CHAPTER V.
THE ISLE OF AXHOLME.

To catch the spirit of the common field system, to see that system no mere historical survival, but developing in harmony with modern needs, one must go to the Isle of Axholme. Starting from Doncaster eastwards, through somewhat devious roads, one descends gradually to a wide belt of reclaimed fen. Between this fen on the west, and the river Trent with more fen on the east, is a ridge of low hills, comprising the four large parishes of Haxey, Epworth, Belton and Owston. These constitute the Isle of Axholme—an island, indeed, up to the time of the great drainage operations of Vermuyden in the reign of James I. It was, no doubt, a very ancient home of fishermen and fowlers, who gradually brought the island itself into cultivation, using the plough as a subsidiary means of subsistence. The strenuous opposition offered by the people of Axholme to the work of the Dutch engineer is well known. Even after they were beaten, and the greatest drainage scheme of the seventeenth century was carried through, the four Axholme parishes retained extensive fens, used as common pastures.

When in the eighteenth century the great trade of driving Scotch cattle to the London market, in which Sir Walter Scott’s grandfather was a pioneer, sprang up, the route followed diverged from the great north road in Yorkshire, in order to avoid turnpikes, and the cattle, grazing as they slowly plodded southwards, and fattening on the roadsides, came through Selby, Snaith and the Isle of Axholme. To protect their fields the islanders hedged them along the roadsides, leaving only narrow thoroughfares; then, to make these thoroughfares passable for themselves, they laid down for footpath a stone pavement which still exists for twenty miles. But the old hedges have in many places disappeared, so that the fields lie open to the road; and in particular, the gates which then guarded every entrance to the fields are now generally represented by gaps.

At the end of the eighteenth century by far the greater part of the island proper was in the condition of open arable fields, with properties and holdings intermixed, as in the open fields of Laxton; though near each village there were enclosed gardens, and closes of pasture. It would appear that the original system of cultivation was a four-year course of husbandry, so that one-fourth of the arable land was at any time fallow, and used as common pasture, and common rights were exercised on two of the other three-fourths after harvest; one-fourth probably being under turnips. On the margin of the hill there were perhaps commonable meadows, though I cannot trace them. Beyond, the common fens and marshes, used mainly for grazing horned cattle, extended over an area of about 14,000 acres.

Arthur Young visited the island at this time, and thus describes it:

“In respect of property, I know nothing more singular respecting it (the County of Lincoln), than its great division in the Isle of Axholm. In most of the towns there, for it is not quite general, there is much resemblance of some rich parts of France and Flanders. The inhabitants are collected in villages and hamlets; and almost every house you see, except very poor cottages on the borders of commons, is inhabited by a farmer, the proprietor of his farm, of from four or five, and even fewer, to 20, 40, and more acres, scattered about the open fields, and cultivated with all that minutiae of care and anxiety, by the hands of the family, which are found abroad, in the countries mentioned. They are very poor respecting money, but very happy respecting their mode of existence. Contrivance, mutual assistance, by barter and hire, enable them to manage these little farms, though they break all rules of rural proportion. A man will keep a pair of horses that has but 3 or 4 acres by means of vast commons and working for hire.

“The enclosure of these commons will lessen their numbers and vastly increase the quantity of products at market. Their cultivated land being of uncommon fertility, a farm of 20 acres supports a family very well, as they have, generally speaking, no fallows, but an endless succession of corn, potatoes, flax, beans, etc. They do nearly all their work themselves, and are passionately fond of buying a bit of land. Though I have said they are happy, yet I should note that it was remarked to me, that the little proprietors work like Negroes, and do not live so well as the inhabitants of the poor-house; but all is made amends for by possessing land.”[11]