THE LOWER THAMES BASIN 4OI 



the number, location, and naming of their parcels. Indeed, it 

 would seem that the entire hilly district extending from Essex 

 to the Thames ought to be considered as one whole. It embraces, 

 besides northwestern Essex, Hertfordshire and the Chiltern re- 

 gion of southern Buckinghamshire and southern Oxfordshire. 

 In its early days this region must have been, even more than at 

 present, a wooded area. Denes, dells, groves, hills, and lees, 

 which so often recur in the terminations of the names of open- 

 field divisions in this region, suggest the original condition of the 

 arable field. Hills and forests, as it happens, have been features 

 not without influence upon field systems. In a territory where 

 woodland was relatively extensive, where it was somewhat 

 difficult to transform waste into arable, tenants can have had no 

 concern about a compact fallow field to supplement the pasture. 

 If, further, an additional arable furlong were at any time to be 

 improved from the waste, one non-adjacent to the existing arable 

 may now and then have been selected. The most feasible spot 

 for improvement may often have been a valley or a slope which, 

 after being brought under cultivation, would still be surrounded 

 by woodland. These considerations should be kept in mind 

 when surmises about the origin of the field system of this Chiltern 

 region are made. Under the circumstances, it would seem haz- 

 ardous to posit either midland or Kentish affihations. It is 

 improbable that simple two- or three-field arrangements, with vir- 

 gates divided between the fields, were ever existent there; yet 

 there may have been such in the earliest days, and the later ir- 

 regularities may have arisen from the addition of assarted areas. 

 On the other hand, there is no reason to assume a Kentish 

 origin for the system. The villein units were named differently 

 from the Kentish, they were not compact areas, they were never 

 rated in " day's works," they were not subdivided among co- 

 tenants. The Chiltern area should, therefore, be looked upon as 

 a boundary region so influenced in its field system by its topog- 

 raphy that its original affiliations cannot readily be discovered. 



Middlesex remains. In the east its open fields seem to have 

 been like those of Hertfordshire; in the west it is just possible 

 that some of the townships of the Thames plain were in three 



