CELTIC SYSTEM IN ENGLAND 229 



between them. The riggs lay in twenty divisions of the field 

 and contained about 19 acres, from two to four riggs constituting 

 an acre. Four fields are mentioned, but they take their places 

 along with such curiously-named areas as '' the Shaws " and 

 " Underbricks." No grouping of strips by fields is perceptible. 



Descriptions like these at once establish the former existence 

 of open-field intermixed strips in Cumberland. The period at 

 which they were consoKdated and enclosed cannot be here in- 

 vestigated. Slater accepts Wordsworth's conjecture that a 

 movement in this direction was not " general until long after the 

 pacification of the Borders by the union of the two crowns." ^ 

 What is without doubt is that in 1665 the estimated areas of 

 certain townships, apart from common pasture, could be de- 

 scribed as " Inclosed Ground — meadow, pasture, and arable." 

 In this Hst are assigned to " the Lawnde or close of Heskett " 

 2500 such enclosed acres, to the hamlets of Serbergham and 

 Scotby 750 and 700, to Gamblesby 1870.^ Early in the reign of 

 James I the twenty-five tenants at Plumpton Park had enclosed 

 their holdings, save that five had an interest in Le Haythorne- 

 fields." ^ By the middle of the seventeenth century enclosed 

 townships were therefore easy to find. 



Leaving aside the date of enclosure, we may refer at once to 

 Tudor and Jacobean surveys in order to determine, if possible, 

 what was the nature of Cumberland open fields. Sometimes, 

 it appears, all holdings were in meadow, as in the mountain town- 

 ship of Matterdale;^ again, as at Cokermouth, we learn that 

 there were arable acres " in communibus campis," but we learn 

 no more.^ Elsewhere, however, certain features that seem to 

 have been characteristic of the field system of the county are 

 discernible, and of these the first is the grouping of rather small 

 fields round correspondingly small hamlets. 



In determining the areas of townships we are likely to be mis- 

 led if, retaining the midland point of view, we give attention 



1 English Peasantry, p. 258. 



2 Land Rev., M. B. 258, ff. 64-65. Hesket was one of Eden's open townships, 

 but there is a High Hesket and a Low Hesket. 



3 Land Rev., M. B. 213, ff. i-io. 



< Land Rev., M. B. 212, f. 270, " Exch. K. R., M. B. 37, ff. 4-8. 



