In Bedfordshire very little common indeed existed apart from the open field parishes. This is proved by the fact that from 1700 to 1870 there were only three enclosures of commons, apart from arable common fields, comprising an area of 867 acres, and that the tithe maps only indicated 507 acres more of commons in parishes where there were no common fields. We may safely assume that at least 200,000 acres out of our author’s 217,200 acres of open land belonged to open field villages, and that these villages also had, in accordance with his estimate, 20,000 acres of old enclosures, the area of all the open fields parishes in 1764 was, according to the estimate, about 220,000 acres; that of the enclosed parishes about 87,200 acres. If the numbers of the parishes enclosed and open were about in the same proportion, out of the one hundred and twenty-one parishes in Bedfordshire, there should have been eighty-seven open and thirty-four enclosed.
From the list of Parliamentary enclosures in the [appendix], it will be seen that seventy-three parishes were enclosed by Acts passed in 1798 and later. There were also seven other parishes in which the tithe documents indicate common fields surviving up to the date of Tithe Commission, making a total of eighty parishes, which we have previously accounted for.
It would follow that about seven parishes were enclosed in Bedfordshire between 1794 and 1845 without any Act. This is in accordance with what we might reasonably expect.
Of the thirty-four parishes which by this argument were enclosed in 1790, seventeen had been enclosed by Acts passed between the years 1742 and 1783, leaving a remainder of seventeen parishes. There is obviously a strong probability that the majority of these were enclosed in the eighteenth century.
But in this calculation I have treated the 21,900 acres of woodland as though it were part of the enclosed parishes. If it be considered to belong indifferently to open and enclosed parishes, the above calculation must be modified. We then have ninety-four parishes open in 1793, and twenty-seven enclosed; fourteen out of the ninety-four would be enclosed without Parliamentary sanction between 1793 and 1845, leaving only ten parishes so enclosed at some unknown date earlier than 1793.
By dealing with the Bedfordshire estimate on the basis of acreage instead of parishes, I arrive at the following statement of the history of the enclosure of Bedford:—
| Acres. | |
|---|---|
| Ancient woodland and waste, which passed directly into individual use, and ancient roads, &c. | 43,000 |
| Common fields, meadows and pastures enclosed before 1742 | 33,000 |
| Ditto enclosed from 1742–1793 by Acts of Parliament | 23,883 |
| Ditto enclosed from 1742–1793 not by Acts | 26,000 |
| Ditto enclosed from 1793–1900 by Acts | 114,430 |
| Ditto enclosed from 1793–1900 not by Acts | 58,000 |
| Total | 298,313 |
Arthur Young, in June, 1768, travelled through Bedfordshire to St. Neots, and then close to the boundary between Bedford and Huntingdon to Kimbolton and Thrapston in Northamptonshire. He found from Sandy to St. Neots the country chiefly open, and that it continued so to Kimbolton and Thrapston; though with regard to the two latter places he mentions enclosed pastures (“Northern Tour,” 2nd Ed., Vol. I., pp. 55–59). This, so far as it goes, tends to confirm our conclusions.
I am anxious not to lay any undue stress on the above arithmetical calculations; but I think it is quite clear that up to the year 1742 the condition of the county of Bedford was that indicated by Leland’s description.
Leland passed through Bedfordshire in his “Itinerary.” From Vol. I., fols. 116–120, we find that from Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, about 2 miles from the Bedfordshire boundary, to Bedford (14 miles) was “champaine” from Wellington village, near Bedford, to Antchille Castle (Ampthill), “12 miles almost al by Champayn Grounde, part by corne and part by Pasture, and sum baren hethy and sandy grounde.” Then “From Antchille to Dunstable X m. or more. First I passed partely by woddy ground and Enclosures. But after most parte by champaine Grounde.... And thens to Mergate al by Champaine a vj miles.” And so out of Bedfordshire. A small part of the county was ancient woodland, a smaller part was cultivated land reclaimed from the forest state, which had never passed through the common fields system of cultivation, but almost all was in the condition of the typical open field parish, common field arable, commonable meadows, and common pastures, with a certain amount of enclosure round the villages. It would appear that during the 200 years following Leland’s journey only an insignificant amount of progress in enclosure took place in Bedfordshire. This conclusion is not contradicted, but on the other hand it is not strikingly confirmed by Walter Blyth (“The English Improver,” 1649), who enumerates as unenclosed “the south part of Warwick and Worcestershire, Leicester, Notts, Rutland, some part of Lincoln, Northampton, Buckingham, some part of Bedfordshire, most part of the Vales of England, and very many parcels in most counties.”