CELTIC SYSTEM IN ENGLAND 207 



Middleton and Broomley, it appears, remained open until the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century, undergoing enclosure in 1805 

 and 181 7 respectively.^ To judge from what happened in several 

 other townships, however, the movement was most pronounced 

 during the seventeenth century and the early eighteenth. Not 

 only were the open arable fields of Seaton Delaval already en- 

 closed in 16 10, but articles of agreement looking to the enclosure 

 of Cowpen were drawn in 1619, and the process was under 

 way at Dilston in 1632.2 The tenants at Earsdon signed their 

 articles in 1649, the same year in which the re-allotment at Pres- 

 ton was completed.^ At Backworth the open fields disappeared 

 in 1664.* The Ovington and Rennington enclosures, however, 

 were delayed until the next century, the former being the work 

 of commissioners appointed in 1708, the latter being asked for 

 in 1707 but not carried out till 1720 and 1762.^ At Newton-by- 

 the-Sea and Embleton the open fields disappeared a little later 

 still, in 1725 and 1730 respectively.*' From such items, insuffi- 

 cient as they are, it seems not improbable that the greater part 

 of the common arable fields of the county had been enclosed by 

 the end of the first quarter of the eighteenth century. If so, 

 Northumberland in its enclosure history resembles Durham, but 

 differs markedly from the midlands.'' 



Even in the sixteenth century the transformation of Northum- 

 berland fields had begun. At Lesbury, on December 6, 1597, 

 the tenants resolved at the manor court that they would, " be- 

 tween this and the ist of March next, procure a survey of the 

 South field in Lesbury, and that every tenant [should] have his 

 land laid in several, and the same to dyke in convenient time after 

 the said survey." * Clarkson, who made a survey of the township 

 of Tuggal in 1567, intimates that it was largely if not wholly 



1 Archaeologia Aeliana, new series, 1894, xvi. 138; History of Northumberland, 

 vi. 143. 



2 History of Northumberland, ix. 201, 325; x. 276. 

 ' Ibid., viii. 244, n. 3; ix. 4. 



* Ibid., ix. 40. 



^ Archaeologia Aeliana, new series, xvi. 129; History of Northumberland, ii. 159. 

 ® History of Northumberland, ii. 45, 98. 

 ^ Cf. above, p. 107, and Chapter IV. 



* History of Northumberland, ii. 424. 



