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Barwick Enclosure Award 1804


from The Barwicker No.12
December 1988

The Barwick-in-Elmet Enclosure Award of 1804 was probably the most important, single event in Barwick history. It altered the pattern of the ownership, occupation and use of the land in the township. It affected the economic and social life of all those connected with agriculture, which meant the majority of people here. In medieval times, the land occupied by inhabitants of a Village was used in a number of different ways.

(1) Open Fields. There were several of these large fields in Barwick, each probably occupying more than a hundred acres. Some names remain: High Field, Low Field, Richmond Field and Little Field. Each Held was divided into strips, called selions or lands, of perhaps an acre in area. A collection of strips running parallel to one another was called a furlong or, more commonly in these parts, a flat. Each peasant farmer worked several strips in each field, which grew a single crop of barley, oats, peas and beans or was left fallow. The crops were rotated each year. After the harvest, the field was used as common grazing land.
(2) Commons. This was land which had not been cultivated. It provided rough grazing for cattle, geese, etc. and was used for the collection of wood or turf for fuel. It was sometimes called waste.
(3) Ings. These were meadows near streams. How the hay produced was allocated to individual farmers in Barwick in medieval times is not known. Much later, in 1764, the Rector had two parcels of land in Barwick Ings; these were termed "a six day mowing" (six acres) and "a one day mowing" (one acre). In 1716, the Town Book lists 11 persons having a total of 67 beastgates in Barwick ings. A beastgate allowed a person to graze one cow on the land, after haymaking. The Rector had 16½ beastgates. Another miracle?


Open-field agriculture began to be modified in Tudor times. It was difficult to bring about the changes necessary for agricultural improvement, that is to bring in new crops or grazing methods. Some landowners wanted complete control over their own farming activities. Some changes were severe, as when the Lord of the Manor of Wharram Percy removed the population and introduced large-scale sheep farming.

More usually, owners wished to enclose land in smaller "closes", worked individually, not communally. They acquired strips bordering their own, by purchase or exchange, until they had pieces of land of sufficient size to enclose. Also, parts of the common could be enclosed, producing "intakes".

Flintoft's map of 1772, kept at Sheepscar, shows the extent of these processes in Barwick. It shows and names the open fields, commons and ings still existing at that time. the open fields occupied about 350 acres. Some Barwick farmers had grazing rights on Barnbow Carr. The unshaded areas surrounding the village represents already enclosed land.

During the latter half of the eighteenth century, what was left of the open-field system of agriculture was almost completely destroyed by the parliamentary enclosure movement. In each parish or township, prominent landowners introduced private acts of Parliament to enclose the open fields and commons. Between 1760 and 1800, about 1500 enclosure acts were passed.

The Barwick Enclosure Act was introduced in 1796. There is a copy in the Reference Department of the Leeds City Library. It is a long document of 53 pages and about 25,000 words. It was introduced by the "proprietors": Sir Thomas Gascoigne, Lord of the Manor Sir William Milner, baronet ; the Hon. Isabella Gray, widow; James Fox, esq.; Edward Lascelles, esq.; Edward Wilkinson,esq.; Ellis Burroughs, clerk; John Grey, gent.; the Rector (Rev. Robert Deane) and several other (unnamed) persons.

It was an act to enclose the open fields, ings and commons of Barwick township, that is Barwick parish excluding Roundhay. The reason advanced by the proprietors was because of "inconveniences". "And whereas the lands and grounds of the said properties within the said Fields and lngs lie intermixed and dispersed in small parcels and in their present state are j incapable of any considerable improvement, 11. would be of great importance to all persons interested that (the land) .... be divided and improved."

Three Commissioners were appointed to administer the Act: William Dawson of Tadcaster, John Crowder of Brotherton and John Sharp of Gildersome. When the last-named died, he was replaced by William Whitelock of Brotherton.

The procedure for calling meetings, hearing witnesses I etc. was carefully laid down. The lands were to be "perambulated, surveyed, qualitied and valued". They were to divide and award the land on very carefully described criteria. Nothing must prejudice the Lord of the Manor's rights of soil and of toll, his water mills and his fish ponds. There was much consideration given to the tithes of the Rector and others. The methods by which land was allocated to existing freeholders, copyholders and those with encroachments on the common, were dealt with at length. The cost of the Award was borne by those allocated land.

The Enclosure Award was not completed until 1804. There is a copy in the Leeds District Archives at Sheepscar. It consists of 61 pages of parchment, each about 30 inches square. The penmanship is very tine and it is clearly legible except for the last page. Unfortunately there is no map, which makes location at" individual plots very difficult.

Total area of the township
6934 acres
100%
Open Fields
 601 acres
8.5%
Commons and Wastes
 1934
28%
Ings
28
4.5%

The remainder was land already enclosed.

The Award contains a detailed description of the boundaries of the township. The roads which were to be made or altered are described, including:

(1) Highways, such as York Road,
(2) Private roads and public bridleways, such as Miry Lane, and several "occupation roads" which gave farmers access to their land, and
(3) Footroads, which form our present rights of way.

Two new public drains were to be dug, on Barnbow Carr and Barwick Ings. Land was allocated for quarries and gravel pits to supply materials for maintaining the roads.

Then follow details of the 185 new closes created by the Award and their allocation to 75 named individuals. The area of each allotment is given and the owners of the plots bordering it are named. The new owners had to plant quickset (hawthorn) hedges, dig ditches and maintain drains.

There was a map drawn at the time to show the allotments made but this has disappeared. Without this, it is virtually impossible to reconstruct the Award. We are still hopeful that someday we may locate it in a dusty corner at some archive. It is likely that in the years following the Award, closes were bought, sold and exchanged as the landowners sought to improve their holdings.

Allotments were made to the trustees of Barwick School and to Barwick township for relief of the poor. The Rector, now James Hodson, was awarded 20 allotments totalling about 900 acres, more than a third of the land available. Sir Thomas Gascoigne, the Lord of the Manor, received 13 allotments totalling about 120 acres for his right of soil, but agreed that his ten acre coney warren should be totally "destroyed and discontinued".

There are several pages of the Award devoted to the allocation of some land to residents of Seacroft in exchange for a previously-disputed right of grazing on Whinmoor. The Award also shows exchanges of old and new enclosures with others to make more convenient holdings.

The Enclosure Award was made six years after the Act. It was not however the end of the legal process. Despite the careful description of the procedures which the Act required, the Commissioners were found to have inadvertently omitted to carry out some notifications correctly. Doubts about the legality of the Award arose. An additional short act had to be introduced in 1809 to order that the Award was "good, legal, valid and effectual to all intents and purposes, as if such notice or notices and other forms required by the Act had been duly given and published". The new act did not allow the Commissioners to levy any further sums of money, so presumably they had to pay for the act themselves.

The Enclosure Award tells us little about any changes in land use which arose from it. Ho changes in agriculture are specified there. The Award provided the machinery by which changes in land use were made possible. The Award allowed the changes which produced the typical "English" landscape; a patchwork of fields of 5-10 acres with regular shapes, ditched and hedged with hawthorn, and having a variety of crops and grazing uses. A short walk around the village in summer will reveal perhaps a dozen different uses. The landscape is again changing rapidly as hedges are grubbed up, producing vast fields growing a single crop.

The enclosure movement did not produce, in Barwick, compact blocks of land which could be farmed as a complete unit and on which the farmer could build a new house. All the Barwick farmhouses were in the village in the 1860 's and this remained substantially the same until this century (see "Farming in Barwick in the 1920's" in "The Barwicker" No. 8).

Can we see any evidence of pre-enclosure agriculture in the Barwick of today? There is still pasture land which shows the feature called "ridge and furrow". This was produced by medieval ploughing, when the forward and backward operation threw the soil into low ridges and shallow depressions a few yards apart. If the land was then converted to pasture, it left the feature visible today.

Barwick Ings were so effectively drained that they are indistinguishable under their carpet of barley tram the surrounding fields. The Common has disappeared, to be replaced by regular arable fields and pasture. However, if readers take a stroll along Rakehill Road, past the farm to the bridge, and look to the right, they will see the beck winding its way through a little, steep- sided valley tilled with bushes and trees. This is surely part of the old Common left uncultivated because of the terrain and, as it is no longer grazed, it has reverted to an even earlier, more natural state. It is like a glimpse into a vanished world.



ARTHUR BANTOFT


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