A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



the third part of one estate, was lowered.' One lady, who owned three 

 farms, was compelled, on account of reductions of rent, to sell her estates at 

 two-thirds of their value. 'An estate of £^z a year has reduced two tenants, 

 with a wife and six children each, to solicit parochial support ; ruined a 

 third ; a fourth, more opulent, retired in time ; the fifth is now in possession.' 

 The vicar lost his tenant within the first six years. Mr. Cooper adds : ' I 

 have noticed this parish, because the land is in general good ; being bounded 

 on three sides by a fine large river ; the uplands rather of a stony, scaly soil, 

 convertible, and on which tenants lived comfortably and creditably before the 

 inclosure.' Mr. Cooper accounts for the fall of the rents partly by the 

 want of new buildings where allotments are given, the inconvenient situa- 

 tion of the land, and an undue estimate of its value. He further deplores 

 the effects of inclosures in diminishing labour and depopulating the county, 

 particularly by leading to the laying of land down to pasture. 



Mr. Batchelor, in his General View, frequently quoted above, gives an 

 interesting set of tabulated extracts made from parochial registers with a 

 view to discover the effects of inclosures on the population. Most of the 

 tables begin early in the i8th century, and are carried down to the year 

 1805. He thus summarizes the conclusions which he draws from his 

 tables : — ' The population had not increased very remarkably till about the 

 year 1770 ; and it is observable that the increased price of provisions, and 

 the rapid growth of the taxes and the national debt, took place at nearly the 

 same time. The tables seem to indicate nearly an equal increase of popula- 

 tion in the uninclosed parishes, as in those which have been inclosed many 

 years.' He considered that more statistics must be collated before a definite 

 conclusion could be drawn. Several instances of decrease and of increase 

 appeared to be quite independent of the state of husbandry, and were due to 

 causes which were to him undiscoverable. 



Inclosure appears to have gone on during the early part of the 

 1 9th century ^'^ until there has for some time been practically no more 

 common or commonable land remaining, except those pieces which are 

 reserved, with increasing care, for the public use, as village greens, &c. 

 The surface of the county in some places still bears traces of the ancient 

 system of cultivation, and the term ' balk,' which formerly designated the 

 strip of grass or unploughed division between the arables, is met with as the 

 local name for field roads. The old drift ways, the grassy roads along which 

 cattle were driven from one part of the county — or of the country — to 

 another, have not yet all disappeared. The village of Sutton (near Potton) 

 still possesses, in good preservation, one of the very few remaining pack- 

 horse bridges. 



A few notices are available of the condition of roads, of the postal 

 facilities, and of the dangers of travel, especially during the latter part of the 

 17th century. Early in the century the condition of certain roads came 

 under the notice of Parliament. In the third decade an Act was passed 

 empowering the levying of tolls for the repair of the road from the north 

 between Biggleswade and Baldock. The road was said to be impassable, 

 worn by carts, wains, and drifts of cattle, though the residents gave labour ' 

 according to statute."^ In 1678 there was a postal service between London 



'" See Slater, op. cit. 268-9. "' Hist. MSS. Com. Ref. iii, 27. 



98 



