Review Article: Fields, Farms, and Families: Agrarian History in Kent 1 by ALAN V .P.ITT
Review Article: Fields, Farms, and Families: Agrarian History in Kent 1 By ALAN V .P.ITT
ENT has been both fortunate and un- H.M.C. volume !) Much of the work in verna- fortunate in its historians. In Hasted it cular architecture that has been done locally is K produced one of the finest of the older of first-rate qualtity, it is true, particularly that county histories. In the nineteenth century it of S. E. 9`igold, whose important article produced more than its fair share of regional 'Some Major Kentish Timber Barns' (Archaeo- and parish histories, a number of them works logia Cantiana, LxxxI, 1966) would have been of real scholarship like John Furley's History of a welcome addition to the volume under re- the Weald of Kent (I87I), and many by no view. But there is no general survey of Kentish means to be despised, though we should now vernacular buildings to compare with, say, regard them as antiquarian in tone. In the those of Monmouthshire and Cambridge- more modem development of local agrarian shire. Although at the amateur level, more- history, however, its performance cannot be over, there is a widespread interest in local described as more than average. True, it has history in Kent--it has more local history produced a few seminal studies, amongst them societies than any county but Lancashire, the work of 9`. A. L. Smith, F. 9.. H. Du nearly sixty in all--much of this interest is Boulay, and Alan Baker, the last two of whom charmelled in the direction of archaeology are represented in this volume. But consider- rather than the historical reconstruction of ing the importance of its agrarian and settle- Kentish society. The unfortunate recent de- ment history, from both a local and a national mise of the local historical journal Cantium, standpoint, Kent has not produced much and the overwhelming bias of Archaeologia published work of the same kind and class as Cantiana itself over the past fifty years, both that ofW. G. Hoskins and the Victoria County serve to underline this fact. One does not wish History for Leicestershire, or that of Margaret to tilt at archaeology, still less at Archaeologia Spufford, J. lk. 9.avensdale, and the V.C.H. Cantiana, which amongst county journals has for Cambridgeshire, though both these coun- maintainedunusuallyhighstandards of scholar- ties are much smaller than Kent and less well ship. But one does hope very much that the endowed archivally. The 9.ecords Branch of volume under review, by ranging over a wide the Archaeological Society has produced variety of subjects directly or indirectly re- some useful volumes; but it is not in the lated to agrarian history, will stimulate further same street as the Northamptonshire 9.ecord work. Society or some of the North Country socie- There is any amount to be done, and per- ties. The V.C.H. never got as far as the first haps we have not much excuse for not doing topographical volume and in its general it. This is not the place for a discourse on articles typically devoted three times as much archival sources in Kent; but it may be said space to sport as to agriculture. The Historical at once that few areas have better archive Monuments Commission has never turned its offices, and there are not many with larger attention to the county--astonishingly, since collections of the basic records of agrarian it has more surviving medieval and sub- history. Wills and probate inventories, family medieval buildings, including farm buildings, archives and estate papers, maps and plans of than any other county in England. (How one farms and estates, medieval and early modern envies west Cambridgeshire its won.derful ecclesiastical archives, the records of small i. x Margaret t ,% boroughs arid market towns, Anglo-Saxon be said about such a subject in three arid a half charters, the evidence of place-names, of farm pages, and in any caseJordan's account is not r II buildings, arid of the landscape itself: all of based on original research and contains several these are exceptionally abundant in Kent, as misleading statements. It is ironical that his :i one quickly discovers in turning to other description of Kent as one of the most urban of areas. Sometlfing of the wealth of the records English counties (pp. 87-8) is followed on the il of Christ Church, Canterbury, comes to light very next page by Christopher Chalklin's in three essays in this volume, by Miss Smith, comment--possibly a little exaggerated but Dr Baker, and Professor Du Boulay. Some- surely nearer the truth--that the atmosphere of thing of the wealth of local estate material has these Kentish towns "can hardly have differ- been shown elsewhere by one of the editors, ed from that of the surrounding countryside." Miss tkoake, in her thesis on the Smith- The remaining articles are naturally of vary- Masters family of Camer: a family that was ing quality and interest to agricultural histor- highly typical of those many new minor gen- ians but they include several seminal studies. try who were rising to local prominence in the Probably the most important is Alalx Baker's .eighteenth century, and whose history in most on 'Some Fields and Farms in Medieval Kent', parts of England is almost a complete blank. an article which is of wider significance than For these reasons this volume is a particu- its modest title implies, arid which is basic to larly welcome one. The editors have had the the study of early Kentish settlement as well as useful idea of reprinting a series of twenty- medieval agriculture and society. It is a pity three articles from the pages of Archaeologia that Dr Baker's scattered articles oi1 Kentish Cantiana. They have prefaced it with a brief fields and field systems, all of them important, introduction in which they say that "in mak- have never been brought together within a ing their choice [they] have sought to offer a single book. reasonably balanced picture of the social and Ann Smith's article on 'Ikegional Differ- economic scene from the Middle Ages to the ences in Crop Production in Medieval Kent' is nineteenth century." In this they have suc- also important, particularly for its massive ceeded arid deserve our gratitude. Ten of the statistical analysis of the Beadles' P,.olls of articles relate to the period before about 1735 Canterbury Cathedral Priory. It is unfortunate and twelve to more recent times. A useful that it is marred in places by confusing state- article on Kentish historiography by Dr Felix ments, arid by an obscure and occasionally Hull, the cotmr¢ archivist, is also included. slovenly style. "Beans was chiefly a garden Archaeologia Cantiana was first published in crop" (p. 44) and "a strata within the major I859, and since then it has produced eighty- formation" (p. 49) are amongst its grammati- eight volumes; but none of the articles here re- cal infelicities. Three manors near Ashford are printed dates from before 1917, a fact that "is described as on the "western Lower Green- explained by the changing nature of historical sand," whilst four between Maidstone and research and the current interests of economic Tonbridge, twenty miles further west, are and social historians." The editors also tell us said to be on the "eastern Lower Greensand" that they have in mind a further volume of (p. 41). The author places Appledore in Ikom- essays, based on current research in the econo- hey Marsh and is then surprised (p. 41) at the mic and social history of Kent. This will be extent of its wheat arid barley land in view doubly welcome, and rio one is better qualified of the "ill-drained nature of the reclaimed to produce it than the members of the econo- marshland." But was this comland in fact in mic history department at Canterbury, with the marsh at all? The settlement arid much of its vigorous interest in the past of the county. the parish lie on the upland above the marsh. All the essays are worth reprinting except Some elucidation is surely necessary also of that by W. K. Jordan. This is not actually an two apparently contradictory statements on article but an extract from the introductory page 43. The implication that barley was pages of his volume Social Institutions in Kent, relatively unimportant on the Lower Green- 148o-1 ##o. Probably nothing very useful can sand is followed in the next paragraph by the w LI J~, AGRARIAN HISTORY IN KENT ISI statement that acreages of oats were small on still poorer than the east. Was the economic these lighter soils, to whi& the more profitable rise of the Weald in the late medieval period grains of wheat and barley were more suited. due entirely to its industrial development as a The author is in fact up against a difficult prob- clothing and iron-working area, as is often lem in Kent in endeavouring to relate whole suggested, or were there also, perhaps, more manors to a single soil type, when in fact there general and agrarian factors at work? There is are often marked differences in drift geology a great field for research by agricuhuralhistor- within a single manor. Nevertheless, her article ians in this region and period. remains a basic one for the historian of medie- Of the remaining articles probably the most val agriculture. So too does Professor Du important for readers of this journal is David Boulay's brief essay on 'Late-Continued Harvey's 'Fruit Growing in Kent in the Nine- Demesne Fanning in Otford'. Like Miss teenth Century.' In eleven concise pages of Smith's, this is based on the records of Canter- text and two of maps Dr Harvey has concen- bury Cathedral Priory, but its scope is more trated a wealth of detailed information with- limited and relates to a single manor in the out allowing the detail to obscure his general fifteenth century. theme. This is not the complete history of Another important study is P,.. E. Glasscock's fruit farming in Kent, even in the nineteenth 'Distribution of Lay Wealth in Kent, Surrey, century; but as well as providing the outlines and Sussex in the early Fourteenth Century'. of the story it points up many underlying This is of course based on the Lay Subsidy of characteristics that call for further investiga- I334, which also forms the basis of Dr tion. Contrary to popular belief, in most of the Glasscock's &apter on 'England, circa I334' in 400 rural parishes of Kent fruit-growing has Professor H. C. Darby's New Historical Geo- never been important. The maps show that graphy of England (I973). The latter study even at the end of the nineteenth century, throws up su& a number of apparent oddities when it was more extensive than ever before, in the I334 assessments that in moments of there were only two or three limited areas, depression one is inclined to doubt the validity near Faversham and in the middle rea&es of of all taxation records as indices of wealth. the Medway Valley, where or&ards covered In Northamptonshire, for example, we find more than zo per cent of the land. In at least Castor assessed more highly than Northamp- three-quarters of the county they accounted ton, whilst in Norfolk Walpole and Wiggen- for less than 3 per cent of the acreage. hall were more highly rated than King's Lynn. Nevertheless, in terms of profitability, the But Dr Glasscock's more detailed study of cultivation of fruit has long been a basic feature Kent, Surrey, and Sussex suggests that we of the economy of Kent. One of the principal should not take too gloomy a view of such factors in its rapid expansion in the latter half anomalies. Broadly speaking the distribution of the nineteenth century was undoubtedly the pattern ofweahh in Kent in 1334 is confirmed building of railways after 1840. It is hardly too by other lines of argument. Its most important much to say that two of the five fruit-growing characteristic was the relative poverty of the districts of the cotmty were virtually created Weald and most of west Kent and the striking by this means: the Wealden area around concentration of wealth in the east of the Brenchley and the soft-fruit-growing district county. This characteristic does not come as a of north-west Kent around Swanley. For both surprise to anyone who has worked on the these regions the railways not only created a early history of the county: it was simply a market by linking them with London but also continuation of an age-old pattern, in which supplied the means of wealth. For Victorian the east was always the dominant area. It forms London, with its hundreds of thousands of a suggestive contrast, however, with the situa- horses, provided the manure that converted tion in the seventeenth century, when the their relatively infertile farmland, which in the Weald was one of the most populous rural Swanley area included thousands of acres of areas of the cotmty, though west Kent, out- tmcolonized heath and scrub, into the fabled side the immediate vicinity of London, was garden of England. I5z THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW It is one of the merits of Dr Harvey's article time" to purchase the prospective harvest. In that it highlights the remarkable regional the late nineteenth century the area still re- differences between the various fruit-growing mained a genuine natural pays, limited by districts of the county. East Kent, mid-Kent, Chatham and l ¢~ selves, came down in the spring or at "cherryty good sign for the future. )!,