Day 54. The Fields

            Fields around Preston

A field, as we know it today, is an area of land enclosed by fences or hedges. This definition is a result of the Parliamentary Enclosures Acts, enforced in Preston in the 1750s. In the open-field system discussed yesterday, 'the field' was a term used for the entirety of a village's farmland, often a thousand acres or more. What we now call a field was previously termed a 'close' – enclosed land. 

The Enclosures Act forced the abandonment of the centuries-old communal system, and the land was divided into blocks by the parliamentary commissioners. Each block became the farmland for an individual farmer, to divide, hedge and cultivate as he wished. The present landscape of individual fields began to develop.

The arable-growing areas such as the Midlands, where the open-field system survived the longest, were most affected by the Enclosures Acts. Areas with poorer soil, such as south-west England, were more suited to livestock farming and the land had been enclosed for several centuries. In some arable-growing parishes, especially those with wealthy and foresighted landowners, the open fields had been gradually enclosed by private agreement in view of the obvious increase in efficiency. 

In other areas, the farmers stubbornly clung to the old ways. There are a few places – Laxton in Nottinghamshire being one – which still use the open-field system today.