WIGLET COMMON. 181 



till in 1587 they were bought by William Poulett, 

 who, in 1647, sold Wigley Manor to William Stanley, 

 the ancestor of the present owner, Mr. Hans Sloane 

 Stanley. Successive members of this family had by de- 

 grees bought up all the land in the Manor of Wigley, and 

 the Manor practically ceased to exist. A neighbour- 

 ing landowner, Mr. Briscoe Eyre, had also bought the 

 great majority of the holdings in Cadnam Manor, but 

 his farm tenants and the remaining tenants of the 

 Manor continued to turn out their cattle on Wigley 

 and Cadnam Commons. The Manor of Cadnam and 

 Winsor belonged to Sir Henry Poulett. 



The grandfather of Mr. Sloane Stanley commenced 

 the scheme of inclosure. Being an ardent sportsman, 

 he inclosed, about thirty years ago, a part of Wigley 

 called Black Hill, on account of its being the resort 

 of black game ; the fences, however, do not appear 

 to have been sufficient to keep out the cattle. In 1880, 

 the present owner proceeded to inclose the whole of 

 Wigley Common with a stone fence. Mr. Briscoe 

 Eyre, who was an active member of the Commons 

 Society, was not the man to allow such a proceeding at 

 his very gate without opposition. He addressed an 

 earnest remonstrance to Mr. Stanley, backed by a 

 memorial numerously signed, urging him to abstain 

 from a step so ruinous to the district and with so little 

 pecuniary advantage to himself. Mr. Stanley, however, 

 positively declined to suspend his inclosure even until 

 some friendly inquiry might be made into the precise 

 legal position of the Common, and the accuracy of his 



