3IO ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



Plans of the Norwich hospital estates often show single strips 

 enclosed as long rectangular " pightles." At Shropham there 

 were seventeen such, most of them non-adjacent and with a 

 total area of 38 acres; one containing seven acres is labelled " for- 

 merly several pightles." At Great Melton there was in Bow field 

 an enclosed piece of one acre and another strip of one and one- 

 half acres "partly inclosed"; at Shipham two separate acre 

 strips were partly enclosed. In these plans, too, is discernible 

 another characteristic of Norfolk fields which was conducive to 

 piecemeal enclosure. At Shropham a half-acre strip is labelled 

 " a piece in Clark's Close," and near by two other strips together 

 containing one acre are " pieces in another close." In these cases 

 the enclosure of a furlong had preceded consolidation of owner- 

 ship. It is not, however, by any means certain that such con- 

 ditions arose only after the sixteenth century; for early charters 

 sometimes refer to non-contiguous strips in the same croft, as, 

 for instance, " tres pecie divise in Lyckemillecroft." ^ Whether 

 the phenomenon be early or late, it undoubtedly contributed 

 to informal enclosure. 



If we turn from the enclosure of Norfolk open fields to con- 

 sider the aspect of such of them as did persist into the early 

 years of the eighteenth century, we find the plans of the estates 

 of the Norwich hospitals still instructive. Although, as we have 

 seen, about one-third of these estates were enclosed and another 

 third had in each case only three or four detached strips of land^ 

 the remaining third retained considerable open field. It is the 

 situation of these open-field strips that for the moment is of 

 interest. An estate of 38 acres in Buxton, pictured in the 

 accompanying plan, extended into two adjacent parishes. Near 

 the farmhouse were five closes containing together 1 2 acres, while 

 at a distance was a detached close of 6 acres. The remaining 20 



Marshall notes the inconvenience arising from such procedure. " But another 

 species of intermixture, much more disagreeable to the occupier, is here singularly 

 prevalent. It is very common for an inclosure, lying, perhaps, in the center of an 

 otherwise entire farm, to be cut in two by a slip of glebe or other land lying in it; 

 and still more common for small inclosures to be similarly situated " {Rural Economy 

 oj Norfolk, i. 8). 



1 P. R. O. Ancient Charter A 3138, temp. Edw. I. 



