Highleadon Enclosures

Highleadon Enclosures 5ln Investigation of the :J{omesteaas .9L(an Sk((ey Highleadon History Series Volume 5 Preface 'At Highleadon' A vale not deep among the hills, Here the Leadon its current stills, Loitering the banks between, As if enamoured of the scene, He has not forgotten his onward way, As in memory of a long past day, In its history much remains, Constant flow that wax and wanes, Should here relax his angry frown, And, soothed to slumber near the towne, Amid the fields and rural plain, The waters find their placid home. A.S. This is the fifth volume in a series of information about the history of Highleadon and its surrounds. It forms a part of a progressive research. This information was gathered during May and June 2004 © Alan Shelley BA DLA FSTD FRSA, Wycken End, Cheltenham, June 2004. Contents Chapter Page 1. Introduction 1. 2. Field Systems 2. 3. Decline in Openfield 'Common' Agriculture 6. 4. 'Inclosure' at Highleadon 7. 5. A Conjectural View in the Seventeenth Century 9. 6. Changes in the Pattern of Land Ownership 10. 7. White House Farm 11. 8. Highleadon Court Estate 14. 9. Drews Farm and 'Hemmings' Estate 23. 10. Sixteenth Century Highleadon 25. 11. Green End - Property of Squire Foley 26. 12. Vine Cottage/ Villa 30. 13. Drews Farm 31. 14. Snippets from Highleadon' s Past 34. 15. The Parish of Rudford & Highleadon 35. APPENDICES Appendix Page A Highleadon Land Taxes 38. B Tithe Apportionment 1837 41. C Census Returns: 1851, 61, 71, 81, 91 & 1901 48. D Twentieth Century Directories 68. E 'Notes and Queries' 70. F Burials in the Methodist Cemetery 72. G 'More Notes and Queries' 74. H Medieval Gloucestershire 75. I The Muster Role of 1608 77. J The Period Leading to the Civil War 79. K Land Law: Enclosure, Legislation & Common Land 81. MAPS 1. Saxon 'Ledene' 89. 2. Eighteenth Century Highleadon 90. 3. Nineteenth Century Highleadon 91. 4. Twentieth Century Highleadon 92. Introduction The purpose of this volume has been to expand on the information given in volume four about Highleadon's homesteads. This will consider the agricultural background and how the community has changed over the years since its manorial days. At Highleadon much of the general layout remains as it had been several centuries ago. The county road structure and the village green have prevented the kind of developments to be seen elsewhere. Properties dotted around the Green and along the Hartpury lane have very early foundations dating back to the Middle Ages. From its manorial days this hamlet has remained a farming community. Highleadon has retained its historical identity despite being absorbed within the parish of Rudford. The formation of the surrounding landscape has largely been the result of many centuries of farming. Early field systems have created the most permanent features to be seen in the countryside today. Very few, if any, relics remain to indicate the farming methods employed in pre Roman times. Crop marks indicate an early defensive 'fort-like' enclosure in the neighbourhood but more information is merely speculative. The Leadon Vale was disafforested in Norman times and even while it was greatly influenced by the Forest, the Vale was largely 'open'. Historic 'champion' landscapes of the English Midlands, apart from the forested areas, had something in common with the French 'champagne' country. Much of the Gloucestershire countryside was enclosed early with the former 'common-fields' giving way to small fields or closes, individually owned or rented. The 'ancient' or wooded countryside, including the Forest has a parallel with the 'bocage', the bosky landscape of lower Normandy. This is in contrast to the 'champagne' open landscape of northern France. Highleadon in its location within the Vale presented an example of 'open' farming under monastic control, before its gradual enclosure into very small holdings then amalgamating to form the two major farms remaining today. 1 Field Systems The study of field systems is essential to understanding rural communities. They evolved from prehistory to modern times. Fields, and their organisation into patterns we term 'field systems' are among the most evident and more permanent of the man-made features of the countryside. The term 'field' may be employed to include close, croft, meadow, mead, lay (ley) piece or enclosure. Field systems, not only reflect farming practices but also ownership and the social structure of communities and their evolutionary changes. Historic buildings are given a measure of protection, unfortunately such protection does not extend to many of our countryside features. Agricultural efficiency and demands for domestic developments have destroyed some of the historic fabric of the landscape. But fortunately, at Highleadon much still remains. This includes the existing network of lanes and trackways, several overgrown and of course, the Green. Most of the locality had been open countryside, with commons, waste and woodlands, until the enclosure acts by parliament in the 18th and 19th centuries, when a new pattern of fields, roads and access tracks were imposed upon the old order. The earliest field systems (in prehistoric times) like those on southern Dartmoor were planned as a communal enterprise to achieve large scale clearance. Field boundaries, depending upon locality, were created by hedgerows, stone walls, banks or ditches. Initially the patterns evolved around the movement of herds and flocks along droveways to seasonal pastures, highland in Winter and the lowland in Summer. The intervening fields and their patterns were dominated by the highways. Such landscapes are sometimes referred to as 'co-axial'. The farms, their steadings and stockyards were sub-divided into small fields which enabled rotation of grazing. This allowed land to lie fallow and regain healthy condition. Cereal crops were only a minor factor of the early farm economy and only grown for local consumption. 2 Arable cultivation took on greater importance as the technology of ploughing was improved. Mixed farming systems developed to support a rapidly growing population. An account of the countryside during the reign of Julius Caesar in 54 BC describes southern Britain as "well populated and studded with homesteads in a bosky landscape of trackways and woods, excellent for concealing charioteers". Roman villa estates grew up on fertile soils, not necessarily close to any of the newly formed Roman road networks. The earlier Bronze Age roads and trackways continued to service the countryside in general. In the post-Roman period much of the landscape became rough pasture and woodland. A near catastrophic decline in population occurred during the Saxon period, probably from plague. Large estates emerged in the middle Saxon period (c600-850 AD) but by the later Saxon period these estates were broken down into smaller units forming the basis of the manors recorded in the Domesday survey. Even when the population was again on the increase, thirty percent of more of the land was rough pasture or waste. Another third was woodland and chase. During the Norman period of the Middle Ages, the economy and the population was growing. More of the hitherto waste and woodland was cultivated for crops. This began a demand for land which culminated in competition even between the peasants with their lords. The essential minimum of land required for pasture came to be defined and preserved as a second generation of greens, bordered around by tofts the smallholdings of peasant families, who would also cultivate strips in the adjoining arable. This scattered pattern of settlement developed as hamlets - usually around or beside a green. Often these compact areas of grassland were 'linear' comprising wide verges alongside the road. The hamlets were generally named 'X' End, Green or Tye and their name most often emanated from post-Conquest origins. In the Cotswolds and the wooded areas of Gloucestershire there were extensive commons. Many of these had a tradition of 'inter-commoning' by the tenants of neighbouring manors. Rights of inter-common survived into the late 19th century and several commons associations retain a form of such agreement even today. Greens and commons can be seen in large numbers throughout the county on the Isaac Taylor Map of Gloucestershire dated 1777 and in greater detail on the earliest Ordnance Survey Map of 1811. 3 The strip system of the common fields dominated the landscape as pressure on the waste intensified. Woodlands were protected with banks and hedges and were governed by the manor's woodward. Some woodland might be retained in a form of parkland, managed by a 'parker' who would oversee any gaming or deer-park, where they may exist. Many such parks became farms in the 16th and 17th centuries. Several estates retained a game spinney. Perhaps the 'Ruffet' opposite Highleadon Court access drive was one such game spinney? By the 14th century a physical chill had overtaken the climate of southern Britain. A series of failed harvests brought famine to much of the countryside. In 1319-21 the great sheep murrain swept through the flocks causing great distress. The bubonic plague [Black Death] returned after an absence of 700 years. By the 15th century the population had again greatly diminished. Land was readily available, even while much was owned by the monastery. Many of the manorial lords were glad to find tenants for land that would otherwise be waste. Villeinage rapidly gave way to copyhold tenancies whose holders sought to consolidate their strips by agreement into discrete closes. Lords then preferred to lease out their demesnes rather than farm them and their large arable fields were subdivided for farming by rotation with stock. In the 17th century, massive changes of ownership took place following the Dissolution of the religious houses, much of it in royal grants to favourites or on the market at knock-down prices.

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