Medieval Enclosures Alan Payne July 2024
Box's landscape totally altered in appearance when the lord decided to lease out his personal land, rather than farm it directly. Some of the change involved the dividing up of the large arable and common fields by forcing the enclosure of small plots called crofts (pieces of farmland with a house). Landlords negotiated the vacation of areas or forcibly evicted commoners and fenced off small areas. Peasants were prevented from re-entering by letting the area out to new tenants. Often these plots were on the periphery of open fields and along roads. Allen's map of 1630 shows the remnants of field strips at Ashley above Weck Farm and next to Ho Grou (probably Hay Grove) and Broad Lay (pasture). It also shows numerous enclosed plots with field names of Little Croft, Burrow Crofts, Oate Croft and Burcow Croft. We might surmise that the lord of Ashley Manor, Anthony Long (died 1578), fourth son of Sir Henry Long of Wraxall Manor, condoned or extended the enclosures when he acquired Ashley Manor about 1550.
An Act of Parliament in 1489 talked about where two hundred persons were occupied and lived by their lawfull labours (arable farming); now there are occupied two or three heardmen (sic), and the residue fall into idleness.[1] Contemporaries talked of local men forced into destitution by evictions and there were numerous Tudor Acts of Parliament against enclosure.[2] As late as 1589 an Act of Parliament forbad erecting a cottage without a minimum of 4 acres of arable land with it.[3]
The demand for land after the 1480s encouraged lords to enclose marginal land, woodland and wastes for renting out. Along the By Brook are field references to wasteland and other poor farming land, including waterlogged land Ludwell and Stichninges or overgrown plots, such as Bushey Lese and Shrubs. This was poorly suited to arable but shows little sign of being enclosed. Instead, the crofts are more evident around the great common fields at Ditteridge, Kingsdown and around Ashley Common.
By the end of the Late Middle Ages, the closes had encouraged ribbon development along the tracks and roads in Box with greater numbers of residents living in the hamlets. This arrangement superseded the pattern of earlier central residences when residents had to walk daily to their scattered strips of land in the common fields. With limited acreage of land, new tenants turned to animal husbandry (beef, milk, sheep and pigs) rather than arable to make a living out of their crofts which required less communal manpower and could be profitable even in adverse weather. Arable kept to the flatter terrain and the steep hillsides were better suited to pastoral farming (grazing of animals). By 1630 local fieldname evidence of animal husbandry was widespread, including Washwells (sheep washes), The Ley (pasture land) and fields called Stey Feilde, Swine Leyes (pig pasture), Befers Iox, Sowe Lease, Culverhaie (referring to doves), Conegar (rabbit warren) and Wever Hayes (sheep enclosure).[4]
Dairy Farming
There was a long tradition of cattle breeding, beef rearing and dairy farming in Box but references to this husbandry increased greatly in the 14th century. In 1306 William Holkeber of la Boxe stole two cows and Clement de Wyke was a dairy farmer in 1332.[5] Dairying was given further impetus after the Black Death when the shortage of manpower curtailed arable farming.
The surnames Cottle (cattle) and Bollwell (bull), which occur in Box around 1600, hark back to dairy or beef grazing origins.[6] The fieldname Fogg Ham refers to dairying: fog being the long grass left standing to provide winter grazing for animals and ham referring to grassland often in the bend of a river.[7] The Barton, at Ashley is an old word associated with a farmyard.[8]
The size of medieval dairy herds was minute compared to modern herds. At Whitely, Melksham in about 1550, a herd was recorded as 4 oxen (possibly for ploughing), 5 kine (cows), 4 bullocks under 2 years and 5 yearlings. A wealthy Corsham farmer in 1666 had 7 plough oxen and 12 cows and steers.[9] Oxen continued to be used for ploughing on Wiltshire heavy clay soils until about 1700. Landlords rarely ran their own dairy operations on their retained farmland, preferring instead to rent out pastureland and sell winter fodder to small family farms. But the cost of setting up in dairy was expensive and beyond the means of many tenants. Established dairy farmers would lease out pregnant cows on an annual lease together with a house and sometimes a dairy. In this way they avoided milking and the sub-tenant (called a dairyman) earned his living from selling the milk, butter and cheese.
The North Wiltshire dairy industry was a highly developed trade by 1500 and large numbers of cows previously kept as beef sucklers were turned to milk production, Wiltshire butter and cheese was sold in London and other towns and was much more common than Cheddar cheese.[10] A local man, John Aubrey, wrote in the late 1600s: I have not seen so many pied cattle anywhere as in North Wiltshire. The county hereabout is much inclined to pied cattle, but commonly the colour is black, or brown, or deep red.[11]
Other Mixed Farming
Despite the new significance of dairying, Box was essentially a mixed farming area: animal pasture (sheep on the hillsides, pigs in the woodland) and arable. Pig farming went alongside the dairy industry, using whey (the by-products of cheese-making) to feed the animals in woodland pastures. It was an automatic fit and the two methods were usually coterminous. Monkton Farleigh Priory had a demesne farm at Chippenham in 1402 with 70 pigs and 17 cows.[12] Chippenham had a large-scale market for pigs by 1379.[13]
The largest group of people in Box was the peasantry holding a cottage and a garden.[14] They grew legumes and kept goats near the house and used the common fields for grazing sheep and cattle when the manorial court permitted. They needed cash to pay rents and they used markets to sell animals at Chippenham, Malmesbury and Bradford, where there were butchers, skinners, tanners, cobblers and other leather workers.[15] The best prices were achieved at markets because every bit of the animal had a value.
Sheep were ideally suited to Box's hilly valley slopes. In some manors every holder of a tenement was allowed to graze annually six sheep on the common.[16] The Pound on Box High Street is a reminder of this, an enclosure for keeping stray animals, controlled by the lord of the manor, and sited adjacent to the barn of the Manor House. Since early feudal times the manorial court appointed a pound keeper, responsible for feeding and watering the animals, to whom a fine had to be paid before release (a charge can still be made of £20 for this).[17] For the landless peasants, employment could be gained as a shepherd employed annually and paid in clothing, perks and some cash at the end of the contract. Although lambing rates were low (0.3 lambs per ewe compared to modern 1.5 lambs) Wiltshire sheep were reputed to be financially worthwhile because they lambed twice a year and could be fattened and driven early to the lucrative London market.[18]
An Act of Parliament in 1489 talked about where two hundred persons were occupied and lived by their lawfull labours (arable farming); now there are occupied two or three heardmen (sic), and the residue fall into idleness.[1] Contemporaries talked of local men forced into destitution by evictions and there were numerous Tudor Acts of Parliament against enclosure.[2] As late as 1589 an Act of Parliament forbad erecting a cottage without a minimum of 4 acres of arable land with it.[3]
The demand for land after the 1480s encouraged lords to enclose marginal land, woodland and wastes for renting out. Along the By Brook are field references to wasteland and other poor farming land, including waterlogged land Ludwell and Stichninges or overgrown plots, such as Bushey Lese and Shrubs. This was poorly suited to arable but shows little sign of being enclosed. Instead, the crofts are more evident around the great common fields at Ditteridge, Kingsdown and around Ashley Common.
By the end of the Late Middle Ages, the closes had encouraged ribbon development along the tracks and roads in Box with greater numbers of residents living in the hamlets. This arrangement superseded the pattern of earlier central residences when residents had to walk daily to their scattered strips of land in the common fields. With limited acreage of land, new tenants turned to animal husbandry (beef, milk, sheep and pigs) rather than arable to make a living out of their crofts which required less communal manpower and could be profitable even in adverse weather. Arable kept to the flatter terrain and the steep hillsides were better suited to pastoral farming (grazing of animals). By 1630 local fieldname evidence of animal husbandry was widespread, including Washwells (sheep washes), The Ley (pasture land) and fields called Stey Feilde, Swine Leyes (pig pasture), Befers Iox, Sowe Lease, Culverhaie (referring to doves), Conegar (rabbit warren) and Wever Hayes (sheep enclosure).[4]
Dairy Farming
There was a long tradition of cattle breeding, beef rearing and dairy farming in Box but references to this husbandry increased greatly in the 14th century. In 1306 William Holkeber of la Boxe stole two cows and Clement de Wyke was a dairy farmer in 1332.[5] Dairying was given further impetus after the Black Death when the shortage of manpower curtailed arable farming.
The surnames Cottle (cattle) and Bollwell (bull), which occur in Box around 1600, hark back to dairy or beef grazing origins.[6] The fieldname Fogg Ham refers to dairying: fog being the long grass left standing to provide winter grazing for animals and ham referring to grassland often in the bend of a river.[7] The Barton, at Ashley is an old word associated with a farmyard.[8]
The size of medieval dairy herds was minute compared to modern herds. At Whitely, Melksham in about 1550, a herd was recorded as 4 oxen (possibly for ploughing), 5 kine (cows), 4 bullocks under 2 years and 5 yearlings. A wealthy Corsham farmer in 1666 had 7 plough oxen and 12 cows and steers.[9] Oxen continued to be used for ploughing on Wiltshire heavy clay soils until about 1700. Landlords rarely ran their own dairy operations on their retained farmland, preferring instead to rent out pastureland and sell winter fodder to small family farms. But the cost of setting up in dairy was expensive and beyond the means of many tenants. Established dairy farmers would lease out pregnant cows on an annual lease together with a house and sometimes a dairy. In this way they avoided milking and the sub-tenant (called a dairyman) earned his living from selling the milk, butter and cheese.
The North Wiltshire dairy industry was a highly developed trade by 1500 and large numbers of cows previously kept as beef sucklers were turned to milk production, Wiltshire butter and cheese was sold in London and other towns and was much more common than Cheddar cheese.[10] A local man, John Aubrey, wrote in the late 1600s: I have not seen so many pied cattle anywhere as in North Wiltshire. The county hereabout is much inclined to pied cattle, but commonly the colour is black, or brown, or deep red.[11]
Other Mixed Farming
Despite the new significance of dairying, Box was essentially a mixed farming area: animal pasture (sheep on the hillsides, pigs in the woodland) and arable. Pig farming went alongside the dairy industry, using whey (the by-products of cheese-making) to feed the animals in woodland pastures. It was an automatic fit and the two methods were usually coterminous. Monkton Farleigh Priory had a demesne farm at Chippenham in 1402 with 70 pigs and 17 cows.[12] Chippenham had a large-scale market for pigs by 1379.[13]
The largest group of people in Box was the peasantry holding a cottage and a garden.[14] They grew legumes and kept goats near the house and used the common fields for grazing sheep and cattle when the manorial court permitted. They needed cash to pay rents and they used markets to sell animals at Chippenham, Malmesbury and Bradford, where there were butchers, skinners, tanners, cobblers and other leather workers.[15] The best prices were achieved at markets because every bit of the animal had a value.
Sheep were ideally suited to Box's hilly valley slopes. In some manors every holder of a tenement was allowed to graze annually six sheep on the common.[16] The Pound on Box High Street is a reminder of this, an enclosure for keeping stray animals, controlled by the lord of the manor, and sited adjacent to the barn of the Manor House. Since early feudal times the manorial court appointed a pound keeper, responsible for feeding and watering the animals, to whom a fine had to be paid before release (a charge can still be made of £20 for this).[17] For the landless peasants, employment could be gained as a shepherd employed annually and paid in clothing, perks and some cash at the end of the contract. Although lambing rates were low (0.3 lambs per ewe compared to modern 1.5 lambs) Wiltshire sheep were reputed to be financially worthwhile because they lambed twice a year and could be fattened and driven early to the lucrative London market.[18]
References
[1] WE Tate, The English Village Community, 1967, The Camelot Press, p.168
[2] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.209
[3] WE Tate, The English Village Community, p.123
[4] See the Allen maps of 162 and 1630
[5] RB Pugh, Wiltshire gaol delivery and trailbaston trials, Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 33, 1978, p.149, 160 and DA Crowley, The Wiltshire Tax List of 1332, Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 45, 1989, p.101
[6] Clare Higgens, Box Wiltshire - An Intimate History, 1985, The Downland Press, p.54-5
[7] John Field, A History of English Field-names, 1993, Longman, p.94 & 97
[8] Pamela M Slocombe, Wiltshire Farm Buildings 1500-1800, 1989, Devizes Books Press, p.8, 16, 63
[9] Pamela M Slocombe, Wiltshire Farm Buildings, p.63
[10] JH Bettey, Rural Life in Wessex 1500-1900, 1987, Alan Sutton, p14
[11] John Aubrey, The Natural History of Wiltshire, 1969, David & Charles Reprint, p.61
[12] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.80
[13] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.51
[14] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.137
[15] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.165
[16] Peter J Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, 1962, Macmillan & Co Ltd, p.14
[17] Clare Higgens, Box Wiltshire - An Intimate History, 1985, The Downland Press, p.92
[18] Peter J Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, p.11
[1] WE Tate, The English Village Community, 1967, The Camelot Press, p.168
[2] EB Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Late Medieval England, p.209
[3] WE Tate, The English Village Community, p.123
[4] See the Allen maps of 162 and 1630
[5] RB Pugh, Wiltshire gaol delivery and trailbaston trials, Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 33, 1978, p.149, 160 and DA Crowley, The Wiltshire Tax List of 1332, Wiltshire Record Society, Vol 45, 1989, p.101
[6] Clare Higgens, Box Wiltshire - An Intimate History, 1985, The Downland Press, p.54-5
[7] John Field, A History of English Field-names, 1993, Longman, p.94 & 97
[8] Pamela M Slocombe, Wiltshire Farm Buildings 1500-1800, 1989, Devizes Books Press, p.8, 16, 63
[9] Pamela M Slocombe, Wiltshire Farm Buildings, p.63
[10] JH Bettey, Rural Life in Wessex 1500-1900, 1987, Alan Sutton, p14
[11] John Aubrey, The Natural History of Wiltshire, 1969, David & Charles Reprint, p.61
[12] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.80
[13] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.51
[14] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.137
[15] John Hare, A Prospering Society, p.165
[16] Peter J Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, 1962, Macmillan & Co Ltd, p.14
[17] Clare Higgens, Box Wiltshire - An Intimate History, 1985, The Downland Press, p.92
[18] Peter J Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, p.11