III. MAP OF PART OF THE MANOR OF MAIDS MORTON IN BUCKSHIRE (1580.)
IV. MAP OF PART OF THE MANOR OF CRENDON IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE (ABOUT 1590.)
But while the pasture ground and meadow offered special facilities for enclosure, there is abundant evidence that the farmer’s arable land was also in many cases enclosed. On some manors the whole of the arable demesne lay together, and in that case there was no obstacle in the way of enclosing it. More usually it lay in three pieces, one block in each of the three great fields, and here again, when there was sufficient motive for enclosure, enclosure was easily practicable. The only arrangement which offered a really difficult problem was that in which it was divided into acre and a half strips scattered about the manor at a distance from each other. One finds cases in which such strips numbered several hundred, but the impression given by surveys is that, at any rate by the middle of the sixteenth century, such extreme subdivision was exceptional, and that the consolidation of holdings by means of exchange and purchase, which we have seen at work from an early date on the holdings of the customary tenants, had often proceeded so far on the demesne as to have rounded off the farmer’s property into comparatively few large holdings. As an illustration of the first steps towards unification and enclosure we may take the manor of Sparham,[409] in Norfolk, which was surveyed about 1590. Here the 189 acres which compose the demesne, and which are leased to a farmer, are still much scattered. They lie in seventy different pieces, most of which are quite small, acres, half-acres, and roods. But even here there has been a considerable amount of consolidation, and it has been followed by the beginnings of enclosure. The 37½ acres of pasture lie in five pieces of 11, 9, 7, 5, 5½ acres, all of which have been enclosed. The arable is still intermixed with the strips of the other tenants in the open fields. But on the arable itself consolidation and enclosure are creeping forward. There are four strips lying together which comprise 6-3/4 acres. There is one enclosure, consisting of arable, wood, and meadow, and containing 17 acres. The neighbouring manor of Fulmordeston[410] offers an example of a state of things in which the same tendency has worked itself out to completion. The 742 acres leased by the farmer of the demesne are entirely enclosed. There are two woods comprising 50 acres. There is an enclosure of 250 acres, 35 perches, consisting of “Corne severall and Broome severall.” There is a “great close" of 130 acres, 1 rood, “longe close" of 57 acres, 3 roods, “Brick kyll close" of 40 acres, 1 rood, “Brakehill close" of 24 acres, 1 rood, a field of 106 acres called Hestell, and another of 83 acres, 2 roods. But these different stages are best illustrated by maps[411] Nos. I., III., IV., V., and VI.
V. MAP OF PART OF THE MANOR OF WEEDON WESTON IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE (1590.)