CELTIC SYSTEM IN ENGLAND 249 



Cumberland. By the eighteenth century they had, like the 

 fields to the north, become largely enclosed, though certain glebe 

 terriers of the seventeenth century indicate that the intermixture 

 of parcels persisted in a few locaUties and on a considerable scale. 

 In these and in earlier terriers of the fifteenth and thirteenth cen- 

 turies the nature of the open fields becomes apparent. Nowhere 

 were the parcels grouped systematically in the midland manner. 

 On the contrary, they are described as lying irregularly, in areas 

 variously named and sometimes called furlongs, while not in- 

 frequently they were segregated. Regarding the method em- 

 ployed in tilling the open fields no information is at hand. Since 

 such characteristics as we know about, however, are manifesta- 

 tions of Celtic runrig, it seems permissible to join Lancashire 

 with Cumberland, and assign both counties to the region within 

 which EngUsh agriculture was affected by Celtic custom. 



Cheshire 



Of the counties on the Welsh border, Cheshire is most closely 

 joined with that part of Wales to which considerable attention 

 has been given. Since Chester is only some ten miles down the 

 valley of the Dee from Wrexham, we shall expect to find round 

 about this county town common fields not unUke those of 

 eastern Denbighshire. 



Late documents, however, do not tell much of common arable 

 fields in Cheshire. The reporter to the Board of Agriculture in 

 1794 estimated that they probably did not amount to 1000 acres 

 in a county of 676,000 acres, nine- tenths of which was improved 

 land.^ Descriptions of all the tenants' holdings at Davenham 

 and Great Budworth in 1650 assure us that nothing but closes 

 were to be found.^ A great survey of Macclesfield manor and 

 forest made in 9 James I gives minute details for some sixteen 

 townships ; ' but throughout the entire survey there is scarcely 



1 Thomas Wedge, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Cheshire, 

 London, 1794. 



2 Parliamentary Surveys, Cheshire, No. 11. 



3 Land Rev., M. B. 200, f. 239 (the survey comprises folios 147-357). A typical 

 holding is described as follows: — 



" Jasper Worth, esquire, claymeth to hold to him and his heyres by copie of court roll . . . 

 Item One other tenement in the tenure of John Latham, viz: 



