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.
Under the heading of Wessex I include the counties of Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Dorset. There is a close resemblance between the enclosure history of each of these; while Gloucester is a connecting link between them and the Midland counties on the one hand, and the south-western on the other. It may be described as at present a country of very large farms, with a very large proportion of open down, the cultivated land itself remaining remarkably open, being divided in general into large rectangular fields by hedges which are frequently full of gaps. Rights of common here more than elsewhere have decayed, irrespective of actual enclosure; and using the word enclosure in its broad sense, it may be said that in Wessex the process of enclosure has least of all taken visible shape, either in the growing of hedges, or building of walls, or in the conversion of arable to pasture, or pasture to arable, or in the scattering of the habitations of the inhabitants over the whole parish; but that it has most profoundly affected the social life of the villages. The case of Grimstone, in which the nine “livings” for generations held by about a dozen different copyholders, was converted into a single farm, and by no means an exceptionally large one, is typical of the whole district. This aspect has been previously treated. What here has to be noticed is that these characteristics of Wessex enclosure make it more difficult to trace the progress, at least so far as the higher lands are concerned. If Celia Fiennes could revisit the neighbourhood of Amesbury and Stonehenge, she would probably again describe it as “all on the downs, a fine champion country.” It is fortunate that we have the accounts of two such expert observers as Thomas Davis and William Marshall. They wrote practically at the same date, Marshall apparently in 1792, Davis in 1793; but as Marshall confines himself to the actual condition, while Davis deals with the past, he must here take precedence.
“The Western Chalk Hills.
“Basingstoke to Salisbury.—The state of inclosure varies. To the eastward the country is mostly inclosed, much of it in large, square, regular inclosures. More westward, it is entirely open; as are the tops of the higher hills throughout. Extensive views, with no other break, than what is given by corn or flocks, fallows or the sheep fold.