Conclusions

Abstract

THERE were significant variations in the pattern of parliamentary enclosure across space and through time. There were equally significant variations in the land types which were enclosed. Two major peaks of activity can be identified, one before 1780 and the other during the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. These two peaks must be considered as separate events, separate in time of course, but also distinguishable in terms of location and the underlying economic motivation for them. Early (i.e. pre-1750) enclosures on the clay soils, especially the heavy clays of the Midlands, took place often with an eye to changing land use from traditional open arable fields into pastures, to take advantage of the comparative advantage these soils had for growing grass in preference to crops during a time of improved living standards, when dietary demand switched partially to a reduced bread and increased meat and dairy products consumption. These early enclosures issued into a major period of enclosing which peaked in the late 1760s and 1770s. The second peak of activity, after 1790 and reaching its height in the first decade of the nineteenth century, brought about the improvement of lighter soils, this time, on the whole, for maintaining and improving arable output, and also brought into cultivation much marginal land, the commons and wastes of the uplands, fenlands, heaths and moors, as well as residual wastes in lowland areas.