Changing landscapes

 

Project summary

This project aims to examine the long term cultural impact of 'parliamentary' enclosure concentrating on Northamptonshire. Were the effects of enclosure on local communities enduring, and if so, how did they manifest themselves?

For more details please go to the project summary document

Progress and Highlights

Year 1

In year 1 several key preliminary elements of the research were completed such as -

• all available VCH material for Northamptonshire was read, noted and circulated;

• key material in the nineteenth century parliamentary papers (notably the survey of the owners of land, 1873) was transcribed and circulated;

• the major local journals (Northamptonshire Past & Present; Northamptonshire Notes Queries) were thoroughly researched for material relevant to the lines of enquiry;

• a gazetteer of all the 18th and 19th century church building projects in Northamptonshire was completed as a preliminary to more detailed fieldwork planned for the Spring/Summer of 2008;

• several sites were identified where enclosure coincided with the rebuilding of churches and/or the re-planning/depopulation of settlements, and more detailed research on these sites was begun.

• a website was set up and began to be used as a vehicle for engaging with a wide range of non-academic stakeholders.

Year 2

•The year has been primarily devoted to creating lists of documents that will require examination, and the systematic exploration of certain categories of sources. A number of interesting angles and leads have emerged from the first year of research on the project.

•A database has been created containing details of all 213 parliamentary enclosures in the county, including dates of act and award, acreage enclosed, and names of patrons, landowners and commissioners.

•A sample of enclosure awards for the county has been transcribed and a thorough search of archives relating to estates in the western part of Northamptonshire has been conducted: a portion of this, relating to women and estate management, has been presented at two conferences and is now being read by the journal Rural History .

•A comprehensive survey of Northamptonshire Notes & Queries and Northamptonshire Past & Present has been conducted and surveyed the printed and Mss holdings relating to Northants in the British Library.

•Two themes (a) the Church and (b) environment and parish culture were looked at. The former focused on the enrichment of the Church as Rectors exchanged their right to tithes for substantial landholdings at enclosure; the latter on the long war waged by local parishes against species perceived as ‘vermin', notably sparrows. Both have the potential to shed considerable light on the ways in which the world was perceived locally in the wake of enclosure; it is hoped to present both sets of findings as separate both as papers in the course of Year 2.

•There has been some focus on the artistic representation of the Northamptonshire landscape, and particularly the works of George Clarke of Scaldwell surveying the complete collection of Scaldwell drawings at the NRO and the Northampton Town Library; this cultural record will be supplemented in Year 2 by evidence form the papers of John Clare.

•Three field trips have been undertaken in the course of the year to examine distinct landscape types within the county. The first examined parishes in the south west of the county; the second, parishes in the north west, and the third, parishes in the north-east.