CELTIC SYSTEM IN ENGLAND 209 



grounde threwgly, wherby they did fall in great povertie; and 

 also ther severall grounde, called their oxen pasture . . . was in 

 breaffe tyme over eatyng and maide baire of fedyng." ^ 



Such is the picture of an open-field township in which the dis- 

 tribution of parcels throughout a large area had become intoler- 

 able. To relieve the situation an unusual remedy had been 

 de\dsed. A short time before the survey of 1567 the arable 

 area had been divided into a northern and a southern part, and 

 the parcels of each husbandland (as a holding was called) had 

 been confined to one or the other of these two divisions. To 

 accomplish such an alignment parcels had been exchanged but 

 not to any extent consolidated, as a later survey of 1614 makes 

 clear. One of the fully described furlongs of this last survey, 

 called " Bastie lands," is transcribed by the historian of the 

 parish. In it each of thirteen husbandlands on the south side 

 then had parcels, which usually contained about half an acre 

 apiece.2 



Similar divisions of townships into two parts seem to have been 

 not infrequent in Northumberland.^ A survey of Acklington 

 made in 1702 shows that one had there been accomplished, divid- 

 ing the 17I farms into 8^ on the north side and 9 on the south 

 side.'* At Lesbury, which adjoins Long Houghton, a division 

 was proposed when the latter township was divided, and the 

 matter was put into the hands of the surveyor who has already 

 been quoted. In this case, however, he pronounced against the 

 division, chiefly on the ground that an equally good water supply 

 could not be had for both parts. His account begins as follows: 

 " It wer not good that this towne wer devyded into thre [farther 



1 History of Northumberland, ii. 368. 



2 Ibid., 378. The survey of 1567 was undertaken to adjust minor details. In 

 the earlier division the tenants of the north side had got the poorer lands, and 

 the boundary between the common pasture of the farms on the one side and the 

 arable lands of the farms on the other was unsatisfactory. 



* At Rock before 1599, according to a map of that date, there had been a re- 

 arrangement of farms as foUows (ibid., 128): — 



" Belonginge to s Farmes on the North Bame in arable, meadow, and pasture, 214 acres 

 " 7 " " " south side " " " « " 301 " 



" S " " " moore 200 " 



« 7 " " " moore 280 " " 



* Ibid., V. 372. 



