When looking into The Enclosure Laws of the 18th Century I came across a discussion with Melvyn Bragg on the BBC Website and a few guests which discusses this topic along with the social, aesthetic and economical effects of these changes. I also read a few articles and blog entries which helped me to better understand the history of these laws which essentially were the basis of modern day land design.
“Enclosure means literally enclosing a field with a fence or a hedge to prevent others using it. This seemingly innocuous act triggered a revolution in land holding that dispossessed many, enriched a few but helped make the agricultural and industrial revolutions possible.”
The Enclosures essentially called for the fencing off of land to create a sense of land ownership and stop the people who did not own the land from using it. It has become a key point in the development of the economical and agricultural aspects of modern Britain. We are told that this policy was something that impoverished the many for the benefit of the few. It essentially impoverished many for the benefit of a few which shows in the separation of the land that was divvied up among the land owners within the different villages and towns.
The land went from open field farming, which were organised into strips of land and larger common fields for grazing of animals, to the use of fences to consolidate this land. Before enclosure the land was under common rights which meant that every land owner within that village or town could use that piece of land as long as they organised it and said what they were using it for; these pieces of land could be used for may different purposes including cattle farming, crop growing and fire wood collecting for fuel, etc. The good thing about this was that you did not have to own a massive amount of land within the community’s bounds to use this common land which meant that people from all classes would benefit from it rather than the poor suffering while the rich thrived. However, after enclosure there were specific land owners which meant that the owner of a piece of land could do with it what they wanted to do whenever they pleased without having to discuss this with the community.
When a village was enclosed the kind of people that would benefit from this would have been the people who owned quite large amounts of land not only because they could use this land as they pleased but it also meant that they could sell some of their land to try and earn some revenue from commercial buyers – they also didn’t have to worry about sharing land with others in their community. However, the people who lost out when enclosure came about were the people who did not own a lot of land and who relied on the use of common rights land to make a living, along with the tenant farmers who had to begin to pay rent or have to move their farms outside of villages.
Absolute rights became a more legal idea when enclosure came to its peak; this meant that the land owner had full rights over the land which in turn meant that people from the surrounding land couldn’t just wander in and use said land like they could of before these laws came around. However, in the beginning of the enclosure law it was sometimes hard to gain absolute rights as you would potentially have to get an act of parliament to get these rights and make it illegal for others to go onto or use your land.
The appearance of the landscapes changed; with straight lines replacing unkept and broken boundaries of fields. Farms moved outside of villages, which was the optimal location for these, as an act of the enclosure laws and this caused some disease within the different communities. This did not effect the whole of England, however, because some places like Kent had been using enclosure before this became a law as they believed that it was the most efficient way to get the most out of each piece of land without wasting any of it – this is an argument that later writers and politicians have used to back the enclosure laws of the 18th Century.
The End Of Enclosure
As the middle class people in the 1860s began to notice that there was not much space left for recreational grounds due to the enclosures, and became disturbed by this, the laws quickly became just an idea and died down nearly immediately with only a few hints left behind of the actual law demanding that that was how the land should be divided up. This came around when they created a protection society which was called the ‘Commons Preservation Society’, which later became the ‘Open Spaces Society’, which then created the modern day ‘National Trust’. In just a short amount of years this Society had very influential followers within parliament and therefore managed to get the 1876 Commons Act to rule that enclosure could only be used if it would benefit the public.
Repton and Brown
In the middle of the Enclosures of the 18th Century Capability Brown and Humphrey Brown (Brown’s successor), both English landscape designers known for their individual, intricate and eclectic designs that can still be seen in some garden in select areas of the country. They saw an opportunity when they realised that there weren’t any beautiful recreational gardens or open green spaces left due to the enclosure laws; so they essentially landscaped the whole of Britain. This means that today there is basically very little land that has been left untouched and hasn’t been effected by these landscaping giants. Even the places that weren’t designed by them were landscaped due to their efforts and the way that their successors have decided to make their marks on the country.
The gardens and parks that these men designed were beautiful in aesthetic and designed with the intention that people would be able to spend time within them and not lose the beauty that can be found within nature. Lines and shape were incredibly important to the men and I think that this can be seen in modern designs for these new Garden cities, along with modern garden designs and park plans, which shows us that these ideas are not necessarily new but are instead being reinvented and revived to suit the modern day man and woman.
Humphrey Repton
Humphrey Repton
Capability Brown
Capability Brown
However much I might enjoy the aesthetics of these landscaped gardens in which the visitors can really immerse themselves in the intriguing design elements that make the most of the elements at hand, I do think that there is something to be said for the wild forest. For example, when I visit Portugal I spend a lot of time in the different unkept and non-landscaped forests which allows you to make your own path and even sometimes get lost within the beauty of them. I believe that nature should be something that is subjective and personal; people should be able to take away from it what they please and not necessarily be forced to look at something that someone else has designed for their own personal enjoyment in a public space – in a sense I think that these designed and landscaped gardens are great, but I also wouldn’t want to have them as my sole source of natural landscape as I feel that this can sometimes take away the raw and natural beauty that can be found in an untouched space that has been left as a blank space for each visitor to interpret themselves.
I found this research really interesting as it allowed me to basically see where the basis for my whole concept came from and how this has influenced modern times. I think that this will allow me to create a more informed set of images when selecting some for this project along with when I continue this project, and other personal projects, in the future which will in turn ensure that my concepts are consolidated by research rather than just images.
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