Using tithe maps for conservation

Image credit: The Husbandman from the Book of Trades 1841.

A change in the law in 1836 meant that the payment of tithes ‘in kind’ could be commuted to a cash payment. Tithing was a method of providing the village rector with an income, which allowed him (and it was always a man) to focus on the spiritual needs of the parish. The tithe amount was one tenth, meaning that 10% of the villagers’ crops or livestock were to be paid to the rector. Tithe barns can still be found across the country, enormous wooden structures created to house the rector’s income. The commutation to a cash settlement meant that accurate maps for every parish were required, in many cases mapping the area for the first time. The information included landowner name, tenant name, each field area, it’s titheable value (the cash equivalent due to the rector each year), current field use, and field name. All of this is of enormous significance to the historian, but of specific interest to us here are the field names and use.

Field names can be quite ephemeral, sometimes changing with land use, ownership, or generationally. Examples of this might be the landowner’s name (Jackson’s Close, perhaps), or Mirey Meadow (a muddy pasture or hay field). Sometimes the field name changes due to a phenomenon known as popular etymology, where a modern meaning for an older, similar-sounding word replaces the original meaning.

Many field names, however, contain ancient roots and can provide significant clues to otherwise lost or invisible historic landscape features; ancient barrow mounds or other features, ghost ponds or even lost villages.

Working with the Institute of Name Studies (INS), in conjunction with the Staffordshire Record Office, we have developed a project that involves understanding place and field names drawn from 19th century tithe maps, and digitising those. The INS team have now digitised the tithe maps for our project area and we are engaging volunteers to be involved in data collection and harvesting to be able to add field names, usage, size, ownership and tenancy from the 1840s to the create interactive digitised overlay maps. This is a research project with real-world applications. It means, for example, that the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust ‘s conservation team will be able to refer to the mapping to help understand historic land use. This will give us a visual index of a point in time that will help drive decisions about how we improve the natural environment with reference to the historic environment and land use. Field names can sometimes tell us about how people felt about their immediate environment in the past and tell us about the land as it appeared to them then, or names like God’s Acre indicate that at some point it was owned by the church, or Hungry Acres tell us that it was poor land for cultivation. The information recorded at the time (pasture, meadow, arable, and so on) inform us about land use at that point in the 1840s when the map was surveyed. Field size tells us whether hedges have been removed, or in other cases that ponds have been filled or have silted up.

Image credit: Illustrated London News 15th December 1849

Tithe maps, where they still exist, will be digitised for as much of Staffordshire as possible in the timeframe of the project. For our role in the project, we will be focussing on the main rivers and their catchments, where much of our work is currently being undertaken. Other areas won’t be neglected, of course, but our primary focus will be on our planned work areas.

Consideration for future work might include how we expand the use of this tool for conservation; how we link it to other areas of our future work including aerial and other surveys; the involvement of on-the-ground groups – community groups of different kinds, for example. This is a fascinting project for the team to be involved in and involves a new way of thinking about how we approach initiating and delivering our environmental and conservation work.

This is a new and exciting blend of academia and practical conservation.

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