William Marshall’s description of the enclosure of the Vale of Pickering, the most fertile part of the North Riding of Yorkshire, occupying the southern slopes of the Yorkshire Wolds, shows a similar association. In “Rural Economy of Yorkshire,” published in 1788, we read:--“A century ago the marginal townships lay perhaps entirely open, and there are vestiges of common fields in the area of the vale. The West Marshes, church property, have been longer under inclosure; and the central townships were probably inclosed long before those of the margin; the soils of that part being adapted to grass; and while the surrounding country lay open, grass land was of singular value. At present the entire vale may be said to be in a state of inclosures (p. 17).
“Lands are much in the hands of small owners, in general, in the occupation of yeomanry; a circumstance, this, which it would be difficult to equal in so large a district” (p. 19).
He notices (p. 20) that it was the custom to divide lands among all the children, and (p. 24) that the custom of sale of tenant right existed.
“In the present century, more especially in the last fifty years, enclosure has made a rapid progress.... In my own remembrance more than half the vale lay open” (p. 50).
The township of Pickering itself lay open at the beginning of the century. It then had 2376 acres of common field arable, stinted pastures, and 3700 acres of common. “The common fields and common meadows have been gradually contracting by amicable changes and transfers, and are now, in a manner, wholly inclosed. The stinted pastures have, at different times, been inclosed ‘by commission,’ namely, by the unanimous reference to arbitrators.”[80]
[80] An older description of piecemeal enclosure is given by John Houghton: “Would they who plough in champain grounds but change their little parcels; would they who have 6 or 8 acres together make a ditch of 6 or 7 foot wide and deep, and fill it if they would with water, and carry away the bank that it might not be thrown in again, hedges might chance to thrive, and in 2 years (tho’ they to please the people might at certain times lay it open) they would raise more money than they use to do in six.” (Collections, September 16th, 1681, p. 16.) This gives me a pretty fair idea both of the profit and of the unpopularity of such enclosure at the time.