Commonplace Activities: Walmgate Stray, an Urban Common in York

Abstract

This paper describes Walmgate Stray, one of four large commons that provided summer grazing for the freemen of York’s four wards. Two once-separate pieces of land now make up Walmgate Stray. One, Low Moor, has probably been common pasture since before the Norman Conquest; the second was appended to the ancient common in 1828, having previously been privately-owned arable land. Using the results of archaeological field survey and supporting archival research, as well as the recollections of local residents, this paper identifies the wide range of uses to which this common land has been put since the middle ages. It elucidates, on the one hand, how the exploitation of this important resource by the nearby city and its suburbs is evidenced archaeologically and, on the other hand, how specific activities on the common have interacted at a very local scale. In many cases, evidence of activities survives as earthworks, including a sand or gravel pit, medieval and post-medieval ridge and furrow, First and Second World War army training features and traces of an inter-War ornamental planting scheme. Physical evidence for the primary use of the common – the pasturing of livestock – is relatively sparse and easy to overlook, apart from the existence of the grassland itself, but there are a few tell-tale signs including three artificial ponds, now dry, and a Grade II-listed lodge of c.1835 once known as Herdsman’s Cottage. Individually, all these remains are mainly of local importance, but collectively they allow a nuanced case study, with broader applicability for the development, use and heritage value of urban commons.