EARLY IRREGULAR FIELDS IN THE MIDLANDS 85 



in the open fields, only one of these fields was of importance. Of 

 West field, in which nearly all tenants, whatever their tenure, 

 had some interest, the total area, including 28 acres of demesne, 

 was 126 acres. In contrast. Over field contained only 28I acres, 

 shared by a dozen tenants; Land field 34I acres, held by six 

 tenants; East End, apart from 17 acres of demesne, 42 acres in 

 the hands of four tenants. The other open-field divisions were 

 insignificant and of no interest to the copyholders. 



Why there should, at the end of the sixteenth century, have 

 been three townships with markedly irregular fields so near to 

 neighbors with regular fields is not obvious. Situation in a 

 river valley, though true enough, will scarcely explain it, for 

 Handborough and Bladon were even nearer the stream. A more 

 plausible interpretation is suggested by the proximity of the 

 three to Woodstock forest, without the bounds of which the two 

 other townships distinctly lay. If the arable areas of the three 

 were carved from the forest at a relatively late date, the regularity 

 characteristic of older fields may not have been adopted. Pretty 

 clearly Gannett's Sarte at Stonesfield was a recent addition, 

 allotted, as it happens, only to freeholders. Where an assart 

 can take its place independently among the divisions of the 

 arable,^ it is possible that at an earUer time other divisions came 

 into existence in the same manner. 



Further evidence pointing to the same explanation is to be had 

 from a mid-sixteenth-century survey of Ramsden, a township on 

 the southern edge of Wychwood forest, not far from the Woodstock 

 group. Of the nine free tenants here we learn nothing save that 

 they held closes. Besides a cottage, there were five customary 

 holdings, each containing a httle enclosed land but for the most 

 part lying in open field, above all in Olde field. Each had 

 about one-half as many acres in Gode field as in Olde field, while 

 there were scattering additional parcels in Shutlake, in Swynepit 

 field, and in two assarts, Herwell Serte and Lucerte. If Olde 

 field is balanced against all the other divisions, three of the 

 holdings can be framed into a two-field system; since, however, 

 the other two cannot be, it is better to class Ramsden with 



^ An assart is a recently improved portion of the waste. 



