366 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



three groups, the following combination is probably the most 

 feasible : — 



Sir Henry Portman 



Will. Portman, Esq 



John Burd, iure uxoris 



Stephen Pierce, Gent 



Vincan Jones, Gent 



— Payne, Gent, iure uxoris 



Robt. Clarke, Esq 



Geo. Charley, Gent 



Mar>' Crome, vidua 



Lady Wright 



Barth. Smith, iure uxoris 



Lott Peerce 



The Church land 



Thos. Smith 



In the case of three tenants, Jones, Payne, and Clarke, this group- 

 ing would make a three-field system not altogether impossible, 

 but elsewhere the misfit is complete. Any other arrangement of 

 furlongs, whether by three or four fields, is equally futile. The 

 irregularity of the Richmond field system at the end of the six- 

 teenth century seems pretty clearly demonstrated. 



From a survey of 1522, earlier by three-quarters of a century 

 than that of Bisley or than the Richmond field-book, we have the 

 items which relate to the manor of Merstham.^ Although the hold- 

 ings here were tending to accumulate in the hands of a few men, 

 they are still differentiated in the survey. Usually at least half of 

 each lay in open field. When, however, we begin to examine the 

 location of the constituent acres we at once encounter difficulties. 

 For there were no comprehensive fields. The parcels of the larger 

 holdings lay in as many as twenty field areas, often called furlongs, 

 the amounts assigned to each being usually from one-half acre to 

 three acres; ^ and no grouping of these furlongs to form any kind 



^ The extracts were copied in 17 10 from a " Rental! of the Lordshipps of Mers- 

 tham and Charlewood," and have been printed in Surrey Archaeological Collections, 

 1907, XX. 94-114. 



* The following holding, though not of the longest, is typical: — 



