THE LOWER THAMES BASIN 365 



there was no symmetrical distribution of acres among the field 

 divisions. The common fields of Bisley were at this time prob- 

 ably similar to those of many Surrey townships when the formal 

 enclosure of these took place in the eighteenth or nineteenth 

 century. Nor had the Bisley fields changed much during the 

 two centuries preceding the survey, if we may judge from the 

 mention of three of them in an indenture of 6 Henry IV. ^ At 

 Bisley, as at Egham and East Clandon, irregular field arrange- 

 ments thus antedated the sixteenth century. 



Not all sixteenth-century common fields in Surrey were so 

 meagre as those of Banstead or Bisley. A field-book written in 

 a hand of about 1600 describes furlong by furlong all the parcels 

 of open field in ''Keyo and West Sheen alias Richmond," the 

 total being some 650 acres. By tabulating and summarizing 

 the information there given, we get what is perhaps our best view 

 of relatively extensive open fields in the county at the period in 

 question. All holdings larger than five acres are noted in a 

 schedule in Appendix VI. 



The smaller holdings, which averaged about i^ acres and con- 

 sisted of from one to three parcels, numbered nearly thirty. Each 

 of them lay in one division of the township's arable, a characteris- 

 tic not indicative of a midland field system. Nor for the larger 

 holdings was there a general arrangement by fields, the furlongs 

 instead having a substantial importance. After being told about 

 Kew field and Kew heath, we come upon the " lower field," in 

 which there were at least two shots, and possibly more. There- 

 after we are guided upward and southward only by furlongs, since 

 '' East field " was no more than a shot. To discover any simple 

 field system governing the distribution of acres is difficult. Kew 

 field was of interest to only three tenants, one of whom had 

 nothing in the Richmond furlongs, and a second but little. If we 

 disregard Kew field and try to arrange the remaining furlongs in 



1 Exch. K. R., M. B. 25, f. 264. Of the five acres of arable from which tithes 

 were owed by a certain John Willere, 



" una acra iacet in Campo vocato Northull 



et una acra et dimidia pariter iacent in Campo vocato Wydecroft 

 et una acra iacet in Campo vocato Eltrowe 

 et una acra et dimidia pariter iacent in Campo vocato Westeworth." 



