LATER HISTORY OF THE MIDLAND SYSTEM 1 45 



ber fields were connected with the two hamlets of Priddleton and 

 Puddlestone. Priddleton field, so called, was an isolated patch 

 containing some ten acres in seven parcels ; the Puddlestone par- 

 cels were perhaps four times as numerous and lay largely in 

 Sparrow Hill field, though a Fair Mile field is mentioned.^ 



More comprehensive is the plan of the Risbury division. As 

 the preceding sketch shows, the strips there were scattered 

 throughout three rather extensive fields called Mear, Mustine, 

 and Anna, while at one edge they ran into Philtor field.^ They 

 numbered about one hundred, and their area was about 150 acres. 

 The aspect of the important fields (the three called in the Jaco- 

 bean survey Meer, Mustine, and Inn field ^) as they reappear here 

 illustrates what had been happening in the interim of two and 

 a half centuries. From the plan, which looks more Hke the terrier 

 of a single estate than the representation of township fields, the 

 one thing obvious is that enclosure had been eating into the old 

 commonable areas on all sides. Much enclosing had taken place 

 in the middle of the fields, until of the trio there remained only 

 skeletons to which the old names could be appended. Any three- 

 course tillage must long since have disappeared, and the isolated 

 strips must have become a source of annoyance to their propri- 

 etors, who numbered a dozen or more. 



So important was this process of piecemeal enclosure in bring- 

 ing about the decline of Herefordshire open fields that another 

 illustration may be permissible, especially as it also exemplifies 

 an aspect of the field system of the county which first became 

 clear in our examination of Jacobean surveys — the multiplicity 

 of the fields.^ A plan of the common fields of Holmer, sketched 

 in the accompanying cut, pictures them as lying in two groups, 

 one to the northeast, the other to the southwest, of the village.^ 

 To the northeastern group were attached nine names, — Hill field, 

 Patch Hill field, Munstone field, the Butts, Stoney furlong, 



^ The total area of this group of strips was 58 acres. 



^ The plan is at the Shire Hall, Hereford. 



' Cf. above, p. 37. 



^ See above, pp. 93-94. 



^ The plan is at the Shire Hall, Hereford. 



