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Mavesyn Ridware Enclosures
The next comprehensive survey of the area
following Domesday was undertaken in the
1830s when the Inclosures Act was being
finalised. John Myatt (Mavesyn Ridware Field
Names, 1992) has extrapolated the following
information for agriculture in the parish
between these two dates.
‘From the Domesday survey
(that states four ploughs) and using the
customary ratio of one plough per 120 acres
we arrive at an arable area of 480 acres
under cultivation around 1066. This would
have been in the north and south of the
parish.’
From this he deduced that about 1,450 acres
remained uncultivated and states:
‘Domesday provides clear
evidence of the nature of this middle
ground: woodland one and a half leagues long
and as much broad. The league was a somewhat
variable measure, but if we take it to
represent a mile, then one and a half
leagues square would represent 1,440 acres -
the area of the parish not accounted for by
the two manors.
It follows that, during the
seven and a half centuries which elapsed
between the Domesday Survey and the survey
of 1832, this vast area was reclaimed from
woodland for farming use. In 1832 only 43
acres of ‘plantations and coverts’ remained
and even these appear to have been recently
planted, perhaps to provide alternative
hunting and shooting opportunities following
the enclosure of Needwood Forest.’
In the same publication the probable
location of the medieval open fields evident
from Tithe maps of 1844 and 1848 have been
identified.
‘Three meadows alongside the
River Trent were still partially divided
into numbered strips on these maps as were
parts of two arable fields south east of
Hill Ridware.’
They would have been worked from dwellings
within the villages. Some of the older
existing cottages may have originally been
farmhouses with rights in the open field
system. Following enclosure, the old
farmhouses would then have been let to farm
workers or craftsmen who supplied services
to the community. Juxta House in Hill
Ridware is a case in point. It is thought to
be of 16th century or earlier origin and
would have been the home of a moderately
affluent yeoman farmer. It was also noted
that:
‘There is no record of any
Inclosure Award affecting the Parish of
Mavesyn Ridware and it is assumed that the
enclosures were achieved by voluntary
agreement.’
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