218 TOLLARD FALNHAM. 



condition ; both copyholds and leases were renewed 

 from time to time. 



When Lord Rivers became owner, he took steps to 

 extinguish this system of tenure, and to get the land into 

 his hand, and by the year 1850 the greater number 

 of holdings had, by non-renewal of leases and acqui- 

 escence by, or purchases from, the tenants, and other- 

 wise, been in fact got rid of. There is no doubt 

 that, previous to the extinction of such tenancies, the 

 tenants, or owners, had rights of common over the 

 waste land, and were rated for them, but after the 

 change of tenure they lost their legal rights. 



In 1850 the common fields were inclosed and 

 allotted, under the Act for facilitating the inclosure of 

 such commonable lands. Having got rid of customary 

 tenancies and the common-field system, and having 

 freed the Common of the rights pertaining to it, the late 

 Lord Rivers began to inclose. In 1851 he took up 

 twenty acres of the waste, and in 1854 sixty -four acres. 

 In 1850 he inclosed the residue of the Common, of 

 seventy-five acres. The main object of these operations 

 appears to have been that of game preserving, as it was 

 stated that the land quickly became covered with wood, 

 and that paths were cut and the game preserved in the 

 woodland. No one seems to have objected to these 

 inclosures, on the ground of being entitled to rights 

 of turning out cattle or sheep on the land, for 

 practically no Commoners were left. The three vil- 

 lagers who, in 1807, committed the alleged trespass 

 by entering the land thus inclosed, and cutting and 



