The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common FieldsSlater, Gilbert
History
The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields
Slater, Gilbert
Agriculture -- England; Inclosures; Peasants -- England; Village communities -- Great Britain
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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