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.
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