County Surveys carried out at this time were not objective descriptions, most had a political motive. Their purpose was to provide information to aid the cause of agricultural improvement. They undoubtedly exaggerated the deleterious aspects of the landscape and the way it was kept in order to encourage the enclosure of land. The process of Enclosure had been ongoing on for many centuries but became especially common by private Act of Parliament from the mid-1700s. It meant land was transferred from communal to private ownership with the aim of improving agricultural productivity.
For many this process of agricultural improvement was an enlightened movement: with the unenclosed system the emphasis was on subsistence and food was produced for the village communally, whereas the enclosed system focussed on economically valuable activities, landowners could act independently to improve drainage and soil quality and employ new methods of crop production and the communal aspect of farming disappeared. There was a widespread suspicion of unenclosed communities and they were often depicted as backward and idle and potentially dangerous.
The Windsor Forest Act 1813 in nearby Berkshire was one of the largest enclosure Acts in Britain enclosing 24,500 acres and it was a catalyst for more local activity in both counties despite the fact that the potential envisaged was not realised (Parton). In 1823 The Gentleman’s Magazine records ‘plants for druggists and perfumers’, hops, turnips and clover as the main products of the county but these products would probably have come mainly from the southern and eastern parts. As the land in the west still proved worthless or economically unrealistic for producing food, conifers for timber were planted in the sandy soil as one of the few things that would grow. It was soon discovered that the soil was also perfect for newly fashionable garden plants, including rhododendron and azaleas, brought over from America and, as Crosby points out ‘from the sterile soils of the area emerged one of the formative elements in English landscape design and domestic gardening of the past two centuries’ (Crosby p.183). Market gardening increased still further with the growth of the railways from the 1830s onward when plants could be transported quickly.
In some cases, as is the case with the land around Egham, land use moved towards leisure rather than farming and new estates for country houses were carved out of the common land. Increased social mobility and the proximity to London rendered these areas ideal for other sorts of development. The creation of Virginia Water in 1753 and later George III’s residence at Windsor increased the attraction of the area for the upwardly mobile elements of London society.
A particularly significant enclosure act for the local area was the Egham Enclosure Act of 1814. It shows an unusually early awareness of the value of open space for health and leisure, and it protected a green ‘open and unenclosed for the pleasure of the inhabitants and the adornment of their residences on the said green in such a manner as the commoners shall think fit’ (Egham Enclosure Act, 1814 cited in Parton p.57). It wasn’t until the 1850s that this use for common land became more widespread.
Changing use of the countryside also changed how people travelled through it. Alongside enclosure the 1800s saw increased turnpiking of roads which a big effect on the surrounding landscape. The road from Staines to Bagshot was a particularly important route connecting London with the West, in particular Bath and the busy port of Bristol. Road surfaces were improved, and journey times were reduced. Cobbett notes the excellent roads in the area near Windsor and Egham while lamenting the countryside. Coach traffic increased and it became possible to geographically separate work and home for the first time. As the century progressed the railways, originally built upon the cheaper heathland that was left unenclosed, encouraged urban development in these places once thought uninhabitable. The terrain was also ideal for military training, racecourses and golf courses.
The combination of enclosure, improved roads, the growth of country estates stimulated by the growing nouveau riches radically altered the wild, empty heathlands of the 1700s and effectively put an end to the grazing of sheep and cattle and other traditional activities that would have taken place on them. Although their use for fuel and other materials would have continued in some form as the area available receded, they were rapidly becoming absorbed into landscaped estates as fashionable suburbs for the west of London.
According to Turner, the population of Egham parish in 1801 was 2,190 of whom over 1,200 were employed in agriculture (Turner, p.237). Despite William Cobbett’s criticism of the Surrey and Berkshire heathland as ‘bleak’ and ‘barren, his conservative views made him sympathetic to the rural poor and he strongly disagreed with enclosure. He lamented a way of life that was fast disappearing as enclosure gradually transformed areas of communal open strip farming and common grazing land into consolidated fields with fences or hedges. The shape of villages changed as farms were no longer concentrated in the centre but scattered further apart and encircled by hedged and fenced fields. Where once tenant farmers came together to make decisions about communal land use, after enclosure decisions could be made by the landowner and the smaller tenant farmers often lost their customary grazing rights and became agricultural labourers or were forced off the land altogether as improved agricultural practices reduced the need for workers. Increased profits also justified higher rent and this, in combination with the reduced need for labour, created an increase in displaced people either as rural poor to be supported by the parish or those who moved to find work in urban areas. Cobbett was, however, still highly critical of the quality of the country he rode through in western Surrey, but in this case he argued that, due to the poor quality of much of the land which was enclosed, it was often a waste of money and destructive to traditional rural life.
In the areas around Egham and Englefield Green land was gradually nibbled away to create country estates alongside the older Surrey families, for the rapidly growing middle classes of London who had no need for income from their land but simply wanted the status that came from owning it. We see many of these people living in the houses Hassell paints – East Indian Company workers, lawyers, merchants and retired military officers. Cobbett makes this point in his usual forceful manner: ‘At the end of this blackguard heath you come (on the road to Egham) to a little place called Sunning Hill, which is on the Western side of Windsor Park. It is a spot all made into ‘grounds’ and gardens by tax-eaters. The inhabitants of it have beggared twenty agricultural villages and hamlets.’ (Cobbett, p.67).
Apart from the land close to the Thames much of the poorer land around Egham was not snapped up in the early days of enclosure when the focus was predominantly good arable land. Instead, maps show that the heaths were encroached on bit by bit through the 1700s to enlarge areas of farmland creating islands of improved land separated by strips of heath edged by scattered cottages. By 1800 most unenclosed areas left in Surrey were commons or heathland not suitable for farming (Parton, p.51). Nevertheless, a dramatic increase in enclosure is seen at the turn of the century as a response to the food crisis created by the Napoleonic Wars.
This period also sees the establishment of the Board of Agriculture (1793). So even parts of these ‘barren’ and ‘villainous’ heaths were enclosed despite the high cost of improving the soil and there was much political activity in the decades following 1800 (see Crosby pp.181-82). To try and streamline the procedure and save parliamentary time the first Public General Act was passed in 1801. Bills were submitted to parliament by private individuals or groups of landowners. These bills were often opposed by people who disagreed with the enclosure or wanted to revise clauses, and some took many years to be realised. Records held at the Surrey History Centre tell us that there was fairly strong local opposition to enclosure in many cases. In Surrey between 1730-1839 there were 101 bills submitted to Parliament, 25 counter-petitions were recorded and only 50 Acts were finally passed. This was a high percentage failure rate compared to other English counties.
Researched and Authored by Katharine Stimston
References
BBC In Our Time programme on Enclosure: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00b1m9b
Cobbett, W. (1830) Rural Rides. Penguin English Library ed. G. Woodcock, 1967.
Crosby, A. G. (2018) ‘A disappearing landscape: the heathlands of the Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey borders’. Agricultural History Review, 66:2 pp.171-98.
Parton, A. G. (1985) ‘Parliamentary enclosure in nineteenth-century Surrey – some perspectives on the evaluation of land potential’. Agricultural History Review, 33:1, pp.51-58.
Turner, Frederick. Egham, Surrey: A history of the Parish under Church and Crown, 1926
Further Reading
Bryan, T. A. The Egham Inclosure Act 1814 and the award. [Typewritten thesis with plan ]. 1947. [138], The Oliver Collection
Roberts, J. Royal Landscape: Gardens and Parks of Windsor. Yale University Press, 1997.
Waits, I. Common Land in English Painting 1700-1850. Boydell Press, 2012.
The Act to enclose land at Egham 1814 (Surrey History Centre, ref: 2225/10/1), and the resulting Award and Map 1817 (SHC, ref: QS6/4/25). Material related to this enclosure includes a book of reference to old enclosures and allotments (SHC, ref: 185/16/2) and related papers 1817 (SHC, ref: 373/-).
Microfilm of a written survey of Egham 1818 giving plots, owners, names of fields etc. old and new enclosures, Surrey History Centre, Z/246/1
Enclosure Maps at Egham Museum. Plus earlier 1805 map.
Edgell Wyatt papers – include discussion of land enclosed and the intention of some profit to go to poor relief.