8 A ROYAL PURVEYANCE IN THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



formerly the property of one lord, and that their disposition was a 

 matter of choice, and not of necessity or accident. The valleys are 

 almost without exception intersected longitudinally by rivulets, and 

 the sides of these bournes being the most eligible situation for 

 buildings, were of course selected for the houses of the villagers. 

 Consequently the shape of the manors became a narrow oblong : 

 each manor required water and meadow ground, and also, as coal 

 was very little, if at all, in use at this time, wood for fuel. The 

 meadow ground very properly was situated near the river, and the 

 woods on the tops or sides of the hills, and the woods which remain 

 evidently show that the summits of the hills were originally wood- 

 land. Thus the apportioning of these woods, low ground, and 

 water, accounts for that long narrow form which may be observed 

 in many of the manors of this district, and which are often found 

 stretching across from the brooks and rivers to the former woodland 

 country. Thence another manor from the ancient woodland to the 

 next river or brook, extending five or six miles in length, and from 

 half-a-mile to a mile in breadth, including those downs which were 

 formerly covered with wood at one end, and meadow ground and 

 water at the other. Hence arose the favourite idea among the 

 down farmers that no farm could be advantageously disposed for the 

 general circumstances of that country unless it had water-meadow 

 at one end, and maiden down at the other. 



The manors were therefore naturally divided into long narrow 

 strips from river to wood, with the right to use of both, and as such 

 appear to have been a combination given by the original granters, 

 or superior lords, to the grantees or inferior holders. While the 

 system of common-field husbandry existed in its original state, and 

 every yard-land had its farm-house, its yard for cattle, its barns 

 and its stables, such an arrangement had its advantages as well as 

 its inconveniences. 



Apparently, the application of the land in North Hants was 

 almost uniform. The common meadows, of which the greater part 

 were watered, immediately adjoined the river, the houses and 

 small inclosures as near to it as possible. Next followed the arable, 

 or " errable " in Elizabethan spelling, until the land became too 

 steep or too thin to plough, and then the sheep and cow downs, 

 at the extremity, and frequently the woods of the manors in the 

 opposite bourne. In some instances, particularly where the bournes 

 approach their junctions, and sometimes at the heads of the streams 



