Description:Enclosure maps and their accompanying awards are important sources for local, agricultural and economic history in the 18th and 19th centuries, and reflect a time when communities were experiencing significant change.
Images reproduced by kind permission of Staffordshire Record Office and FoSSA Enclosure Map Digitisation Project. Funded by a Midland Ancestors grant from its Kemp Legacy Fund.
Enclosure was the process of dividing common land into enclosed fields. This started in the medieval period but most surviving documentation relates to the enclosures of the 18th and 19th centuries, governed by individual Acts of Parliament which explain circumstances and context, and which remain in force to this day.
The work was carried out by local surveyors appointed as Inclosure Commissioners. They made detailed maps on parchment, usually large in scale and highly accurate, showing the new landscape of fields, roads and adjacent buildings as affected by the Act. Most maps therefore do not show other pieces of land or buildings beyond the extent of the enclosure. New and existing access roads are shown making these documents an important source also for rights of way research.
The accompanying text awards are made of parchment, often large and bulky, and can be difficult to use or understand, unlike tithe awards. They are usually arranged in sections starting with boundaries and roads, then there might be special allotments such as to the Lord of the Manor, Vicar, or Trustees of Common Lands, then continuing with a section for each landowner. There is a paragraph describing each plot mainly in terms of its acreage and boundary, sometimes with a clause of liability for maintaining boundaries alongside roads. As former common or waste land there would be no reference to any tenants.
Please note that whilst the enclosure maps have been digitised, the awards have not, due to their size and complexity. For further enquiries please contact Staffordshire Record Office.
Click on the Attachments Link for a PDF download giving further information about enclosure and a full list of Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent Archive Service holdings of enclosure maps, awards and Acts of Parliament.
Size: 23" x 33"