124 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



For the most part, however, the two-field system seems to have 

 disappeared in Oxfordshire before the era of parliamentary en- 

 closure. Arthur Young, who in 1809 made for the Board of 

 Agriculture a second and more elaborate report on agrarian 

 conditions within the county, says nothing about it. Yet he 

 does note the continued employment of the three-field rotation, 

 especially on the rich lands west from Thame, ^ an observation 

 that is borne out by the enclosure maps. The tithe map of Chal- 

 grove has been reproduced ,2 and the same district furnishes 

 several three-field enclosure plans. At Thame itself there were in 

 1826, besides two very small fields, three large pnes called Priest 

 End, West, and Black Ditch, while the same plan shows, in the 

 adjacent hamlet of Morton, fields alike in size named Costall, 

 Horsenden, and Chin Hill. The accuracy of this representation 

 is confirmed by an excellent eighteenth-century map of Morton, 

 the strips of which he in the same three fields, the last being called 

 Little field.' A third township affected by the award of 1826 

 was Sydenham, whose three equal fields were Upper, Forty, and 

 Lower. Near by, with only one intervening parish, are Lewknor 

 and its hamlet Postcombe, each of them in a plan of 181 5 

 showing three fields regularly disposed round the village.'* Not 

 five miles away is Stoke Talmage, where in 181 1 the same neat 

 arrangement was to be seen.* Berwick Prior, too, in 1815 re- 

 tained its three fields.^ Most striking perhaps of all this group 

 is the township of Crowell, where the enclosure of the arable is 

 the last recorded in Oxfordshire, being delayed until 1882. Yet 

 even at that date Crowell had three open fields, which bore the 

 unassuming old names of Upper, Middle, and Lower. 



' Agriculture of Oxfordshire, p. 127, "On the open field near Thame [the 

 rotation is], (i) Fallow, (2) Wheat, (3) Beans on a very fine reddish loamy sand 

 and the crops great"; p. 123, "On the excellent deap loams between Stoken- 

 church and Tetsworth, (i) Fallow, (2) Wheat, (3) Beans "; p. 13, " Morton field 

 [next Thame] a stiff loam . . . two crops and a fallow "; p. 133, " On the open 

 fields at Baldons the old course, (i) Fallow, (2) Wheat, (3) Barley, oats," etc. 



2 Cf. above, p. 20. ^ Add. MS. 34551. 



* The Lewknor fields were Road, Middle, and Sherburn; those of Postcombe 

 were Clay, Little, and North. 



^ Three equal fields, Westcut, Middle, and Temple Lake. 



* They were named Marsh, Middle, and Town, and lay compactly to the north- 

 east of the village. 



