Field names

[wed]

Burn Field - after the FMD pyre that was held there

 

[Exfarmer]

outside Newport Pagnell

 

[jimmer]

Burn Field - after the FMD pyre that was held there

 

[IANTO]

The enclosures were over a long period of years in the 16th to 19th. C
each individual enclosure had its own act
The main period of enclosures were 1760 - 1820

I believe you will find that Enclosures started in the 13th Century when Manorial Land was enclosed.

As you say it continued up to 1900 approx.

The Acts were designed either to enclose common land. This was highly controversial as it stopped everyone being able to keep a cow or a few sheep etc. on common land, as it suddenly became the property of one person. Normally the large landowners, who also created and administered the laws, and most of the time for their own benefit.

There were also small scattered strips of arable land in common fields, which was the traditional system, and acts were passed to amalgamate these Strips into blocks, but in this case, no one lost any land, but some finished off with a block of poorer land.

The idea of the strip system, was that although strips were scattered, everyone had strips in land from the best to the worst.

The Enclosure Acts do not give field names, as by definition it was not enclosed, there were no fields.

The local Enclosure Awards where they survive will give possibly a map (Late 18th or 19th.) century, and also give a list of names, and the acreage awarded to each. Again there are no field names as there were no fields.

In leases for a term, for lives, or year to year from the late 1500's onwards, there is often a requirement that the tenant had to plant a certain length of hedge each year, and slowly fields were created and in due course acquired names.

For most areas, unless your farm was part of an estate, that had been surveyed and mapped, and the map-book has survived, the first place you will find field names are in the Tithe Apportionment Maps and Schedules.

 

[Blue.]

The enclosures were over a long period of years in the 16th to 19th. C
each individual enclosure had its own act
The main period of enclosures were 1760 - 1820

I really shouldn't have left school at 14,I always had an interest in geography and history but didn't like the teachers.

I have a map from 1733 with a lot field names still used,I'd like them to carry on being used for histories sake.

 

[bobk]

Anyone got a link for these old maps .

 

[Blue.]

Anyone got a link for these old maps .

My maps on the kitchen table. pre computer age.

 

[IANTO]

Anyone got a link for these old maps .

I am afraid there are no links I know of.

Your local Record Office, may have copies of the Tithe Apportionments and Maps. (Not all maps have survived.).

If the farm was part of an Estate, it is a matter of finding whether any records have survived, and where they have been deposited.

In this area several primary schools over the years, ran a project for the pupils, and they collected hundreds of field names, from current names, what their grandparents or elderly farmworkers and retired farmers called individual fields, names listed in the Farm Deeds, and names on the Tithe Maps and Schedules.

Several deposited a copy at the Local Record Office or Library, and are a valuable record.

It is surprising how the names changed over the years.

 

[llamedos]

@IANTO I am sure you will have come across a name and its many variations, and one which is well used around here, Carr, Carr farm, Carr meadow, Bye Carr, Carr Barn and so on, many years and much money have been thrown at these places, and still they remain loyal to their christened name. Swamp !

 

[Kevtherev]

Seem an old map of my home and the fields are still the same names, meadow, pasture, orchard field, long field, stable field, well field etc

 

[bobk]

I am afraid there are no links I know of.

Your local Record Office, may have copies of the Tithe Apportionments and Maps. (Not all maps have survived.).

If the farm was part of an Estate, there may be finding whether any records have survived, and where they been deposited.

In this area several primary schools over the years, ran a project for the pupils, and they collected hundreds of field names, from current names, what their grandparents or elderly farmworkers and retired farmers called individual fields, names listed in the Farm Deeds, and names on the Tithe Maps and Schedules.

Several deposited a copy at the Local Record Office or Library, and are a valuable record.

It is surprising how the names changed over the years.

Thanks , it's a shame because very few of our field names remain , found an OS map which is interesting but not detailed enough .
Suppose I could ask the oldest inhabitant of the village but that's the old chap !!

 

[bobk]

We do have a field called butty meadow , is that where everyone had their dinner

 

[llamedos]

Thanks , it's a shame because very few of our field names remain , found an OS map which is interesting but not detailed enough .
Suppose I could ask the oldest inhabitant of the village but that's the old chap !!

A couple of years ago, many councils were able to apply for grants to the National Manuscripts Conservancy trust, and a lot took up the offer, with the upsurge of interest in local genealogy, it would be worth speaking with your local records office (try your local library for info) many tithe maps were conserved and copied into a viewable format, it is well worth accessing these and it will become apparent how names you wondered where on earth they came from started off.

 

[llamedos]

We do have a field called butty meadow , is that where everyone had their dinner

Now, a buttie, was a name for the person who hooked up coal wagons, so it is possible it was used for similar. Not necessarily coal wagons

 

[Blue.]

@IANTO I am sure you will have come across a name and its many variations, and one which is well used around here, Carr, Carr farm, Carr meadow, Bye Carr, Carr Barn and so on, many years and much money have been thrown at these places, and still they remain loyal to their christened name. Swamp !

• Carr (landform), north European wetland, a fen overgrown with trees

Still have a Peacecarr old map had Shales Carr, Winkley Carr and Bent Carr.

 

[llamedos]

• Carr (landform), north European wetland, a fen overgrown with trees

Still have a Peacecarr old map had Shales Carr, Winkley Carr and Bent Carr.

My mother recalls a story, from when she was about 10, so around the beginning of 2nd ww, she had t walk a group of calves, just her and the wayward farm dog, to one of her uncles farms, this was Carr farm, and a walk of around 5 miles one way, just as she got them there, the dog spooked them and they turned heel and ran away back toward home, she expected a pasting when she got back, the calves had run back on the moor, and toward another uncle who lived at Bye Carr, which was 10 mins from home, and just around the hill. Yep, she has miss heard her father, they should She should have gone to Bye Carr, and they had guessed she had set off to the wrong one when she had been gone so long.
Said it taught her to listen to instruction.

 

[rob1]

Have one called grove Shard, always wondered what that came from

 

[Flossie]

Have one called grove Shard, always wondered what that came from

"shard (shärd) also sherd (shûrd)n.1. A piece of broken pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig; a potsherd.2.a. A fragment of a brittle substance, as of glass or metal.b. A small piece or part: "shards of intense emotional relationships that once existed" (Maggie Scarf).3. Zoologya. A tough sheath or covering, such as a shell, scale, or plate.b. The elytron or outer wing covering of a beetle."


Pottery industry round your way perhaps, or just a rocky field? The Shard bridge goes over the River Wyre out on the coast near us, maybe a precarious, rocky stretch of the river?

 

[rob1]

"shard (shärd) also sherd (shûrd)n.1. A piece of broken pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig; a potsherd.2.a. A fragment of a brittle substance, as of glass or metal.b. A small piece or part: "shards of intense emotional relationships that once existed" (Maggie Scarf).3. Zoologya. A tough sheath or covering, such as a shell, scale, or plate.b. The elytron or outer wing covering of a beetle."


Pottery industry round your way perhaps, or just a rocky field? The Shard bridge goes over the River Wyre out on the coast near us, maybe a precarious, rocky stretch of the river?

Thanks Flossie that is really interesting the field is right on the edge of the village and quite a few bits found by metal detectors there including roman stuff, it had been suggested that it was a village rubbish dump hence the pottery so you may well be right.

There are lots of names on our old tithe map, I will have to get them out from storage and put them up here.

 

[Mickstup]

Starve crow
Parsons Piece
White cefns
Black cefns
Top and bottom riddings
Mountain leasowe
Black leasowe
White leasowe
Oilground, absolute barsteward in the wet,
Workhouse meadow
Rookery, no wood anywhere near.