From Open Fields to Open Spaces in English Midland County

Abstract

"Leicestershire was common-field-farming country of nucleated villages in parishes which in the middle ages were entirely filled by open fields cultivated in common. The phases of enclosure of this land over the centuries freed it from shared rights to become private property producing for the market.

"Some districts did have land resources outside their common fields. Charnwood Forest, a barren rocky outcrop, contained no village settlements but was grazed from the surrounding villages. Parts have been gifted to the city and county of Leicester and are run as public parks. Others belong to the county Wildlife Conservation Trust. Now the National Forest Company is creating a new forest area 'for recreation, leisure and tourism'. Thus Charnwood, from being an integral part of the struggle for a livelihood by villagers, has become a tourist attraction.

"In the eighteenth century complaints from the villagers about the over-grazing of the grass on the Forest by rabbits based in neighbouring commercial rabbit warrens culminated in a well-publicised riot which set out to dig up and destroy them. The gentry magistrates panicked and called in the militia. News of such events reached local and national newspapers. Why was there such a reaction to the riot and such articulate support for the commoners? Here were conflicting rights over unpromising terrain, the lords claiming a privilege under a royal charter, and the new rural industrial workers asserting an ancient customary cottager right."