| Little Shelford has always been primarily a farming
community. Medieval farmers, as tenants of the lords of the manor, farmed
strips of land in large open fields. All farmers had to grow the same crop
and they had to rely on their neighbours to keep their strips of the land
clear of weeds. Enclosure replaced these large open fields controlled by the
community of tenants with smaller fields with the cropping and stocking
controlled by individual tenants. These smaller fields were 'enclosed' using
hedges or ditches Enclosure had been taking place by more or less mutual agreement since Norman times in response to fluctuations in profits from agricultural produce. Occasionally large land owners forced enclosure on their smaller tenants, which led to peasant revolts in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During this time various statutes were used to prevent certain types of enclosure, especially the conversion of arable land into pasture, requiring fewer workers. The first sustained period of enclosure by Parliamentary Act was between 1760 and 1780 when 900 enclosures occurred. Before this time only 130 enclosure by Parliamentary Act had occurred. Between 1793 and 1815 there were 2000 parliamentary enclosures. The main impetus for wholesale enclosure seems to have been the introduction of large farm machinery during the Industrial Revolution. These machines were of little use in the small strip fields but made the enclosed fields more efficient. Enclosure came to Little Shelford around 1814, quite late in the process. The map that was drawn up at this time to show the ownership of the land tells us where many of the people of the village were living at the time. It also gives us an idea of the relative size of the holding of individual people.
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| Bibliography Haigh, Christopher ed.
The Cambridge Historical Encyclopaedia of Great Britain & Ireland
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. |