┌─────────┬─────────────────┬────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐ │ │ Number of │ │ Estimated │ │ │ │ Parishes stated │ Area of such │ Area of │ │ │ │ to have Common │ Common Fields. │ other Common │ │ │ │ Fields. │ │ Fields. │ │ ├─────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ England │ 853 │ 153,867 │ 97,001 │ 250,868 │ │ Wales │ 52 │ 13,086 │ 353 │ 13,439 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤ │ │ 905 │ 166,953 │ 97,354 │ 264,307 │ └─────────┴─────────────────┴────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘
We have therefore the assurance of the Copyhold, Inclosure and Tithe Commission that in the year 1873 common fields existed in 905 parishes of England and Wales, of a total area of 166,953 acres, and that there was reasonable ground for inferring the existence of 97,354 acres of common field land, scattered presumably over some four or five hundred more parishes; in other words, that about one parish in every ten in England and Wales presented an example of the medieval system of land holding and cultivation similar, though as a rule on a smaller scale, to the survivals described above.
The statement is amazing, and would be received with incredulity by anyone familiar with the rural districts of any county of England, so far as it relates to that county. The Commission invites our suspicion of its statistics. The main purpose of the return was to give the acreage of surviving commons; these are estimated at 2,368,465 acres. As late as 1871, however, the Commission had declared, on the basis of an estimate made in 1843, that 8,000,000 acres of commons still existed, and 1,000,000 acres of common field or meadow. A little scrutiny of some details confirms one’s suspicions.
Thus, to take a single county, Kent has from the early days of the enclosure controversy been famous as a well enclosed county. The author of the “Discourse of the Common weal of this Realm of England” mentions “those countries that be most inclosed, as essex, kent, devenshire” (1549). Skipping two and a-half centuries, we find the reporter of the Board of Agriculture in 1793 declaring that such a thing as a common field did not exist in Kent.[8] We are confirmed in our acceptance of this statement by finding that there have been no enclosures in Kent of common fields by Act of Parliament, either before 1793 or since. Yet the return gives Kent twenty-one parishes having common fields of an ascertained area of about 4183 acres. It therefore is necessary to criticise the methods by which the figures in the return were arrived at.