SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



Edgeware, Edmonton, Enfield, Hammersmith, Hounslow (two), Staines 

 (two), and Oxbridge (four). Of these, only the two Brentford fairs, one 

 at Staines, one at Enfield, and one at Hounslow, were still held in 1888. 



Elizabethan Middlesex was still a corn-growing county and famous 

 for the quality of the wheat it produced. Norden in his Speculum Brit- 

 anniae highly praises the fertility of the soil. ' Although it is so small 

 a shire, yet for the quantetie of it the qualetie may compare with anie 

 other shire in this lande.' The soil is ' excellent fat and fertile ' and in 

 parts of the county about Perivale, Heston and Harrow, there is what 

 he calls a ' vayne ' of some of the best wheat grown in England. Heston 

 may be accounted ' the garner or store howse of the most fayre wheate 

 and pure in this land.' So much so indeed that the ' marchet and cheate ' 

 for the queen's own diet are said to be specially made from Heston wheat. 

 Times have changed in Middlesex since Norden could admire from 

 Harrow Hill in harvest time how ' the feyldes round about so sweetely 

 addresse themselves to the sicle and scythe, with such comfortable 

 aboundance of all kinde of grayne, that it maketh the inhabitantes to 

 clappe theyr handes for joy.' 



He also notes with approval the good pasture, but regrets that ' things 

 are more confounded by ignorance and evel husbandrye in this shire 

 then in anie other shire that I knowe.' This he attributes to the large 

 number of country seats owned by citizens of London ' prebends, gentle- 

 men, and merchants ' which afford, with their fair houses, gardens, and 

 orchards, a fine ornament to the country side, but are less advantageous 

 to its cultivation, the land being ' noethinge husbandlyke manured.' 



Husbandry and the carrying of its produce to London by land and 

 water were then the only trade and occupation of importance in the 

 county. Nothing in the way of a manufacture is noted by Norden 

 except a copper and brass mill at Isleworth, where he admires the in- 

 genuity with which bellows, hammers and snippers are moved by water 

 power by means of an ' artificiall engine.' 



The northern parts of the shire which used to be well timbered were 

 in his time ' but poorly ' wooded. In spite of reiterated orders 10 * for the 

 better preservation of Enfield Chase made by Henry VIII and Elizabeth, 

 the depredations of keepers and commoners alike have so reduced it that 

 Norden says it will hardly continue to provide fuel for the inhabitants. 

 ' Cutting green boughs for sale in London ' had apparently become a 

 trade in Enfield. As for the Hornsey woods, their decrease was largely 

 due to Aylmer, bishop of London, into whose inroads on the episcopal 

 timber Cecil caused an inquiry to be made. 1043 



Norden was no friend to inclosures ; he praised the ' good store of 

 lardge commons' in the shire, ' the best and most comfortable neighbours 

 for poore men,' and noted with satisfaction that the ' many parks erected 

 chiefly for deer now fall to decay and are converted to better uses.' 

 Amongst these was the chase made by Henry VIII at Hampton Court, 



104 B.M. Harl. MS. 368, fol. 104; Lansdowne MS. 105, Nos. I, tz. 

 Iota S.P. Dora. Eliz. vol. 137, Nos. 9, 10, 12, 73. 



8? 



