The view from the yardlands: Common property rights and the parliamentary enclosure of Warmington (Warwickshire) c.1750–1820

This paper reanimates the debate over the consequences of parliamentary enclosure in eighteenth-century England by analysing a personal memoir of the south Warwickshire village of Warmington. Written by a yeoman farmer in the early years of the nineteenth century, this anonymous ‘Short history’ focuses on the 1777 enclosure award, discussing in detail the relationship between the yardlands farmed by the freeholders before the enclosure and the allotments allocated to them afterwards, and describes its impact on the landscape and on the labour relations transacted within it. More specifically this paper identifies the author of the ‘Short history’, analyses his reading of the impact of agrarian change, and argues that his account offers an invaluable perspective on parliamentary enclosure, not least because it represents the views of a well-compensated yardlander who was nevertheless highly sensitive to the wider social and cultural consequences of the redefinition of property rights.