Haslingfield and Enclosure
Continuing our story of Haslingfield through the eyes of the Goode family, a life-transforming event occurred at the beginning of the 19th century with the advent of enclosure.
Up until this time, much of Haslingfield was open fields, where inhabitants were free to keep livestock. The Enclosure Act for Cambridgeshire had been passed in 1770, partly to enable cereal growers to fence in their property to prevent damage by such livestock, but it wasn’t until 1810 that a meeting was called by Enclosure Commissioners Thomas Brown and Joseph Truslove to discuss the allocation of lands. Each landowner with a claim to land in the village had to submit these claims, and the final allocations were made in 1813.
Allocation entailed the building and upkeep of roads in and out of the village, and the roads we now use to Harston, Barrington and Barton were a result of this. The Earl de la Warr was by far the largest landowner after this process, followed at some distance by Queen’s College. Robert Mustill was the largest local landowner. The Goodes appear to have retained a smallholding.