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.

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.

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 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.

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