Old field boundaries

[Wendyf]

There is a roughly triangular field just down the hill from here which is enclosed by a deep ditch and mound that must once have had a wall on top. It's irregular shape is marked very clearly on the latest edition of the South Pennines OL21 Explorer Map, grid reference approx 926442. The path from Brown Hill Farm towards Kitchen Farm runs alongside the southern boundary, and it has just dawned on me that the strange shape to the north actually takes in the ancient spring that provides our water. A more modern wall, shown on the 1823 enclosure map, cuts through the enclosure.
This land once belonged to Kitchen Farm which has been around since the mid 17th century and probably before. I have a copy of a hand drawn field map for Kitchen dated 1804 where this field is named The Old Ing.
Is there any way of knowing how old these field boundaries could be?
These photos stretch the view a bit (taken on my old phone) but they show the enclosure quite well.

This one shows the approach to the field from the Kitchen track with the ditch and mound curving away into the distance.



Looking back towards the track -



The southern boundary ditch running up towards Brown Hill.



Where a track has been cut in the wall to drive a quad bike through. (not clear at all, sorry)

[Stanley]

Interesting question Wendy. Field boundaries incorporating banks are generally old. The 19th century enclosures on the moor were almost always simply dry stone walls using top stone from small delphs along the line of the wall. There were significant enclosures on the moors in the 16th century under the pressure of rising population and my bet would be that this fits in with them. The Whitemoor Map of 1580 shows these enclosures for Barlick, Salterforth etc. There were earlier encroachments on the moor of course but my bet would be 16thC.



Here's a very similar boundary to yours. This is at Hollins above Blacko and John Clayton and I are pretty sure it is a 16th century enclosure.

[Wendyf]

Thanks Stanley. There is a feoffement dated 1574 between a James Shakilden of Trawden and a John Hirste of Harden which is likely to relate to Kitchen. It mentions a messuage, buildinge, lande, meddowes, moors and pastures, so it sounds as if it could have been enclosed by that time.

[PanBiker]

There is a similar boundary ridge adjacent to the footpath and quite separate from the drystone walls on the path up Weets. I'm sure you have seen that one as well Wendy as I always seem to meet you and Colin when I go on the hill.

[Wendyf]

I know where you mean Ian. We haven't been for a walk up Weets for quite a while, mainly because poor Alfie has started suffering after a long walks.

[Wendyf]

I was wrong about the field being called the Old Ing, that's the field below it. The enclosed bit was called Head Lands. Here is the 1804 field map, drawn up for William Wainman who owned Kitchen at the time. Wm Mattock owned Brown Hill, and you can see his name on the Eastern Boundary. I don't understand what it says at 90 degrees in the middle of the map, can anyone work it out?....Is it Break jetty?


The original map is in a collection of documents from the Wainman Estate which are now in the possession of the Cononley History Society.

[Stanley]

The last four letters look like 'ofty' to me. The first looks like an 'L' but I can't make any sense of it. Only word that came to mind was 'toft', but that generally means a house site, hardly likely in the middle of a field. 'Break' may not be in the modern sense. An old spelling for 'brake' was 'break' and brake could mean something to alleviate the effects of wind. Very often you'll find 'beald walls' in the middle of fields to give shelter. It's a puzzle.....

[Wendyf]

It has just been pointed out to me that the first word is actually Bridle, and when you look closely it becomes clear:-



That leaves the second word as otty ...or could that be a very curly S with the cross of the t going through it. It still doesn't make a lot of sense does it? I wonder when the term bridleway came into use?

This is the boundary and path in question, it joins up with Heads Lane at Harden Old Hall, (it is not marked on recent OS maps), and in the opposite direction passes behind Brown Hill and can be seen on the ground coming through my field and up to Higher Burnt Hill.

[PanBiker]

I can't make any sense out of the second portion of the word although I can see the first being bridle. That would make some kind of sense as you can see that the track goes over to what looks like a field ban and then down through the pasture and off the map. I do agree with Stanley in that their could be an f in the mix as well. Can't think of any words that would fit though.

[Tripps]

Well - I've had a go at this, but I'm not much wiser. Agree about bridle - the k in Back fields is a lot plainer.
Is the double dotted feature a bridle way? Would it make sense for there to be a bridleway there? Are the words perhaps explaining this? Could it mean Bridle dotty.
The figures in the fields obviously refer to their size, but what are the units. a = acres. r = rods, and is the last letter p for poles or perches?
I thought rods poles and perches were the same. Used to read about them in the tables on the back of the exercise book during really boring lessons.

[Wendyf]

Than you for trying Tripps!
I think a rood is different to a rod. A rood is a measurement of area, there were 40 sq poles (or perches or rods) to a rood and 4 roods to an acre, but even that varied from place to place.
The double dots must signify a path or track, and from the photo you can see that it would certainly be wide enough for horses. It does continue over the beck at the bottom of the hill, up the other side and joins an old bridleway down into Kelbrook.
I have a copy of another map drawn in the same style, probably by the sane hand, and the capital S starts with a flourish that makes a complete circle ...so I'm becoming convinced that it is Sty or Stg.

[Stanley]

This reminds me of when I took the 1580 Whitemoor map to Doreen Crowther (How we miss her!) She was brilliant at deciphering old handwriting and of course was a mine of information about the terms used from the years she spent transcribing wills.

[Whyperion]

Maybe today it would be Bridlepath , but was then described as Bridle Pathway ( but shortend to Bridle Pathy ? )

[Tripps]

I like that - think you may be 'on the track' there Whypes.

[Stanley]

Old field boundaries survive even in the built environment. This path down from Letcliffe follows the route of an old track and there is still a very prominent mound along the East side of it.

[Wendyf]

A friend who works with maps & rights of way has just told me that Sty is an ancient word for path, with the same origin as Stile which comes from the Old English for stair. She came across it on a 17th C map of Ingleborough.

[Stanley]

Nice! Didn't know that Wendy.

[Wendyf]

This is a rough field map of Higher Burnt Hill, probably very late 18th Century. The original is in the Wainman collection belonging to Cononley History Society.
You are looking towards Skipton from Howshay Toll Bar at Hainslack (in the bottom centre). It looks like there was some dispute with Lower Burnt Hill, as our boundary is under that heavy black line.
Wainman had also bought the Dole - which is the open land at the side of the road.

[Stanley]

'Dole' as a field name seems to have indicated that when the enclosures were done certain sections were dedicated to producing an income for the Parish Dole or Poor Relief. Sort of a sop to the non-landowners who had lost the use of common land.

[Wendyf]

I've found a date for this map of June 1801, and there is correspondence dating back to 1780 or earlier in which William Wainman talks about his Dole. It seems that together with someone called Ferdinando Scarborough (wonderful name!) he owned the strip of land from "Sand Bed to Tom Cross" through which the Turnpike Road ran.
On the east side of the road some of the land beyond his Dole belongs to the Churchwardens of Colne and higher up towards Tom Cross it is Carleton Parish Common. In December 1803 he writes that his agent has been with "the Colne Churchwardens to show them and point out the Boundary between their lands in Carleton Parish....& my Dole of Twenty Acres through which the Turnpike Road lies.."
When you leave the road and come down our track (marked very faintly on the plan) this piece of land is still very obvious.
I'm just realising that it is all in Thornton in Craven Parish....right on the boundary with Carleton.
Next question, there is a small field in there called Kiln Field. If there was a kiln would it have been for limestone?

[Stanley]

Almost certainly Wendy, no call for bricks. Remember that burned lime was necessary for building. If I remember rightly that land lies on limestone so there would be no call for lime to spread on the land? The big problem up there would be fuel, almost certainly coal from the mines at Colne so it wouldn't be a large kiln or continuously used. It would become redundant when Lothersdale Quarry started I would think.

[Wendyf]

That's what is interesting Stanley because we are mostly on Bowland Shale. There is a strip of limestone from the Lothersdale Fault that comes through somewhere. The lower part of my field has very different characteristics to the piece nearer the house, the grass grows differently and it drains well. Beyond that, heading towards the beck the field was called Limestone Field, but I thought that would be because limestone was spread there. Mmmm.

[Stanley]

The geology is a bit mixed up there Wendy and I wasn't sure. On the subject of doles, two things, there was a 'rope dole' at Bracewell I think and the income from that was used for maintenance of the church bells and ropes. The foreign name of the co-owner might have been because he was a cleric? Perhaps the original 'dole' was Parish Relief?

[Wendyf]

The Scarboroughs were a Lothersdale family, but there is no sign of Ferdinando on the family tree we have in the archive. I agree that the Dole has to be something to do with parish relief. Something to look into on another trip to the Registry of Deeds..... I should be able to discover who Wainman bought it from.

[Stanley]

Just for interest, here's a part of the 1717 estate map for Bracewell which shows the field system on what is now Heber Hill.