Chapter XXI: Section 2 (2)

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.”

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.