Some Problems in the Interpretation
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iiii ............ 'i " ii Some Problems in the Interpretation ;ii : of Enclosure Awards By JOHN CHAPMAN ,I! i! ) im maps and awards associated with the formation from a mid-nineteenth-century process of parliamentary enclosure are a award which is completely lacking in a neigh- major source of information about rural bouring mid-eighteenth-century one. !. T England, and have been widely used by both historialls and historical geographers. They I provide abase for studies both of the communal Any attempt to produce a comprehensive pic- i: agricultural system which they abolished and ture of, for example, a comity involves the of the more individual one which followed, initial practical problem of discovering the and their value has been stressed on a number whereabouts of all the awards, for no unified of occasions, notably by Tate3 system exists for their preservation. Whilst ~:i~ Raffler less attention has been paid to the copies of all awards trader die General Enclo- problems encotmtered in their interpretation. sure Act of z 845 passed into the hands of the Harley has drawn attention to the inaccuracy of Board of Agriculture and thence to the Public some of the maps, to the occasional discrepan- Record Office, the only certainty with earlier cies between map and award, and to flxe fact awards is that they were once deposited locally; that copies of the award do not always agree usually, though not invariably, this was with with the original, but difficulties of a more the parish authorities. Most should also have serious and more subtle nature also occur. 2 In been enrolled wifll the Clerk of the Peace to particular, any attempt at comparison or amal- the cotmty but, as Tate has pointed out, this gamation of material from a number of awards obligation was sometimes avoided. 4 Both the is fraught with problems. Although parlia- Clerk's and the parish copies have now nor- mentary enclosm'e is often seen as a country- really found their way to the County Record wide movement, each award was essentially a Offices, but dxis is by no means certain, nor local product, with clauses reflecting the peculi- is it certain that they will have survived in- arities aid ideas unique to the particular town- tact. Thus, in persond searches, two of die thir- ship or parish to a far greater extent than in a teen Monmoufllshire awards, for Ifton and more nationally controlled source such as the Cwmyoy, could not be found? and of the tithe awards. Even the passing of tlie various sixty-nine in west Sussex one, Tangmere, general Enclosure Acts, though encouraging a appears to exist only in an incomplete draft ,'i higher degree oftmiformity, failed to eliminate form, and one, Felpham, solely in map form. G il .... local variations completely. Furthermore, the A similar situation obtains in other counties, process of parliamentary enclosure extended and it is doubtful whether a ioo per cent cover over 3oo years, and both die process itself and is possible in many of those which were sub- ,% die awards which recorded it tended to become stantially affected by the movement. more complex with the passing of time? It is i,! i:i; therefore frequently possible to obtain in- W. E. 'Fate, The English Village Community and the Enclosure Movements, x967, p. n8. I!t ~; E.g.W.E. Tate, 'Enclosure Acts and Awards', His- 5 The Ifton Act is in National Library of Wales (NLW), J i: tory, 5I, I966, pp. x79-8z. Tredegar Park 34/8I. Letters referring to the Cwmyoy 2 j. B. Harley, 'Enclosure and Tithe Maps', Amateur award are preserved at blonmouthshire Record Office !ii : Historian, 7, z967, pp. 265-74. (MCR), D59x.81.33x. Radipole, Dorset (I6o3), and Skipwith, Yorkshire 6 West Sussex Record Office (WSCR): Add. MSS. (*9ox-4), are generally accepted as the first and last. 5z74, 6oo4, 6005. )L : [i[ i zo8 ,t,I iill )!ii , l ;!il ~Ii]! J ENCLOSURE AWARDS lO9 II areas for the subdivisions, are exceptional7 0 Where the documents do exist unmutilated, Pro-enclosure maps providing the required in- major omissions may still occur. A significant formation are occasionally attached to the proportion of awards made before 179o have awards, but this does not seem to have been a no associated map, allotments being distin- very common practice. In general, it is fair to guished by a brief description, such as: "in part say that if the descriptions in file award lack of Porto Field," followed by a list of the pro- precision, it is malikely that an exact reconstruc- prietors of bounding allotments or old en- tion of the fields will be possible. closures, v Only five out of a sample of :fifteen Problems such as these are immediately pre-I79O awards in north-east Yorkshire were obvious, for the documents fail to offer any provided with a map, while in a list for information. More serious, in many ways, is Worcestershire given by West, only ten out of the inaccuracy, or scope for misinterpretation, forty-five had one. From 179o onwards maps of the material which is provided. This affects of the allotments were usual, and all thirty-one even such a basic matter as the total amount of of a Yorkshire sample after this date possess one, land enclosed, for none of the methods avail- though it is worthy of note that West's able for obtaining this figure is without its Worcestershire list shows sixteen out of drawbacks, mid confusion is often caused by a seventy-two p.ost-I79O awards without maps, failure to distinguish between the land newly the last as late as 1816.8 Wlmre the maps are enclosed by an award and the total land allotted. absent, and no near-contemporary alternative Ahhough in theory the enclosure process was source is available, the task of translating the concerned with land which had previously written information into map form is often been open or common, a good deal of land impossible, greatly diminishing its useful- which had formerly been held in severahy was hess. also re-allocated. For an initial period after maps became com- Firstly, anything held to be an illegal en- mon, most awards continued to provide a full croachment was usually simply absorbed into written descri,p tion, thus givin~, the maximmn file common for the purposes of redistribution, possible information. Unfortunately, this ideal and is frequently not distinguished either in the situation did not last, for during the course of award or on the allonnent map. n Such en- the nineteenth century the descriptions tended croachments were normally of recent origin, to become shorter, and after about 185o they having been taken from the common within frequently degenerated into a mere list of the previous twenty years, mad although they owners and acreages, with a key number to the might be numerous their total area was often accompanying map. In west Sussex, of tlxe small. Occasionally, however, they might be awards enclosing more than a single common of more significance, for older encroa&ments or field, only two prior to 185o failed to name might be incorporated,12 and sometimes, as at the area within whi& the allotments were Trelleck in Monmouthshire, the total en- located, 9 whereas after 185o eight out of eleven croached area might be considerable,la The failed to do so. Though the names of the former significance of encroachments is further in- fields frequently appear on the enclosure map, creased by evidence that they were most exact boundaries are rarely shown, and cases numerous where commons were extensive and such as Warningcamp and Byworth, where colmnon fields absent, so that their inclusion the map subdivides the allotments and gives 10 WSCR: Add. MS. 5x74. n They are sometimes differentially shaded, e.g. Trelleck, MCR: INC AW2. 7 Faceby award, P.R.O. : L2xo/IaT. 12 E.g. up to thirty years in Woolavington and 8 j. West, Village Records, I962, pp. I4o-I. Graffham. WSCR: QDD]6/Wx2. i 9 Wenaham in Rogate (1825), WSCR: PAIl x5912o; x3 I.e. 959" 32 acres, made up of I,x22 encroachments, Bosham (1834), WSCR: PAR 25120. Both locate some of which 407 were over twenty years old. MCR: INC allotments, but are incomplete. AW2. i,t iii ~I ) : II0 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY R£VIEW in enclosure totals may have a distorting effect proprietors to trade inconveniently situated on regional patterns? ~ new allotments for old enclosures elsewhere, Secondly, and far more significantly, many and this was frequently done fi'om about I8o5 Izi awards involved old enclosures of undisputed onwards? 8 In some later awards, however, the legality alld of any age. It was common for dealings were much more complex. A few provision to be made for the redistribution of ex&anges were put'ely of old enclosures on detached portions of a proprietor's land where both sides,is presumably as a convenient means these were of small size, usually utlder 3 of legally recording a transfer, and some of the acres, or where two or more owners held land lands concerned might be outside the parishes within a single fence?5 Additionally, pro- or ma.nors specified in the original Enclosure prietors were often permitted to ask for their Acts. 20 Normally these ex&anged laalds repre- q old enclosures to be redistributed where su& sent a very small percentage of the overall clauses did not exist, or where the enclosures total,~1 but locally the figure might be signifi- concerned did not fall within the specified cant, as at Wisborough Green, Sussex, where categories.