A Brief Discussion Of 18th Century Enclosure And Agricultural Improvements
It is evident that the great majority of boundaries within the four survey areas are associated with the Enclosure Awards of the 18th and early 19th centuries, and indeed the pattern of the countryside we see today was largely determined during this period.
During the last half of the 18th century the population of the country rose from six to nine million after centuries of very gradual growth. Coupled with this, the political and economic upheavals resulting from the Napoleonic Wars added further impetus to the need for self-sufficiency.
The progressive agriculturalists of the time introduced many new ideas, but fundamental to these was the enclosure of land. Where land was open pasture it was said that it was impossible to improve livestock strains because they had to mix with the general run and that disease spread rapidly where animals grazed on open common or waste.
Early innovations were largely restricted to the great estates where there was sufficient capital and enclosed land available to experiment with new systems. The ‘improvements’ made in Rothbury Forest by the Duke of Northumberland date from the early 18th century and a little later the improvements made by John Bailey, land agent to Lord Tankerville of Chillingham Castle, were said to have done much to create a ‘new epoch of agriculture in Northumberland’ (Bailey and Culley, 1805,xix).
Agriculture had long been restricted in Northumberland by the Anglo-Scottish wars and the long unsettled period that followed. However, the pace of enclosure became more rapid during the last half of the 18th century. Wasteland was brought into cultivation and common land improved to carry more stock. During this period the Board of Agriculture commissioned a series of surveys to inform them of the state of the country’s agriculture at that time. The survey for Northumberland was carried out by the previously mentioned John Bailey and the renowned agriculturalist George Culley who farmed at Glendale in north Northumberland.
Culley and Bailey stated (1794), that ‘the parts of this county, capable of cultivation, are in general well enclosed by live hedges; the only exception is a small part of the vales of Breamish, Till and Glen; but even here the advantage of having well fenced fields is well understood and so much desired by the tenants, that we hope in eight or ten years the whole of this valuable district will be enclosed by proper fences’. By 1804 they claimed that this was almost accomplished ‘there being now very few unenclosed farms’ (Bailey and Culley, 1805, 60).
They describe the boundary structures most generally used for new enclosures as ‘earth mounds; at the base of which and on the edge of the ditch out of which they are raised, are planted the quicks, generally upon a turned sod six inches high’. They argue that this is too low and the ‘quicks grow much better when planted three sods high, with the thickness of two surface sods laid under their roots’. They further advocate a bank six feet wide at the base and four feet high and that quicks should never be planted nearer each other that nine inches.
They also make the interesting point that the custom in some parts to cut hedges every year may make them look neat, but ultimately checks their growth and weakens their stems and with time they become open at the base. Instead they suggest that they should be cut at intervals of nine or ten years and by this means ‘get strong stems and side branches, which, by interweaving, one with another, make a thick and impenetrable hedge’ and from a more aesthetic point of view ‘a luxuriant Hawthorn, in full bloom, or loaden with its ripened fruit, is more pleasing, enlivening and gratify object than the stiff formal sameness produced by the shears of a gardener’ (ibid. 1805, 61).
With regard to stone walls Culley and Bailey state that the usual dimensions were two and a half feet at the base and fifteen or sixteen inches at the top with a height of four to four and a half feet. At about half way up a row of through-stones are put, ‘at a rate of nine or ten in a rood of seven yards, and on the top a coping of sods, or stones, set edgeways; the latter is preferable, as being the most lasting and presenting a more awful aspect, to deter the mountain sheep from attempting to leap them’ (ibid. 1805, 62).
They go on to outline the advantages of enclosing private property as arising principally from separating lands of different quality to be utilised for the maximum benefit. With regard to sheep rearing ‘they feed with more facility and readiness, being freed from the whims of the shepherd, and the teazings of his dog; and by separating the dry ground from the wet a stock-master has it more in his power to avoid that fatal malady, the rot’ (ibid. 1805,63).
It is uncertain to what extent Culley and Bailey’s report influenced agricultural practice in Northumberland. Considerable advances had been made in the previous forty years and it is likely that they were largely preaching to the converted. However, even after the agricultural depression of the 1820s and 1830s it was said in 1847 that ‘no portion of England has made such rapid improvement within the last forty years as Northumberland’ (Colbeck, 1847, 422).
This may perhaps be qualified by suggesting that the improvements were generally limited to the northern part of the county and to the great estates. In 1851 The Times commissioner on agriculture claimed that the notion of Northumberland as a model for the rest of the country would surprise many, and that ‘a great portion of the county…as far north as Warkworth, is as little drained and as badly farmed as any district we have yet seen in England’.
