MAPPING BAMPTON: A JOURNEY IN SPACE AND TIME presence is still discernible despite modern weakening of landscape structure through intensive farming practices in the 20th Century. To the north of Bampton there were larger enclosures forming the demesnes of the Bampton Manors of the Deanery and Ham Court. Other important early enclosures include land set aside to fund relief of the poor (“the poor closes”). In 1768, when a poor house was first constructed in Rosemary Lane, this close was used as a source of construction timber.
[IMAGE- selected image from Bampton at the time of enclosure showing early closes at Moor Close or Brookfast Close
Ham Court
Beyond the early-enclosed closes of Bampton were large areas of agricultural land. Early county maps illustrate the vastness of the common land around Bampton and Aston. That closest to the settlements of Bampton and Aston were settled into fields that would allow four-field cultivation. The others, principally towards the south were set aside as meadows. There were also a small number of areas enclosed for coppicing. While many older closes would be abundantly hedged, the strips of each open field would be defined mainly by the tracks and pathways through them. Boundaries between individual strips would be felt in the landscape not in the way we experience modern field boundaries, but more as customary divisions- recognised by neighbours’ mutually accepted understanding of their limits- defined by subtle landscape features such as eroded verges, worn paths or shallow ditches. 35