This document focusses on the practical bits and bobs. It is designed to help you start looking at inclosures. If you find anything interesting you will need to get further information, including the inclosure act. The document is designed to supplement the advice in “Restoring the Record” and you should read this.
Was there a Parliamentary Inclosure in your patch?
To find this out visit http://enclosuremaps.data-archive.ac.uk/first.html . This site will also give you some catalogue references, although they are very out of date. PRO refers to the national archive.
Locating the inclosure map and award.
They are held at the National Archive and/or at county archives. It may be worth starting at the National Archive Catalogue. Always search for INclosure and ENclosure. The first was the most used description, but later ones may use EN. For example a search for the Bepton inclosure will tell you that it is held at the West Sussex Records Office and the number that it is filed under.
In this case you then need to go to the West Sussex Records office and order the document. In most cases it will be easier to go to the county record office rather than the National Archive, even if there are copies in both places.
Ordering the documents
Make sure you are getting both the map and the award. One is useless without the other. In some cases the map and the award may be held under separate references.
Looking at the documents and copying them.
Now the fun begins.
Inclosures can be for whole parishes, or a couple of fields, and the documentation will reflect this. Later inclosures can be for little bits of land scattered over a wide area and this can make it difficult to work out where the land is.
First photograph the map. This is the comparatively easy part. It is probably best to take one photo of the whole thing so you have an idea of where everything fits together. But you will probably also need to photograph it in parts. Start top left, work your way along to the right hand end of the top, and then go back to the left on the part below you first photograph and work along, till you have finished. Try to check that you can see the various numbers and letters shown on the map. These are very important.
Then turn to the award. In the example of Bepton there is a typescript transcript, which is easy to read. You will not always be so lucky. You may have to work with a handwritten award.
Take heart! You do not have to copy all of the award.
A typical original award will be set out on a number sheets about 2ft by 2ft 6inches and will be hand written.
STARTING WORK ON THE AWARD
You need to locate the first page of the award, which may not be the top sheet. For example in the East Sussex Records Office the first page is almost always at the BACK of the documents.
You can tell the first page of the award because usually the inclosure commissioners introduce themselves and send you a greeting. It’s rather nice to be greeted by these chaps down all the years. Yes- they are talking to you.
The commissioners then set out the powers under which they have made the award and how they did it, so that everyone can tell that they did things properly. You don’t have to copy all this, but it will be needed later if you find some routes set out that are not now on the map and you want to make an application. And you do need to find out when it ends.
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HITTING PAY DIRT
As you scroll through all this you are likely to suddenly come to a sentence that says something like
“we set out and confirm the following public carriageways, private carriageway and footpath, that is to say………”
There then follows a list of these ways (with any bridleways that may be included).
This is because the roads and paths were always set out before the land was apportioned.
Then each carriageway, bridleway and footpath, public and private will be set out. It will almost certainly be given a number or letter which will correspond to the map. It might be named. It will also be described in a way that would make its route obvious to people at the time (and hopefully to you).
Copy all of these ways, public and private.
Then suddenly all this will stop and the commissioners will start awarding bits of land to individual people. You can stop there. You don’t need this at this stage- which is good because this is probably the bulk of the document. So however big the award you may have to copy only about 5 five pages.
(just occasionally, with small inclosures, there are no routes set out at all)
TECHNICAL ISSUES
The award may be handwritten. It may be faded, and the pages may be very large. This poses problems. Take your best camera or phone.
You might try copying the whole width of relevant pages, perhaps taking 3 or more shots a page. This should work if the page is foolscap size, but if it is larger it may not work. Take shots of a test page and have a look at them to see if they are readable.
You might have to copy the left hand part of the document and then the right hand part and stitch it together digitally (or get someone else to do this)
In extreme cases you may want to get a quote from the archive for reproducing the relevant pages for you. The price varies. In East Sussex it is reasonable, but in West Sussex it is ruinous, for example.
LOOKING AT THE MATERIAL YOU HAVE COPIED
Have a look to see if the public routes set out in the inclosure are on the rights of way map or are roads today (or better, on the first version of the definitive map if you have it.) If not you may be on to something. Don’t forget that there may have been diversions after the inclosure.
Often the inclosure stopped up any routes not listed in the award. To be sure of this you need to check the introduction and the Act, but if you have a route that is shown as existing up to the inclosure but not after this is probably the reason.
Try to look at the papers held by the County archive about the first definitive map. Sometimes these are quite extensive. If there is even a note saying that someone had looked at the inclosure award then you will have to find some other evidence before you can make an application because the inclosure material will not be ne.
If you find anything useful you will need to get the Act and look at the introduction to the award (if you have not already done) so before you make an application.
Chris Smith 12/11/21