ChapTer Three
Seventeenth-century
environments: Farmland
meadows and pastures
Woods, moors, heaths, common pastures and wetlands occupied vast tracts
of England in the seventeenth century, well over a third of the total land area.
But the rest of the country comprised farmland, divided into fields of various
kinds. In the Middle Ages most such land had been farmed as arable, with
livestock pastured mainly on commons, but in the more complex economy
of the early modern period there was a steady increase in the area occupied
by private pastures.
Some of this enclosed grassland comprised short-term leys which
alternated with periods of arable use, a system which contemporaries
referred to as ‘up-and-down’ husbandry. But most was permanent or at
least long-term in character because it took a long time to establish a rich
sward. In the words of the old adage, ‘To make a pasture breaks a man;
to break a pasture makes a man’, the latter a reference to the high yields
expected from arable land broken in from grassland, rich in accumulated
nutrients and with high levels of organic matter. Not surprisingly, post-
medieval farm leases, drawn up to maintain the value of the landowner’s
assets, frequently laid down restrictions on the ploughing of pasture.
Enclosed grassland, usually on clay soils of a moderately fertile, neutral
character, often gained a significant range of plants, although seldom
acquiring the extreme diversity displayed by downland and other types of
ancient calcareous pasture.
Pastures, as noted in the previous chapter, need to be distinguished
from meadows. These were cut in mid-summer to produce hay, which was