Of the eighty-nine parishes, open in 1793, eighty-eight have been enclosed by Act of Parliament since; so that there was only one parish enclosed without Parliamentary intervention from 1793 to 1903, when the last trace of the Northamptonshire common fields was swept away by the enclosure of Sutton. This fact is remarkable, it points to a wide diffusion of ownership of lands and of rights over the land; and it should be associated with the specially strenuous resistance of Northamptonshire to enclosure in the reign of James I.

The statement that of the enclosed parishes half may be denominated old enclosure, would be more enlightening if one knew exactly what Mr. Donaldson meant by old enclosure. But we find that 113 parishes (which is as near as possible half 227) were enclosed by Acts passed in the period 1765–1792; if therefore by “old enclosure” he means enclosure dating back more than twenty-eight years, his statement would imply that there was no enclosure without an Act in that period. Nineteen parishes were enclosed by Act in the five years 1760–1764, eighteen in the period 1749–1759, and four earlier. These Acts altogether account for the enclosure of 153 out of the 227 parishes, and there is evidently a strong balance of probability that the enclosure of the remaining seventy-two took place almost entirely before the middle of the eighteenth century.

Leicestershire.

R. Monk, the reporter for Leicester, gives as an Appendix a list of the “Lordships” of that county, with the names of the Lords of the manors, or chief landowners, and the date of enclosure, when he could ascertain it. He only knew of ten open field parishes and of two half open and half enclosed; but, of these, four, Cold Overton, Cole Orton, Whitwick and Worthington, have not since been enclosed by Act of Parliament; they must therefore have been enclosed voluntarily at the end of the eighteenth or in the first half of the nineteenth century; for the tithe documents for these parishes do not indicate any surviving common field. For thirty-five of the parishes not enclosed by Act of Parliament, Monk gives no information; of the following fifteen he gives the date of enclosure:—

Parish.Enclosed.
Shanktons1738
Birstall1759
Beeby1761
Thurnaston1762
Saxelby1765
Frisby1769
Stretton Parva1770
Stapleford1772
Shearsby1773
Hathorn1777
Ilston1788
South Kilworth1789
Hose1791
Barkston and Plunger1791

The following fifty-five he merely describes as “enclosed”:—

Wanlip he describes as enclosed lately.

The following forty he describes as “old enclosure,” or gives seventeenth-century dates for their enclosure—