PARISH AND CHURCH OF PIDDLETRENTHIDE. 5 



a man of the former class sometimes having as many as 30 

 acres or more it is obvious that the English common-field 

 system must have been in full swing long before the reign of 

 Edward the Confessor. It is possible that some of the measured 

 "acres," marked to-day by clearly discernible balks on the hill- 

 sides of Piddletrenthide, are a link between us and the first 

 English eyes that rested on the freshly-cut turf twelve centuries 

 ago. 



The site of two of the common-fields, including a magnificent 

 Combe of Lammas land, is laid down on a plan of land for sale 

 under the Enclosures Act, dated 1816 (in the possession of 

 Mr. J. E. M. Bridge). A third field was evidently situated some 

 distance southward, where acre and two-acre strips are still 

 conspicuous. In the old common-field on the west of the 

 church the strips take the form of curved lynchets, apparently 

 the result of ploughing-out. Other lynchets abound on both 

 sides of the valley ; some of them appear to be terraces cut in 

 the face of the hillside, and some far older than others. A 

 great many are now hidden under copses in fact, all the woods 

 in the parish, with one or two exceptions, are planted upon 

 lynchets. 



The church, dedicated in the name of All Saints, stands upon 

 a picturesque knoll near the northern boundary of the parish, 

 justifying the conclusion that the lower two miles of valley 

 was originally an uninhabited sheep-run. An ancient track 

 runs along the western side of the valley ; beginning in the 

 farther common-field, passing the old reservoir known as the 

 Morning Well and the church, it probably became the village 

 street, leading southwards parallel with the river to the lower 

 common-field and on to Piddlehinton. The site of the ancient 

 village, or Church-Town (as they call it in Cornwall), is now 

 occupied by a few dilapidated cottages and farm buildings of 

 considerable antiquity. 



Of the church which stood at the time of the Norman 

 Conquest no vestige remains. The present Romanesque door- 

 way and piers of the chancel arch show that it was rebuilt early 



