The Enclosure of Waste Land in Somerset, 1700-1900

Abstract

The enclosure and reclamation of the waste land of Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was far more widespread than is commonly supposed. This paper, based on manuscript materials and contemporary accounts, attempts to assess the timing, extent and effects of that enclosure and reclamation in detail, as they apply to one county, Somerset, in the west of England. Some 59 ooo ha of land were affected, or 13-8 per cent of the county, the four major regions of change being the lowland Levels, and the upland areas of the Western Hills, Mendip Hills and Southern Hills. Particular attention is paid to the methods of resource-conversion in the various types of waste land, to the changing land use, and to a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the new fields, fences and farms that were created as a consequence. The success of reclamation in permanently altering the geography of the county is then examined, in terms of changes in rents and changes in land use. THE effort that went into the reorganization of the rural landscape of Britain with the enclosure of the open fields and waste during the late eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries, rivals current programmes of agrarian reform throughout much of western Europe.1 Because of its complexity, the enclosure was probably as great a technical achievement as the contemporary land subdivisions of the Mid-Western United States, of Canada and of parts of Australia,2 although not so extensive. However, because enclosure had no 'grand plan' it is difficult to trace the timing, extent and results of the many thousands of individual actions. This is particularly true of waste-land enclosure, knowledge of which still relies heavily upon the generalized accounts of the County Reports and the writing of people such as E. C. K. Gonner, A. H. Johnson and G. Slater.3 It has been shown that much of this evidence, while generally supporting the idea of widespread enclosure, is often incomplete, inaccurate and misleading.4 The only satisfactory course, therefore, is to look at smaller regions in detail and examine the records of the Commissioners of Enclosure and the various contemporary accounts and estimates. What follows, therefore, is what one may term a 'meso-scale' study of enclosure, falling in scale and depth of treatment between the consideration of broad national trends and the morass of local detail. Somerset is a good sample region to take because of the preservation of all the wasteland enclosure awards and accompanying maps,5 and because it is a county unit with varied and contrasting landscapes of waste land. In addition, some of the problems associated with the absence of overall policy are partially surmounted in Somerset because of the influence of three people who furthered the cause of enclosure and reclamation with practical experiments, many publications and extensive personal activity, which ranged from sitting on enclosure commissions, surveying the waste, to buying up large areas in which a scheme of total improvement could be attempted. There was Richard Locke in the