ECONOMIC HISTORY.
Shifford had its own
open fields until the mid 18th century, when it
was inclosed by the Harcourts and reorganized
as two farms. In the 14th century the demesne
was divided fairly evenly between North field,
including the area around New Shifford Farm,
East field in the south-east, and an unnamed
field in the south-west; the arable was differently
grouped for cropping, however, two groups of
furlongs in the east and west fields following
four-course rotations, and North field and a
probably adjoining furlong, which together contained the poorest land and had perhaps been
brought into cultivation more recently, following a three-course rotation. (fn. 1) By the early 17th
century the fields had been reordered, and lay
apparently in three broad swathes running
roughly south-west to north-east: a holding in
1608 contained 13 a. in Beggar field in the
south-east, 17 a. in Middle field, which included
the site of New Shifford Farm and the later
Broad Fleet, and 17 a. in West or Windmill (later
Marsh) field. (fn. 2) The fields were apparently unchanged in 1706, (fn. 3) though Great Common field
(470 a.) and Little Common field (46 a.) were
recorded c. 1755. (fn. 4) A lease in 1759 (fn. 5) mentioned
Beggar and Marsh fields, Little field in the
south-west, and Knight Bridge field on the east,
perhaps reflecting a division into quarters, but
most strips were described only by reference to
furlongs, and by then New Shifford Farm had
been built (fn. 6) and inclosure and consolidation were
probably under way. Payments by the Harcourts
for ditching, hedging, grubbing, and roadmaking were made in the later 1750s, (fn. 7) and by
1788 Old and New Shifford farms were fully
inclosed, Christ Church's land being consolidated in a small group of closes on the east. (fn. 8)
Yardlands were reckoned at 40 a. c. 1360 and at
'above' 35 a. in the early 17th century, when 1/3;
yardland comprised 15 a. excluding meadow. (fn. 9)
Meadows, estimated in 1086 at 50 a., lay
mostly in the east along the boundary stream. (fn. 10)
Demesne meadow and pasture c. 1360 included
Claxhurst (35 a.) in the north-east, Shifford
mead and 'Russhehammes', both described as
pasture, and Addehurst, Chattoksham, and
Langhurst in Standlake parish, (fn. 11) the last farmed
from c. 1377 and sold with the Aston and
Ducklington part of the estate in 1612. (fn. 12) Twelve
Acres, variously used as meadow and pasture,
was divided into 12 parcels of which 6 belonged
to the demesne in rotation and 6 to the tenants
of one free and one unfree yardland. (fn. 13) Though
a holding in 1706 still carried rights in the
common meadows, (fn. 14) by then most meadow
seems to have been hams held in severalty:
Weirhams and Nineknolls descended with particular farms by the 16th century, (fn. 15) and in 1759
Christ Church's 1/3; yardland included c. 2 a. in
New meadow (mentioned in 1586), Withy ham,
Thurney (or Turney) mead, and Flexlake, with
leys in East mead and in Sandleys or Sanders
mead. (fn. 16)
Common pasture, 2 furlongs by 1 furlong in
1086, (fn. 17) adjoined the Thames and Chimney moor
in the south, on land said in the early 17th
century to be rich and suitable for meadow. (fn. 18)
Pasture at Summerford in the township's southeast corner was confirmed to Eynsham abbey in
the 1150s, (fn. 19) and cow common or lease, apparently in the south-west, was mentioned in 1332
and c. 1360. All or part of cow lease was then in
demesne, but by 1363 it was let to the tenants
for 3s. (later 3s. 4d.) a year, and seems later to
have been commonable with other pastures. (fn. 20) In
1566 and 1759 there were cow, sheep, and horse
commons, (fn. 21) the last lying apparently south-east
of the village between two streams of the
Thames. (fn. 22) Langhurst and other demesne meadows, pastures, and fallows were commonable in
the mid 14th century from 1 August until 25
March, and in the 17th century occasional orders
in the manor court regulated grazing in the
fields; (fn. 23) the stint per yardland was then usually
c. 40 sheep, 8 or 9 cows, and 3 horses, though
in some years it was more, (fn. 24) and the most
frequently recorded transgression was pasturing
animals in the wrong common. (fn. 25) The township
intercommoned in the 14th century with
Standlake, Brighthampton, and Hardwick from
1 August to 10 November, and with Aston and
Cote, Yelford, and apparently Chimney from
29 September to 10 November, (fn. 26) but no later
references have been found. A few holdings
included pasture closes by the 16th century. (fn. 27)
A withy bed (virgulus) called 'Wodehey' was
mentioned in 1459, when a tenant was fined for
folding animals there and destroying young
trees. (fn. 28) Elms worth £200 in the early 17th
century (fn. 29) may have been in hedgerows along the
edges of the fields, and no woods were recorded
later. Fourteenth-century tenants paid for pannage, not necessarily within the township, (fn. 30) and
in 1608 pigs were excluded from the commons
between 25 March and 29 September. (fn. 31)
In 1086 eight villani and five bordarii had 5
ploughteams, the number for which there was
said to be land, and since no servi were recorded
perhaps worked another on the demesne. The
estate's value had risen from £4 in 1066 to £5. (fn. 32)
There were still 8 villein yardlands in 1279, held
for 4s. 8½d. rent and works valued at 10s., though
one was divided between two tenants; another
13 tenants held a total of 8 cottages, 4 houses,
and 31½ a. for varied rents and services, the
largest holding comprising 51/2; a. with a fishery,
and 5 cottages being apparently landless. (fn. 33) A ninth
yardland was held freely by the 1220s for 10s. a
year and service of discharging the lord's and
township's suit to the hundred and county
courts; the tenant owed heriot and cornbote, and
in 1331 claimed unsuccessfully that he did not
owe homage or suit to the abbot's court. (fn. 34) The
service was transferred c. 1426 to a holding let
to the abbey's bailiff. (fn. 35)
Average personalty in 1306 and 1327 was
higher than in Bampton's other hamlets, though
in 1306 the total included payments for the
demesne. The total value of movables assessed
rose from £45 17s. 6d. in 1306 to £65 in 1327.
The wealthiest tenant in 1306, assessed on 110s.,
was a villein yardlander; other yardlanders were
taxed on between 42s. 6d. and 80s., the two
half-yardlanders on 45s. and 52s. 6d., and the
free yardlander on 50s. The lowest payment was
from a cottager assessed on 20s., and the overall
pattern remained similar in 1327. (fn. 36)
Six villein yardlands and the two half yardlands survived c. 1360, (fn. 37) when all but one were
held by the same families as in 1279. The eighth
yardland, granted to a Chimney tenant in 1332, (fn. 38)
had been fragmented, allowing some cottagers,
all descendants of 13th-century tenants, to accumulate holdings of ¼ or ½ yardland or more.
Some other cottage holdings had been combined, perhaps following the Black Death,
though 5 tenants still had 5 a. or less. Yardlanders' rents were still 4s. 8½d., including Peter's
Pence, (fn. 39) 9d. fishsilver, and cornbote, but excluding aid, pannage, small payments in kind, and
1d. or a gallon of ale at every brewing. Their
services, disputed in 1337, (fn. 40) included works at
the winter and Lenten sowings and at Christmas, and heavy harvest works. Rents and
services for smaller holdings varied considerably
c. 1360, but seem generally to have been lighter
than in 1279. Aid, totalling usually between 46s.
and 50s., was replaced with a fixed rent by
1380-1, (fn. 41) but some labour services were still
demanded in the early 15th century despite
partial commutation on a few holdings. (fn. 42) Presumably all labour services were abandoned soon
afterwards when the manor and demesne began
to be farmed. (fn. 43)
Relative economic stability in the 14th century
may have been followed by contraction in the
early 15th. Arrears rose from c. £9 in 1391-2 to
over £22 in 1407-8, and individual rent reductions were negotiated frequently. (fn. 44) Assize rents
generally, which rose slowly during the 14th
century, seem to have been reduced c. 1422-3,
and by the 1450s total rent from tenants at will
and by indenture was lower still. (fn. 45) Entry fines,
100s, or more in the mid 14th century, also fell
sharply, (fn. 46) though by 1497-8 when free and
customary rents totalled over £12, perhaps
partly from former demesne, there may have
been some recovery. (fn. 47) Several holdings were
divided, amalgamated, or abandoned, (fn. 48) and the
process continued in the 16th century apparently
at the expense of the smallest holdings: by the
early 17th century there were 13 copyhold tenants, of whom 2 held amalgamations of 1½
yardland with various closes and meadows, 4
held yardlands, 5 held half yardlands, and one
held ¼ yardland, while another held a house and
close. (fn. 49) None of the family names prominent
from the late 13th century to the early 15th.
survived in the 16th and 17th.
The demesne, 2 ploughlands in 1279 and taxed
on goods worth over £13 in 1306, may have been
reduced to one ploughland by c. 1360, when it
included 161 a. of open-field arable and 99 a. of
meadow and pasture. (fn. 50) In 1397-8 c. 114 a. were
sown, but in 1404-5 only 97 a. (fn. 51) Small parcels
of land were occasionally leased at will, and in
the early 15th century meadows and pastures
were sometimes 'sold' for the year, (fn. 52) but otherwise the demesne was still managed directly
through the reeve or bailiff, misleadingly called
'farmer' in 1379 and 1391. (fn. 53) Permanently employed labourers usually included a ploughman
and one or two drovers, and additional labour
was hired at harvest time to complement that of
customary tenants, who in 1398 harvested only
23 a. (fn. 54) Demesne farming seems to have been
chiefly arable: c. 12 to 14 oxen and 2 or 3 horses
were usually recorded, besides capons, geese,
and hens which mostly went to Eynsham as
customary renders, and no sheep were mentioned. The most usual course c. 1360 was (1)
barley, (2) pulse or peas, (3) wheat, and (4)
fallow, (fn. 55) and in 1397-8, a typical year, c. 43¼ a.
on the demesne were sown with wheat, 34¾ a.
with dredge, 21 a. with pulse, and 15¼ a. with
oats. Some produce was consumed within the
manor, some dredge being malted and brewed,
but varying quantities were sold and significant
amounts of wheat and dredge went to the abbey's grange. (fn. 56)
By 1427 part of the demesne seems to have
been farmed by tenants for annual renders of 6
qr. of barley and 6 qr. of wheat, still accounted
for in the 1440s, (fn. 57) and from 1434 the whole
manor, including rents, perquisites, and agricultural buildings but excluding the house, the
ferry, wards and escheats, and Langhurst
meadow, was farmed for £11 6s. 8d. a year to
the former bailiff. (fn. 58) By 1458 rents and perquisites were again administered directly, but the
demesne, including the 'site' of the manor,
continued to be let in parcels, much of it to the
Stokes family. (fn. 59) By the late 16th century 1½
yardland of former demesne was held with a
chief house and various tenements and closes by
the Ford family, the remaining land having
apparently been absorbed into other holdings. (fn. 60)
Tenant husbandry by the late 16th century was
mixed but predominantly arable. (fn. 61) The chief
crops remained wheat and barley followed by
pulses and vetches, and oats and dill were mentioned in 1681. (fn. 62) Flocks of 60 sheep or more were
mentioned in the late 14th century and mid
15th, (fn. 63) and in 1601 four tenants were fined for
wrongly depasturing flocks of between 14 and
30; (fn. 64) one of the culprits left none at his death in
1611, however, (fn. 65) and sheep were mentioned in
only a few 17th-century probate inventories.
Flocks of 63 in 1681 and of 41 in 1702 were
exceptional, and both were owned by especially
wealthy mixed farmers who kept other livestock. (fn. 66) Dairying and cheesemaking were
recorded in the 17th century and early 18th,
several testators kept a few pigs, and poultry and
bees were mentioned occasionally.
Some moderately prosperous yeomen were
recorded in the 16th and 17th centuries, and a
few leading families, notably the Farrs, Harrises,
Darbys, and Gilletts, and later the Keenes and
Bannisters, survived for several generations. (fn. 67)
Most 16th- and 17th-century testators left goods
valued at between £20 and £80, and nearly all
inhabitants in 1662 were taxed on 2 hearths, only
William Keene (3 hearths) and Thomas Sperrinke
(4 hearths) being taxed on more, and 3 others,
probably cottagers, on one only. (fn. 68) Until the 18th
century there was little further consolidation of
holdings: in 1699 there were 4 or more cottagers,
and most copyhold tenants still held a yardland
or less, (fn. 69) the chief exception being an amalgamation of 3¾ yardlands, 60 a. of meadow,
and various closes, composed partly of former
demesne and held in 1688 by John Pearce (d.
1702) and Henry Harris. Christopher Keene
(d. 1681), who left goods worth nearly £300 and
lived in a house with at least 8 rooms, was perhaps
an earlier tenant. (fn. 70) Copyholds persisted in
1707, but by the mid 18th century Shifford
contained 4-6 farms, some of them evidently
quite large, held at rack rent, and half a dozen
cottages. (fn. 71)
From 1755 the Harcourts administered the
estate directly, and from c. 1760 let it as two
farms of c. 435 a. and 338 a. centred on Old
and New Shifford Farms. (fn. 72) Both tenants
seem to have failed before 1769, (fn. 73) but from c.
1770 to 1890 the farms remained with the
Williams family and their relatives the Wallises. (fn. 74)
Improvements carried out by the Harcourts in
the 1750s included ditching and drainage,
notably through installation of floodgates at
the 'Clexes' (formerly Claxhurst) in the northeast, and farming remained mixed, with sheep
again important: 500 were mentioned in 1757,
and in 1758-9 receipts from four years' wool
exceeded £230. Pigs, horses, and horned cattle
were also reared. The chief crops remained
wheat and barley, with beans, peas, vetches,
oats, and, by then, turnips and clover; some
stock and produce went to the Harcourts'
estates at Cokethorpe and Nuneham, but most
was sold piecemeal to local buyers, and in 1755
some pulse was carted to Burford presumably
for sale. (fn. 75) Tenants practised similar husbandry,
including dairying, in the early 19th century,
though in the later 1840s after tithe commutation there may have been a shift towards arable
farming, the proportion of pasture and
meadow falling from c. 45 per cent on both
farms to 37 per cent at New and to 28 per cent
at Old Shifford. (fn. 76) By 1871 the proportion of
pasture and meadow was even smaller, though
both farms were described as sheep and dairy
farms: Old Shifford Farm included piggeries,
and Oxford Down sheep were mentioned in
1860. Steam power was used on the arable by
the 1870s. (fn. 77) Drainage remained difficult, and
in 1829 flooding caused serious losses. (fn. 78)
Difficulties during the agricultural depression of the 1870s and 1880s, (fn. 79) following which
the whole estate was again administered
directly from 1890 until its sale in 1898, (fn. 80)
perhaps contributed to a renewed emphasis on
pastoral farming. Livestock in 1893 included 72
cattle, 7 hogs, and, though none was mentioned
in 1890, 712 sheep; 106 a. were under wheat, 91
a. under barley, 53 a. under beans and tares, and
42 a. under black oats, and winter feed and other
crops included mangolds, swedes, turnips,
vetches, rye grass, and maize. (fn. 81) By 1906 the two
farms, run as one with a bailiff at Old Shifford,
were 64 per cent pasture, supporting over 100
cattle and a flock of Hampshire Down sheep of
'exceptional quality and size', which in 1904 won
prizes at the World's Fair exhibition at St. Louis
(Missouri). Horses were bred also. (fn. 82) The bias
towards pastoral farming continued in 1914
despite a sharp reduction in the number of
sheep, (fn. 83) but during the 20th century arable
farming revived: in 1991 the chief crop was
winter wheat, and only a few beef cattle were
pastured near the river. (fn. 84)
There was a clothworker in Shifford in the
early 1650s, (fn. 85) but no other trades were recorded.
A windmill worth 20s. a year existed by the early
14th century, when Eynsham abbey's tenants in
Shifford, Aston, Cote, and Claywell owed suit;
in 1331 those from Shifford and Cote were freed
from grinding corn there in return for 3 qr. of
toll corn a year. The mill was derelict in 1332
when a former miller's son took a 20-year lease
and agreed to rebuild it at his own cost using the
lord's timber, but no later references have been
found, and by c. 1360 it had evidently been
demolished. (fn. 86) A mill mentioned in 1459 and
sold c. 1460 lay outside the parish. (fn. 87)
Two weirs in the Thames mentioned in 1005
were either near Great brook, or near a smaller
side channel which formerly left and rejoined
the Thames south-east of the hamlet. (fn. 88) In 1086
the manor rendered 250 eels. (fn. 89) In 1279 Eynsham
abbey had a weir and free fishery in the Thames
worth 13s. 4d., and a cottager shared another
fishery for rent and services; two other tenants
had fisheries with their holdings c. 1360, and
then as in c. 1338 tenants collectively paid 6d. a
year for common fishing in 'Hammeslake' and
'Estelake'. (fn. 90) The lord's fishery, still distinguished
in the 16th century, (fn. 91) seems usually to have been
leased, and was not accounted for with the
demesne in the 14th and 15th centuries. Illegal
fishing was periodically reported in the manor
court: 8 tenants were fined in 1336 for fishing
with contrivances (ingeniis) other than shovenets, and in 1615 a Witney man was fined for
fishing in the common waters. In 1525 it was
agreed that no tenant should fish the common
waters except on Fridays. (fn. 92) Fishing rights in
backstreams as well as in the Thames were still
leased piecemeal in the 17th century, (fn. 93) but by
the mid 18th were held by a Standlake fisherman, and from the 1760s were let with Old
Shifford farm. (fn. 94) In 1766 the Harcourts' rights
over the whole width of the Thames opposite
Black ham, where the river had evidently altered
its course, were upheld against landowners on
the Berkshire side, though Shifford weir, further
upstream above Great brook, remained outside
the lordship. (fn. 95)