LATER HISTORY OF THE MIDLAND SYSTEM I4I 



" common fields," but the award shows that only certain " hills " 

 and *' heaths " were in question. Although some of the ten miss- 

 ing awards were probably not dissimilar, it will be safe to assume 

 that at least a small amount of arable was allotted by them. 

 The results of an examination of all the available Herefordshire 

 awards that relate to arable are tabulated in the schedule on the 

 preceding page. 



The open-field arable and meadow in Herefordshire which the 

 existing awards show to have been enclosed by act of parliament 

 amounted to 10,104^ acres. For the ten missing awards per- 

 haps some 3000 acres more should be added, but at most not 

 more than 2^ per cent of the total area of the county was affected. 

 All this is in marked contrast with the late eighteenth-century 

 situation in Oxfordshire. There the open fields of a dozen town- 

 ships would have equalled in area all the open-field land in Here- 

 fordshire.^ There 37 per cent instead of 2I per cent of the area 

 of the entire county was still unenclosed arable. 



The foregoing hst also makes it clear that the open arable 

 fields in any township were not extensive. Those of the Marden 

 award, which seem largest, belonged to several hamlets, and the 

 second large area, that assigned to Yarkhill, was apportioned 

 among at least four townships. In no other place were more than 

 650 acres re-allotted, while 200 to 300 acres was a usual amount, 

 which in turn often had to be divided among the constituent 

 townships of a parish. The Aymestrey award of 18 17 appor- 

 tions its open field, already small, among four such townships, and 

 compares these areas with the far more extensive old enclosures. 

 In both respects it is typical of Herefordshire conditions : — 



Township 



Shirley 



Upper Ley . 

 Nether Ley . 

 Covenhope . 



302? 2022 



1 J. Clark, who in 1794 published a General View of the Agriculture of the County 

 of Hereford, says parenthetically (Appendix, p. i), " since a great part of the county 



