Enfield Chase
Enfield Chase is an open space in the London Borough of Enfield, North London. Historically, the name applied to a large common occupying the western part of the ancient parish of Enfield, extending from Monken Hadley in the west to Bulls Cross in the east, and from Potters Bar to Southgate.
Since 1994 the term 'Enfield Chase' has applied to the Enfield Chase Heritage Area of Special Character; a part of the former common area – largely owned by the London Borough of Enfield – that was never developed for housing and other urban uses.
The area was owned by a landlord, for many centuries the Duchy of Lancaster, who held Forest Rights and other rights such as the right to a certain amount of extracted wood. Local commoners also had wood extraction rights and grazing rights which were vital to their subsistence. Although the Chase was legally a Forest, the land was not woodland but wood-pasture; grazing land with a pollard and other trees set within it. Pollarding was a sustainable way that commoners could harvest wood from living trees in a way that did not kill them, but instead indefinitely extended their life span.
In the 1500s the balance of rights between the landowner and the common rights of local people broke down, and Enfield Chase became a byword for socio-economic conflict. This mainly took the form of the Duchy taking more profit from the Chase at the expense of the commoners.
In 1659, parliament sold extensive areas of the Chase to wealthy and influential figures. The commoners tore down the fences and fought soldiers hired by the new landowners to enforce the new arrangements. Despite several inhabitants people being killed by musket fire, the people of Enfield overwhelmed the soldiers and saved Enfield Chase for another hundred years
In the 1700s, the rich and powerful 'rangers' of the Chase used their influence to help secure the Black Act of 1723, which made poaching and many other crimes punishable by death. Local communities in which offences took place faced collective punishment through reparations to the landowner.
The Chase was enclosed in 1777 to stimulate economic growth and to end criminality in the Chase. Ancient common rights including access, grazing and wood collection were extinguished, and the land was given over to farms and private parks.
Much of the area enclosed for agriculture was urbanised in the mid-20th century; alarm at London's sprawl led to extensive areas of farmland, plus private parks such as Trent Park and Whitewebbs Park being brought into public ownership so they could be preserved for the benefit of the people of Enfield. Much of the publicly owned open space may now be built on due to projects such as a large new town at Crews Hill and Tottenham Hotspur's planned new training facility on part of Whitewebbs Park.
History
Before Enfield Chase – Domesday and the Forest of Middlesex
Domesday returns for Middlesex as a whole indicate that the county was around 30% wooded in 1086, about double the English average. This would have been lower in the lower land, close to rivers that made it more attractive for farming, and higher in other parts of the county.The area that would become known as Enfield Chase is likely to been part of the Forest of Middlesex, an area under forest law which is likely to have had a high proportion of woodland. The citizens of the City of London held the hunting rights. The Forest of Middlesex was abolished by Henry II in 1218. This removed some of the protections the woods and common land had from encroachment by agriculture. No longer part of the much wider Forest of Middlesex, Enfield Chase became a legal forest in its own right.
Etymology
Enfield Chase was recorded as Enefeld Chacee in 1325 and chace of Enefelde in 1373, from the Middle English chace, meaning "a tract of ground for breeding and hunting wild animals". The term Chase particularly applies to places, like Enfield Chase, where the forest rights are held by someone other than the monarch.In a charter of 1166–89 the hamlet of Southgate, sited around what is now Southgate Underground station, is referred to. It takes its name from its location at the South Gate of the old hunting ground, later known as Enfield Chase.
Ownership and management
The chase was established by Geoffrey de Mandeville around 1136-1144. It appears it was not known as Enfield Chase until the early 14th century, and was known as Enfield Wood or Enfield Park before that time. The name Enfield Chase is first recorded in 1325.It was referred to as 'Parcus Extrinicus' to distinguish it from the older and smaller Enfield Old Park which was mentioned in the Domesday Book as a park and was later used for rearing game to be released into the adjacent Chase.
In the middle ages a forest was an area managed for the breeding and hunting of deer, and was not necessarily wooded. Generally speaking the crown held the forest rights, but in a few cases - such as Enfield Chase the forest rights were privately held. Enfield Chase was a forest but it was not a woodland, the habitat was wood-pasture - grazing land interspersed with trees. Many of these trees were pollards.
Enfield Chase covered , the higher western half of the ancient parish of Enfield. It was part of an area of wood-pasture that extended nine miles northward to Hatfield in Hertfordshire.
While the landowner held the forest and a number of other rights, the land was primarily managed as a common, with various grazing and wood collection rights enjoyed by commoners of Enfield, Edmonton, Monken Hadley and South Mimms. Areas of common land across both areas was inter-commoned meaning that commoners of all districts enjoyed rights in each. This arrangement is thought to derive from sometime before the Norman Conquest when the four districts are thought to have formed a single territorial unit. Much of the wood collection rights was by a sustainable process called pollarding which indefinitely extended the life of the tree.
Common rights are older than forest law which was a Norman imposition, and where these co-existed there was significant conflict between these two sets of rights. This was partly resolver by the Charter of the Forest, a sister document to the Magna Carta, which was produced in 1217. Forest rights were curtailed and the continued exercise of common rights within areas of forest guaranteed.
Period of stability
For hundreds of years the Chase was owned by the Mandeville and then the de Bohun families before passing to the Duchy of Lancaster in 1471. The Duchy held the manor of Enfield and the Forest rights in Enfield Chase. For the first hundred years, the Duchy was a very conservative landlord and made no attempt to infringe on common rights or to enclose any common land.It is believed that Princess Elizabeth often hunted on the Chase after she was granted the estate of West Lodge Park by her brother Edward VI in 1547.
Sustained social conflict
In most forests, there was a stable balance between the forest rights of the crown and the common rights of the local people. Enfield Chase experienced sustained social conflict as the Duchy of Lancaster, which had the forest rights, did not have the crown's traditional scruples about oppressing the tenantry. For centuries they sought to expand their own rights at the expense of the commoners. The Duchy of Lancaster was a crown estate, but operated at arms length, in a similar way to a modern quango.By mid 1500s population was rising leading to pressure on natural resources. Competition for resources between the Duchy and commoners increased. This was exacerbated by the corruption of Duchy officials taking far more wood than they were entitled and selling it on outside the parish without giving local people the customary first refusal.
Another problem for Enfield Chase was the enclosure of some common land in Edmonton; as Edmonton and Enfield intercommoned the loss of common in one area increased pressure on common land in both. These factors combined to leads to a centuries long downward trend in the number of pollard and other trees in that wood-pasture environment.
At the same time, the rights of the Duchy were being infringed through poaching of deer by gentry and commons alike.
The Duchy's response to the competition for resources included rationing, for the first time, the right to grazing and wood collection common rights. taking more than one's allowance became a crime.
In 1659, during the Interregnum, desperate for funds, parliament sold off large parts of the chase to a number of parliamentarian army officers and other influential figures. Outraged at the loss of their ancient feudal rights, local commoners tore down the fences that the incomers had erected, so that they could graze their cattle there as before.
The 'Intruders', as they were referred to, hired well armed off-duty parliamentarian soldiers to enforce their acquisitions. The soldiers shot and stole the commoner's sheep, and also shot cows and horses. Confrontations followed with the soldiers shooting and killing several locals, before being overwhelmed by the people of the parish. Several of the soldiers were captured and beaten, ending up at Newgate prison.. The Chase was secured for Enfield for another hundred years.
In the 1700's, the ongoing social conflict meant Legal Forests, particularly Enfield Chase and Waltham Chase in Hampshire, came to have a bad reputation in parliament, especially among modernising Whigs who already viewed them inefficient and anachronistic.
The situation in Enfield Chase, and the lobbying of Enfield Chase rangers such as Sir Basil Firebrace and Major General John Pepper was a major factor in leading Robert Walpole’s Whig government introducing the Black Act of 1723. This was the most significant piece of legislation among many which together are known as the Bloody Code. The Black Act made hundreds of offences punishable by death, including relatively petty offences such as poaching and being in a forest in disguise. In addition suspects who did not hand themselves in could be executed without trial.
Under the Act, communities were subject to collective punishment for poaching and related crimes. The Hundred in which the crime took place was made to pay reparations to the landowner through a special levy. The Act was not fully repealed until 1823.