128 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



furlongs named Shroudhill, Stonewall, Seven Acres, White Butt, 

 Middle, Boyer, Townsend, Blackland, Longman's Pool, Gore, 

 Bush, Pitch, Church, etc., as well as in several other areas not 

 called furlongs (e. g., Wagborough, and Long Stone Hill). When 

 large divisions of the arable have become thus obscured, it 

 is natural to find in some townships the number of quarters 

 increasing, since these too may have ceased to retain agrarian 

 significance and may have become largely topographical. At 

 Burford in 1795 they numbered seven, at Duns Tew in 1794 eight, 

 and at Neat Enstone in 1843 eleven. ^ The result of disintegra- 

 tion of this kind was often a bewildering array of field names, in 

 which fields, quarters, furlongs, and nondescript patches were 

 indiscriminately mingled.^ At Kidlington in 18 15 the allot- 

 ments lay in nine fields, four furlongs, and a half-dozen miscel- 

 laneous areas. At West Chadlington in 1814 the more important 

 open-field areas were Lower field, Lockland quarter, Crosses 

 Quarry quarter, Gardens quarter, Banks quarter, Blackmore 

 Brakes quarter, Cockcroft Stone quarter, Green Benches quarter, 

 Broadslade quarter, Ashcroft furlong. Cooper's Ash furlong, 

 Standalls Pit furlongs. Quarry furlong. Berry Hill, the Down, 

 Broadslade Mill Hill, Thornwood, Great Lands, and Lone Land 

 Hill. These areas were presumably grouped in some manner for 

 a regular rotation of crops, but the inability to locate allotments 

 more simply shows that large field divisions had become obsolete. 

 Under such circumstances the grouping of the many quarters 

 and furlongs could, for the sake of improved tillage, be easily 

 changed by decree of the manorial court. How this was done 

 may be illustrated from three court rolls of Great Tew, a town- 

 ship on the edge of the redland district.^ The rolls date from 

 the autumns of 1756, 1759, and 1761, nearly a decade before the 



1 Hull Bush, Abigals, Sturt, Batlodge, White Hill, Windmore Hedge, Whores; 

 Berry Field, Tuly Tree, Tomwell, Whittington, Ridges, Sands, Red Hill, Lands; 

 Hore Stone, Great Stone, Long Lands, Lady Acre, Heythrop, Leazow Hedge, 

 Folly, Crook of the Hedges, Long Weeding, Sheepwalk, Slate Pits. All are called 

 quarters. 



* So at Westcot and Middle Barton, Bloxham, Church Enstone, Iffley, Mil- 

 combe, Swinbrook, Wendlebury, Wigginton. 



' P. Vinogradofif, "An Illustration of the Continuity of the Openfield System," 

 Appendix, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1907, xxii, 74-82. 



