Fence, Fencing, Inclosure of the cotswolds, Gloucestershire

Since the early eighteenth century, the rural landscape of Gloucestershire & most of the English farming countryside has gone through a radical change, from communally farmed or worked plots to the inclosed, walled or fenced fields and woods we see today.
   The open arable fields, common rights of pasture & cutting furze, turf & wood collecting on wasteland, woods & downland derived from the Saxon colonization. This community method of farming, although ensuring a fairly equal share of the local resources, prevented any change or progression, right up to the early eighteenth century.
   The medieval three open field system, one field laying fallow and two cultivated was carried on in the more fertile areas but, on the poor soils of the cotswolds, a two field system was often implemented, the arable being rested every other year. Later on, a better rotation system was implemented by dividing the open fields into smaller areas (up to six).
   Each area or field was divided into strips, being areas of furlongs, which allowed for sowings of early and winter crops. These strips, ridge and furrowed by ploughing, were 4 yards wide and a furlong, 220 yards long. Many years of ploughing each side of the strips pronounced the ridges and we can plainly see those ridge and furrows today. An excellent example can be seen in the field next to Leckhampton church yard, (church Rd), also, fields on the right hand side of Leckhampton Lane, past the church.

Poorer inhabitants would have course been very grateful to his grazing rights on the stubbles and wasteland and he could graze as many animals as the pasture allowed. By the start of the eighteenth century, restrictions, or a 'stint' of a maximum total of individual types of stock to each person was implemented.
   By this time, the population was strongly increasing and demands on our food source was heavy, especially with the Napoleonic wars looming. Britain had to become self supporting.

Many larger landowners of course could see an opportunity to become more wealthy. James Leigh, farmer at Adlestrop, wrote in his diary..."There is I think no reason to doubt, if all the 32 yard lands in Adlestrop Field were fallen into my hands & that I had money sufficient to spare...an inclosure might be safely & advantageously undertaken at Adlestrop...the improvement would pay very good interest for the whole sum laid out...& likewise yield some clear gain to the proprietor besides the satisfaction he would enjoy in the thoughts of having his estate put in the best condition possible & every thing about him right and convenient."

Rudge said in his "General view of the agriculture of the county of Gloucester" (1807), "The farmer (tenant) is aware of the evil, but his hands are tied up from improvements while the lands are entangled with each other...proprietors of different tempers and various degrees of industry".

Many landowners would become rich through inclosure but many ordinary folk had a centuries old right taken away. Rents for enclosed land was up to four times greater than unenclosed land. Inclosure has been condemned as a gigantic swindle on the part of large landowners, which of course made them very rich, very quick. Oliver Goldsmith, in his well known rhyme (attributed), summed it up thus...
'They hang the man, and flog the woman,
That steals the goose from off the common;
But let the greater villain loose,
That steals the common from the goose."

Because of the general lack of success & political arguing concerning the inclosure results, the act of 1836, confirmed in 1845 stated that inclosure be carried out with a proviso that two thirds of landowners were in favour.

Practical reasons why land was inclosed.
See this excellent article on the Inclosure of Whitgreave in Stafford at rescuingthepast.co.uk