by Michael Wright

There is a wealth of information for the historian in the pattern of field-boundaries, but it is unfortunately rarely possible to date the initial construction of a wall, or the planting of a hedge. Occasionally, documentary evidence can be matched with evidence on the ground, and this has proved to be the case with a two-kilometer length of wall on ground that is now part of Gait Barrow Nature Reserve, North West of Yealand Storrs. This wall, built by Thomas Middleton to enclose 85 acres of what was then Yealand Common, played a part in a bitter dispute between the Middleton family and their tenants in the seventeenth century.

Thomas Middleton of Leighton Hall had strong leanings to catholicism and was fined for recusancy sometime after 1605. By 1629 he had had two-thirds of his estate sequestered and was looking at ways of raising money from his tenants. As Lord of the Manor of Yealand Redmayne, Yealand Conyers and Silverdale he drastically increased the particular fines payable by his tenants when there was a change of tenancy, as well as the general fine that was payable by all tenants on the death of the Lord of the Manor. His son George took the family much further into debt when he was fined for his royalist sympathies. He squeezed his tenants even more by further doubling the general fine. This was too much for the tenants to bear, and they presented a Bill of Complaint in 1642. The dispute dominated relations between the Middletons and their tenants for much of the seventeenth century. The wall at Gait Barrows concerns only one facet of this dispute.

Among the complaints made by the Yealand tenants in 1642 was the comment that “there are certain commons or waste lands for which the tenants pay yearly to the king a quit rent of thirteen pence. The said Thomas enclosed with a wall a large portion of these, the portion being the most fertile thereof … he also debarred them from the use of several wells which they have always been accustomed to use.” This enclosure can therefore be dated to Thomas’s lifetime. We know that he died in 1640, and that he had become heavily fined by 1629. If the enclosure and development of the commonland was seen as another means of raising much needed money, it is most likely to have taken place in the 1620s or 1630s.

The location of the enclosure would have remained difficult to pin down were it not for the ever-helpful Lucas. In his History of Warton Parish (p.53) Lucas comments that “the Middletons being Lords of the Manner, inclosed a large Piece of Ground in the East Part of this township [Silverdale] which from the Original Use it was designed for … received the name of Colt Park.” He further locates it as lying northwest of the crag or fell at Brackenthwaite. With this information, and the First Edition six inch to the mile Ordnance Survey map of the area, it is reasonably easy to pick out the oval flattened shape of this primary enclosure. The irregular line of its wall contrasts with the later straight enclosure award walls. Lucas is incorrect in placing the New Park within Silverdale Township. It is wholly within Yealand Redmayne Township, as shown on the accompanying plan, though township boundaries may not have been accurately defined in Lucas’s day.

The Colt park, or New Park, 85 statute acres in extent, was an appreciable addition to the Middleton estates, and in indentures of the seventeenth century is listed among their possessions immediately after Leighton Hall and park and the mosses of Warton and Leighton (for example Lancashire Record Office ref DDTo/Q/9/2). No doubt the original intention was to use it for rearing horses, and the rather sparse limestone grassland, with watering places, would be well suited for this purpose. The inventory of George Middleton’s possessions, made at his death in 1672, includes 58 horses ‘young and old’, as well as geldings, mares and colts, in total worth over £150. A likely route from Leighton Hall to the New Park would be the track through Yealand Storrs, as indicated on the accompanying plan.

Confirmation that this enclosure is indeed the Middletons New Park is readily found in the plan accompanying the Yealand Enclosure Award of 1778, though by this time the park had passed into the ownership of Edmund Adamson. At the time of the enclosure the Yealand commonland is shown as being without any woodland, as would be expected from its continuous use for grazing. In contrast the New Park, which had been protected by its wall for some 150 years, has areas of woodland, some of which may be have been coppiced for the production of charcoal.

Much of the wall round the New Park is still visible. Few parts of it are straight for any length, suggesting that it was set out on the ground, without being pre-surveyed, and taking account of local physical features. In places it follows lines of crags such as White Crag, east of Haweswater. And there is a noticeable gap in the wall over 100 metres long, starting at the point where the stream from Little Hawes Water to Hawes Water crosses the edge of the New Park. Perhaps this area of low, boggy ground was under water in the seventeenth century, before the water level in Hawes Water was lowered to facilitate peat extraction from Hawes Water Moss.

The western edge of the New Park has been accepted later as the boundary between Silverdale Township and Yealand Redmayne Township. The adjoining stretches of wall between the townships, to north and south of the New Park, are later in construction. This can be seen at the junction of the walls, and their straightness suggests that they may date to the time of the Yealand Enclosure Award of 1778. Prior to this animals grazing on the commons would have been free to wander from one township to the other unless shepherded or tended.

Public footpaths through Gait Barrows Reserve give access to the New Park wall at several places. Standing beside it in this peaceful setting it is difficult to feel the deep resentment and anger that must have been experienced by the local tenants when they saw being it constructed on the commonland that was such an important source of grazing for their livestock. It is not surprising that this late attempt to revive the medieval rights of the lord of the manor met with determined opposition, especially in the inflammatory atmosphere of the mid- seventeenth century. Since last year the grassland in the New Park has been grazed by Exmoor ponies, so bringing it back close to its original use as the Colt Park.

Published in Mourholme Magazine Issue 30 1997