210 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



on he says " two "] severall townes, althoughe yt ys a greate 

 towne, many tenants and cotteagers, every tenant having his 

 lande lyeinge rigge by rigge and not in flatts nor yet in parcells 

 of grounde by yt selfe, so that thcrby the labor of the tenants 

 and their cattell ys muche more, to the greate dystruction of the 

 said tenants." In veriiication of this description, a survey of 

 1614 tells of a furlong (South Brig haugh) in the West field which 

 contained 4 acres, 3 rods, 26 perches, in eighteen strips held by 

 fourteen tenants.^ 



If we inquire what field system held together the widely- 

 scattered parcels of Long Houghton before the rearrangement 

 in the middle of the sixteenth century, the answer must be sought 

 in a map of 1619, which is closely associated with the survey of 

 1614. Although the township had by this time been divided 

 into a northern and a southern half, the boundary between the 

 halves crosses what was clearly an older division into fields. 

 These fields were three and they were unequal in size. Old and 

 new arrangements by fields and by halves distributed the unen- 

 closed arable as follows : — 



South field, 99 acres on the Nort;h side, 276 acres on the 



South side 

 West field, 181 acres on the North side, none on the South 



side 

 East field, 242 acres on the North side, 302 acres on the 



South side.2 



Although there is here the suggestion of an early three-field 

 arrangement, the inequality in area between the fields is a ques- 

 tionable circumstance. Especially great is the discrepancy be- 

 tween the 181 acres of the West field and the 544 acres of the 

 East field. Furthermore, if the midland division was known and 

 after the rearrangement did not lose favor (there is no indication 

 that the strips were consolidated or the method of tillage changed 

 at the time), it seems strange that within fifty years three new 

 fields had not taken form on the north side and three on the south. 

 Of such, however, there is no trace in the map of 1619, which 



1 History of Northumberland, ii. 418, 425, ^ Ibid., map facing p. 368. 



