Changes in Land Utilization in the South-West of the London Basin, 1840-1932

Abstract

T HE Land Utilization Survey has set out to record how the surface of the country is being used at the present time, and the information, obtained by volunteer workers and recorded on the six-inch maps of the Ordnance Survey is being made available for study through its publication (by the Ordnance Survey) in the form of one-inch Land Utilization maps, giving in colours over the ordinary map a precise picture of the landscape pattern. This article is an attempt to consider one aspect of the work, that of the value of the present record for purposes of comparison with conditions at other periods. Those who, in the future, wish to examine the changes which will have taken place between our period and theirs, will have our record available for consultation. They will be able to see exactly where changes have taken place, and with the material at their disposal will be able to assess accurately the factors which have influenced and controlled changes in some areas, or which have resulted in a stability of conditions in others. We, who examine the cultural landscape of the present day, the state which is always about to change itself into the future, are less fortunate when we wish to look backwards in order, by examining the past, to understand more fully how the present landscape has been evolved, since we have no easily accessible records of land utilization in the past. There are some, of course, such as William the Conqueror's Survey, and the manorial maps, but the former is of little use since it was not recorded in map form, while the latter are often difficult to reproduce on a scale which would make them comparable with current maps, and moreover they were not made in large numbers at any one particular period. There are several valuable surveys at later dates, such as Rocque's, but they are not of widespread occurrence. Our best data for the past exist in a survey made nearly a century ago for the purpose of tithe commutation. The survey was made on a parish basis, a plan being made, with each plot of ground numbered and a schedule drawn up, which gives, among other particulars, the utilization of each field. The greater part of the data relates to the period I839-40-41, and by examining the records it has been possible to construct land utilization maps of certain parishes for that period. The Ministry of Agriculture, in whose possession the records are kept, has been good enough to allow access to the documents for this purpose. The procedure which has been adopted has been to choose certain parishes in the area to the south-west of London, and to make for them a one-inch Land Utilization map for the period about 1840, which is strictly comparable with the published one-inch Land Utilization map of the Windsor area (sheet I I4). To ensure accuracy, the tithe maps have first been reduced to the six-inch scale, the scale on which the field work of the present survey has been carried out, and then reduced to the one-inch scale. In some areas it was necessary to use the first as well as the second editions of the six-inch sheets in order to identify former fields, so great have been the changes in the landscape. In other more rural areas the arrangement of the fields, etc., has remained much the same,