntary enclosure, (2) for ancient woodland and for
some land passing directly from the forest state into that of separate
ownership and occupation, (3) for some ancient enclosing of land in the
immediate vicinity of villages, there is little or no other enclosure
remaining to be referred to the period before Parliamentary enclosure
began--in this case the year 1742.
NORTHAMPTON, RUTLAND, S.E. WARWICK AND LEICESTER.
These four counties may be said to form a definite group, so far
as their enclosure history is concerned. The main facts of their
Parliamentary enclosure are shown in the following table:--
┌─────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┐
│ │ Acreage Enclosed │ │
│ ---- ├─────────────────┬─────────────────┤ Percentage of │
│ │ By 18th Century │ By 19th Century │ Total Area. │
│ │ Acts. │ Acts. │ │
├─────────────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Warwick │ 124,828 │ 24,731 │ 25·0 │
│ Leicester │ 187,717 │ 12,660 │ 38·2 │
│ Rutland │ 37,180 │ 10,044 │ 46·5 │
│ Northampton │ 247,517 │ 85,251 │ 51·8 │
└─────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┴───────────────┘
Like Bedford, they are all counties with a high proportion of enclosure
by Act of Parliament; but they differ from Bedford in that their
enclosure was much more preponderatingly effected in the eighteenth
century. The proportion of eighteenth-century Acts is particularly
high in Leicester, but the proportion of Acts earlier than 1760 is
higher in Warwick than in any other county--twenty-nine out of 114.
These counties comprise the district in which the greatest amount of
agitation arose against enclosure in the seventeenth century, and that
in which the effect of enclosure in causing depopulation through decay
of tillage was most marked in the eighteenth century.
[Illustration: EAST MIDLANDS
SECTION 1.
Map of Rutland, Northamptonshire, Huntingtonshire, Cambridgeshire,
Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and part of Essex
showing land enclosed:
before the General Enclosure Act of 1801.
between 1802 and 1845.
under General Enclosure Act of 1845.
Scale 1:1,000,000 or 1 inch = 15.78 Stat. miles.]
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
Northamptonshire has 51·5 per cent. of its area covered by Acts of
Parliament for the enclosure of whole parishes, a larger proportion
than any other county. There have been passed in addition an important
Act for extinguishing foreign rights in Rockingham Forest in 1796, an
Act in 1812 for draining and enclosing Borough Fen, and creating a new
parish to be called Newborough, and three other Acts for enclosing
commons or wastes; the whole area affected by the five Acts being
perhaps 15,000 acres. These being included, the total area which has
undergone Parliamentary enclosure reaches 54 per cent. of the area of
the county.
James Donaldson, the Board of Agriculture reporter, says that of the
316 parishes, 227 were enclosed by 1793, and eighty-nine were then in
open field; and that “half of the inclosed parishes may be denominated
old inclosure.”
Of the eighty-nine parishes, open in 1793, eighty-eight have been
enclosed by Act of Parliament since; so that there was only one parish
enclosed without Parliamentary intervention from 1793 to 1903, when
the last trace of the Northamptonshire common fields was swept away
by the enclosure of Sutton. This fact is remarkable, it points to a
wide diffusion of ownership of lands and of rights over the land; and
it should be associated with the specially strenuous resistance of
Northamptonshire to enclosure in the reign of James I.
The statement that of the enclosed parishes half may be denominated
old enclosure, would be more enlightening if one knew exactly what Mr.
Donaldson meant by old enclosure. But we find that 113 parishes (which
is as near as possible half 227) were enclosed by Acts passed in the
period 1765–1792; if therefore by “old enclosure” he means enclosure
dating back more than twenty-eight years, his statement would imply
that there was no enclosure without an Act in that period. Nineteen
parishes were enclosed by Act in the five years 1760–1764, eighteen
in the period 1749–1759, and four earlier. These Acts altogether
account for the enclosure of 153 out of the 227 parishes, and there is
evidently a strong balance of probability that the enclosure of the
remaining seventy-two took place almost entirely before the middle of
the eighteenth century.
LEICESTERSHIRE.
R. Monk, the reporter for Leicester, gives as an Appendix a list of the
“Lordships” of that county, with the names of the Lords of the manors,
or chief landowners, and the date of enclosure, when he could ascertain
it. He only knew of ten open field parishes and of two half open and
half enclosed; but, of these, four, Cold Overton, Cole Orton, Whitwick
and Worthington, have not since been enclosed by Act of Parliament;
they must therefore have been enclosed voluntarily at the end of the
eighteenth or in the first half of the nineteenth century; for the
tithe documents for these parishes do not indicate any surviving
common field. For thirty-five of the parishes not enclosed by Act of
Parliament, Monk gives no information; of the following fifteen he
gives the date of enclosure:--
┌──────────────────────┬───────────┐
│ Parish. │ Enclosed. │
├──────────────────────┼───────────┤
│ Shanktons │ 1738 │
│ Birstall │ 1759 │
│ Beeby │ 1761 │
│ Thurnaston │ 1762 │
│ Saxelby │ 1765 │
│ Frisby │ 1769 │
│ Stretton Parva │ 1770 │
│ Stapleford │ 1772 │
│ Shearsby │ 1773 │
│ Hathorn │ 1777 │
│ Ilston │ 1788 │
│ South Kilworth │ 1789 │
│ Hose │ 1791 │
│ Barkston and Plunger │ 1791 │
└──────────────────────┴───────────┘
The following fifty-five he merely describes as “enclosed”:--
Allexton
Aston Flamville
Barwell
Bittesby
Blackfordby
Brooksby
Broughton Astley
Burrow
Burton-by-Prestwould
Cadeby
Carlton
Coston
Cotes
Dadlington
Dalby-in-the-Wolds
Great Dalby
Dishly Grange
Eastwell
Edmundthorpe
Fenny Drayton
Foolesworth
Gaddesby
Garthorpe
Galby
Goadby
Hether
Huncote
Ibstock
Isley Walton
Knossington
Lockington
Loseby
Market Bosworth
Potters Marston
Misterton
Normanton-on-the-Heath
Odstone
Rollestone
Saxby
Snareston
Stapleton
Stretton Magna
Swepston
Thorpe Arnold
Thurnby
Tilton-on-the-Hill
Twycross
Ullesthorpe
Welham
Little Wigston
Witherby
Woodthorpe
Owston
Staunton Harold
Wanlip he describes as enclosed lately.
The following forty he describes as “old enclosure,” or gives
seventeenth-century dates for their enclosure--
Ashby Folville
Great Ashby
Barlston
Buckminster
Beaumont Leys
Burbage
Burton Lazars
Braunston-by-Kirkby
Carleton Curlew
Catthorp
Cossington
Cotterback
Little Dalby
Elmesthorpe
Enderby
Foston
Freathby
Glen Parva
Kirkby Beler
Lodington
Muston
Nailston
Newton Linford
Packington
Peatling Magna
Prestwould
Ragdale
Scraptoft
Shawell
Staunton Wyville
Stoke Golding
Thedingworth
Thorpe Sacheville
Welby
Willoughby Waterless
Wyfordby (or Wiverby)
Wymondham
Pickwell, he says, was enclosed in 1628, Shenton in 1646, and Laughton
in 1665.
Here, again, in interpreting these statements, we are confronted
with the difficulty of determining what antiquity is implied by the
term “old enclosure,” and also by the difficulty of estimating what
proportion of the parishes described merely as “enclosed” belonged to
any particular epoch of enclosure.
On the one hand, we note (1) that one-third of the open field
parishes known to Monk were enclosed without Acts in the following
half-century, (2) that he gives the date of enclosure of fifteen other
parishes for which we have no Acts, which were enclosed in the previous
half-century. It would therefore appear that a very considerable amount
of enclosure was going on, without Acts of Parliament, during the
period in which Parliamentary enclosure was proceeding rapidly.
On the other hand, the fact that he can give seventeenth-century dates
for the enclosure of three parishes suggests that probably a very large
proportion of his “old enclosure parishes” and a fair proportion of his
enclosed parishes were enclosed in the seventeenth century.[93]
[93] William Pitt, who made a second survey of the agriculture
of Leicestershire for the Board, published in 1809, gives an
interesting account of the enclosure of the vale of Belvoir. This, the
north-eastern corner of Leicestershire, was enclosed between 1760 and
1800; and as a result a complete change in the cultivation took place;
the rich land in the valleys, which had been arable common fields, was
laid down in grass, and the tenants forbidden under heavy penalties
to plough it; while the summits of the hills and edges of the vales,
which had been sheep-runs, were converted into arable land.
Pursuing the inquiry backwards, we find our next source of information
in Celia Fiennes, a lady of Newtontony, who made a series of rides in
the last few years of the seventeenth century. Newtontony is three
miles east of Amesbury, amid the open chalk hills, or, as she describes
it, in the midst of “a fine open champion country”, and she usually
describes the aspect of the country she passes through. She travelled
westwards to Land’s End, eastwards to Kent, northwards to the Border,
and she gives some information with regard to the state of enclosure
of most of the English counties. She went through both Bedfordshire
and Northamptonshire, but with regard to those two counties gives no
information as to their condition of enclosure. As she is more apt to
notice the presence than the absence of hedges, this, so far as it
goes, confirms our conclusions with regard to Bedfordshire; and, with
regard to Northamptonshire, this small piece of negative evidence tends
to the conclusion that that county also was almost entirely open in the
beginning of the eighteenth century.
“Leicestershire,” she says, “is a very Rich Country--Red land, good
corn of all sorts and grass, _both fields and inclosures_. You see a
great way upon their hills the bottoms full of Enclosures, woods, and
different sorts of manureing and herbage” (p. 133).
It is evident that enclosure had considerably advanced; but it must
be noted that “fields” with Celia Fiennes means common fields. It is
further to be noted that her description of the enclosures creeping up
the hills implies a process of gradual enclosure. Of the neighbourhood
of Bosworth (in the west of Leicestershire) she says, “this is a great
flatt full of good Enclosures.” The western side of Leicestershire was
therefore mainly enclosed before 1700, while the north-east was all
open till 1760.
But though enclosure was so far advanced in Leicestershire, “their
fewell,” Celia Fiennes says, “is but cowdung or Coale.” The use of
cowdung for fuel supplied to advocates of enclosure in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries one of their chief arguments. Either the
hedges of Leicestershire were not yet able to supply enough wood for
fuel, or the old custom continued although it was as unnecessary as
objectionable. In either case the natural inference is that much of
the enclosure of Leicestershire which Celia Fiennes observed, was then
recent.[94]
[94] Arthur Young found the practice still prevalent in
Northamptonshire more than seventy years later: “they collect all the
cow-dung from their fields and daub it in lumps, barns, and stables,
to dry for fuel” (“Eastern Tour,” Vol. I., p. 48). Edward Lawrence
speaks of Yorkshire (evidently the East Riding only is meant) and
Lincolnshire as the counties where the practice prevailed in 1727
(“The Duty of a Steward to his Lord,” Article 3).
This again is confirmed by Walter Blyth, who in the passage quoted
above describes Leicestershire as entirely open, as well as
Northampton, Rutland, and the south part of Warwick.
Further detailed information is given by the disputants Joseph Lee,
John Moore, and the anonymous writers who joined in the controversy,
who debated the ethics of enclosure in the Midlands in the years
1653–1657. John Moore, in his first pamphlet, asks, “Above one hundred
touns inclosed in Leicestershire, how few amongst them all are not
unpeopled and uncorned?” Now it is probably fair to read “above one
hundred” as “about one hundred” or “nearly one hundred.” The names
of some of these are supplied by Joseph Lee in his “Vindication
of Regulated Enclosure,” for he gives (page 5) as examples of
enclosure without depopulation the following thirteen parishes in
Leicestershire: Market Bosworth, Carlton, Coten, Shenton, Cadesby
(Cadeby), Bilson (Billesdon), Twicriss, Higham, Golding (Stoke
Golding), Little Glen, Croft, Ashby Magna, and Stapleton, together with
Stoke in Northamptonshire, Upton and Barton, which might be either
in Northampton or in Warwick, and three others, Nelson, Cosford and
Woscot, which I am unable to locate, except that Cosford was near
Catthorp, the extreme south corner of Leicestershire; for Lee further
gives a list of fifteen enclosures within three miles of Catthorp, in
which Cosford and Coten are included, and also Bigging, Brownsover,
Shawell, Streetfield, Over, Cottesbatch, Pultney, Sturmer, Hallfield,
Sister (? Siston), Moorebarn, Cotes and Misterton (p. 8).
Of the former set of townships he says: “They have been enclosed some
twenty, some thirty, some forty or fifty years.” Of the latter he says:
“Most of these Inclosures have been plowed within thirty years, and the
rest are now about to be plowed.”
It would appear, therefore, that enclosure began in Leicestershire
at about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and proceeded
so rapidly that nearly a hundred townships, mainly situated in the
south and west of the county, were enclosed within about fifty years.
Enclosure also began in Northamptonshire about the same time, but at
not so great a rate. The author of “Considerations Concerning Common
Fields and Enclosures,” published in 1653, makes a reference to “Mr.
Bentham’s[95] Christian Conflict” (p. 322), which gives a list of
eleven manors in Northamptonshire, enclosed and depopulated. In a later
sermon, “A Scripture Word against Inclosures,” 1656, John Moore says:
“England (especially Leicestershire and the counties round about)
stands now as guilty in the sight of God of the sinnes in the text.
They sold the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes, as
Israel did then” (p. 1). A little later he again referred to “Enclosure
in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, and the counties adjacent.”
This confirms the conclusion reached from the other evidence that
Leicestershire was in the centre of the seventeenth-century movement of
enclosure of common fields, and that it was in Leicestershire that the
movement was most effective.
[95] This was Joseph Bentham of Kettering, who published “The Societie
of the Saints,” in 1638, in which he denounces enclosure with
remarkable vehemence.
RUTLAND.
Rutlandshire has had 46·5 per cent. of its area enclosed by Acts of
Parliament, 47,224 acres. Of this area 14,641 acres were enclosed by
Acts passed between 1756 and 1773; then for twenty years there were no
Acts, the next being passed in 1793. By that and subsequent Acts 32,583
acres were enclosed.
John Crutchley, the Board of Agriculture reporter, says that two-thirds
of the country was enclosed, one-third unenclosed (“Agriculture of
Rutland, 1793,” p. 30). As the area (32,583 acres) is just one-third
of the total area of Rutlandshire (97,273 acres), Acts of Parliament
entirely account for all the enclosure since 1793. Of the area enclosed
before 1793 there remains about 50,000 acres, a little more than half
the county, unaccounted for.
Part at least must have been enclosed before the beginning of the
eighteenth century, for Celia Fiennes says: “Rutlandshire seems more
woody and enclosed than some others” (p. 54). It is one of the counties
described by Walter Blyth as entirely unenclosed in 1649; but, as we
have seen, this description is also applied by him to Leicestershire
and Northamptonshire, and as it was, especially in the case of the
former county, decidedly too sweeping, we cannot infer that no
enclosure took place in Rutlandshire before that date.
Leland passed through Uppingham and Stanford; he found part of the
county woody, but he makes no mention of enclosure.
He also gives a very full description of the counties of Leicester and
Northamptonshire. Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, and Rockingham
Forest in Northamptonshire, were then very extensive; but all the
remainder of the two counties he describes in general as “champaine,”
or by words which imply an unenclosed condition. The only mention
of enclosure is in the case of two parks in Northamptonshire. (See
Appendix C.)
WARWICK.
Warwickshire is divided by the River Avon into two parts of
approximately equal area; the north-western part is a district of
ancient enclosure, probably enclosed in the main direct from the
forest state; the south-eastern part has a similar enclosure history
to Leicester and Northampton, except that its enclosure took place
generally somewhat earlier. One-quarter of the whole county has
undergone Parliamentary enclosure, but the proportion so enclosed of
the south-eastern part is much larger.
John Wedge, the Board of Agriculture reporter, estimates that in 1793,
out of a total area of 618,000 acres, 57,000 was open field land (p.
11). To reduce 618,000 to the true area of the county (577,462 acres),
one must deduct 10 per cent. A deduction of 10 per cent. leaves about
51,000 acres of common field. Enclosure Acts since account for 38,444
acres, and in parishes not enclosed by Acts the tithe documents
indicate rather over 1000 acres of common field lands. There remains a
little over 10,000 acres unaccounted for, which has disappeared between
1793 and the date of tithe commutation.
John Wedge appears to have attempted a list of open field parishes with
their area and extent of common field and waste, but only got so far as
to supply this information for five parishes (p. 54), each of which has
undergone subsequent enclosure by Act of Parliament. He draws attention
to the contrast between the two parts of Warwickshire: “About forty
years ago the southern and eastern parts of this county consisted
mostly of open fields. There are still about 50,000 acres of open field
land which in a few years will probably all be enclosed. These lands,
being now grazed, want much fewer hands than they did in the former
open state. Upon all inclosures of open fields the farms have generally
been made much larger. For these causes the hardy yeomanry of country
villages have been driven for employment into Birmingham, Coventry, and
other manufacturing towns.”
About 90,000 acres was enclosed by Act of Parliament in the part of
Warwick described between 1743 and 1798. This, together with the 50,000
acres remaining, amounts to rather less than half the area of the
division of the county under consideration. As Wedge clearly was of
opinion that the greater part of S.E. Warwick was open at the date he
mentions, and as there is no reason for thinking he was wrong, it is to
be inferred that a considerable amount of non-Parliamentary enclosure
was going on in S.E. Warwick during the second half of the eighteenth
century.
The extracts above given with reference to Leicester and Northampton
also prove that enclosure was going on in this part of the county
during the first half of the sixteenth century, though it had so little
advanced up to 1649 that Blyth speaks of this part of the county as
unenclosed.
Leland gives an extremely full account of the state of enclosure of
Warwickshire, which shows that as early as 1540 the north-west part of
the county was “much enclosed.” It was on one of his later journeys
that he explored the county, entering from Oxfordshire. He found,
“Banbury to Warwick, twelve miles by Champaine Groundes, fruitful of
corne and grasse, and two miles by some enclosed and woody groundes”
(Vol. IV., Part 2, fol. 162).
“I learned at Warwick that the most part of the shire of Warwicke, that
lyeth as Avon River descendeth on the right hand or ripe of it, is in
Arden (for soe is the ancient Name of that part of the shire); and the
ground in Arden is much enclosed, plentifull of grasse, but not of
corne. The other part of Warwickshire that lyeth on the left hand or
ripe of Avon River, much to the south, is for the most part Champion,
somewhat barren of wood, but plentifull of corne” (fol. 166 a).
We may add, so as to complete our review of the evidence, that William
Marshall, in his book on the “Agriculture of the Midland District of
England” (1790), treats a region of which the town of Leicester was
near the centre, comprising the counties of Warwick, Rutland, the
north of Leicester and of Northampton, the east of Staffordshire, and
the southern extremities of Derby and Nottingham, as an agricultural
unit. He says: “Thirty years ago much of this district was in an open
state, and some townships still remain open; there are others, however,
which appear to have been long in a state of enclosure, and in which,
no doubt, the present system of management originated” (p. 8). This
does not add to our information about this district, but the fact that
Marshall was perfectly correct in his reading of the story told by the
aspect of the country is important, because for some other districts
his testimony is material.
To sum up, we find that in the north-west of Warwick enclosure was
general as early as 1540, while it was practically non-existent in the
south-east of that county and in Leicester, Northampton and Rutland.
We find that the movement towards enclosure of the “champaine” country
began about the year 1600, that it proceeded steadily in spite of
great popular resistance through the seventeenth century, but at a
much greater rate in Leicester, and probably in S.E. Warwick, than
in Northamptonshire, the rate in Rutland being probably slower than
in Leicester, but certainly greater than in Northamptonshire, the
course of the movement being from west to east; that about half of
S.E. Warwick and of Leicester was enclosed when the movement of
Parliamentary enclosure began, but less than half of Rutland, and not
more than quarter (probably not more than a fifth) of Northamptonshire.
We have seen that the enclosure of Bedford was later than this, and we
shall see that the same is true of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdon. In
the midlands of England the course of enclosure from 1600 onwards was
from west to east.
A word may be added with regard to the methods by which
non-Parliamentary enclosure was effected in this district. There was
great diversity in Leicestershire from village to village with regard
to the diffusion of property, as may be seen from Monk’s Appendix, in
which he endeavours to give the names of the principal owners in each
“lordship.” Some were entirely in the hands of a single individual,
others had many owners, but in the great majority the land was mainly,
but not entirely, owned by the lord of the manor. The description of
the enclosure of S.E. Warwick supplied by John Wedge, the consolidation
of farms, and the depopulation of the villages, indicates that there
enclosure, whether by Act of Parliament or not, was carried through by
the authority of the lord of the manor, he being the main landowner.
The method by which this would be done when an Act of Parliament was
not resorted to is fully explained by Edward Lawrence (“The Duty of a
Steward to his Lord, 1727”), Article XIV.
“A Steward should not forget to make the best Enquiry into the
disposition of any of the Freeholders within or near any of his Lord’s
Manors, to sell their Lands, that he may use his best Endeavours
to purchase them at as reasonable a price as may be for his Lord’s
Advantage and Convenience ... especially in such Manors where
improvements are to be made by inclosing Commons and Common Fields;
which (as every one, who is acquainted with the late Improvements in
Agriculture must know) is not a little advantageous to the Nation
in general, as well as highly profitable to the Undertaker. If the
Freeholders cannot _all_ be perswaded to sell, yet at least an
Agreement for Inclosing should be pushed forward, by the Steward, and
a scheme laid, wherein it may appear that an exact and proportional
share will be allotted to every proprietor; perswading them first, if
possible, to sign a Form of Agreement, and then to chuse Commissioners
on both sides.... If the Steward be a Man of good sense, he will find
a necessity of making use of it all, in rooting out _superstition_
from amongst them, as what is so great a hindrance to all _noble_
Improvements.” The superstition referred to, is that enclosed land is
cursed, and doomed in three generations to pass out of the hands of the
descendants of the proprietor who enclosed it.
That in the early seventeenth century much of the enclosure was carried
out by the power of the lord of the manor is plain from the scraps of
information given by John Moore. Thus he tells us that Ashby Magna was
enclosed in 1606, and that the lord gave most of his tenants leases
for three lives and twenty-one years after (“Scripture Word Against
Inclosures,” p. 9), that being the reason why depopulation had not
resulted up to 1656; that in both Misterton and Poultney no house at
all was left except the minister’s, so that these two manors must have
been the property of absentee landlords.
But Catthorpe had no lord of the manor, it consisted of 580 acres
divided among eight freeholders and five or six holders of “ancient
cottages” who were also Freeholders (Joseph Lee, p. 5). The enclosure
was carried out by the agreement of all the owners, except one who
objected on conscientious grounds. The way in which these agreements to
enclose were effected in parishes where property was divided is thus
described by Moore:--“In common fields they live like loving neighbours
together for the most part, till the _Spirit of Inclosure_ enter into
some rich Churles heart, who doe not only pry out but feign occasions
to goe to law with their neighbours, and no reconcilement be made till
they consent to Inclosure. So this Inclosure makes thieves, and then
they cry out of thieves. Because they sold the righteous for silver,
and the poor for a pair of shoes. If it had not been for two or three
righteous in many Townes of these Inland Counties, what desolation had
there been made ere this time?” (Scripture Word, p. 12).
CAMBRIDGE AND HUNTINGDON.
Much of these two counties anciently consisted of fen and marsh, and
of the land now cultivated a great deal never passed through the
common field system. But the “upland” of each county was very late in
undergoing enclosure.
Vancouver, the reporter for Cambridgeshire, gives an estimate of the
areas of lands of different description, which I slightly rearrange
below.
┌──────────────────────────┬─────────────┬───────────┬───────────┐
│ ---- │ Unenclosed. │ Enclosed. │ Doubtful. │
├──────────────────────────┼─────────────┼───────────┼───────────┤
│ │ Acres. │ Acres. │ Acres. │
│ Enclosed arable │ -- │ 15,000 │ -- │
│ Open field arable │ 132,000 │ -- │ -- │
│ Improved pasture │ -- │ 52,000 │ -- │
│ Inferior pasture │ -- │ -- │ 19,800 │
│ Improved fen │ -- │ 50,000 │ -- │
│ Woodland │ -- │ -- │ 1,000 │
│ Waste and unimproved fen │ 150,000 │ -- │ -- │
│ Half-yearly meadow land │ 2,000 │ -- │ -- │
│ Highland common │ 7,500 │ -- │ -- │
│ Fen or moor common │ 8,000 │ -- │ -- │
│ Heath and sheepwalk │ 6,000 │ -- │ -- │
│ ├─────────────┼───────────┼───────────┤
│ │ 305,500 │ 117,000 │ 20,800 │
│ ╘═════════════╧═══════════╧═══════════╡
│ Total area, 443,300 acres. │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The actual area of Cambridgeshire is 549,723 acres; but Vancouver was
an exact and careful observer, and the proportions between the areas
assigned to each description were no doubt reasonably accurate. Here
we find over two-thirds of the total area unenclosed, and more than
eight-ninths of the arable land. It is, of course, possible, probable
even, that a larger amount than 15,000 acres of open field arable had
undergone enclosure, and that the 52,000 acres of improved pasture
includes a good deal of such land, laid down in grass on enclosure.
But even if we included the whole, there would only be 67,000 acres of
ancient common field arable which had undergone enclosure, compared
with 132,000 acres still open.
Vancouver also gives detailed accounts of ninety-eight of the
Cambridgeshire parishes, eighty-three of which were open, fifteen
enclosed. Of those which were open in 1793, seventy-four have since
been enclosed by Act of Parliament, nine have not, viz., Babraham,
Boxworth, Downham, Ely, Littleport, Lolworth, Madingley, Soham and Over.
Babraham had 1,350 acres of common field, and Vancouver says that
enclosure was desired. It was completely effected before the date of
tithe commutation.
Boxworth had 900 acres of common field. “The whole of this parish,”
says Vancouver, “lies within a ring fence and containing 2,100 acres,
is the property of one gentlemen.” Vancouver’s acres, as we have seen,
are large ones; the actual area is 2,526 acres. Enclosure was effected
before the date of tithe commutation, and as might be supposed under
the circumstances, without an Act.
Downham had, according to Vancouver, 680 acres of common field; the
tithe map indicates 450 acres still remaining.
To Ely he assigns 2,100 acres of common field. This had all gone at the
time of tithe commutation.
Of 345 acres assigned to Littleport, a remnant of forty acres survived
to be recorded in the tithe map.
The common field land of Lolworth suffered no diminution; for while
Vancouver gives it 650 acres, the tithe map indicates 800 acres. They
were enclosed at the time of the Crimean war by common agreement of the
owners, without an Act. This was the last surviving common field parish
in the vicinity.
In Soham enclosure was nearly as slow. Vancouver assigns it 1,200 acres
of common field; the tithe map 1,100 acres.
Madingley, Vancouver says, had 1,030 acres of common field. These were
all enclosed before the date of tithe commutation.
For Over the Board of Agriculture has no tithe documents; but we may
add that Horseheath had about 750 acres of common field, out of a total
of 1,850 acres, according to the tithe map.
Of the fifteen parishes stated by Vancouver to have been enclosed
before 1793, only two were enclosed by Act of Parliament.
The extent of the information obtained from the Acts, the tithe
documents, and Vancouver’s report is as follows:--
Of the 152 agricultural parishes of Cambridgeshire, we know the date of
enclosure of 118, enclosed by Acts of Parliament. These are given in
Appendix B.
Of thirteen, viz., Arrington, Childerley, Chippingham, Hatley St.
George, Leverington, Newton in the Isle of Ely, Outwell, Tadlow, Tid
St. Giles, Upwell-cum-Welney, and Wisbeach St. Mary, we know that they
were enclosed without Acts before 1793. The date 1790 is given for
Chippingham, and a small remnant of common field survived till 1851 in
Newton.
Four parishes were enclosed, not by Acts, between 1793 and the date of
tithe commutation--Babraham, Boxworth, Ely and Madingley.
Five parishes which were not entirely enclosed even at the date of
tithe commutation have not been enclosed by Act since. These are
Lolworth, which then had only about one-fifth of its area enclosed;
Horseheath, which was about half enclosed; Soham, which had about 1,100
acres of common field and 456 acres of common, out of a total area of
nearly 13,000 acres; and Downham and Littleport, which had respectively
450 and forty acres of common field remaining.
Of one parish, Over, we only know that it was open in 1793.
Of nine parishes, Borough Green, Croydon-cum-Clapton, East Hatley,
Papworth St. Agnes, Long Stanton, Westley Waterless, Wisbeach St.
Peter, Witcham and Witchford, we only know that they were enclosed
before the date of tithe commutation.
Of two, Little Gransden and Stanground, we have no information.
I have before laid stress upon the eastward march of enclosure in the
midlands during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries,
which the following comparison illustrates:--
┌───────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │ Parliamentary Enclosure. │
│ ├───────────────────────┬──────────────────────┤
│ -- │ In the 18th Century. │ In the 19th Century. │
│ ├─────────┬─────────────┼─────────┬────────────┤
│ │ Acts. │ Acres. │ Acts. │ Acres. │
├───────────┼─────────┼─────────────┼─────────┼────────────┤
│ Warwick │ 91 │ 124,828 │ 23 │ 24,731 │
│ Cambridge │ 23 │ 51,028 │ 85 │ 147,311 │
└───────────┴─────────┴─────────────┴─────────┴────────────┘
Celia Fiennes traversed the county. She describes the part from
Littlebery (in Essex) to Cambridge as entirely open (p. 48), and makes
no mention of enclosures in the description of the view from the
“Hogmogoge Hills” (p. 49), but she speaks of “good enclosure” between
Cambridge and Huntingdon.
Though Cambridgeshire was on the whole so late in undergoing enclosure,
the conversion of arable into tillage had so far proceeded that about
one-fifth of the county was included in the Inquisition of 1517, and it
was found that in this part 1,422 acres had been enclosed and converted
into parks or pasture (Leadam, “Domesday of Inclosures”).
HUNTINGDON.
George Maxwell, the Board of Agriculture reporter, says that Huntingdon
contains one hundred and six towns and hamlets, of which forty-one were
then (1793) wholly enclosed, and of the remaining sixty-five a very
considerable part was enclosed. He computes that about a half of the
“high land part” of the county, which would, of course, include all old
arable land, was still unenclosed (“Agriculture of Huntingdon,” p. 16).
Fifty-eight parishes were enclosed by Acts subsequently to the date of
his report, and one parish (Lutton) remained open to the date of tithe
commutation. This leaves six out of the sixty-five open or partially
enclosed parishes of his report, in which enclosure was completed by
the middle of the nineteenth century without any Act.
Of the forty-one parishes wholly enclosed before 1793, twenty were
enclosed by Acts of Parliament, leaving twenty-one parishes which might
have been enclosed contemporaneously without Acts, or to be assigned to
the time previous to the beginning of Parliamentary enclosure.
Some of this enclosure is certainly to be assigned to an early date.
Celia Fiennes, as we have seen, found more enclosure as she came to
Huntingdon from Cambridge. Leland also found enclosure in the smaller
county.
“From Cambridge to Elteste village al by champeyne counterey 8 miles.
St. Neotes 4 miles. From St. Neotes to Stoughton Village by sum
enclosid ground a 3 Miles, it is in Huntendunshir. From Stoughton to
Meichdown Village a 4 Miles be much Pasture and Corne ground ... there
be goodly Gardens, Orchards, Ponds, and a Parke thereby.”
THE EASTERN COUNTIES.
[Illustration: EAST MIDLANDS
SECTION 2.
Map of Norfolk, Suffolk and part of Essex showing land enclosed:
before the General Enclosure Act of 1801.
between 1802 and 1845.
under General Enclosure Act of 1845.
Scale 1:1,000,000 or 1 inch = 15.78 Stat. miles.]
The story of the enclosure of Essex and Suffolk is almost completely
told by the map. Each is sharply divided into a larger part very
anciently enclosed, without Acts of Parliament, and a smaller part
close to the boundaries of Hertford, Cambridge, and Norfolk, which
was enclosed at a late date by Acts of Parliament. Essex has but one
Act belonging to the eighteenth century, and that is dated as late as
1795. Suffolk has nine Acts belonging to the eighteenth, and forty-four
belonging to the nineteenth century.
The additional information available only serves to bring out more
clearly the very striking contrast between the regions of ancient and
recent enclosure.
On the one hand we find that the Parliamentary enclosure of the extreme
west and north-west portion of Essex is only part of the recent
enclosure of that part.
The Enclosure Acts cover twenty-nine parishes, and an area of 22,000
acres, about 760 acres per parish. Vancouver, who reported on Essex, as
well as Cambridge, tells us, “The arable land in about forty parishes
lies very much in open common fields, and which in point of quantity
is found to average 1,200 acres per parish.”[96] He gives a list of
open field parishes; Thraxted and Streethall, which have not since been
enclosed by Act, are included; and each of those had some common field
at the time of tithe commutation.
[96] “Agriculture of Essex,” p. 185.
On the other hand, he tells us that the neighbourhood of Great Dunmow,
which is quite close to the region of nineteenth century enclosure, had
been enclosed from time immemorial.[97]
[97] _Ibid._, p. 195.
The well-known passage in the “Discourse of the Commonweal,” “Countries
wheare most Inclosures be, are most wealthie, as essex, kent,
devenshire, and such,” sufficiently establishes the ancient enclosure
of the greater part of Essex. And though the evidence is not very
full, it is, I think, sufficient to show that the enclosure of the
corresponding part of Suffolk had a similar history. Celia Fiennes says
that the journey from Ipswich to Woodbridge is “7 miles mostly Lanes,
Enclosed countrys”; and from Woodbridge to Saxmundham “The wayes are
pretty deep, mostly Lanes, very little Commons” (p. 107).
John Norden (1602) also makes mention of Suffolk methods of hedging.
The question then arises with regard to this region of ancient
enclosure in Essex and Suffolk, whether it ever passed through the
typical English common field system. To this question we are able to
give an unhesitating answer.
In Suffolk, far away from any other Parliamentary enclosure, in the
south-east corner of the county are the parishes of Orford and Iken.
The enclosure at Orford was in 1881. There were but forty-six acres to
enclose, and these lay in strips alternately belonging to the lord of
the manor and to the Corporation of Orford. The existence of corporate
property in this small spot of land preserved it from enclosure to such
a late date.
The case of Iken appears to have been somewhat similar. It was enclosed
in 1804. There was only the small area of 100 acres to enclose,
comprising “certain open and common fields, meadows, commonable lands,
and waste grounds.” The Marquis of Hertford was lord of the manor, and
six individuals by name, and “divers others” are said to be the other
proprietors of land. There is a special clause authorising the parish
authorities, if they will, to accept rents from the Marquis of Hertford
in lieu of allotments, so there must have been corporate property in
the commonable lands, and this no doubt accounted for the survival of
this small area of common field.
But the clearest evidence is from the town of Colchester. The borough
is of great extent, and includes the four agricultural parishes of
Greenstead, Bere Church, or West Donyland, Lexden and Mile End. In
these four parishes, says Vancouver, “one-third of the arable land lies
in half-yearly common fields” (p. 40). The Corporation of Colchester
is to this day a very large owner of arable land; how it was enclosed,
and how the Corporation, as distinct from the free-men, secured the
property after the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, I
do not know. The important point is conveyed in the word “half-yearly.”
The arable fields of Colchester were genuine common fields, subject to
rights of common of pasture after harvest.
I think there can be little doubt that though much of Essex and Suffolk
might have been ancient woodland, and have been enclosed directly
from that condition, the primitive village community of Essex was
approximately of the same type as that of central England.
NORFOLK.
Adequate material does not exist for a statistical survey of the
enclosure of Norfolk, because of the disappointing habit which the
promoters of Enclosure Acts for this county fell into about the year
1793,[98] and persisted in later, of not making any statement with
regard to the area covered by the Act. The best statement that we
can make is that 297 parishes out of 682 were enclosed by Act of
Parliament.[99]
[98] Before 1793 thirty-one parishes were enclosed by twenty-two Acts,
the area covered by nineteen of which is stated, amounting altogether
to 50,187 acres. The total area so enclosed was probably not less than
54,000 acres.
[99] There were also eighty Enclosure Acts for the enclosure of common
waste or pasture merely. In these also the area is stated for a small
minority only.
We have already dealt with some peculiar features of Norfolk
agriculture revealed by preambles of Enclosure Acts. The chief other
fact which is striking in its enclosure history is that the county is
divided by the chalk ridge, which passes through the centre of the
county, from north to south, and which reaches the coast at Cromer,
into two parts of approximately equal area. The patches of colour which
indicate enclosure by Act of Parliament are scattered indifferently
over the whole map of the county; but the significance of the colour
varies. East Norfolk has all the aspect of a country of very early
enclosure. The fields are small, the hedges are big and high, like
Devonshire hedges, the roads are narrow and winding. The aspect recalls
Kent’s previously quoted words. “There is a considerable deal of common
field land in Norfolk, though a much smaller proportion than in many
other counties; for notwithstanding common rights for great cattle
exist in all of them, and even sheepwalk privileges in many, yet the
natural industry of the people is such, that whenever a person can
get 5 or 6 acres together, he plants a white-thorn edge round it, and
sets an oak at every rod distance, which is consented to by a kind
of general courtesy from one neighbour to another” (“Agriculture of
Norfolk,” 1st Edition, p. 22). The Parliamentary enclosure which took
place in a parish where the neighbours had been showing this courtesy
to one another consisted mainly in the extinction of common rights over
enclosed land.
The making of hedges had proceeded to such an extent in East Norfolk
by the end of the seventeenth century, that an anonymous author who
brought out an annotated edition of Tusser’s “Five hundred points
of Husbandry,” and “Champion and Severall,” under the title “Tusser
Redivivus,” in the year 1710, explains the term “woodland” (a term
which Tusser really used as a synonym for “several” or enclosed land)
to mean East Norfolk, saying that this district was so much enclosed in
small fields with fine trees in the hedges, that it was known as “the
Woodlands.”
At this time the western half of the county was still almost entirely
open. Arthur Young wrote in 1771, “From forty to sixty years ago, all
the Northern and Western and a part of the Eastern tracts of the county
were sheepwalks, let so low as from 6_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ and 2_s._ an
acre. Much of it was in this condition only thirty years ago. The great
improvements have been made by reason of the following circumstances:
(1) By enclosing without the assistance of Parliament.
(2) By a spirited use of marle and clay.
(3) By the introduction of an excellent course of crops.
(4) The cultivation of hand hoed turnips.
(5) Clover and ray grass.
(6) Long leases.
(7) By the county being divided chiefly into large farms.
“Parliamentary inclosures are scarcely ever so complete and general as”
(non-Parliamentary enclosure) “in Norfolk” (“Eastern Tour,” Vol. II.,
p. 150).
William Marshall supplies a confirmatory note. “Norfolk, it is probable
(speaking generally of the county), has not borne grain, in abundance,
much above a century. During the passed century” (the eighteenth) “a
principal part of it was _fresh land_, a newly discovered country
in regard to grain crops” (“Review of the Reports to the Board of
Agriculture for the Eastern Department,” p. 314).
Enclosure in the western half of Norfolk and along the central chalk
ridge in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, whether common field
arable were included or not, meant the reverse of what it had meant
in the first half of the sixteenth century--the conversion of land
from sheeprun to arable land and to highly cultivated land. Kent, in a
second edition of his report of Norfolk, published in 1796, estimated
that two-thirds of the whole area of the county was then arable; and
of the arable land three-quarters was enclosed, one-quarter in common
field. In other words, one-half of the area of the county was enclosed
arable, one-sixth common field arable. The remainder he describes as
follows:
Meadows, parks, and upland pasture 126,692 acres.
Unimproved commons 80,000 ″
Marsh lands 63,346 ″
Warrens and sheepwalks 63,346 ″
with small areas for woods, plantations, roads, lakes, rivers, and
swamps. Whatever ancient common field arable had been enclosed before
the beginning of the eighteenth century and converted into pasture, was
apparently re-converted into arable before the end.
THE SOUTHERN MIDLANDS.
MIDDLESEX.
I have found very little information with regard to the enclosure
of Middlesex beyond that obtained from the Enclosure Acts. It is
remarkable that these should cover so large a part (19·7 per cent.) of
the area of the county.
Of twenty-six Acts, covering 35,757 acres, twenty-three, covering
30,000 acres, belong to the period after 1793. The Board of Agriculture
reporters, Thomas Baird and Peter Foot, tell us respectively (1) that
there were about 50,000 acres under tillage in 1793 (“Agriculture
of Middlesex,” p. 7), and (2) “The Common Fields in the county of
Middlesex, which are at present in a good course of husbandry, form
a large proportion as to the number of acres when compared to the
cultivated enclosures” (_Ibid._ p. 72).
That the common fields were “in a good course of husbandry” very
probably means that the exercise of common rights had been largely
restricted, and it is not improbable that while some of the ancient
common fields of Middlesex became converted into small dairy farms,
others became market gardens by means of a very moderate amount of
interchanging of properties and holdings.
HERTFORDSHIRE.
The county of Hertford is rather remarkable for the extent of open
field land (common rights have so far decayed that one can hardly call
it common field) persisting to the present day. Notes have already been
given on Hitchin, Bygrave, Clothall, and Wallington. There were further
no less than seventeen enclosures under the Act of 1845, a number only
surpassed by Oxfordshire, and in a number of other parishes small
remnants of common fields are indicated by the tithe maps.
But on the whole Hertfordshire was a county of early enclosure. When
the Board of Agriculture survey was made only four parishes and a
part of Hitchin had undergone Parliamentary enclosure; but the
reporter says, “There are several small common fields in this county,
but these are mostly by agreement among the owners and occupiers
cultivated nearly in the same way as in the enclosed state” (D. Walker,
“Agriculture of Hertfordshire,” p. 49).
Walter Blyth in 1649 included “Hartford” with “Essex, Kent, Surrey,
Sussex,” etc., as enclosed counties (“The English Improver,” p. 49).
“An insurrection in hertfordshire for the comens at Northall and
Cheshunt,” was, according to Hales, the first beginning of the
enclosure riots and rebellions in the reign of Edward VI.
It is somewhat remarkable that Hertford was in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries so much more enclosed than the surrounding
counties, than Middlesex as well as than Bedford and Cambridge, and
even more enclosed than the part of Essex immediately adjoining.
Leland gives no account of the condition of the county with regard to
enclosure; but as no earlier author than Blyth speaks of Hertford as
an enclosed county, I am inclined to believe that its enclosure mainly
took place in the sixteenth and in the first half of the seventeenth
century. It is to be noticed that Hertford was excluded from the
operation of the last (39 Elizabeth, c. 2) of the Depopulation Acts,
requiring that all old arable land should continue under tillage and be
cultivated according to the local custom.
BUCKINGHAM.
Buckingham is, on the whole, a county of late enclosure. A large
proportion (34·2 per cent.) of the area was enclosed by Acts of
Parliament; two-thirds of this enclosure belonging to the eighteenth
and one-third to the nineteenth century.
The reporters to the Board of Agriculture, William James and Jacob
Malcolm, supply a list of the parishes containing common fields in
1794, with an approximate statement of the area. The majority of these
parishes have, of course, undergone Parliamentary enclosure since. By
comparing their list with that of the Enclosure Acts and with the
summary of the tithe documents, we find that the following seventeen
parishes were enclosed without Acts between 1794 and the date of tithe
commutation:--
Astwood
Buckland
Dinton
Drayton Beauchamp
Halton
Great Hampden
Little Hampden
Hedgerley
Horsendon
Great Horwood
Ickford
Marsh Gibbon
Medmenham
Great Missenden
Little Missenden
Newton Longueville
Quainton
The following five still had remains of common field at the time of
tithe commutation, though the area was considerably reduced in each
case:--
┌────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ │ Common Field Acreage. │
│ ---- ├──────────────┬──────────────┤
│ │ In 1794. │ According to │
│ │ │ Tithe Map. │
├────────────────────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤
│ │ Acres. │ Acres. │
│ Burnham and Lower Boveney │ 1000 │ 525 │
│ Chesham │ 300 │ 66 │
│ Dorney │ 600 │ 277 │
│ Eton │ 300 │ 181 │
│ Chipping Wycombe │ 200 │ 100 │
└────────────────────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┘
As so much gradual non-Parliamentary enclosure took place during the
nineteenth century, it is to be supposed that the same process was also
going on right through the eighteenth century.
Buckingham is traversed by the Chiltern Hills, and so is divided into
two distinct regions. About half the county lies north-west of the
Chilterns, on a sub-cretaceous formation, like Bedfordshire, with
fertile soil, and villages thickly scattered. The remainder consists of
the chalky downs and the later formations, like most of Hertfordshire
and Middlesex.
The enclosure of the south-east portion was earlier than that of the
north-west part. Arthur Young in 1771 was much struck by the extent
of the open fields in the latter part. The vale of Aylesbury,[100]
he says, was good clay, and open field (“Eastern Tour,” p. 18). From
Aylesbury to Buckingham “nearly the whole country is open field, the
soil among the richest I ever saw, black putrid clay” (p. 19). “As
for the landlords, what in the name of wonder is the reason of their
not enclosing! All this vale would make as fine meadows as any in
the world” (p. 23). However, about Hockston (Hoggeston) he saw many
new enclosures (p. 24). Hoggeston itself was never enclosed by Act,
but several neighbouring villages had been enclosed by Acts passed
previously to 1771.
[100] An Act for the enclosure of the common field land of Aylesbury
itself was passed in the same year.
Celia Fiennes passed through the same part of Buckinghamshire about
eighty years before. From Stony Stratford to Great Horwood, she says,
“this country is fruitfull, full of woods, Enclosures, and rich Ground.
The little towns stand pretty thicke. You have many in view” (p. 97).
This does not imply anything more than very partial enclosure; for
Celia Fiennes, accustomed to the complete absence of hedges of her own
part of Wiltshire, always notices enclosure rather than the absence of
enclosure. That many little towns should be in sight of one passing
through a flat country implies that it is open, except close to the
villages.
Leland, in 1536, came from Bedfordshire along the boundary between
Herts and Bucks and into the extreme south of Buckinghamshire, and
found that enclosures had already begun. He describes the whole county
in one luminous sentence, “Looke as the countrye of the Vale of
Alesbury for the most part is clean barren of wood, and is champaine,
soe is all the Chilterne well woodid and full of Enclosures” (fol. 192
a).
It seems quite clear, then, that the enclosure movement of the
south-east of Berkshire was ancient; that it moved up the long slope
of the Chilterns from the Thames and Middlesex, but stopped at the
open chalk downs which marked the summit of the range; and that the
movement which affected the enclosure of the Vale of Aylesbury and
all north-western Buckinghamshire was part of the general enclosure
movement of the Midlands, spreading southwards from Leicester and
Northampton, as we have seen it spread eastwards.
OXFORD.
Oxfordshire may be termed a sister county to Buckinghamshire; but by
far the greater part of the county lies north-west of the Chiltern
Hills, which occupy the south east extremity. We find, as we should
expect, that the history of the enclosure of Oxfordshire resembles that
of Bedfordshire and of North-West Buckinghamshire; 45·6 per cent. of
the area of Oxfordshire underwent Parliamentary enclosure compared with
46·0 per cent. of Bedfordshire and 34·2 per cent. of Bucks; in Oxford
about 62 per cent. of the total Parliamentary enclosure belonged to the
eighteenth century, in Bedford 54 per cent., in Buckinghamshire 66 per
cent. Oxford, however, is remarkable for the extent of the enclosure
(eighteen Acts enclosing 23,578 acres) under the General Enclosure Act
of 1845.
Richard Davis, the Board of Agriculture reporter, while he gives a very
full statement of the methods of cultivating the common fields of the
county, makes no statement with regard to their extent.
As in Buckinghamshire, partial enclosure, particularly in the immediate
neighbourhood of the villages, had taken place before the eighteenth
century. Celia Fiennes found “Oxford Environ’d round with woods
and Enclosure, yet not so neare as to annoy the town which stands
pleasant and Compact,” and from the Malvern Hills she says “Oxford,
Gloucestershire, &c. appears in plaines, enclosures, woods and rivers
and many great hills” (p. 33). By “plaines” stretches of common fields
are to be understood.
Leland found no enclosure in Oxfordshire in any part he visited.
THE NORTH OF ENGLAND.
LINCOLN.
Lincoln and the East Riding of Yorkshire have a similar enclosure
history. Each was largely enclosed by Acts of Parliament; in each
nearly four-fifths of the Parliamentary enclosure was effected in
the eighteenth century; in each enclosure was not marked either by a
general conversion of arable into pasture, as in Leicestershire, or by
a general conversion of pasture into arable, as in Norfolk; in both a
considerable proportion of the common-field land before enclosure was
worked on the two-field system. As much as 40·1 per cent. of the East
Riding of Yorkshire is covered by the Acts for enclosing common-field
parishes, and 29·3 per cent. of Lincolnshire; but for the latter
county there are also Acts for enclosing great extents of commonable
marshes; and including these and other Acts for enclosing commons and
wastes, about 35 per cent. of Lincolnshire has undergone Parliamentary
enclosure.
A good deal of non-Parliamentary enclosure took place during the
nineteenth century. Thomas Stone, the Board of Agriculture reporter,
estimates that there were in 1793, 200,000 acres of commons, wastes,
and unimbanked salt marshes, and 268,000 acres of common fields. He
over-estimates the total area of the county so much, that to rectify
his figures we have to deduct 10 per cent.--this leaves 421,000 acres
of common fields and other commonable lands. There have been enclosed
by Parliamentary action since 207,659 acres by Acts for enclosing
common-field parishes, and about 74,000 acres by Acts for enclosing
other commonable lands; if we suppose there are 12,000 acres of
common fields and commons surviving, this accounts for 293,659 acres,
and leaves about 127,000 acres unaccounted for--_i.e._, enclosed by
non-Parliamentary process during the nineteenth century.
If the same proportion between the scope of the two methods be
supposed to have held good during the earlier part of the period of
Parliamentary enclosure, it would follow that at the beginning of that
period (1730) Lincolnshire was about half enclosed and half open.
From the references to Lincolnshire by our tourists, one would expect
to find a less degree of enclosure. Arthur Young, in 1768, that is,
after fifty-three Enclosure Acts for Lincolnshire had been passed,
found the country from Stamford to Grimsthorpe mostly open (“Northern
Tour,” p. 77), from Grimsthorpe to Colsterworth chiefly open,
Colsterworth to Grantham, enclosed on the right hand, open on the left
(p. 84), and from Grantham to Newark all open (p. 94). Celia Fiennes,
about 1695, following the same road, found no enclosures but a “fine
champion country.” Leland gives the same testimony.
By comparing Celia Fiennes with Arthur Young, we have evidence of
enclosure proceeding in the south-west of Lincolnshire between 1695 and
1768, which is partly, but not entirely, accounted for by Parliamentary
enclosure. The three descriptions give the impression that up to the
beginning of Parliamentary enclosure Lincolnshire was much less than
half enclosed. It is, however, not difficult to reconcile this with the
conclusion inferred from Thomas Stone’s statement and the Enclosure
Acts; for none of the three travellers touched more than the western
part of the county. No doubt the eastern part was earlier enclosed.
This is, indeed, indicated by the distribution of Parliamentary
enclosure, as shown by the map.
THE EAST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE.
We have no estimate of the extent of common-field land in the East
Riding from the Board of Agriculture reporter; but Arthur Young, in his
“Northern Tour,” describes the part betwene Sheffield and Goole and
the East Riding as about half open and half enclosed (pp. 172–210). He
further says (p. 178) that in the East Riding “Inclosures and turnpikes
were carried on with great spirit during the late war” (_i.e._, “The
Seven Years’ War”). Nine Acts were passed for the enclosure of eleven
parishes during that war; but this can only have been a part of the
spirited proceedings.
As in the case of Bedfordshire, when we allow for marshes along the
Humber, and hill country on the Wolds, which never passed through the
common-field system, for the indubitable non-Parliamentary enclosure
proceeding side by side with Parliamentary enclosure, and particularly
for the active enclosure spoken of by Arthur Young in the middle of
the eighteenth century, there remains but little enclosure of common
fields to be attributed to earlier centuries. Some such enclosure must
be assigned to the sixteenth century. The Commission of 1517 inquired
into nearly the whole riding and found 1560 acres of arable land
enclosed, 1545 acres of which were laid down to grass (W. S. Leadam,
“The Domesday of Inclosure”).
Leland also found some enclosure in the East Riding, which he traversed
pretty completely. (_See_ Appendix C.)
We have mention of a park and of enclosed land in four different
places, though in each of the four only for about a mile of the route.
THE NORTH AND WEST RIDINGS.
The North and West Ridings of Yorkshire were much earlier enclosed
than the East Riding. This is the natural consequence of the fact that
in early times they possessed a much smaller proportion of arable
land, and, as I have shown in a previous chapter, the more pasture
predominates, the less the common-field arable is able to resist the
tendency to enclosure. The difference between the proportions of the
three ridings covered by Enclosure Acts, by which common fields were
enclosed is striking: East Riding 40·1 per cent., West Riding 11·6,
North Riding 6·3. But this understates the case, for I include all
Acts whereby any arable common field at all is enclosed, and in the
North and West Ridings many of these Acts are for the enclosure of a
great stretch of moor and a mere remnant of common field, and these
unduly swell the total. Examples are an Act in 1791 for the enclosure
of 6000 acres of common, and 30 acres of “mesne inclosures,” _i.e._, of
intermixed tilled land which is separated from the surrounding common
pasture by a hedge; an Act in 1801 for the enclosure of 150 acres
of common field and common meadow, and 4000 acres of common pasture
at Kettlewell and Conistree; an Act in 1815 for the enclosure of a
wretched remnant of nine acres of common field arable, and 6330 acres
of common. The existence of such remnants of common field arable bears
witness to the gradual enclosure which would have entirely extinguished
them a little later, if the opportunity of the enclosure of the
commons had not been seized to bring them also within the scope of the
Acts.
William Marshall’s account of the enclosure of the Vale of Pickering
has already been given. Arthur Young in 1768 describes the view from
the road from Kirby Moorside to Cleveland as one of “extensive valleys
cut into innumerable inclosures” (“Northern Tour,” Vol. II., p. 93).
Enclosure was the rule all the way from Driffield northwards.
Celia Fiennes kept more to the West Riding. From Darlington to
Richmond, “I went through Lanes and Woods, an Enclosed country” (p.
183). Richmond to Boroughbridge was for 3 or 4 miles through narrow
lanes, then for 5 or 6 through common (p. 184). From Knaresborough to
Leeds “it was much in Lanes and uphills and Downhills, some little part
was open common” (p. 184). From Leeds to Eland “much in enclosures”
(p. 185). About Eland “all the hills full of inclosures” (_ibid._).
From Eland to Blackstone Edge, “these parts have some resemblance to
Darbyshire, only here are more woody places and inclosures” (p. 186).
The earlier history of the enclosure of most of the West Riding and
North Riding is summed up in the passage from Walter Blyth:--“Woodlands
wont before inclosure to be relieved by the Champion, and now become
gallant corn countries.... West of Warwick, North of Worcester,
Staffordshire, Shropshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and all the Countries
thereabouts” (“English Improver,” p. 40). For while Celia Fiennes found
so much enclosure, Leland found chiefly moor and forest, yet more
enclosure than “Chaumpaine.”
The great contrast between the description given by Celia Fiennes
and that given by Leland sufficiently confirms the statement of
Walter Blyth, which we may amplify as follows:--Enclosure made
little progress in Yorkshire before the middle of the sixteenth
century, but thenceforward it was pushed steadily on mainly by the
tilling and enclosing of common wastes and pastures, and the clearing
and cultivation of forests in the North and West Riding, and the
common-field arable also underwent division and gradual enclosure. That
the Vale of Pickering in the North Riding and the district between
Sheffield and Goole in the West Riding, being the parts where arable
common fields most predominated, were the last of the cultivated
districts to be enclosed; the Vale of Pickering being mainly enclosed
by non-Parliamentary means in the first half of the eighteenth century;
the South Yorkshire district being largely enclosed by Acts of
Parliament in the second half of the eighteenth and the beginning of
the nineteenth century.
Lastly attention must be drawn to the great number of Acts of Enclosure
for Yorkshire enclosing common pasture or waste only.
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.
Nottinghamshire may be said to consist of an ancient “champain”
district, which has an enclosure history exactly similar to that of the
neighbouring districts of Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, and an
ancient forest district.
The county as a whole has a percentage of Parliamentary enclosure,
32·5, which must be considered high when allowance is made for the
fact that so much land must have been enclosed directly from the
forest state without passing through the common-field system. The two
surviving examples of common-field parishes, Laxton and Eakring, have
been before described; Bole also was till recently unenclosed.
The Board of Agriculture reporter, Robert Lowe, attempted to give an
account of the state of enclosure of the different parishes in 1793,
but evidently found it beyond his powers to make the lists at all
complete. But his list of unenclosed parishes enables us to give the
following nine parishes as enclosed without Parliamentary intervention
since 1793:--
Askham
Kirklington
Rampton
Saundby
Treswell
North Wheatley
South Wheatley
Kneesall
Widnerpool
together with the hamlets of Ompton and Clipston.
And his list of recently-enclosed parishes enables us to give the
following nine parishes as enclosed without Parliamentary sanction
shortly before 1793:--
Bingham
Carcolston
Selston
Shelton
Cotham
Kneeton
Orston
Sibthorpe
Thoroton
together with the hamlets of Aslacton, Newton, Oldwork, and Cropwell
Butler.
All these had been enclosed, he says, within the previous twenty years.
The fact that the extent of non-Parliamentary enclosure in Notts., in
the period from 1773 to 1793 is just equal, according to this, to that
of the non-Parliamentary enclosure after 1793, is a slight clue to
the probable extent of non-Parliamentary enclosure in the eighteenth
century in other counties similarly circumstanced.
We should expect, then, to find the part of the county which was
anciently tilled, practically entirely open, at the beginning of the
eighteenth century. This is confirmed by the evidence, so far as it
goes. Celia Fiennes says: “From Nottingham Castle I saw a prospect
more than 20 mile about. The land is very rich and fruitfull, so the
Green meadows with the fine corn ffields which seemes to bring forth in
handfulls. They soe most of Barley and have great encrease, there is
all sorts of Graine besides, and plaines and Rivers and Great woods and
Little Towns all in view” (p. 56).
Leland was similarly struck with South Nottingham. Coming south from
Rotherham he found “very woody Grounde,” then “hethy,” then “Corny and
Paster,” then “Ground very fruteful of Corne” (Vol. V., fol. 91, 92).
But when he got past Nottingham the view made him burst into Latin.
“After that I cam a little beyond Trent I saw all Champaine Grounde
undecunque within sight, and very little wood but infinita frugum
copia.”
DERBY.
The enclosure history of Derbyshire closely resembles that of the West
Riding of Yorkshire. A somewhat larger part (16·5 per cent.) of it
underwent enclosure by Acts for the enclosure of common-field arable in
conjunction with other commonable land, and about 5 per cent. more by
Acts for the enclosure of common pasture and waste. The common-field
arable is frequently called “mesne inclosures” (sometimes “mesne
field”), showing that the idea of a hedge was that it surrounded the
corn crops to keep out beasts, not the pasture to keep them in. Celia
Fiennes gives a general description of the county: “You see neither
hedge nor tree but only low drye stone walls round some ground, Else
its only hills and dales as thick as you Can Imagine” (p. 77). “All
Darbyshire is but a world of peaked hills.”
It will be remembered that it had by 1649, according to Blyth, become a
gallant corn country through enclosure. Leland passed it by.
DURHAM.
The history of the enclosure of Durham is told by the Board of
Agriculture reporter in a sentence: “In this county the lands, or
common fields of townships, were for the most part inclosed soon after
the Restoration.... The common fields are few in number and of small
extent” (Joseph Granger, “Agriculture of Durham,” p. 43).
All other evidence simply confirms this statement. The Enclosure Acts
for enclosing common fields are but five in number, and the most
extensive of them covers only 800 acres, of which part only is common
field. (The Enclosure Acts of the other type are numerous in comparison
and extensive in scope, one covering 10,000, one 20,000, one 25,000 and
one 28,000 acres).
The statement, too, is confirmed by two contemporary authors,
previously quoted, and by the records of Leland and Celia Fiennes.
Celia Fiennes says that from Newcastle to Durham “the whole county
looks like a fruitful woody place” (p. 178), and she compares it to the
neighbourhood of Blackheath (p. 179), from which we must infer some
open common, but all the cultivated land in a state of enclosure.
Leland traversed the whole county but found no enclosure. Nor does he
describe any part of the county as “champaine” but merely as good corn,
or grass, or moor, or mountain. It is, I think, safe to conclude that
there were no extensive stretches of common-field arable within view;
but also, one is inclined to infer that enclosure had not yet begun.
Further, there is an illuminating note from Arthur Young (1768): “Farms
become large on entering Northumberland, after the small ones of
Yorkshire and Durham” (“Northern Tour,” Vol. III., p. 61).
It has to be borne in mind that the disorder on the Border checked the
development of agriculture till the accession of James I., probably
at least as far south as the North Riding of Yorkshire. With the
gradual increase of population, and improvement of roads, cultivation
spread over the wastes; first in Yorkshire, then in Durham, then in
Northumberland. At first the agent was a peasant, carving a small farm
for his own maintenance, later a landlord or farmer able to employ
labourers and work a large farm.
That the enclosure of Northumberland took place later than that of
Durham, and was the work of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is
on _a priori_ grounds probable, and is further indicated by the fact
that Celia Fiennes makes no mention of enclosure in her account of her
ride from the Scottish border into Durham. A further reference to the
enclosure of Northumberland will be made when we come to Cumberland.
THE SOUTH-EAST OF ENGLAND.
KENT.
Kent is certainly a county of very ancient enclosure. This is clearly
indicated by the fact that not a single Act for the enclosure of common
field has been passed by the whole county. It is also witnessed by a
whole series of writers, from Boys, the Board of Agriculture reporter,
who says, “There are no Common Fields in Kent,”[101] to the author
of the “Discourse of the Commonweal,” “those counties which be most
enclosed, as essex, kent, devenshire.”
[101] “Agriculture of Kent” (1796), p. 44.
But in Kent it would appear that if some investigator as careful as
Vancouver had at a somewhat earlier date reported on the agriculture
of Kent, he would have found some remains of arable common fields
in the far eastern corner of the county. William Lambarde, in the
“Perambulation of Kent,” 1570, says: “The soile is for the most part
bountifull, consisting indifferently of arable, pasture, meadow and
woodland. Howbeit of these wood occupieth the greatest portion even to
this day except it be towards the east, which coast is more champaigne
than the residue” (p. 3).
More than a hundred years later, Celia Fiennes says: “Canterbury to
Dover was a good road and a sort of Champion Country” (p. 103). It was
open, it was mainly arable land, but it differed in some respect from
the Champain of the Midlands; and again, a hundred years later, William
Marshall writes in 1798 of the Isle of Thanet: “The whole country lies
open, excepting in the immediate environs of villages.... The present
productions, if we cut off the marsh lands, may be said to be arable
crops” (“Southern District,” Vol. II., p. 6).
This was written, it will be noticed, just after Boys had written his
statement that there were no common fields in Kent. We can reconcile
the two statements if we suppose that by the disuse of rights of
common, and by the consolidation of scattered properties and holdings
by mutual exchanges, the characteristics of common field had been
abolished, while in consequence of there never having arisen any
tendency to convert the arable land into pasture, no necessity for the
expensive labour of making hedges arose. But I have no evidence to show
at what date the open arable land ceased to be common field.
The question arises whether the common-field system of the ordinary
English type ever existed in this part of Kent; and here again
there is no decisive evidence that I know of by which to answer the
question. The fact that the similar question for Essex is answered in
the affirmative by the Colchester common fields perhaps counts for
something; and that the Surrey common fields come at Croydon close
to the county boundary, for a little more. At Eltham there is an old
charity called the Fifteen Penny Lands; only a few acres remain in the
form of land, the rest having been sold and the proceeds invested;
but there still remains an acre described as “Land in East Field,
Dockland’s Shot.” In 1578 a member of the Roper family, perhaps
Margaret Roper, the daughter of Sir Thomas More, or her husband,
bequeathed to Eltham “a parcel of ground containing by estimation four
acres, in the common field, called East Field.”[102] Eltham was a royal
manor, hence likely to preserve old customs to a later date than other
manors, and the arrangement of ancient common fields, particularly
towards Eltham Common, seems clearly traceable. In Addington, an
ecclesiastical manor, it seems easy to trace the signs of ancient
common, commonable meadow, and common fields.
[102] Geo. Rathbone, “History of the Eltham Charities,” p. 5.
THE WEALD.
[Illustration:
Map of Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex showing
land enclosed:
before the General Enclosure Act of 1801.
between 1802 and 1845.
under General Enclosure Act of 1845.
Scale 1:1,000,000 or 1 inch = 15.78 Stat. miles.]
The whole of the Weald of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex appears never to
have passed through the common-field system. This is indicated in
the first place by the fact that there have been no Enclosure Acts
for enclosing common fields. Secondly, we have what may be termed
the expert evidence of William Marshall, the shrewdest of all the
eighteenth-century agricultural writers, and the only one really
interested in the origin and early history of the common-field system.
He says of the Maidstone district, “the entire district appears to
have been inclosed from the forest or pasture state. I observed not a
trace of common-field lands” (“Southern District,” Vol. I., p. 21). Of
the Weald of Kent, “The whole is in a state of inclosure, and mostly
divided by wide woodland belts, into well sized fields” (_Ibid._, p.
345). Of the Weald of Sussex, “... there being, I believe, no trace at
present, of common fields having ever gained an establishment” (Vol.
II., p. 100). “The whole of the district (between Pulborough and
Midhurst) under view is in a state of Inclosure; except a few small
heathlets and commons; and except a small remnant of common field in
the Maam soil.” The Maam soil, he says, is a vein of land of peculiar
nature at the foot of the chalk hills, to be identified, presumably,
with the Gault formation.
In 1649, seeing that a considerable amount of common field survived
in the part of Surrey north of the North Downs, until the time of
Parliamentary enclosure, and some in Sussex south of the South Downs,
and in spite of this, Blith speaks of Surrey and Sussex as enclosed
counties, enclosure must at least have predominated in the Weald.
Celia Fiennes adds a confirmation. Sussex, she says, is “much in
blind, dark lanes” (p. 32). This implies narrow roads, with well-grown
hedges, that is, ancient enclosure. For roads are everywhere broad in
proportion as the industrial state at which enclosure takes place is
advanced. Again, from Calvery to Branklye, “the way is thro’ lanes,
being an Enclosed Country for the most part, as is much of Sussex which
joyns to Kent” (p. 112). And the view from Boxhill was that of “a
fruitfull vale, full of inclosures and woods” (p. 32).
NORTH SURREY.
The part of Surrey which lies on the north slope of the North Downs,
from the Kent boundary to the Bagshot sands, contained up till the time
of Parliamentary enclosure a considerable proportion of common-field
land, as may be seen by the appendix and the map.
James and Malcom, the reporters for Surrey, give a list of the chief
common fields remaining in 1793 (“Agriculture of Surrey,” p. 43), from
which we find that besides Merrow, enclosed about 1870, East and West
Clandon, Ashtead and Thorpe have been enclosed without Acts since. In
each of these four cases enclosure took place before the date of tithe
commutation.
But even this part of Surrey must be considered as on the whole an
early enclosed district; as much so, in fact, as the corresponding
slope of the Chiltern Hills, and the Hertfordshire Hills on the other
side of the Thames.
THE SEA COAST OF SUSSEX.
The western part of the south slope of the Sussex Downs has a few
examples of common fields surviving to a late date, but they are fewer
in number and smaller in area than on the north slope of the Surrey
Downs. William Marshall says: “In the Isle of _Selsey_ I observed some
common field land; also about Chichester, in the year 1791” (Southern
District, Vol. II., p. 230.) The accompanying map shows the parishes
enclosed by Acts.
WESSEX.
Under the heading of Wessex I include the counties of Hampshire,
Wiltshire, Berkshire and Dorset. There is a close resemblance
between the enclosure history of each of these; while Gloucester is
a connecting link between them and the Midland counties on the one
hand, and the south-western on the other. It may be described as at
present a country of very large farms, with a very large proportion
of open down, the cultivated land itself remaining remarkably open,
being divided in general into large rectangular fields by hedges
which are frequently full of gaps. Rights of common here more than
elsewhere have decayed, irrespective of actual enclosure; and using
the word enclosure in its broad sense, it may be said that in Wessex
the process of enclosure has least of all taken visible shape, either
in the growing of hedges, or building of walls, or in the conversion
of arable to pasture, or pasture to arable, or in the scattering of
the habitations of the inhabitants over the whole parish; but that
it has most profoundly affected the social life of the villages. The
case of Grimstone, in which the nine “livings” for generations held by
about a dozen different copyholders, was converted into a single farm,
and by no means an exceptionally large one, is typical of the whole
district. This aspect has been previously treated. What here has to
be noticed is that these characteristics of Wessex enclosure make it
more difficult to trace the progress, at least so far as the higher
lands are concerned. If Celia Fiennes could revisit the neighbourhood
of Amesbury and Stonehenge, she would probably again describe it as
“all on the downs, a fine champion country.” It is fortunate that we
have the accounts of two such expert observers as Thomas Davis and
William Marshall. They wrote practically at the same date, Marshall
apparently in 1792, Davis in 1793; but as Marshall confines himself to
the actual condition, while Davis deals with the past, he must here
take precedence.
“THE WESTERN CHALK HILLS.
“_Basingstoke to Salisbury._--The state of inclosure varies. To the
eastward the country is mostly inclosed, much of it in large, square,
regular inclosures. More westward, it is entirely open; as are the tops
of the higher hills throughout. Extensive views, with no other break,
than what is given by corn or flocks, fallows or the sheep fold.
“_Environs of Salisbury._--To the southward of the town there are some
well-sized, square fields, with good live hedges (at least on three
sides) apparently of forty or fifty years’ growth; yet, extraordinary
as it is, many of these fields lie open to the roads; the fences on
the sides next the lanes lying in a state of neglect. And, to the
north of the Avon, the country for many miles every way, lies open,
unless about villages and hamlets, and along the narrow bottoms of the
watered valleys. To the eastward of Salisbury an attempt has been made
at inclosure; the ruins of the hedges are still evident; broken banks,
with here and there a hawthorn. And similar instances are observable in
other parts of the Downs.
“Are we to infer from hence, that chalk down lands are not proper to be
kept in a state of inclosure? Or that where sheep are kept in flocks,
and few cattle are kept, fences are not requisite? Or is the foliage of
shrubs a natural and favourite food of sheep, and hence, in a country
chiefly stocked with sheep, it is difficult to preserve a live hedge
from destruction?
“_Ludgershall to Basingstoke._--The country is wholly inclosed:
excepting a few plots to the right; mostly in large square fields,
doubtless from a state of open down; the hedges in general of a Middle
Age; some instances of vacant inclosure.
“With respect to the present state of appropriation of this tract
of country,[103] the mere traveller is liable to be deceived. From
the more public roads, the whole appears to be in a state of divided
property. But on a closer examination, much of it is found to be in a
state of commonage. In the immediate environs of Salisbury, there are
evident remains of a common field, lying in narrow strips, intermixed,
in the south of England manner; and not far from it, a common cow
pasture and a common meadow. About Mere” (on the Somerset border of
Wiltshire) “I observed the same appearances. In the Valley of Amesbury
much of the land remains, I understand, under similar circumstances,
though they do not so evidently appear in the arable lands, which
by the aggregation of estates, or of farms, or by exchanges among
landlords and their tenants, lie mostly in well-sized pieces. But the
after-eatage,[104] whether of the stubbs or the meadows, is enjoyed
in common. And the grass downs of the common field townships are in a
state of common pasture the year round; being stinted by the arable
lands” (“Southern District,” p. 308, etc.).
[103] _I.e._, the whole of the district he calls “the Western Chalk
hills.”
[104] “After-eatage.” This is Marshall’s variant of “average,”
showing his theory of the etymology of the word, a theory which might
have been suggested to him by the quaint phrase common in Enclosure
Acts: “The averages whereof are eaten and enjoyed by the proprietors
according to a recognised stint.”
One fact to be noticed is that Hampshire was earlier enclosed than
Wiltshire; which is in accordance with what one would have expected.
Enclosure spread westwards into Hampshire from Surrey and Sussex.
Davis I have previously quoted. “The greater part of this county
(Wiltshire) was formerly, and at no very remote period, in the hands
of great proprietors. Almost every manor had its resident lord, who
held part of the lands in demesne, and granted out the rest by copy
or lease to under tenants, usually for three lives renewable. A state
of commonage, and particularly of open common fields, was peculiarly
favourable to this tenure. Inclosures naturally tend to its extinction.
“The North-West of Wiltshire being much better adapted to inclosures
and to sub-division of property than the South, was inclosed first;
while the South-East or Down district, has undergone few inclosures and
still fewer sub-divisions” (“Agriculture of Wiltshire,” p. 8).
We have previously seen that Cobbett, traversing that same South-East
district of Wiltshire, found in 1825 the common field or “tenantry”
system completely superseded by that of great farms. Parliamentary
enclosure only partly effected the change, which appears to have been
so complete in the space of a single generation, 1793–1825. The violent
fluctuations in the price of grain during the great war, the wholesale
ruin of farmers in 1815 and 1816, the abuse of the Poor Law peculiarly
rampant in Wiltshire, by which the peasants who held such little
holdings as we have observed in Fordington and Stratton and Grimstone,
by lease or copy, were compelled to pay in their rates the wages of
the labourers employed by the great farmers who were superseding them,
and the decay of home industries to which Cobbett bears witness, all
these were complementary parts of the social transition, each assisting
all the others, and all together converting the tiller of the soil
from the peasant with a medieval status, a responsible member of a
self-governing village community, into a pauperised, half-starved
labourer.
Though North-West Wiltshire was enclosed earlier than the South-East,
Berkshire was enclosed later than Wiltshire as a whole. This
is indicated by the scope and distribution of Enclosure Acts.
Parliamentary enclosure covers 26·0 per cent. of Berkshire, 24·1 per
cent. of Wiltshire. Of the total 120,002 acres enclosed by Act in
Berkshire, 42,631 acres was enclosed in the eighteenth century; 77,371
acres in the nineteenth. In Wiltshire the proportions are reversed;
126,060 acres were enclosed in the eighteenth century, 86,073 acres in
the nineteenth.
The non-Parliamentary enclosure in the nineteenth century was
peculiarly active in Berkshire. William Pearce, the Board of
Agriculture surveyor, computed that in 1794 the common fields and
downs occupied 220,000 acres; forests, wastes, and commons, 40,000;
and the enclosed lands, including parks and woods, only 170,000 acres
(“Agriculture of Berkshire,” p. 13). He further assures us that at
least half of the arable land was in common fields (p. 49). As rather
less than 20 per cent. of the total area of the county was enclosed by
Acts at a later date, it would follow that about 30 per cent. of its
area was enclosed without Acts after 1793; and from my own inquiries
I can quite believe this conclusion is accurate. Enclosure under the
general Acts of 1836 and 1840 may have been specially extensive in
Berkshire.
Dorset underwent enclosure at an earlier period. The percentage
of Parliamentary enclosure is only 8·7, which is similar to that
of Hampshire, 6.0; and there is no evidence of very extensive
non-Parliamentary enclosure in the nineteenth century. Stevenson
in 1812 reported, “There are but few uninclosed fields remaining”
(“Agriculture of Dorset,” p. 194); and the earlier reporter, Claridge,
in 1794, said, “Very few parishes in this county have of late years
been enclosed” (“Agriculture of Dorset,” p. 46). In the intervening
period only fourteen Acts enclosing sixteen parishes were passed;
Dorset must therefore have been mainly enclosed before the time of
the American War; enclosure having no doubt spread eastwards from
Devonshire, which was a very old enclosed county.
Celia Fiennes adds little to our information, except that she says the
Vale of the White Horse, in Berkshire, “extends a vast way, a rich
jnclosed country” (p. 19), that there were “Good lands, meadows, woods
and jnclosures” in the Isle of Purbeck, (p. 6), and that the country
round “Stonidge,” like that round Newtontony, was “most champion
and open, husbandry mostly corn and sheep” (p. 10). But there is a
significant passage in John Norden, which shows that the characteristic
Wiltshire and Dorsetshire common-field management in 1600 prevailed
over all four counties. “In Dorset, Wiltshire, Hamshire, Barkeshire,
and other places champion, the farmers do much inrich their land indeed
with the sheepfold” (Book V., p. 232).
Leland, however, is full of information. He came into Berkshire at
Wallingford, and rode thence to Abingdon and to Oxford. The first touch
of description is “About this Sinodune beginneth the fruteful Vale
of White Horse--this Vale is not plentifulle of woodde” (Vol. II.,
fol. 14). This must be compared with Celia Fiennes’ description of
the same Vale, “a rich jnclosed country.” He next proceeded westwards
along the southern side of the Thames. “From this place” (Hinxey hill,
one mile from Oxford) the hilly ground was “meately woody for the
space of a mile, and thens 10 miles al by Chaumpain, and sum Corne,
but most pasture, to Farington.” He crossed the river and entered
Gloucestershire, but turning south entered Wiltshire, and found the
eight miles from Cirencester to Malmesbury “about a Mile on Furse then
al by Champayne Ground, fruteful of corne and Grasse, but very little
wood” (fol. 26). To Chippenham “al the Ground on that side of the Ryver
was Chaumpayne” (fol. 28) but towards Bradford “the countre beginneth
to wax woddy” (fol. 30); and then he went west into Somerset, Devon and
Cornwall. He came back into Dorset from Axmouth, and in the extreme
western part of Dorset gives no distinct description of the state of
enclosure--it is “meately good ground” or “corne, pasture and wood;”
but from Melbury to Frome was “vj miles stille by Champaine ground
on an high rigge” (Vol. III., fol. 47). He came through Weymouth and
Poole, and specified neither enclosure nor champain, till he reaches
the north-west corner of the county; but from Hoston to Cranbourne is
“al by Champain Ground having nother Closure nor Wood,” and all the way
to Salisbury continues “al by Champayne” (fol. 56). Again, “all the
way from Salisbury to Winchester is Champayne,” but from Winchester to
Southampton, while there is “mouch drye feren Ground,” “the most part
of the Ground betwixt is enclosid and reasonably woddyd” (fol. 74).
To Portsmouth enclosure predominated in the cultivated land. There
is “much enclosid and Hethy Ground myxt with Ferne” (fol. 79), and
“the Ground within the Isle of Portsmouth is partely enclosid” (fol.
82). Turning north there was some “playn Ground” before entering Bere
forest, afterwards “enclosid Ground” to Bishops Waltham, and for three
miles beyond; the remaining four to Winchester being “Champain” (fol.
83).
But particularly in Dorset, instead of describing the land as enclosed,
or “Champain,” he frequently uses such expressions as “meately well
woddid” or “good Corne and sum Grasse,” which it is difficult to
interpret in terms of enclosure. The choice of such expressions
probably implies (1) that there is not much actual enclosure by hedges,
and (2) that there are no _extensive_ arable common fields. Such
descriptions would suit land passing directly from the condition of
forest or moor into separate cultivation, but in which the cultivated
patches were not as yet enclosed with hedges; or a district in which
small arable common fields were surrounded by such later extensions of
cultivation. But leaving Dorset in doubt, it is clear from Leland’s
notes that enclosure was well begun in the south of Hampshire, while
the country to the north was all open.
In the above journey Leland skirted the central chalk district; later
he passed directly through it, going from Oxford through Abingdon,
Lambourn, Marlborough and Devizes to Trowbridge. He passed the forests
of Savernake and Blake, but all the cultivated land is described as
“champayne” (Vol. VII., Part 2, fol. 63–7).
To sum up, we find that in the south of Hampshire, the cultivated land
was early enclosed, and also probably in the south and west of Dorset,
that enclosure gradually spread from the middle of the sixteenth
century into the rest of the four counties, the movement attacking
the “champain” district on three sides, on the east from Surrey, on
the south from the early enclosed district between Winchester and
Southampton and Portsmouth, and in the west from Devon and Somerset;
the progress of enclosure appears to have been practically confined
to Dorset and Hampshire in the seventeenth century; to have had the
north-west of Wiltshire for its chief scene in the greater part of the
eighteenth century, and finally to have attacked south-east Wiltshire
and Berkshire, the former in the first quarter, the latter throughout
the first half, of the nineteenth century.
GLOUCESTER AND WORCESTER.
The whole of Gloucester, with the exception of the Forest of Dean and
its neighbourhood in the west, has scattered over it parishes enclosed
by Acts of Parliament; and the enclosure so effected amounted to nearly
a quarter (22·5 per cent.) of the whole area of the county. The rich
land in the Severn Valley was the latest enclosed district. William
Marshall tells us that in 1789 “perhaps half the vale is undivided
property.” (“Rural Economy of Gloucestershire,” Vol. I., p. 16.) As
enclosure by Act of Parliament, and doubtless also without Acts, had
been proceeding vigorously since 1726, it is probable that at the
earlier date nearly the whole was in “a state of commonage.” Of the
Cotswold Hills, Marshall says: “Thirty years ago (_i.e._, in 1759)
this district lay almost entirely in an open state, namely, in arable
common fields, sheep-walk, and cow-down. At present it may be said to
be in a state of Inclosure, though some few townships yet remain open.”
(_Ibid._, Vol. II., p. 9.)
I have already pointed out that in Gloucestershire enclosure without
Acts was specially easy, in consequence of the custom of holding land.
The ancient custom of “copyhold by three lives renewable” had very
generally been converted into “leasehold by three lives renewable,”
the difference being that the lord of the manor’s option of accepting
a new life became real instead of nominal. It was easy for a landlord
who wished to enclose to convert each such lease as it fell in to one
for a short period of years; and it was in this way, Marshall says, the
enclosure of the Cotswold Hills was mainly effected.
The south-west of Gloucestershire, towards Somerset, to a considerable
extent shared in the early enclosure of that county; though for
Somerset we have also to say that while the western half was, like
Devonshire, very early enclosed, the eastern half to a certain extent
shared in the comparatively late enclosure Gloucestershire and the
north-west of Wiltshire, as the map shows.
Worcester similarly shows the transition between South Warwickshire,
the enclosure history of which has been dealt with, and the counties
on the Welsh border. Pomeroy reported in 1794 to the Board of
Agriculture: “The lands are in general inclosed; there are, however,
some considerable tracts in open fields.” About 45,000 acres have since
been enclosed by Acts for enclosing common fields _inter alia_; which
is perhaps as large an area as the phrase “considerable tracts” is
intended to describe. Just one-sixth of the total area of the county
is covered by the whole series of such Acts, mainly in the eastern
half of the county. Leland tells us “most part of all Somersetshire
is yn hegge rowys enclosid” with elms, and from his other notes we
find that the north-west half of Worcestershire was enclosed by
about 1540, and the southern extremity of Gloucestershire about half
enclosed by that date. We further find, from evidence quoted above,
that the rest of Worcestershire shared the enclosure experience of
Warwick and Leicester, though probably at a somewhat earlier date,
that is, undergoing enclosure mainly in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, though in the end the process dragged on and was only
completed after the Act of 1845 was passed. We find the Cotswold Hills
enclosed mainly between 1750 and 1790, the Severn Valley undergoing
enclosure during this period, but only about half enclosed at the
end of it, and enclosure continuing steadily to the very end of the
nineteenth century, with Elmstone Hardwicke still remaining uninclosed,
waiting for leases for lives to expire.
THE CELTIC FRINGE.
The part of the country which remains to be considered is that in
which the problem is complicated by the question whether the primitive
village community was of an English or Celtic type. The remaining
counties may be grouped under the titles West Wales, Strathclyde and
the Welsh border.
We have previously seen that fluidity in the tenure of the soil,
which is one characteristic of the Celtic run-rig as compared with the
Anglo-Saxon common field system, favours the separation of properties
and holdings at the time when co-aration ceases to be practised; and,
in consequence, to early enclosure without any special efforts of the
type of an Act of Parliament. But we have also seen that a prevailingly
pastoral country tends to have its arable lands more easily and earlier
enclosed than a prevailingly arable country. There are therefore two
explanations available for the early enclosure of the whole western
half of England and Wales.
First, however, the broad facts with regard to the history of enclosure
must be made clear.
There are no Acts specifically for enclosing common arable fields
in Wales, nor any in which the phraseology of the preamble clearly
indicates the existence in Wales of land possessing all three of the
essential characteristics of English common field: (1) intermixed
ownership or occupation, (2) absence of adequate hedges or other
obstacles to the passage of men and animals from one holding to
another, (3) common rights exercisable over the tilled land.
But there were[105] in Wales open tilled fields in which properties
and holdings were intermixed--that is, land possessing the first two
characteristics. Several Welsh Acts for enclosing commonable waste also
enclose “intermixed lands,” and one (1843, c. 14) is for the enclosure
in Llandudno and three neighbouring villages, of “Divers Commons,
commonable lands and waste grounds, Heaths, open and Common and other
Fields and Waste lands, and other Common lands and Waste grounds, which
lie intermixed in small parcels, and are inconveniently situated for
the use and enjoyment of the several proprietors.”
[105] Many townships in North Wales still contain “quilleted” areas,
_i.e._, enclosed fields containing unenclosed strips of land belonging
to a different owner or owners from that of the rest of the field.
Such scattered “quillets” are, as in Berkshire, frequently glebe land.
The following are the reports on the subject by the Board of
Agriculture reporters in 1793 and 1794:--
“Open or Common Fields are rarely met with in South Wales. It is
a mode of cultivation only practised in a few instances, where
ecclesiastical and private property are blended.” (John Fox,
“Agriculture of Glamorgan,” p. 41.)
“The only tract like a common field is an extent of very productive
barley land, reaching on the coast from Aberavon to Llanrhysted. This
quarter is much intermixed, and chiefly in small holdings.” (Thomas
Lloyd, “Agriculture of Cardigan,” p. 29.)
_Carmarthen._ “I do not know of any considerable extent of open common
field in the county.” (Charles Hassell, “Agriculture of Carmarthen,” p.
21.)
_Pembroke._ “In the neighbourhood of St. David’s considerable tracts
of open field lands are still remaining which is chiefly owing to the
possessions of the church being intermixed with private property.”
(Charles Hassell, “Agriculture of Pembroke,” p. 20.)
_Radnor._ “Here are no Common Fields.” (John Clark, “Agriculture of
Radnor,” p. 21.)
_Flint._ “There are no common fields, or fields in run-rig, in this
county, except between Flint and St. Asaph, and it is in intention to
divide and inclose them.” (George Kay, “Agriculture of Flint,” p. 4.)
_Cærnarvon._ “Run-rig. There are no lands of this description that I
could hear of, but there is a good deal of mixed property that might be
exchanged.” (George Kay, “Agriculture of Cærnarvon.”)
There was in existence a mere remnant of open intermixed, arable
land, which one reporter evidently thinks ought to be described as
run-rig, and not as common field. Though in many respects agricultural
methods were of the most primitive type, yet enclosure was practically
complete; in two out of the four counties in which open fields are
stated to be surviving, the explanation of such an exceptional
circumstance is given in the intermixture of church and lay property.
This well corroborates the _a priori_ argument that the Celtic type of
village community easily yields to enclosure; and that a predominance
of pasture over arable also facilitates early enclosure of what arable
there is. Mr. A. N. Palmer shows that the varying operation of the
custom of gavelkind (equal inheritance by all sons) is also closely
connected with the recent phenomena of the distribution of holdings.
Everywhere the land which was ancient open arable fields is now,
and has been for an unknown period dating at least as far back as
1620, divided by hedges into small enclosures, as in Devonshire; but
in some districts these contain, or are known to have contained in
comparatively recent times, intermixed quillets of other ownership.
In these districts Mr. Palmer supposes the ancient “gafæl” or “gwely”
(which may be roughly defined as a patriarchal family holding), was
at the time when co-aration ceased, very much sub-divided. In other
districts where the “gafæl” or “gwely” was little sub-divided, so
that each occupier could support his own plough team, when co-aration
ceased, holdings became entirely separated from one another. (“History
of Ancient Tenures of Land in North Wales,” pp. 35–37.)
We have now to fix with what accuracy we may the time of the enclosure
of the western counties, and then to search for evidence in those
counties of variations from the typical English village community.
DEVON, CORNWALL AND WEST SOMERSET.
These counties were very early enclosed. There is so much earlier
evidence that it seems superfluous to quote Celia Fiennes, but there
are some suggestive touches in her description.
“I entered into Devonshire 5 miles off from Wellington, just on a high
ridge of hills which discovers a vast prospect on Each side full of
Inclosures and lesser hills which is the description of most part of
the West. You could see large tracts of grounds full of Enclosures,
good grass and corn beset with quicksetts and hedgerows” (p. 206). In
very similar words she describes the views on the roads from Exeter to
Chudleigh, and from Chudleigh to Ashburton.
“Devonshire is Much like Somersetshire, fruitfull countrys for corn,
graseing, much for inclosures that makes the wayes very narrow, so as
in some places a coach and waggons cannot pass. They are forced to
carry their corn and carriagis on horses backes with frames of woods
like pannyers on either side of the horse, so load it high and tye it
with cords. This they do altogether the further westward they goe, for
the wayes grow narrower and narrower up to the land’s end” (p. 9). As
Celia Fiennes rode into the far west of Cornwall, hers is the evidence
of an eye-witness. She points to the explanation of the extreme
narrowness for which Devonshire lanes are still noted--enclosure took
place before the introduction of carts.
Devonshire is spoken of in the previously quoted passage in the
“Discourse of the Commonweal,” about 1550, as, with Essex and Kent,
one of the most enclosed counties. Leland, about the year 1537 passed
through North Devon into Cornwall, as far as Wadebridge and Bodmin,
and back through South Devon. His statement that Somerset was much
enclosed with hedgerows of elms, has already been quoted. In Devon and
Cornwall he found no “champaine,” but frequently “meately good corne
and grasse;” on the other hand, he frequently found enclosure.
After recording his arrival at Dunster, he says: “From Combane to the
Sterte most part of the Shore is Hilly Ground, and nere the Shore is
no Store of wood; that that is ys al in Hegge rowes of Enclosures”
(Vol. II., fol. 63). There was enclosed ground between Bideford and
Torrington (fol. 68); from Torrington to Launceston was either “hilly
and much enclosid,” or “hilly and much morisch” (fol. 69), and also
from Launceston to Boscastle (fol. 72).
Entering South Devon, he remarks simply on the fertility of the soil,
but remarks: “The hole Ground bytwixt Torrebay and Exmouth booth
sumwhat to the shore and especially inward is wel inclosed” (Vol. III.,
fol. 31).
In the year of Leland’s visit, probably either 1537 or 1538, the
cultivated lands of Devon and Cornwall and Somerset were largely, but
not entirely, enclosed. In East Somerset alone did Leland find any land
which he could describe as “champaine”; we may infer therefore that
though no doubt there was a good deal of open field arable, probably
still cultivated by co-aration, it existed in the form of comparatively
small areas round villages and hamlets; nowhere, in Leland’s route,
extending over a considerable tract of country.
Carew, in his book on Cornwall, dated 1600, gives an account of the
enclosure of that county. Of the manorial tenants, he says: “They fal
everywhere from Commons to Inclosure and partake not of some Eastern
Tenants envious dispositions, who will sooner prejudice their owne
present thrift, by continuing this _mingle mangle_, than advance the
Lordes expectant benefit, after their terme expired” (p. 30).
This pregnant passage tells us--
(1) That the Enclosure of tilled land in Cornwall had been proceeding
rapidly up to 1600 and was then nearly complete;
(2) That previous to enclosure the system of cultivation, whether it
most resembled the English common field system or Scotch run-rig, had
for one of its features the intermixture of holdings; and for another
some elements of collective ownership or management entitling it to the
name “Commons”;
(3) That Carew’s conception of a manorial tenant is not that of a
freeholder, nor of a copyholder, but that of a leaseholder, whose term
expires, the lord of the manor reaping the fruit, on the expiration of
the lease, of any improvements the tenant may have made. He further
on explains that the system of leases for three lives was practically
universal in Cornwall, not in the modern form in which any three lives
may be named in the lease, but depending for its continuance on the
lives of the lessee, his widow and his son. It is obvious that this
condition of land tenure would be more favourable to early enclosure
than copyhold.
Another passage in Carew bears witness to the practical completion
of enclosure. Writing of the legal conditions under which the miners
pursued their enterprise, he says: “Their workes, both streame and
Load, lie either in severall or in waistrell,” that is, either in
enclosed land under separate exclusive ownership and occupation, or in
waste. One cannot draw the inference that there was absolutely no open
field land; but merely that its extent was in comparison so small as
to appear negligible in this connection to Carew.
Though it is not improbable that the enclosure of Cornwall took place
at an earlier stage of agricultural evolution than that of Devonshire,
it is somewhat improbable that it took place at an earlier date. It
is a reasonable inference from the evidence that by the end of the
sixteenth century the enclosure of Devon and Cornwall was practically
complete. When it began is a different question.
The charter of John by which all Devonshire except Dartmoor and Exmoor
was deforested, expressly forbids the making of hedges on those two
forests. This is itself some evidence that enclosure of some sort,
probably enclosure of waste, for the purpose of cultivation, was going
on actively in the beginning of the thirteenth century.
Attention must here be drawn to an ancient custom in Devon and Cornwall
surviving to the end of the eighteenth century. William Marshall gives
an account of it, and shows its probable importance in determining the
character of enclosure and of all the attendant circumstances in Devon
and Cornwall.
“_West Devonshire._ This district has no traces of common fields. The
cultivated lands are all enclosed, mostly in well sized enclosures;
generally large in proportion to the sizes of farms. They have every
appearance of having been formed from a state of common pasture; in
which state, some considerable part of the District still remains;
and what is observable, the better parts of these open commons have
evidently been heretofore in a state of aration; lying in obvious
ridges and furrows; with generally the remains of hedgebanks,
corresponding with the ridges, and with faint traces of buildings.
“From these circumstances it is understood by some men of observation,
that these lands have formerly been in a state of permanent inclosure,
and have been thrown up again, to a state of commonage, through a
decrease in the population of the country.
“But from observations made in different parts of Devonshire, these
appearances, which are common, perhaps, to every part of the county,
would rather seem to have arisen out of a custom, peculiar perhaps to
this part of the island, and which still remains in use, of lords of
manors having the privileges of letting portions of the common lands,
lying within their respective precincts, to tenants, for the purpose of
taking one or more crops of corn, and then suffering the land to revert
to a state of grass and commonage.
“In the infancy of society, and while the country remained in the
forest state, this was a most rational and eligible way of proceeding.
The rough sides of the dells and dingles with which it abounds were
most fit for the production of wood; the flatter, better parts of
the surface of the country were required for corn and pasturage; and
how could a more ready way of procuring both have been fallen upon
than that of giving due portions of it to the industrious part of the
inhabitants, to clear away the wood and adjust the surface, and after
having reaped a few crops of corn to pay the expense of cultivation,
to throw it up to grass, before it had become too much exhausted to
prevent its becoming, in a few years, profitable sward? In this manner
the county would be supplied progressively as population increased,
with corn and pasturage, and the forests be converted, by degrees, into
common pasture.
“The wild or unreclaimed lands being at length gone over in this way,
some other source of arable crops would be requisite. Indeed, before
this could take place, the pasture grounds would be disproportionate to
the corn lands; and out of these circumstances, it is highly probable,
arose the present Inclosures.” (“Rural Economy of the West of England,”
1795, p. 31.)
The same custom was observed in Cornwall by G. B. Morgan, the Board of
Agriculture Reporter. (“Agriculture of Cornwall,” p. 46.)
I believe this custom is the explanation of the huge size of the hedges
which is frequently observable in Devonshire. A mound about eight feet
high, and six or seven feet through, surmounted by a quickset hedge, is
not uncommon. When a plot of land which had once been enclosed from the
waste for cultivation, and then thrown into common pasture, with its
hedges cast down, had recovered its fertility, it would naturally again
be selected for enclosure and cultivation; the cast down rough stone
wall, now overgrown with vegetation, would be made the foundation for a
new hedge; and the same process might be repeated several times before
final enclosure.
BRAUNTON GREAT FIELD.
I have said above that it is reasonable to infer from the evidence that
enclosure was practically complete in Devon and Cornwall by the end
of the sixteenth century. It is not, however, absolutely complete to
the present day; for Braunton Great Field remains uninclosed. Braunton
is a little town of about two thousand inhabitants, situated between
Ilfracombe and Barnstaple, near the sea coast. Braunton Field is said
to have “as many acres as there are days in the year,” each nominal
acre being a strip of land of about an acre in area. Properties and
holdings are very much intermixed, many of the holdings are very
small and cultivated by their owners. Each “acre” is separated from
the rest on each side by a balk of untilled land, growing grass,
yarrow, hawkweed, etc., just a foot wide. They are locally known as
“launchers,” which one associates with the Dorset name “lawns” for the
strips of ploughed land, and the name “landshare,” in the Stratton
Court rolls for the unploughed balks.
There is also always a path, or a broader balk, called an “edge,”
separating the different sets of acres, which elsewhere would be called
“Shots” or “Furlongs,” from one another.
No common rights exist at present, or have existed in living memory
over either the unploughed balks, or the tillage lands themselves.
But old villagers remember that long ago one half of the field was
kept for wheat, and the other half for potatoes, clover, etc., in
other words, that there use to be a common rule for the cultivation
of the field and this common rule was similar to that prevailing in
the Gloucestershire every year lands. At present each occupant
cultivates his strips just as he pleases. It is of course possible that
this obsolete common rule is itself a survival from an older one, and
that originally this field was cultivated on the two-field system so
prevalent in Lincolnshire; half under wheat, half fallow, the fallow
being commonable all the year, and the wheat after harvest. But on the
other hand, the custom of getting a crop every year may have been the
original one, and Braunton Great Field may be ancient “Every Year land”
or “Infield.”
[Illustration: Part of Braunton Great Field.
Scale 1/3000
The dotted lines represent bulks separating adjacent strips in the
open field; the continuous lines represent hedges. It is easy to see
how the enclosures on the edge of the field were made out of two or
three strips thrown together.]
Braunton Field is noteworthy in that it shows that however the
primitive village community of West Wales may have differed from that
of Wessex, it must have had certain characteristics in common with
it, by which open arable fields of intermixed occupation were created
in the neighbourhood of villages. Braunton cannot have been from the
beginning an isolated example. The process of enclosure by the method
Marshall describes went on around and outside these ancient tilled open
fields.
Another interesting fact is revealed by the study of the twenty-five
inch Ordnance map for Braunton. Braunton Field has been much reduced
in area; one can easily see that the adjoining lands were once part
of the open field, for the hedges in the lands are so placed as to
form a continuation of the spider-web lines of the “launchers” within
the field. The average size of the enclosed fields outside the Great
Field is indeed a little greater than of the separate lands within it,
but there is an imperceptible gradation, beginning with the smallest
“lands” in the Great Field which are nearest the village, on through
those more remote, the nearer enclosed fields, and then the more remote
of them. Enclosure has been effected by simply enclosing the strips
of arable land in the open field as they are. The fact that no common
rights existed over the Field, supposing this always to have been the
case, would have made such enclosure almost a matter of indifference
to the other occupiers; and the motive, no doubt, would be the desire
to lay the strip down in pasture. The whole field is known to the
villagers as “the tillage land.”
THE WELSH BORDER.
The enclosure history of the counties along the Welsh border is
somewhat similar to that of Devonshire. It took place early, partly
in consequence of the predominance of pasture over arable, and partly
under the influence of a custom of temporarily enclosing the waste and
common pasture, similar to that in Devon and Cornwall.
The percentages of area of these counties enclosed by Acts for
enclosure of common field arable are respectively:
Per cent.
Cheshire 0·5
Hereford 3·6
Monmouth 0·4
Shropshire 0·3
Staffordshire 2·8
The Board of Agriculture reporter’s statements on the common fields
surviving in 1793 are that in Cheshire there was not so much as 1,000
acres (Wedge, “Agriculture of Cheshire,” p. 9); in Staffordshire
little more than 1,000 acres (Pitt, “Agriculture of Staffordshire,”
p. 85); that Shropshire “does not contain much common field land” (J.
Bishton, “Agriculture of Shropshire,” p. 8); but that in Hereford some
of the best lands of the county are common fields (Clark, “Agriculture
of Hereford,” p. 69). Of Hereford, William Marshall gives a fuller
account. “Herefordshire is an inclosed county. Some few remnants of
common fields are seen in what is called the upper part of the county;
but in general it appears to have been inclosed from the forest state;
crooked fences and winding narrow lanes” (p. 224).
Celia Fiennes found from Nantwich to Chester “much Enclosures” (p.
147), but from Salford to Northwich, “I went a very pleasant roade,
much in the downs, mostly campion ground, some few Enclosures”;
Herefordshire, “a country of Gardens and Orchards, with apple and pear
trees thick in the hedgerows” (p. 33); Staffordshire, “well wooded
and full of Enclosures, Good Rich Ground, extremely differing from
Derbyshire” (p. 89). This was her first impression, confirmed later.
“Harteshill is so high that from the top of it you see near 20 miles
round, and shows all the county which in this part of Staffordshire
is full of woods and jnclosures and good lands, except the Knackwood”
(p. 137). From “Nedwoodforest” ... “you have a fine prospect of
the country, enclosed good lands” (p. 139). Also beyond Stafford
towards Cheshire was mostly enclosures (p. 144), and from Stafford to
Wolverhampton the journey was through lanes (p. 194).
Walter Blyth includes Staffordshire and Shropshire as part of “the
Woodlands, who before Enclosure, were wont to be relieved by the
Fieldon, with corn of all sorts. And now grown as gallant Corne
countries as be in England” (“The English Improver,” 1649, p. 40).
Evidence of early enclosure is supplied by Leland. About White Castle,
which I take to be Bishop’s Castle, in south-west Shropshire, “the
Countrys is Champion” (Vol. IV. fol. 176 b), but from Hereford to
Leominster was enclosed ground (176 b and 177 a), thence towards Ludlow
“by goodly corne Ground, part by enclosed” (178 b), Bridgenorth to
Kidderminster “most by enclosed Ground” (182 b), to Bewdly was by “a
fayre downe,” but all the way thence to Milton (4 miles), Hertlebury
(2 miles), Salopbrook (5 miles), Worcester (3 miles), Wick (6 miles)
and Bromsgrove (4 miles), each stage is said to be by enclosed ground
(fols. 183 b–186 a).
As for Monmouthshire, “The soyle of al Venteland” (Gwent, the country
between the Wye and Usk) “is of dark reddish Yerth ful of slaty stones,
and other greater of the same colour. The country is also sumwhat
mountaynous and well replenished with Woodes, also fertile of Corne;
but men there study more to Pastures, the which be wel inclosed” (Vol.
V., fol. 5), and “Erchenfeld is full of Enclosures very (fruteful) of
Corne and Wood” (fol. 9). Round Shrewsbury there is “ground plentiful
of Corne, wood and pasture” (Vol. V., fol. 80), at Whitchurch “meately
fruteful sandy ground” (fol. 81), and sandy ground on to Northwich
(_ibid._).
Nowhere else in these counties is either “enclosure” or “champaine”
specified.
The evidence as to the existence of a custom of temporary enclosure
of the waste, is supplied by Robert Plot’s book on “Staffordshire,”
published in 1686: “For the heathy land of this County, it is seldom
enclosed; but when they intend it for tillage, which is never for above
five years neither, and then it is throwne open to the Commons again”
(p. 343). “Their gouty, moorisch, peaty, cold black land, they husbande
also much after the same manner as they doe the heathy lands in the
Moore Lands” (p. 345).
Another passage brings into juxtaposition the more recent enclosures
from forest or moor for the sake of tillage, and the ancient arable
common fields. “Others again have placed the origin of mildewing in
making small inclosures, corn not being so lyable to this evil in the
common open fields” (p. 351).
It is reasonable to suppose that the custom found in Staffordshire and
in Devon and Cornwall also prevailed in other counties, particularly in
those along the Welsh border. It is some confirmation that Eden about
a hundred years later found a similar custom still surviving in Sutton
Coldfield, in Warwickshire, but near the Staffordshire boundary.
“The poor here, besides the right of commonage, have this peculiar
privilege, that every house-keeper may take in one acre of common, and
plough it four years: and the fifth year he must sow it with clover and
lay it to the common again; after which he may take another acre, and
work it in the like manner. By this method, about 400 acres of common
are kept constantly in tillage” (“State of the Poor,” Vol. III., p.
749, written probably in 1795).
The enclosure history of these five counties may be summed up in the
statement that it probably proceeded very similarly to enclosure in
Devonshire, but at a somewhat later date; and that enclosure was later
towards the north. Monmouth, we see, was “full of enclosures” before
1540; Shropshire “partly enclosed” with some “champion”; but though
Leland passed through Cheshire, he does not mention enclosures, and
Celia Fiennes found the North of Cheshire mostly open as late as
about 1697. In Hereford and Staffordshire there was a large proportion
of ancient arable land, and complete enclosure was consequently
longer delayed, leaving an appreciable area to be enclosed by Acts of
Parliament.
STRATHCLYDE.
Lancashire had no common field enclosed by Act of Parliament. It is
possible that its partial autonomy as a Palatine County may account for
this; but it must be noticed that the Acts of enclosure for Lancashire
for enclosing commonable waste, are numerous right through the period
of Enclosure Acts. Nor, though Lancashire was an early enclosed county,
can we explain the absence of Enclosure Acts by the assumption that
the enclosure of tilled land was completed by the beginning of the
eighteenth century, for some common field persisted to the end of that
century.
John Holt, the Board of Agriculture reporter, tells us: “There are but
few open, or common fields, at this time remaining; the inconvenience
attending which, while they were in that state, have caused great
exertions to accomplish a division, in order that every individual
might cultivate his own lands, according to his own method; and that
the lots of a few acres, in many places divided into small portions,
and again separated at different distances, might be brought together
into one point” (“Agriculture of Lancashire,” p. 49). It would appear
from this that the open fields of Lancashire, like Braunton Great
Field, though unenclosed, and intermixed, and subject to some common
rule for cultivation, were not subject to common rights. Any owner,
therefore, who by exchanges or by buying and selling, could get his
lands together in a convenient plot, might enclose without trespassing
on his neighbours’ rights.
From Holt’s statement we find that enclosure was nearly, but not
quite, complete by 1793. It was certainly far advanced a hundred years
earlier. Celia Fiennes rode from Prescot to Wigan, “seven long miles
mostly through lanes” (p. 153); from Gascoyne to Lancaster, “mostly
all along lanes being an enclosed country” (p. 157). From Blackstone
Edge the view was of “a fruitfull valley full of jnclosures” (p. 186).
From Rochdale to Manchester, “the grounds were all enclosed with
quicksetts” (p. 187).
Similarly Leland: “Manchester to Morle I passid by enclosid Grounde
partely pasturable, partely fruteful of corn” (Vol. V., fol. 83). “The
Ground bytwixt Morle and Preston enclosid for Pasture and Cornes....
Likewyse is the soile bytwixt Preston and Garstan; but alway the moste
parte of Enclosures be for Pasturages” (fol. 84).
Cumberland and Westmoreland were later enclosed than Lancashire; and
some few remnants of open arable field were dealt with by Acts. At
Bolton, in Westmoreland, “certain open or common fields called Broad
Ing Bartle and Star Ing” of 22 acres, at Soulby 90 acres of open field,
and at Barton 130 acres, were enclosed by Acts mainly passed for the
sake of enclosing waste; and at Kirkby, in Kendal, “a common open
field” of 105 acres was enclosed. There were five Acts in Cumberland
enclosing open fields; but only two say precisely how much. At
Torpenton, 20 acres of field and 700 acres of waste was enclosed; at
Greystoke, 240 acres of field and 3260 acres of waste.
But the enclosure of open-field arable was proceeding very steadily
through the eighteenth century; and a clear account of the process is
furnished us by two keen observers.
Eden gives an account of the condition of the arable land in seven
Cumberland parishes, written either in December, 1794, or January, 1795.
“_Gilcrux._ About 400 acres of common field have been enclosed within
the last fifty years” (“State of the Poor,” Vol. II., p. 76).
“_Hesket._ No more than 200 acres have been enclosed within the last
fifty years. A large part appears to have had its hedges planted a
little before that period” (_Ibid._, p. 81).
“_Ainstable._ Area 5,120 acres of which 3,480 are common.[106] About
400 acres have been enclosed in the common fields within the last fifty
years.... The average rent of land is about 18_s._ per acre; but it
is observable that here and in most parts of Cumberland, an extensive
common right[107] is attached to most arable land” (p. 46).
[106] _I.e._, common pasture or waste.
[107] _I.e._, over the neighbouring common pasture.
“_Croglin._ The average rent of open fields is 9_s._ 6_d._ the acre,
of inclosures, 15_s._ or 16_s._ About 100 acres of common-field land
have been enclosed within the last fifty years; but a great part of the
arable land still remains in narrow, crooked _dales_, or _ranes_, as
they are called” (p. 67).
“_Castle Carrock._ The greatest part of this parish remains in _dales_,
or _doles_ as they are called; which are strips of cultivated land
belonging to different proprietors, separated from each other by ridges
of grass land; about 100 acres may have been enclosed in the last fifty
years” (p. 65).
“_Cumrew._ The land is cultivated in the old Cumberland manner; the
grass ridges in the fields are from twenty to thirty feet wide; and
some of them are 1000 feet in length. Grazing cattle often injure the
crops” (p. 68).
“_Warwick._ Almost the whole of the cultivated land (1126 acres) has
been enclosed within the last fifty years. It formerly, although
divided, lay in long strips, or narrow _dales_, separated from each
other by _ranes_, or narrow ridges of land, which are left unploughed.
In this manner a great deal, and perhaps the whole, of the cultivated
lands in Cumberland, was anciently disposed” (p. 92).
The other observer is the poet Wordsworth. In his book on the scenery
of the lake district, he quotes from West’s “Antiquities of Furness”
to show that in the troubled times between the union of the Crowns of
England and Scotland, holdings were let to groups of four tenants, each
group dividing its tenement into four equal parts. “These divisions
were not properly distinguished; the land remained mixed; each tenant
had a share through all the arable and meadow land, and common of
pasture over all the wastes.... The land being mixed and the several
tenants united in equipping the plough, the absence of the fourth man”
(who was called out for military service) “was no prejudice to the
cultivation of his land, which was committed to the care of three.”
In High Furness, “The Abbots of Furness enfranchised these pastoral
vassals, and permitted them to enclose quillets to their houses, for
which they paid encroachment rent.”
Wordsworth then proceeds with the tale of enclosure: “The enclosures,
formed by the tenantry, are for a long time confined to the homesteads,
and the arable and meadow land of the fields is possessed in common
fields; the several portions being marked out by stones, bushes, or
trees; while portions, where the custom has survived, to this day are
called _dales_, from the word deylen, to distribute; but while the
valley was thus lying open, enclosures seem to have taken place upon
the sides of the mountains; because the land there was not intermixed,
and was of little comparative value; and therefore small opposition
would be made to its being appropriated by those to whose habitations
it was contiguous. Hence the singular appearance which the sides of
many of these mountains exhibit, intersected, as they are, almost
to the summit with stone walls.... There” (in the meadows and lower
grounds), “where the increasing value of land, and the inconvenience
suffered from intermixed plots of ground in common field, had induced
each inhabitant to enclose his own, they were compelled to make fences
of alders, willows, and other trees ... but these last partitions do
not seem to have been general till long past the pacification of the
Borders, by the union of the two crowns” (Fourth Edition, p. 23).
The date of the enclosure of the intermixed arable and meadow land is
thus fixed within certain broad limits. It did not begin till “long
past the pacification of the Borders, by the union of the two crowns.”
It took some time to effect the pacification of the Borders, even after
the accession of James I. made it possible; “long past” that event is
a vague date, but may very well bring us at least as late as the date
when the enclosure of the common fields of Durham is supposed to have
begun, “soon after the Restoration.” It is certain, further, from
Eden’s information, that enclosure was going on steadily right through
the second half of the eighteenth century, but by no means complete in
1795. The high prices of the war period would have greatly stimulated
the movement, for it is obvious that if rents were thereby doubled both
for open and enclosed land, the gross profit of enclosing would also
be doubled; the net gain probably more than doubled. When Wordsworth
wrote, the open fields were apparently still fairly numerous, but they
had become a mere survival.
The date of the enclosure of this district is, however, the least
interesting of the inferences to be drawn.
We find that up to the union of the Crowns, cultivation was carried
on by a system very closely resembling the “run-rig” of the Hebrides.
Groups of four tenants combined together, and yoked their horses to
a common plough, and equally divided the holding between them, each
tenant having his equal share in all parts of the holding. We next
find that on the decay of this co-aration, for a long period, varying
in duration in different parishes, holdings remained intermixed, but
it seems clear that as in the one surviving Devonshire open field,
and probably as in Lancashire, common rights were not exercised over
the arable fields; though it might happen that besides the “ranes,”
the grassy balks between the strips of arable land, there might be
considerable stretches of grass amidst the arable field which was used
for a common pasture. Lastly, we find that open, intermixed arable land
and meadows, having this history, passes into a state of enclosure
where increase of population, agricultural progress, and the increasing
value of land make enclosure sufficiently profitable, by a gradual,
piecemeal process, without the need for Act of Parliament, or reference
to a Commission, or any combined resolution on the part of the lord and
tenants of a manor.
It is because the process was late in Cumberland and Westmoreland and
because it happened to interest three authors, West, Wordsworth, and
Eden, who were not agriculturists, that the record of it for these two
counties is available. All the indications suggest that Northumberland
and Durham underwent a similar evolution; and all the preceding
information with regard to the enclosure of Wales and much of the
land immediately on the Welsh border, and of West Somerset, Devon and
Cornwall, harmonises with the hypothesis that in those districts also
the process was fundamentally the same, though with local differences,
due to a very much earlier pacification.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE RESULTS OF ENCLOSURE.
The scenery of England and Wales has been transformed by the enclosure
of its lands, but the extent and results of the transformation vary.
Here you have the landscape cut into little fields with great hedges,
looking from an elevated point of view like a patchwork quilt; there
the skimpy quickest hedges only slightly emphasise the natural sweeping
lines of the hills: here you have narrow winding lanes; there broad,
straight roads with margins of grass on either side: here you have
compact villages in which almost all the habitations in the parish are
clustered together; there farmhouses and cottages so scattered that
were it not for the church, which seems to attract to its neighbourhood
the inn and the smithy, there would be no recognisable village at all.
This diversity in the effect of enclosure on the face of the country is
a symbol of the diversity of its effect upon the material, social, and
moral conditions of the local peasantry, who, like the land itself, may
be said to have undergone Enclosure.
Where, as in Devon and Cornwall, in Cumberland and Westmoreland,
the division of intermixed arable and meadow land took place early
and gradually, and in subordination to the reclamation of waste,
that reclamation itself being carried on steadily and gradually, the
result was the creation of numberless small holdings and properties. A
career was offered to the enterprising and laborious, and enterprise
and industry grew accordingly,--“Devonshire myghty and Strong,”
says Leland; and the great part taken by Devonshire in the national
struggles in the reign of Elizabeth must be partly attributed to the
reaction upon the character of the people of the conquest over the
difficulties of bringing the rocky soil, woodland or moor, into
cultivation: a conquest which made Devonshire husbandry famous for two
generations, and “Devonshiring” a well-known term for a particular
method of preparing waste land for cultivation.
Perhaps the greatest evil of Acts for the enclosure of waste in the
past, was that they prevented such gradual reclamation and enclosure
by peasant cultivators. At the present day the vital objection applies
to enclosure of waste by any method that the area of such free open
spaces is already sufficiently curtailed, that every remaining acre
is becoming continually more precious, so that while public-spirited
people fight for their preservation in remote places, in the
neighbourhood of towns, citizens tax themselves to add to their area.
The enclosure of arable common fields, and of all the commonable lands
of whole parishes within what I have called the Parliamentary Enclosure
Belt, is of immeasurably greater historical importance. The ethics of
such enclosure has been the subject of fierce debate for centuries; now
the process is practically complete, and it is possible to apraise its
results.
We have observed that with regard to the immediate results, capable
of being contemporaneously verified, there is no real controversy
between the disputants; it is on the inferences to be drawn as to the
more ultimate results on the nation as a whole, and in the judgment
pronounced upon the desirability of such results, that the dispute
turned. The more candid disputants on either side admit the vital
points in their opponents’ case: thus, for example, no opponent of
enclosure denies that it tended to raise rents; and, on the other
hand, it was the greatest advocate of enclosure who declared that “By
nineteen out of twenty Enclosure Acts the poor are injured.”
The increase of rent was, of course, the motive of enclosure; and
though there were exceptional cases in which the results were very
disappointing to the promoters, as a rule the increase of rent was very
great. Arthur Young gives the full financial details of twenty-three
Acts for the enclosure of open field parishes in Lincolnshire.[108]
The total rents before enclosure amounted to £15,504; on an average
they were nearly doubled, the increase of rent obtained being £14,256,
and the expenditure necessary to obtain this result was £48,217.
Assuming that the money was borrowed at 6 per cent., there remained to
the landowners a net profit of £11,363. These results were no doubt
something above the average, but they were not exceptional. In Long
Sutton the rent was raised from an average of 5_s._ per acre to between
30_s._ and 50_s._ per acre.[109]
[108] “Agriculture of Lincoln,” p. 83.
[109] “Agriculture of Lincoln,” p. 77.
The increase of rent was not a concern purely of the landowning class.
As the advocates of enclosure continually pointed out, the rent was
a pretty accurate test of the net produce of the agriculture of the
parish; it was roughly proportional to the amount of food grown but not
consumed on the spot, and sent away to markets to feed urban consumers
at a distance. It was upon this net produce, they pointed out, that
the taxable resources of the country depended. It was argued that
an addition to the population of the country which was all engaged
in gaining its own subsistence from the soil, added neither to the
number of soldiers who could be enlisted for war without paralysing
industry, nor to the power of the State to equip and support an army.
On the other hand, a change by which a whole village of peasants who
consumed nearly all the food they produced, was swept away and replaced
by one or two highly rented farms, producing a less quantity of food,
but sending much more to market, did supply the State with additional
resources for the maintenance of its forces.
Private interests stimulated the appreciation of these public
advantages. Money had to be borrowed to meet the heavy initial
expenses of enclosure, and the banking system grew with the enclosure
movement of the eighteenth century. And hence a secondary gain to the
State. Increased opportunities for the remunerative investment of
capital increased the supply of loanable capital, and made possible
the enormous State loans by which the Napoleonic war was carried on.
Lawyers, land surveyors, Parliamentary agents and others, reaped a
copious harvest; and further, London in particular, and other towns
in varying measure, grew in wealth by ministering to the increased
“effective demands” of the enriched aristocracy.
But the opponents of enclosure were concerned with the gross rather
than the net produce of land, and, as we have seen, it can be proved
from the testimony of the advocates of enclosure and of impartial
witnesses, that over a great part of the Midlands enclosure meant the
conversion of arable to pasture, and local depopulation. The Board of
Agriculture gives what may be considered an official estimate of the
diminution of gross produce which would follow. An acre of common field
arable might be expected to produce 2010 lbs. of bread in a three years
course (that is, 670 lbs. of bread per annum), and 30 lbs. of meat per
annum. The same area enclosed and converted to pasture would produce
176 lbs. of mutton, or 120 lbs. of beef. If we split the difference
between the production of beef and mutton, we have on the average 148
lbs. of meat produced. There is on enclosure a gain of 113 lbs. of meat
against a loss of 570 lbs. of bread; supposing the food values of equal
quantities of bread and meat to be equal, there is a loss of 557 lbs.
out of a total produce of 705 lbs.