Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

air wholesome and healthful. The soil fruitful.’ For Welford he specifies ‘The soil is
fruitful for corn and pasture.’ 22
Later in the eighteenth century the different
characteristics of adjacent parishes were highlighted by Rudder. At Long Marston,
(sometimes known as Marston Sicca or Dry Marston because it had no spring), in
summertime cattle were driven to the Avon in the next parish in order to drink, while
water for culinary purposes was strained with a sieve to cleanse it from the myriads of
insects. It was ‘flat vale country, yet the greater part of the parish is arable land.’ 23
Pebworth and Welford had rich, fertile soil with good grass and corn. Pebworth was
‘equally divided into pasture and arable and a good part lies in common fields’.
Dorsington and Welford were also unenclosed. 24
Kings Broom had undergone some
enclosure pre-1660 and Salford Priors was probably enclosed by agreement early in the
eighteenth century. 25
Parliamentary enclosure occurred in five of the ten parishes during
Period C, while other parishes such as Pebworth and Welford had to wait until the early
nineteenth century for their enclosure awards. 26
The land tax returns of 1798 highlight
the differences between different settlements. Bidford’s profile with many landholders
may reflect its town-like role, while Milcote with one landowner was purely
agricultural. 27
22 J. Fendley, ed., ‘Notes on the Diocese of Gloucester by Chancellor Richard Parsons, c.1700’, Bristol and
Gloucestershire Arch. Soc., Record Series, 19, (2005), pp.19, 47. Descriptions of the soil by S. Rudder, A
New History of Gloucestershire (1779), (reprinted Gloucester, Alan Sutton, 1977) are given in Period C.
23 Rudder, A New History of Gloucestershire, p. 540. There was a village pond which was presumably the
source of the drinking water at least until it dried out in high summer.
24 Rudder, A New History of Gloucestershire, pp. 413, 599, 789, 807. The information about Dorsington
must pre-date its parliamentary enclosure award of 1776.
25 VCH Warwickshire, iii, p. 52 and p. 158. Kings Broom (in the parish of Bidford) was one of the
Throckmortons’ manors, several of which show evidence of some early enclosure.
26 See Appendix 1.
27 See Appendix 24. The population densities in this appendix also highlight the different nature of the
various settlements.
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