A RECENT ENCLOSURE--CASTOR AND AILESWORTH.
Up till 1898 an even better example of an open-field parish could be seen in Northamptonshire. In that year was completed the enclosure of Castor and Ailesworth, two hamlets forming part of the parish of Castor, situated three miles from Peterborough on the road to Northampton. In 1892, when application was made to the Board of Agriculture, which now represents the Enclosure Commissioners of the General Enclosure Act of 1845, there were in the two hamlets, out of a total area of 4976 acres, 2,425 acres of common arable fields, 815 acres of common pastures and meadows, and 370 acres of commonable waste, and only about 1300 acres enclosed. In Laxton the commonable land is less than half the area of the parish. The greater amount of old enclosure in Laxton has had its effect on the distribution of the population. There are some, though very few, outlying farmhouses. In Castor and Ailesworth all the habitations and buildings, except a watermill and a railway station, are clustered together in the two hamlets, which form one continuous village. At present very nearly all the land of Laxton and Eakring is in the ownership of the respective lords of the two manors; in Castor and Ailesworth the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are the largest landowners; but nearly as much land is the property of Earl Fitzwilliam, and there are besides a number of small landowners. Before enclosure all these properties were intermixed all over the area of the two hamlets, the two chief properties coming very frequently in alternate strips.
Though the area of commonable land in Castor was so much greater than in Laxton, those customs of village communal life which we have described had retained much less vigour; and to the decay of the power of harmonious self-government the recent enclosure was mainly attributable. The customary method of cultivation in Castor and Ailesworth was a three-field system, but a different three-field system to that described above. The succession of crops was:--First year, wheat; second year, barley; third year, a “fallow crop,” or as locally pronounced, “follow crop.” Each year in the spring the farmers and toft-holders of Castor, and similarly of Ailesworth, would meet to decide the crop to be sown on the fallow field. One farmer, who held the position--though not the title--of “Foreman of the Fields,” kept a “stint book,” a list of all the villagers owning common rights, and the number of rights belonging to each. The number of votes that could be cast by each villager depended upon the number of his common rights. The fallow crop might be pulse or turnips or other roots or anything else that seemed advisable; but it was essential to the _farmers’_ interests that they should agree upon some crop. For a tradition existed in the village that unless the farmers were agreed as to the crop to be sown on the fallow field, that field could be treated as though it really were fallow. It could be pastured on all the year by all the toft-holders, and any crop which any farmer might sow would be at the mercy of his neighbours’ cattle and sheep. I could not find that this had ever happened. On the other hand, the farmers being agreed about the crop, they could also determine the date when the fallow field should become commonable.[2] The wheat-field and barley-field became commonable after harvest; the meadows and pastures were commonable between August 12th and February 14th.