Early Land Records

Domesday Book 1086

The earliest researched record of Osgodby’s land holdings is the Great Domesday Book 1086.

Domesday Book was compiled in AD 1086 for William the Conqueror. It records the number of households, the economic resources, who owned the land, and the tax paid to the king.

Osgodby was a settlement in the Hundred of Howden. It had a recorded population of 21 households in 1086, putting it in the largest 40% of settlements recorded in Domesday, and is listed under 2 owners in Domesday Book.

Translation of the Great Domesday Book (National Archives)

Land Terrier

The Terrier Record surveyed in 1770. was researched in the Osgodby Estate Archives held at North Yorkshire County Council Archives. Unfortunately, no plan of the Township relating to the survey has been found,

The Manor of Osgodby was held at that time by Mrs Elizabeth Burdett. The estate consisted of 1062 acres 3 roods and 39 perches, in addition to waste land covering 23 acres 1 rood and 35 perches.

The records also list those who either owned their land outright or who held it in a lease for the duration of their life (Freeholders). This land totalled 204 acres 2 roods 8 perches

Enclosure of Osgodby

In medieval times farming was based on large fields, known as open fields, in which individual yeomen or tenant farmers cultivated scattered strips of land. From as early as the 12th century, however, agricultural land was enclosed. This meant that holdings were consolidated into individually-owned or rented fields. Usually, it was seen as a more economical way of farming, and became increasingly common during the Tudor period.

Originally, enclosures of land took place through informal agreement. But during the 17th century the practice developed of obtaining authorisation by an Act of Parliament. Initiatives to enclose came either from landowners hoping to maximise rental from their estates, or from tenant farmers anxious to improve their farms. From the 1750s enclosure by parliamentary Act became the norm.

There is little doubt that enclosure greatly improved the agricultural productivity of farms from the late 18th century by bringing more land into effective agricultural use. It also brought considerable change to the local landscape. Where there were once large, communal open fields, land was now hedged and fenced off, and old boundaries disappeared. But historians remain divided over the extent to which enclosure forced those at the lowest end of rural society, the agricultural labourers, to leave the land permanently to seek work in the towns.