148 



ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



acreage rose above 40 and once reached 125.^ These fields, but 

 not the strips of which they were composed, are located on a plan 

 which is here sketched, and were, it becomes evident, distributed 

 like islands throughout the entire area of the parish. At an earlier 

 day they probably had some logical grouping relative to the half- 

 dozen hamlets of which the parish was composed, but this is no 

 longer discernible. Indeed, it will be remembered that the Jaco- 

 bean survey showed tenants acquiring acres from the fields of 

 the various hamlets.^ By 18 19 enclosure had broken the edges 

 of the fields, separating them more and more from one another 

 and sometimes, as in the case of South field, nearly obliterating 

 them. When one considers that this is the parish which in all 

 Herefordshire retained the largest area of open field at the time 

 of its enclosure, one readily surmises that multiplicity of fields 

 and piecemeal enclosing were signs of decay from which the 

 staunchest townships in the county had seldom been exempt. 



To multiply illustrations of numerous fields is easy. The 564 

 acres enclosed at Much Cowarne lay in some thirteen fields, apart 



Acres 



1 Little Horn Field 5 



South Field Croft 5 



South Field 10^ 



Hawthorn Hill Field 13? 



The Twenty Acres 13 



Portland Head 11 



Butchers Plock 4 



Upper Vauld Field 25 



Apothecary's Croft 5^ 



Ashgrove Field 88 



Pale Croft 9 



Meggs Corner 4 



Venn Field 7 



Venn Field Croft 7 



Lower Vauld Field 125 



Greathome Pasture 3 



Chestern Field 3 



Sinacre Field 38 



Bush Field 32 



Lingens Hook i 



Burling Field 52 



Lower Brierly Hill Field .. . 10 



Carry Lane Croft 5^ 



* Cf. above, pp. 95-96. 



Hill Field Crofts 4 



HiU Field 35 



Upper Brierly Hill 13 



Roads Orchard 35 



Kineton Field io\ 



Little Field 7 



Ninewells Field 3 



Venns Green Pasture .... 2 



Holbach Field 50 



Nashhill Field 49 



Overways Field 102 



Hare Furlong 4 



Little Field near Paradise 2^ 



Odditch Field 63I 



Holbach Plock 2 



Little Wall Field 16 



Great Wall Field 47^ 



Lower Wall Field 395 



Gott Wall Field 2>Z 



Mill Croft Field 5 



School Wall Field 11 



Newfoundland Field 7 



Lake Field 125 



