Enclosures

Enclosures of farmland have had a bad press. Particularly in the 19thcentury, Acts of Parliament enabled landowners to enclose land by fencing in their fields, which up till then had been open spaces divided into strips of land mostly cultivated by tenant farmers.

Three official Enclosures are recorded in the parish of East Meon. The first was a formal Agreement in 1661; it is notable that most of the signatories were illiterate and marked their consent by making crosses.

The later Enclosures were by Acts of Parliament in 1845 and 1861, awarding land at Oxenbourne and Ramsdean Downs, mostly to two wealthy landowners, John Bonham Carter and Sir William Jolliffe. Smaller farmers were given reduced holdings, often of poor land, or forced to give up farming altogether.