It is reasonable to suppose that the custom found in Staffordshire and in Devon and Cornwall also prevailed in other counties, particularly in those along the Welsh border. It is some confirmation that Eden about a hundred years later found a similar custom still surviving in Sutton Coldfield, in Warwickshire, but near the Staffordshire boundary.
“The poor here, besides the right of commonage, have this peculiar privilege, that every house-keeper may take in one acre of common, and plough it four years: and the fifth year he must sow it with clover and lay it to the common again; after which he may take another acre, and work it in the like manner. By this method, about 400 acres of common are kept constantly in tillage” (“State of the Poor,” Vol. III., p. 749, written probably in 1795).
The enclosure history of these five counties may be summed up in the statement that it probably proceeded very similarly to enclosure in Devonshire, but at a somewhat later date; and that enclosure was later towards the north. Monmouth, we see, was “full of enclosures” before 1540; Shropshire “partly enclosed” with some “champion”; but though Leland passed through Cheshire, he does not mention enclosures, and Celia Fiennes found the North of Cheshire mostly open as late as about 1697. In Hereford and Staffordshire there was a large proportion of ancient arable land, and complete enclosure was consequently longer delayed, leaving an appreciable area to be enclosed by Acts of Parliament.
Strathclyde.
Lancashire had no common field enclosed by Act of Parliament. It is possible that its partial autonomy as a Palatine County may account for this; but it must be noticed that the Acts of enclosure for Lancashire for enclosing commonable waste, are numerous right through the period of Enclosure Acts. Nor, though Lancashire was an early enclosed county, can we explain the absence of Enclosure Acts by the assumption that the enclosure of tilled land was completed by the beginning of the eighteenth century, for some common field persisted to the end of that century.
John Holt, the Board of Agriculture reporter, tells us: “There are but few open, or common fields, at this time remaining; the inconvenience attending which, while they were in that state, have caused great exertions to accomplish a division, in order that every individual might cultivate his own lands, according to his own method; and that the lots of a few acres, in many places divided into small portions, and again separated at different distances, might be brought together into one point” (“Agriculture of Lancashire,” p. 49). It would appear from this that the open fields of Lancashire, like Braunton Great Field, though unenclosed, and intermixed, and subject to some common rule for cultivation, were not subject to common rights. Any owner, therefore, who by exchanges or by buying and selling, could get his lands together in a convenient plot, might enclose without trespassing on his neighbours’ rights.
From Holt’s statement we find that enclosure was nearly, but not quite, complete by 1793. It was certainly far advanced a hundred years earlier. Celia Fiennes rode from Prescot to Wigan, “seven long miles mostly through lanes” (p. 153); from Gascoyne to Lancaster, “mostly all along lanes being an enclosed country” (p. 157). From Blackstone Edge the view was of “a fruitfull valley full of jnclosures” (p. 186). From Rochdale to Manchester, “the grounds were all enclosed with quicksetts” (p. 187).
Similarly Leland: “Manchester to Morle I passid by enclosid Grounde partely pasturable, partely fruteful of corn” (Vol. V., fol. 83). “The Ground bytwixt Morle and Preston enclosid for Pasture and Cornes.... Likewyse is the soile bytwixt Preston and Garstan; but alway the moste parte of Enclosures be for Pasturages” (fol. 84).
Cumberland and Westmoreland were later enclosed than Lancashire; and some few remnants of open arable field were dealt with by Acts. At Bolton, in Westmoreland, “certain open or common fields called Broad Ing Bartle and Star Ing” of 22 acres, at Soulby 90 acres of open field, and at Barton 130 acres, were enclosed by Acts mainly passed for the sake of enclosing waste; and at Kirkby, in Kendal, “a common open field” of 105 acres was enclosed. There were five Acts in Cumberland enclosing open fields; but only two say precisely how much. At Torpenton, 20 acres of field and 700 acres of waste was enclosed; at Greystoke, 240 acres of field and 3260 acres of waste.
But the enclosure of open-field arable was proceeding very steadily through the eighteenth century; and a clear account of the process is furnished us by two keen observers.