He also gives a very full description of the counties of Leicester and Northamptonshire. Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, and Rockingham Forest in Northamptonshire, were then very extensive; but all the remainder of the two counties he describes in general as “champaine,” or by words which imply an unenclosed condition. The only mention of enclosure is in the case of two parks in Northamptonshire. (See [Appendix C].)
Warwick.
Warwickshire is divided by the River Avon into two parts of approximately equal area; the north-western part is a district of ancient enclosure, probably enclosed in the main direct from the forest state; the south-eastern part has a similar enclosure history to Leicester and Northampton, except that its enclosure took place generally somewhat earlier. One-quarter of the whole county has undergone Parliamentary enclosure, but the proportion so enclosed of the south-eastern part is much larger.
John Wedge, the Board of Agriculture reporter, estimates that in 1793, out of a total area of 618,000 acres, 57,000 was open field land (p. 11). To reduce 618,000 to the true area of the county (577,462 acres), one must deduct 10 per cent. A deduction of 10 per cent. leaves about 51,000 acres of common field. Enclosure Acts since account for 38,444 acres, and in parishes not enclosed by Acts the tithe documents indicate rather over 1000 acres of common field lands. There remains a little over 10,000 acres unaccounted for, which has disappeared between 1793 and the date of tithe commutation.
John Wedge appears to have attempted a list of open field parishes with their area and extent of common field and waste, but only got so far as to supply this information for five parishes (p. 54), each of which has undergone subsequent enclosure by Act of Parliament. He draws attention to the contrast between the two parts of Warwickshire: “About forty years ago the southern and eastern parts of this county consisted mostly of open fields. There are still about 50,000 acres of open field land which in a few years will probably all be enclosed. These lands, being now grazed, want much fewer hands than they did in the former open state. Upon all inclosures of open fields the farms have generally been made much larger. For these causes the hardy yeomanry of country villages have been driven for employment into Birmingham, Coventry, and other manufacturing towns.”
About 90,000 acres was enclosed by Act of Parliament in the part of Warwick described between 1743 and 1798. This, together with the 50,000 acres remaining, amounts to rather less than half the area of the division of the county under consideration. As Wedge clearly was of opinion that the greater part of S.E. Warwick was open at the date he mentions, and as there is no reason for thinking he was wrong, it is to be inferred that a considerable amount of non-Parliamentary enclosure was going on in S.E. Warwick during the second half of the eighteenth century.
The extracts above given with reference to Leicester and Northampton also prove that enclosure was going on in this part of the county during the first half of the sixteenth century, though it had so little advanced up to 1649 that Blyth speaks of this part of the county as unenclosed.
Leland gives an extremely full account of the state of enclosure of Warwickshire, which shows that as early as 1540 the north-west part of the county was “much enclosed.” It was on one of his later journeys that he explored the county, entering from Oxfordshire. He found, “Banbury to Warwick, twelve miles by Champaine Groundes, fruitful of corne and grasse, and two miles by some enclosed and woody groundes” (Vol. IV., Part 2, fol. 162).
“I learned at Warwick that the most part of the shire of Warwicke, that lyeth as Avon River descendeth on the right hand or ripe of it, is in Arden (for soe is the ancient Name of that part of the shire); and the ground in Arden is much enclosed, plentifull of grasse, but not of corne. The other part of Warwickshire that lyeth on the left hand or ripe of Avon River, much to the south, is for the most part Champion, somewhat barren of wood, but plentifull of corne” (fol. 166 a).
We may add, so as to complete our review of the evidence, that William Marshall, in his book on the “Agriculture of the Midland District of England” (1790), treats a region of which the town of Leicester was near the centre, comprising the counties of Warwick, Rutland, the north of Leicester and of Northampton, the east of Staffordshire, and the southern extremities of Derby and Nottingham, as an agricultural unit. He says: “Thirty years ago much of this district was in an open state, and some townships still remain open; there are others, however, which appear to have been long in a state of enclosure, and in which, no doubt, the present system of management originated” (p. 8). This does not add to our information about this district, but the fact that Marshall was perfectly correct in his reading of the story told by the aspect of the country is important, because for some other districts his testimony is material.