The English Village Community / Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)

by Frederic Seebohm

'Butts Close, containing eight acres or thereabouts; Orton Mead, containing forty acres or thereabouts, exclusively of the Haydons, and extending from the Old Road from Hitchin to Pirton by Orton Head Spring west unto the way which passes through Orton Mill Yard east; and that the Haydons on the east of the last mentioned way, containing four acres or thereabouts, are parts of the same common, and include a parcel of ground containing one rood and thirteen perches or thereabouts adjoining the river, which have been fenced from the rest of the common by Samuel Allen; and the ground called the Plats lying between Bury Mead and Cock Mead, containing two acres or thereabouts, including the slip of ground between the river and the way leading to the mill of the said John [p448] Ransom, lately called Burnt Mill, and now called Grove Mill, which hath been fenced off and planted by John Ransom.

2nd. Lammas Meadows.

'And of the lands of divers persons called the Lammas Meadows in Cock Mead, which contain eighteen acres or thereabouts, and in Bury Mead, which contains forty-five acres or thereabouts, including a parcel of land of the Rev. Woollaston Pym, clerk, called Old Hale.

3rd. Common fields.

'And of the open and unenclosed land within the several common fields, called Purwell Field, Welshman's Croft, Burford Field, Spital Field, Moremead Field, and Bury Field.

Right of common.

'That the occupier of every ancient messuage or cottage within the township of Hitchin hath a right of common for such cattle and at such times as are hereinafter specified upon the Green Commons and the Lammas Meadows, but no person hath any right of common within this township as appurtenant to or in respect of any messuage or cottage built since the expiration of the 13th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, unless the same shall have been erected on the site of an ancient messuage then standing.

'That any person having right of common in respect of the messuage or cottage in his actual occupation may turn on the Green Commons and the Lammas Meadows two cows and one bullock, or cow calf under the age of two years.

Common bull.

'That the rectors impropriate of the rectory of the parish of Hitchin or their lessees of the said rectory are bound to find a bull for the cows of the said township, and to go with the herd thereof, and that no other bull or bull calf may be turned on the commons.