98 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



the original system in various stages of decay, holdings from 

 several surveys have been transcribed in Appendix III and now 

 claim attention. 



Adjacent to Martock. and situated on the river Parret is Kings- 

 bury, the Jacobean survey of which records that many of the 

 ancient holdings called " de antiquo austro " were largely or 

 entirely enclosed. Such were the three still rated in virgates and 

 " fardells," or quarter- virgates, and such were most of the numer- 

 ous holdings not here transcribed. Others had still a few or 

 even the majority of their acres in open fields. Of these open 

 fields, the three which were largest and most often recurrent were 

 Byneworth, Kylworth, and Hill field, their total areas being 68, 

 41, and 38 acres respectively. At the same time the customary 

 holdings at Kingsbury, exclusive of cottages, numbered nearly 70. 

 Obviously the share of any tenant in the arable fields must have 

 been slight, seldom so much as ten acres and usually less than five. 

 Some of the holdings which received most liberal allotments have 

 been transcribed, but even in them there was no distribution of 

 acres among fields that suggests a regular system. The names 

 of certain fields, too, Byneworth, Kylworth, Tunnland, Deanland, 

 were unusual. Kingsbury is thus revealed at the end of the six- 

 teenth century, not only as a parish largely enclosed, but as one 

 that had about it little trace of the system which once charac- 

 terized the countrj'side. These features it probably owed to 

 its situation ; for it is a river township, and its rich bottom 

 lands must have been early turned to pasturage and improved 

 tillage. 



Not unlike Kingsbury was another low-lying manor, that of 

 East Brent, situated nearer the Bristol Channel. Holdings from 

 two of the tithings. which have been transcribed from the Jaco- 

 bean survey, illustrate the predominance here of enclosed pas- 

 ture. Of the arable most was enclosed, but some lay in small 

 open fields and appeared in the copyholds sporadically. There 

 were a few acres " super le Downe." Reduced in condition 

 though they were, a West field and an East field still had prece- 

 dence; in them lay most of the open arable acres, though 

 no longer with two-field precision. The manor was one which 



