218 TOLLARD FAIRNHAM. 
condition ; both copyholds and leases were renewed 
from time to time. 
When Lord Rivers became owner, he took steps to 
extinguish this system of tenure. and to get the land into 
his hand, and by the year 1850 the greater number 
of holdings had, by non-renewal of leases and acqui- 
escence by, or purchases from, the tenants, and other- 
wise, been in fact got rid of. There is no doubt 
that, previous to the extinction of such tenancies, the 
tenants, or owners, had rights of common over the 
waste land, and were rated for them, but after the 
change of tenure they lost their legal rights. 
In 1850 the common fields were inclosed and 
allotted, under the Act for facilitating the inclosure of 
such commonable lands. Having got rid of customary 
tenancies and the common-field system, and having 
freed the Common of the rights pertaining to it, the late 
Lord Rivers began to inclose. In 1851 he took up 
twenty acres of the waste, and in 1854 sixty-four acres. 
In 1856 he inclosed the residue of the Common, of 
seventy-five acres. The main object of these operations 
appears to have been that of game preserving, as it was 
stated that the land quickly became covered with wood, 
and that paths were cut and the game preserved in the 
woodland. No one seems to have objected to these 
inclosures, on the ground of being entitled to rights 
of turning out cattle or sheep on the land, for 
practically no Commoners were left. The three vil- 
lagers who, in 1867, committed the alleged trespass 
by entering the land thus inclosed, and cutting and 
