Archaeologia Cantiana -
Vol. 89 1974 page 115 |
but also on farming practices in the locality. The Kent files were heavily
weeded in 1912, but the most important document which often survives is
the official report of the assistant Tithe Commissioner recording the
proceedings of the survey from the advertising of the first parish meeting
to the final submission of a report and statement of accounts. The manner
of conducting local enquiries followed a fairly strict routine prescribed
by the act, and printed questionnaire forms helped to ensure that uniform
standards were maintained and that important considerations were not
overlooked. The format of the Kent questionnaires is identical to those of
Essex described by Cox and Dittmer.39 Besides information on
local tithing practices, two sections required assistant commissioners to
describe local farming practices. Question 11 asked them to provide a
brief description of the state of agriculture in each tithe district and
asked them to record any instances of extraordinarily high or low farming
that they noticed. Subjective though these assessments are, their value is
enhanced by the fact that in Kent a large number was written by only six
assistant commissioners. Fig. 6 shows that all six conducted enquiries
through the length and breadth of the county which ensured their
familiarity with a variety of farming practices. |
of parish lands. Tithe rentcharge was then taken as a tenth of this and
apportioned over parish lands according to their state of cultivation at the
time of field survey. In Kent, this first step was particularly difficult
because of the wide variety of soil types and agricultural practices found
in many tithe districts. T. S. Woolley was confronted by this problem when
officiating at three parishes in different parts of the county. Of the
calculations he made at Bromley he said, ‘it is not to be supposed that
the course of cropping on which I have founded my calculations is
universally or even generally adopted in the Parish. Almost every occupier
farms his lands as circumstances may seem to require, without very rigid
adherence to a particular rotation of crops’.40 At Sutton
Valence, he reported that the agents of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury,
‘had formed their estimate on their opinion as to the most proper course
to pursue though they did not consider it had been generally adopted nor
indeed any regular system’.41 Finally, at Shoreham, ‘scarcely
two farmers can be found who follow the same course of husbandry’42
There were also other |
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Page 115 |
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