WIGLEY COMMON. 181 
till in 1587 they were bought by William Poulett, 
who, in 1647, sold Wigley Manor to William Stanley, 
the ancestor of the present owner, Mr. Hans Sloane 
Stanley. Successive members of this family had by de- 
grees bought up all the land in the Manor of Wigley, and 
the Manor practically ceased to exist. A neighbour- 
ing landowner, Mr. Briscoe Eyre, had also bought the 
great majority of the holdings in Cadnam Manor, but 
his farm tenants and the remaining tenants of the 
Manor continued to turn out their cattle on Wigley 
and Cadnam Commons. The Manor of Cadnam and 
Winsor belonged to Sir Henry Poulett. 
The grandfather of Mr. Sloane Stanley commenced 
the scheme of inclosure. Being an ardent sportsman, 
he inclosed, about thirty years ago, a part of Wigley 
called Black Hill, on account of its being the resort 
of black game; the fences, however, do not appear 
to have been sufficient to keep out the cattle. In 1850, 
the present owner proceeded to inclose the whole of 
Wigley Common with a stone fence. Mr. Briscoe 
Eyre, who was an active member of the Commons 
Society, was not the man to allow such a proceeding at 
his very gate without opposition. He addressed an 
earnest remonstrance to Mr. Stanley, backed by a 
memorial numerously signed, urging him to abstain 
from a step so ruinous to the district and with so little 
pecuniary advantage to himself. Mr. Stanley, however, 
positively declined to suspend his inclosure even until 
some friendly inquiry might be made into the precise 
legal position of the Common, and the accuracy of his 
