Io6 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



a few acres in Rudenhill, in West field, and in Watergate field, 

 but the arable of others lay entirely elsewhere. William Briggs 

 had eleven acres at Hareham, where he had still more meadow 

 and pasture. Indeed, this brings us to what is perhaps most 

 noteworthy about the survey — the appearance in certain fields 

 of meadow alongside the arable. Lowe field was most trans- 

 formed by such procedure, for seldom did the tenants retain any 

 arable there. Instead they had large parcels of meadow, some- 

 times as many as twenty acres; nor does anything indicate that 

 these parcels were enclosed. They seem, rather, to have remained 

 open and to point to a gradual abandonment of arable tillage. 



Such an abandonment is more clearly indicated by another sur- 

 vey of this series, that of Eggleston.^ Eggleston lies well up the 

 valley of the Tees, and still in 5 James I maintained its three 

 fields. East, Middle, and West, among which several holdings 

 were divided with a show of equality. Presumably the fields had 

 once been largely arable. When, however, the survey was made 

 change had begun, though not in the direction of enclosure, of 

 which there was still Uttle. Conversion to meadow had pro- 

 ceeded without it: nearly all the parcels of the various tenants in 

 East field and West field are said to have been meadow; arable 

 still predominated only in Middle field, and even there it had 

 begun to yield. The survey is instructive in showing how natu- 

 rally conditions arose which must soon have called for enclosure 

 as a matter of convenience. 



Eggleston did not stand alone in its early seventeenth-century 

 transformation. Westwick, situated a httle way down the river, 

 had begim to make the change at the same time. Apart from 

 large parcels of pasture which each holding had on the moor, 

 from one-third to one-half of the fields (High, Middle, and Low) 

 had become meadow. Whorlton, still farther down the Tees, 

 was making a similar transition, though rather more than one- 

 half of each holding in the three fields remained arable. At 

 Bolam the arable and meadow in the fields (East, West, and 

 North) were nearly equal in amount. At Willington, once more, 



^ Cf. Appendix III. For this and the Durham surveys mentioned below, see 

 Land Rev., M. B. 192, 193. 



