Enclosure 

The Field Book of 1566 describes a number of landowners with rights in the open fields. By the end of the eighteenth century most of these old tenements exercising these rights, plus the sheepwalks have been bought up and amalgamated into the estate of the Burch family. In the early years of the nineteenth century, a series of attempts are made to obtain an Act of Parliament for the enclosure of the parish. Finally, in 1807 the act is passed and three years later the Award is made. Most of the land was awarded to George Wilson, the lord of the manor (2,346 acres) and Joseph Randyll Burch (1,465 acres) who was the heir to many of the landholders named in 1566. 

Of the rest, the next largest allotment was a fuel allotment of 176 acres to compensate the poor. Another landowner, Thomas Browne Evans received I40 acres and the Glebe land was worth 91 acres. The remainder was divided between almost 60 other people, only two of whom were given over 20 acres, and most received less than 4 acres. The award also laid out some new roads across the newly enclosed land. At the same time the course of the road to Thetford was changed to its present course. A large number of these small allotments lay beside the main roads and explain the profusion of nineteenth century houses on the way into the town.

John Basham ©2000