Agricultural Change in Barwick PART 2 THE OPEN FIELDS Back to the Main Historical Society page
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Agricultural Change in Barwick

PART 2 THE OPEN FIELDS


from The Barwicker No. 32

December 1993


The first part of this article (see 'The Barwicker' No.31) showed that in 1764 the Rector of Barwick owned about 135 acres of land divided between numerous plots as part of an open field system of agriculture.

This complex system of land use was begun in Saxon times and was not imposed from above but arose from good farming practice. The most efficient method of arable farming involved some form of cooperation and sharing by the peasant tenants. An example of this was in ploughing. The amount of land cultivated by a single person or family was limited and ploughing would only occupy a small portion of the farmer's time. His plough and team of perhaps eight oxen - thin, scrawny beasts by all accounts - would therefore be idle for most of the time. A more efficient system would involve the sharing of the plough and team by two, three or more farmers. who each would contribute some oxen to the team. which would then be more fully occupied. Such a scheme would require agreed and accepted customs and rules which could be enforced if necessary by the manorial court. Agricultural settlements were established by people coming together. not only for their own protection and company. but in order to farm the land efficiently.

The open fields were divided by grass baulks into named flatts. as illustrated in Part 1. The flatts were divided into long narrow strips. with each tenant farmer working several strips scattered throughout the fields. The shape of the strips arose from good ploughing practice. It would have been no easy matter to control a team of eight oxen and therefore it was desirable to make as few turns as practicable. After ploughing a furrow for perhaps two hundred yards. the team could be turned on the 'headland'. the grass baulk at the head of the strip. to begin ploughing in the oppposite direction. In this way. a medieval peasant farmer could plough a strip about twenty yards wide. The strip represented one day's ploughing and is the basis of the modern acre, 220 yards by 22 yards.

The ploughing technique used is well described by Tony Cox in his article 'The History of the Barwick Landscape' in 'The Barwicker' No. 10. It gave rise to the familiar 'rig and furrow' visible in land which was later set aside as pasture and has not been ploughed since medieval times. Depending on how much drainage was required. there might be one. two or more ridges in each strip.

The one acre strip was a very convenient unit of land holding if the plough and team were to be shared on a day by day basis. There was no doubt as to what represented one day's ploughing. On the day that a farmer had the plough. his partners could bring along their part of the team, perhaps help him to harness the oxen and he could plough one of his strips in the agreed fashion. The other partners could then plough one of their strips on subsequent days. If a peasant was obliged as part of his service to 'plough with the lord with one man for five days'. he had to plough five of the lord's strips. It was a system that left little room for argument.

The baulks bordering the flatts were created in order to provide roads crossing the field and for access to all the strips, in addition to acting as headlands. In some flatts, the strips ran at right angles to those in other flatts, as dictated by the lie of the land and the convenience of ploughing. It is possible that each flatt was cleared by the cooperation of all the farmers and then the strips were marked out and allocated to individuals.

The rotation of crops is best illustrated by considering one field over the three year cycle. In the spring of the first year all the strips in the field would be ploughed and sown with barley by the farmer occupying the strip. In the autumn, the crop on each strip would be harvested by the farmer concerned, although there might have been some sharing involved in carrying the crop from the fields.

Once all the strips had been cleared. the field was used for a short time as common pasture, the animals being allowed to wander at will over the field, grazing the grass baulks and the stubble left on the strips, and at the same time manuring the land. This method of grazing involved the minimum of supervision. The strips were then ploughed as before and sown with wheat. This completed the first year's growing activities.

In the following autumn, the crop was harvested. When this was complete, the field could then be used as common pasture as before. Ho crop was sown and the field was left fallow throughout the remainder of year two and the whole of year three. This did not mean no work was done on the field, otherwise weeds would grow and take the nutrients from the soil just like a sown crop. The land was left fallow to give an opportunity to rid the field of weeds. This was done by allowing the animals to graze and by each farmer working his strips at a time in the year when the plough and the team were not being used in the other fields. Manuring of the fields could also be carried out at this time. The end of the fallow year completed the three year rotation of the crops.

Although the broad outlines of the workings of the system are understood, we know little of any local variations that might have arisen in Barwick. We know very little too about the attitude of mind of the men who worked open field land. It was a life combining individual effort an their own plots and cooperation with others in common pursuits. We know nothing of the tensions caused by these sometimes competing activities, except where self interest caused a man to be punished by the manorial court for neglect of his communal duties. What it felt like to work the land under the open field system, in Barwick and elsewhere, we do not know, as those involved were illiterate and left no record of their lives. The documents that remain were left by landowners and economists who were critical of the system because they wanted to end it.

The terrier of 1764 shows the open field system in Barwick township was almost at an end. Barnbow, Scholes, Kiddal and Potterton were largely enclosed as was Barwick itself except for the four open fields to the south and east (see map 'The Barwicker' No.31). It was difficult for an individual farmer in the open field system to introduce any change such as improved pasturage or new crops if the agreed timetable of sowing, reaping and common grazing was to be kept. We do not know whether the four year rotation of turnips, barley, a green crop and wheat described in 'The Barwicker' No.7 had been introduced by 1764 but it seems likely that it had been.

With the break up of open fields into separate closes, a farmer could make what alterations he liked to his cropping and grazing methods. The pressure for enclosure would undoubtedly have come from those with most to gain, that is the large landowners. Although the open fields occupied a comparatively few acres the prize was the vast common of Whinmoor. The terrier gives us some idea of the dominance of the large (titled) landowners in the Barwick open fields. The number of times the large landowners are mentioned in the document is as follows:

Sir Thomas Gascoigne Bart.(Lord of the Manor) 35
Lord Bingley 41
Sir Brian Cooke Bart 11
Sir William Milner Bart 8
Cooke and Milner also held much land in the already enclosed parts of Barwick.

The other landowners named in the document are :-

'Jackson' with 20 mentions,
Joseph Dixon (8),
Thomas Bean (6),
'Mr' Reed (5),
William Thompson (4),
William Hick (4),
Ingram Varley (3),
Jonas Doughty (3),
Richard Braim, William Slaytor, John Hague,Thomas Collet (2 each),
John Woad, 'Dodgson', William Hague, John Wright, 'Smith', Joseph Daniel and 'Taylor' (1 each).


Image result for Thomas Gascoigne, Eighth Baronet portrait
Sir Thomas Gascoigne, Eighth Baronet.

From a portrait at Lotherton Hall by Pompeo de Batoni, Rome, 1779.

With this dominance by large landowners with much to gain from enclosures, why had the open system remained so long? Vas this because of opposition from the only other substantial landowner, the Rector of Barwick? We do not know. But it is significant that enclosure was complete in those parts of the township where the Rector held no land but it had been delayed where he had substantial holdings. The saviour of the Barwick open fields seems an unlikely role for the Rector of the time, John Sumner, who is described by Colman as 'a great pluralist'. His aim seems to have been to accumulate as many lucrative posts as he could, including Headmaster of Eton and Provost of King's College, Cambridge, without devoting any time to Barwick. His successor, Robert Deane, a man who lived in Barwick far most of his incumbency was one of the prominent landowners who brought in the Barwick Enclosure Act of 1798, ( "See the Barwicker No. 12") which added greatly to the value of the living.

ARTHUR BANTOFT


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