CHAPTER VI.

SOME RECENT ENCLOSURES.

UPTON ST. LEONARDS (NEAR GLOUCESTER).

This enclosure took place at the same time as that of Castor and Ailesworth, and was completed in 1899. The common fields consisted of 1120 strips of arable land, total area 520 acres, and the “balks” or “meres” separating the strips were estimated at 14 acres. There were more than eighty owners.

No recognised course of husbandry had been followed for about sixty years previously. It is believed that before that time a four-year course obtained, but when mangel wurzels were introduced to the neighbourhood the recurring fallow was discontinued. The right of common after harvest was, however, still maintained. If any cultivator chose he might grow turnips, but he did so at his own risk, and had to keep a boy to guard them from the opening of the fields to the time they could be pulled. Old mere stones are found in the meadows of this parish, and various local traditions remain belonging, apparently, to a period when the village customs resembled those described for Stratton and Grimstone.

TOTTERNHOE (BEDFORDSHIRE).

The Enclosure Act was passed in 1886, and the award is dated 1891. Before enclosure Totternhoe was a typical open-field parish; there were only 370 acres of old enclosure, to 1797 acres of common field arable, and 193 acres of common. The situation of Totternhoe is like that of Clothall, on the steep northern slope of the Hertfordshire chalk hills, which here have an almost mountainous appearance. The greater part of the parish was in the ownership of the lord of the manor, but there were forty owners of land altogether, the others being chiefly yeomen. The movement for enclosure came from these yeomen. They took this step in order to protect themselves against the tenants of the lord of the manor, who, whether from ignorance or otherwise, endeavoured to prevent the exercise of well-known rights of common over land in their occupation. The hill top was saved as an open space, and is a favourite picnic resort for the people of Dunstable. Recreation grounds and land for allotments were also set out, as has been the rule since the passing of the Commons Act of 1876. I asked one of the yeomen, who had taken a leading part in bringing about the enclosure, whether it had benefited the parish. He said undoubtedly it had done so, but “the parish has not recovered from it yet.” Questioned as to how this could be, he gave me to understand that the actual increase to the cultivators in annual value was not equal to the interest on the capital expended on carrying out the enclosure; that the assessment had gone up, and the burden of rates and taxes was consequently increased. The land allotted to the lord of the manor still, in the summer of 1900, was mainly unenclosed, and one could get something of the impression of the “champion” country, an impression of great open fields sweeping up to bare downs.

NORTH AND SOUTH LUFFENHAM AND BARROWDEN (RUTLAND).

The first steps towards the enclosure of these three parishes were made immediately after the passing of the 1876 Act; the Enclosure Act was passed in 1878, and the awards were made in 1881 and 1882. Out of 5480 acres in the three parishes, 4800 were common-field arable, a heath claimed by both Barrowden and South Luffenham occupied 390 acres, and much of the remainder was commonable meadow and pasture. Two systems of cultivation obtained. Part of the land being heavy clay was on a three years’ course of wheat, beans, etc., and fallow, as at Laxton and Eakring; the lighter land was under a six years’ course. The report of the Enclosure Commissioners says of Barrowden that the 1240 acres of arable land “is divided in 2790 strips, some not more than 12 feet wide, each divided from its neighbour by a green balk, which is a nursery of weeds.” Old farmers, however, assured me that the balks were mostly gone before enclosure. Field reeves were elected, and they settled any dispute that arose in consequence of the absence of balks, and individual farmers quickly detected, by pacing across their strips, if a furrow had been appropriated by a neighbour.

Here, again, I asked whether the enclosure had been a benefit, and I was told that the labourers had benefited by the allotments and recreation grounds; that the lord of the manor of South Luffenham had benefited, because he got the disputed moor, but that farmers, as farmers, had gained nothing, and as common-right owners they had lost through the enclosure of the moor.

Enclosure in this case originated in what may be called the normal way, _i.e._, on the initiative of the lords of the manors. It was the doubtful ownership of the Barrowden and Luffenham moor which had until 1876 prevented enclosure; then the respective lords agreed to combine to obtain an enclosure of all three parishes, and let the Commissioners determine to which parish the moor belonged. It was awarded to Luffenham, but the Luffenham freeholders lost it just as much as those of Barrowden; it is now the private property of the lord of the manor.

HAM FIELD.

A curious case of enclosure by Act of Parliament unconnected with the General Enclosure Acts is that of Ham Field by the “Richmond, Petersham and Ham Open Spaces Act, 1902” (2 Edward VII., c. ccliii.). It is entitled, “An Act to confirm agreements for vesting common and other land in the local authorities of the districts of Richmond and Ham, and the Surrey County Council as public open spaces, and for other purposes.” But while it does incidentally confirm these agreements, the “other purposes” comprise the main object of the bill, which is to allow the owners of Ham Common, of whom the Earl of Dysart is the principal, to enclose Ham Common Field, and convert it into building land.

The preamble is similarly misleading. The first sentence runs, “Whereas the prospect from Richmond Hill over the valley of the Thames is of great natural beauty, and agreements have been entered into with a view to preventing building on certain lands hereinafter mentioned”--a sentence admirably framed to disguise the fact that the effect of the Act is to extinguish the common rights over Ham Field which had previously prevented building, and so to convert the middle distance of the famous view from Richmond Hill into an expanse of roofs, perhaps of villa-residences, and perhaps----!

The agreements recited in the Act represent the consideration for which the public authorities mentioned bartered away the beauty of the view. Kingston Corporation gets nine acres for a cricket field; Richmond Corporation is confirmed in the ownership of Petersham Meadows, which was formerly a subject of dispute, and acquires a strip of land along the river; and the Surrey County Council acquires 45 acres of riverside land. The meadows and riverside land in each case are to be maintained as open spaces by the authorities. Ham itself merely gets the freehold of Ham Common, which means, in effect, that what slight danger there might have been of the enclosure of this part of the open and commonable land of the parish is removed.

The Earl of Dysart, at the cost of a sacrifice that is probably apparent rather than real, obtains by this Act the right to convert some 200 acres of arable common field into a valuable building estate; the smaller owners acquire a similar right without any compensating sacrifice at all; and the only losers by this profitable transaction are the people of London, who were not consulted in the matter.

MERROW.

The parish of Merrow, adjoining Guildford on the east, is stated in the return of 1873 to have had 350 acres of common field. The land in question covers the lower slopes of the chalk hill, the higher portion of which is Merrow Down; beneath it is Clandon Park, the seat of Lord Onslow. Up to about the year 1873 this common field did exist; the properties of Lord Onslow, the chief proprietor, were very much intermixed with those of smaller proprietors; the farm holdings were similarly intermixed with one another, and with a number of strips of land occupied by labourers and cultivated as allotments. But no common rights were exercised over these lands, either by the occupiers over one another’s lands, or by the villagers, within living memory; nor, except that the whole of the field was in tillage, was there any common rule for its cultivation. The existence of a great extent of common is in itself a sufficient explanation of the disappearance of common rights over the tilled land.

In 1870 the present Lord Onslow came into the property, and when a year or two later he attained his majority, he proceeded to consolidate his property in Merrow Field, by buying out the other proprietors, or giving them land elsewhere in exchange. The field is still bare of hedges, and under tillage; but enclosure, in the technical sense, has been completely carried without an Act of Parliament.

Since the enclosure the allotments, which had been numerous, have generally been given up; but the labourers do not attribute this to the enclosure, but to the industrial evolution. “There are no farmers nowadays, only land spoilers. They’ve turned market gardeners, and they sell _milk_” (with intense scorn). “The land ought to grow beef, and barley to make good beer, that’s what Englishmen want,--yes, and wheat to make bread. But now they all grow garden stuff, what’s the good of an allotment to a man? If you have anything to sell, you can’t sell it. It’s no good growing any more than you can eat.”

It may be added that along the river Wey, from Guildford down to Byfleet, there are some very extensive lammas meadows, known by such names as Broad Mead and Hook Mead. The holdings in these are intermixed, individual pieces sometimes not exceeding an acre.

STEVENTON AND THE BERKSHIRE DOWNS.

That part of Berkshire which lies between the valley of the Kennet and the Thames would appear, from the return of 1873, to be specially rich in surviving open fields. The Blue Book assigns to

Brightwell 1000 acres of common field. West Hagbourne 550 ″ ″ East Hendred 2794 ″ ″ West Hendred 1900 ″ ″ East Ilsley 1400 ″ ″ Wallingford St. Leonard 570 ″ ″ Yattenden 252 ″ ″

As Brightwell was enclosed in 1811, and East Hendred in 1801, the statement with regard to these two parishes plainly is incredible; but in view of the undeniable fact that Steventon, which lies almost in the centre of this district, was not enclosed till 1883, there seemed so much possibility of survivals in the other parishes that in July, 1904, I traversed the whole district in search of such survivals. But the search was entirely unsuccessful; it was plain that Steventon was at the time of its enclosure the last remaining example of the old system in this part.

Here, as in the Hertfordshire district described above, and in the Wiltshire district dealt with in Chapter X., “Enclosure and Depopulation,” enclosure is one aspect of a change of which the most vital aspects are the engrossing of farms and the consolidation of properties. In each parish this movement proceeds along the line of least resistance; in one parish all impediments in the way of the most profitable management of estates are swept away by the drastic remedy of an Enclosure Act; in others they are removed gradually.

The latter method I was enabled, by the help of Mr. Bridges, to trace in detail in the case of Yattenden. The Board of Agriculture return, as we have seen, assigns 252 acres of common field to Yattenden. The tithe map, dated 1845, on which this is based, shows in one corner of “Yattenden Great Field” about 20 acres of intermixed ownership and occupation, forming part of one “furlong,” remaining in the characteristic common-field arrangement; the rest of the so-called “Yattenden Great Field” and “Everington Field” were in part divided into hedged fields, and in part into compact stretches of about 20 acres each, still unhedged, with here and there single acres detached in the midst of them; many of these single acres being glebe.

An older manorial map, dated 1773, showed that at that date nearly half the parish was open; the eastern part was already divided into closes, except for a small stretch of lammas meadow, divided into small intermixed holdings, by the river Pang; but the western part, Yattenden and Everington fields, were almost entirely open, and divided in furlongs, and the furlongs in acre and half-acre strips. These strips on the map are all marked with the letters of the alphabet, to indicate whether they are held by the lord of the manor, by his tenants, or by other owners.

In other words, the process of gradual enclosure, which began before 1773, was continued afterwards, and was nearly complete in 1845. The end came about the year 1858, when Frilsham Common, in an adjoining parish, was enclosed. About half of the intermixed strips in Yattenden Great Field belonged to a yeoman, who was, his brother told me, “a great man for defining his boundaries.” The enclosure of Frilsham Common gave the slight stimulus to the mind of Yattenden necessary to overcome its mental inertia, and make change possible, so the yeoman in question was able to effect the exchanges he desired, and others following his example, the lay properties were all separated. But still the glebe consists in part of an acre here and an acre there in the midst of lands belonging to laymen. These are let with the lands in which they lie; they have no mark to distinguish them, nor boundaries to limit them; the tithe map and award preserve the record of them, and the vicar receives their rent.

This circumstance of the glebe lying in part in separate unfenced strips scattered over the parish, let with the lands in which they lie, and so not influencing the agriculture of the parish, though testifying to the past system, is by no means uncommon in the parishes not enclosed by Act of Parliament.[15]

[15] Mr. A. N. Palmer, in “Ancient Tenures of Land in the Marches of North Wales,” gives a list of parishes in one Hundred containing, or known to have contained, “quilleted fields,” _i.e._ fields containing strips of land belonging to a different owner from the rest of the field, these strips being usually glebe.

In general the results of the two different methods of enclosure in this district are practically identical. Superficially the characteristic features of the “champaign” or “champion” country remain. The population is concentrated in the villages; the sites of which appear to have been originally selected for convenience of water supply; outside the villages are the long sweeps of open fields of barley, wheat or beans, lying generally open to the roads, and to one another, and to the open down, though one notices a tendency to an increased use of wire fencing. The monotony is broken by the beautiful curves of the hill slopes, and by clumps of trees; here and there, on steeper inclines, lynches are clearly visible, and occasionally what looks like an inconsequent hedge, beginning and ending in the middle of the field--an old “mere” or “balk” on which bushes happened to grow.

On the other hand, the farms run generally from 200 to over 1000 acres each; machinery is extensively used; the supply of labour, though not so superabundant as a generation or two ago, is still sufficient, the customary wage being 2_s._ per day. The men themselves struck me as being of finer physique than the agricultural labourers I have seen in any other part of the South or Midlands of England; but they appear to be as completely shut out from any rights over the land, from any enterprise of their own upon the land, or from any opportunities for rising into the farmers’ class as can well be conceived. Only one man whom I met could remember a different condition. He, a labourer of seventy-three, said that in North Moreton before the enclosure (completed in 1849) every villager who could get a cow could keep it in the open fields, and all the villagers also had rights of cutting fuel. Under the Enclosure Act some moneys were set aside to provide the poor with fuel in compensation for these rights, but latterly the amount provided had much diminished.

Steventon, which lies in the centre of this district, is to some extent exceptional. The manor has always been in ecclesiastical hands, from the first time when the village was founded as a settlement from the Abbey of Bec in Normandy to the present day, when it is held by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In the intervening period it belonged to Westminster Abbey.

No doubt it was in consequence of this that through the greater part of the nineteenth century, while all the other parishes passed into their present condition of large farms, the farms and properties in Steventon remained small. Up to about 1874 there were some eighteen yeomen farmers in the parish, which comprises 2,382 acres, fully three-quarters at that time being arable. In addition, the lands belonging to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were divided into small holdings, and all these were intermixed. The system of cultivation was very simple. The arable land was divided into two fields, one known as the “white corn field,” growing wheat or barley, the other as the “black corn field,” growing pulse or some other crop.

In the severe agricultural depression that followed 1874, culminating in 1879, the yeomen were obliged to borrow in order to continue farming, and they mortgaged their lands to certain gentlemen in the neighbourhood who had money to invest. As one bad season followed another, loan had to be added to loan, till the security was exhausted, and the land passed into the possession of the mortgagee. In this way the number of landowners was reduced to five. Then enclosure, which had been proposed and rejected in the forties, was resolved upon. The Act was obtained in 1880, and the award was made in 1883.

There was considerable disappointment among those who carried out the enclosure at the results. They were surprised and disgusted at the amount of land reserved for allotments and recreation ground; they were also surprised at the expense, which amounted, I was told, to nearly £10,000. Some were unable to meet the calls upon them, and went bankrupt. But a large portion of the cost was for road-making, and when this had been paid for, the chief advantage which had been gained by the whole proceeding, economy in horse labour, was realised. Where previously it had taken three horses to get a load of manure to a given spot in the open fields, along the tracks assigned for that purpose, one horse could draw the same load to the nearest point on the metalled roadway, and a second horse hitched in front would enable it to reach its destination.