Looking over the Piddle valley.

The Piddlehinton inclosure was introduced on the 9th November 1830 immediately before a series of petitions against slavery. Three days   later it received it’s first reading and then progressed rapidly through parliament receiving the Royal assent on 23rd December. The Piddlehinton inclosure is described in an excellent article on the Piddlehinton History website [1] from which the following information has been taken.

In 1440 King Henry VI founded Eton College and to support it endowed it with 67 properties one of which was the manor of Piddlehinton. In 1832 they were still the Lord of the Manor and principle landowner in the parish. There were a few other landowners though, one of whom, in 1814,was John Baverstock Knight.

The 19th century inclosure was not the first in the parish, this had taken place in 1620 when the College decided to inclose the demesne land of the parish known as the Manor Farm. The consequences of this and the future inclosure are seen in various surveys over time. In 1620 there were some 30 tenant farmers holding arable land and with a right of common pasture on the downs, together with 10 tenants who had the right of grazing but who held no arable land.

The reasons given for inclosure in the 19th century were of the standard form, “The open and common fields were intermixed, inconveniently situated and incapable of improvement. It was to the great advantage of the Owners or Proprietors if the same were divided and inclosed and specific shares allotted in proportion to the peoples’ estates”.

The manor before inclosure contained three common arable fields, common grazing and the inevitable waste. There were still a goodly number of copyhold tenants, 35 or so, but the area they cultivated seems to have shrunk dramatically compared to 1620. Nevertheless the right of common pasture had survived with the rate being set at one cow and 20 sheep per 10 acres of arable land, although. Inclosure swept these away. “The poor were denied the right to “cut, dig, pare, flay or carry away any turf, sod, furze or fuel” from the commons or waste land without the permission of the Commissioner. If they did, they were liable for a fine of 5 shillings [25p] or the confiscation of their goods.”

Some 17 interested parties registered their rights under the Act but only 5 received allocations of land. Eton College retained the ownership of most of the parish. The subject of inclosure has been hotly disputed by modern historians, who have doubtless never been dispossessed of their rights, but the Piddlehinton website describes the effects in Piddlehinton; the poor being denied even their right to catch rabbits.

Martin worked for Eton College on several occasions, an entry in his diary from 1838 notes that he banked £16 “Received of Mr Ingram [the Steward] Eton College Charlton [2] map”and the court roll from Piddlehinton, owned by Eton College, notes they paid “Mr Martin’s Bill for Map of Piddlehinton £34.10.0” in the same year. He is not known to have drawn the tithe map of the parish which was completed in this year and Kain has no attribution for the map. The apportionment was done by Levi Luckham of Broadway, Dorset but one wonders why Eton College were paying for so many maps.

The Piddle at Piddlehinton. The sign on the bridge reads : NOTICE TO OWNERS AND DRIVERS OF TRACTION ENGINES THIS BRIDGE IS INSUFFICIENT TO CARRY WEIGHTS BEYOND THE ORDINARY TRAFFIC OF THE DISTRICT.

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