126 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



Hampton Poyle, where Young noted a four-course rotation, the 

 award enumerates five fields — Lower, Bletchingdon, Gretting- 

 don, Collet, Friezeman's Well — but the last one was probably 

 small. At Standlake, though several areas are named in the 

 award of 1853, four fields stand out. North, South, Church, and 

 Rickland. At Culham four fields are specified on the plan — 

 North Middle, South Middle, Ham, and Costard — and they 

 are shown to be relatively equal in size. Frequently the divi- 

 sions were no longer called fields, but had come to be known as 

 " quarters." At Hailey, in the parish of Witney, one of the 

 four open-field areas was in 1824 called Home field, but the others 

 were Crowley quarter, Middle quarter, and Witney quarter. 

 At Kingham, on the western edge of the county, the plan, 

 drawn in 1850 and sketched in the cut on the next page,^ indi- 

 cates six quarters; but the glebe terrier of 1685 shows that only 

 four of these quarters (Ryeworth, Withcumbe, Brookside, Broad- 

 moor) were at that time important, a fifth not being mentioned 

 and a sixth consisting of " every yeares Land." ^ 



Division by quarters is particularly characteristic of northern 

 Oxfordshire. This region, which lies round Banbury, is possessed 

 of a fertile soil known as '' redland " and adapted to improved 

 cultivation. If but one of Young's illustrations of four-course 

 rotation, that of Deddington, comes from here, the reason is that 

 nearly all townships hereabouts had already been enclosed when 

 he wrote, having been among the first in the county to apply to 

 parliament. Their awards, however, make it clear, by references 

 to field divisions, that four quarters were existent at the time. 

 At Sandford near Tew the old fields, North and South, had seen 

 appear beside them two large " quarters " fully as important, 

 called Down and Beacon. At Wardington in 1762 South field 

 had become South field quarter, and ranked along with Ash, 

 Spelham, and Meerhedge quarters. Near by, the township of 

 Neithrop, a rural division of Banbury, had before 1760 divided its 

 open fields into four quarters — Thoakwell, Lower, Forkham, 

 and Greenhill.^ Seldom was the nomenclature of the old fields 



^ The award is at the Shire Hall, Oxford. ^ Cf. above, p. 92. 



^ Frequently the relative areas of the quarters cannot be ascertained, since in 



