Holding the Land in Common

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Allotment Fox

Allotment Fox

Күн бұрын

These history walk videos are about the English landscape in and around the south west of England (though I make the odd foray into Wales). I often use ancient charters (such as Saxon charters) to give me insight into the way the landscape was viewed in the past.
But it is not the Saxons that interest me the most (though they do) but the prehistoric world and its ancient monuments, trackways and ditches.
#Archaeology #oldenglishcharters #antiquarians #historywalks #britishhistory

Пікірлер: 33
@WC21UKProductionsLtd
@WC21UKProductionsLtd 7 күн бұрын
I made exactly the same point in the comments on Paul’s video. Solving the problem of inaccessible scheduled monuments by creating new public rights of way is a compromise farmers should be able to get behind. Much of our network of public footpaths is based on old routes to work used by farm workers and doesn’t make sense today. You’ll see areas with ridiculous numbers of footpaths and then others with none. I’m even open to the closure of some paths in exchange for new ones that are more scenic. I hate walking through farmyards and would take a diverted route every time.
@AllotmentFox
@AllotmentFox 6 күн бұрын
Thanks, mate. I’m too nosey not to enjoy tramping through a farm. The correlation between parkland and no footpaths is growing stronger for me. You might not notice it on modern maps but on the 1800s there it is: “park”.
@WC21UKProductionsLtd
@WC21UKProductionsLtd 6 күн бұрын
@@AllotmentFoxyes, you do see this often. I remember another of your videos where a footpath ran right across the front of a stately home and I was surprised by it. You enjoyed your rights there, as I recall, with a two finger salute!
@pwhitewick
@pwhitewick 8 күн бұрын
Glad you are on the mend and your sap is now rising!! I think the biggest issue with Right to Roam is the misunderstanding of their goals. "I am ready to admit we need more footpaths around land". Your goals align with theirs to a significant percentage. This should very much be in a series we should make "Tom and Paul get philosophical".
@AllotmentFox
@AllotmentFox 8 күн бұрын
Yes, let’s do it. Do you have any other subjects that interest you: arming for war v appeasement? Palestine v Israel? Can an orange manbaby do good? Should the National Trust decolonise or stop scaring pensioners with wokery?
@pwhitewick
@pwhitewick 8 күн бұрын
@AllotmentFox haha... I know little of most of those, but all would fit on "The Whitewick Mixtape".
@spongisaurus8074
@spongisaurus8074 8 күн бұрын
There is something so solid in the English countryside. It just feels right, comforting almost. It gives you a warm sense of participation.
@malcolmrichardson3881
@malcolmrichardson3881 8 күн бұрын
I think there may be a danger in parodying so-called 'right to roam', as a 'right to rampage'. In Scotland, as far as I am aware, there is neither. What exists - please correct me if I'm wrong - is a right of responsible access (with exceptions) and with the rights and responsibilities of landowners and access seekers, set out in legislation and associated codes of conduct. There will of course be those - landowners and access seekers - who ignore their responsibilities and there are - or should be - sanctions for this. In my view, one of the best ways to safeguard the countryside - for the many not the few - is to allow access for all who seek it, with adequate safeguards for animals, crops and SSSI's etc. We should follow Scotland's example and learn from their experience. Also, the work of J M Neeson, E P Thompson, amongst others offers, I suggest, an alternative to the Whig view of the history of the enclosure of common and other lands.
@AllotmentFox
@AllotmentFox 6 күн бұрын
Nope, whether someone is well-behaved or not is irrelevant. Right to Roam are advocating an easement for any citizen to go wherever they like on other people’s land using the power of the state, with some provisos. And what danger exactly? Be clear
@malcolmrichardson3881
@malcolmrichardson3881 6 күн бұрын
@@AllotmentFox Behaviour is entirely relevent, in the countryside, as in other spaces to which 'the public' has access, such as highways, parks, waterways etc. But, I suspect the real issue that divides us is that of the relationship between the state apparatuses and the rights of private property.
@tomrainboro
@tomrainboro 8 күн бұрын
I've been involved in various co-operatives, mutual aid and 'Kropotkinesque' activities for the past 50 years and maintain that along with 'rights' come 'responsibilities'. When people claim 'rights', such as the use of land we need to ask about their reponsibility for managing the land. Presently we are surrounded by individualism and responsibilities are not accepted.
@AllotmentFox
@AllotmentFox 8 күн бұрын
Yet the land is ploughed and a subsequent yield is distributed. Farmers are heavily regulated right down to when they can trim their hedges and how much fertiliser to use which is a brake on individualism. Thanks to a Labour government land wont be invested in solely to avoid paying tax. Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid is an enjoyable read and reinforces the idea of rights and obligations at the commune level but is oblivious to the larger picture of state violence as exemplified by William the Conqueror.
@tomrainboro
@tomrainboro 8 күн бұрын
@@AllotmentFox Respect to farmers for delivering a yield. ('Obtain a yield' - first principle of permaculture?) They are people of 'action' and not just 'talk'. (I live in very rural Devon and they are my neighbours and drinking pals). Nevertheless there are 'good' farmers and 'bad' farmers and it is important that the productivity of the land is protected for future generations. Restrictions on hedge maintenance are mild and make sense. Hedges are places where birds nest and farmers generally don't 'trim' hedges bur flail them as if they hated their very existence. I think fertiliser regulations are there to prevent pollution of watercourses by excessive nitrogen run-off. The most heart-breaking sight is to see our topsoil being washed down the road towards the sea as farmers try to harvest maize silage from a Devon hillside in a wet October. Some commentators have suggested that we only have a century of topsoil left, given current practices. (I think Britain imports much of its inorganic fertilisers, which are probably produced by using much fossll fuel. The concept of 'food sovereignity' deserves consideration). I think that stewardship payments could be used to fine-adjust the 'contract' between farmers and the wider society but unfortunately that whole system seems to be mired in bureaucracy. Labour's new tax regulations seem destined to destroy family farms and create large corporate farming businesses. Not a good idea in my opinion and a disgraceful policy from a party that has had 14 years in opposition to think about these things and calls themselves 'Labour'. I agree with your comments about Kropotkin. The core challenge to the idea of libertarian socialism is how to 'scale-up' people power without creating authoritarian structures. Individuals and communities actually need skills and experience in order to do this but I think that we are actually losing this in our internet age.
@davidberlanny3308
@davidberlanny3308 5 күн бұрын
Hi Tom, glad your feeling better and nothing like getting out and about to shake off those cobwebs. I think lambs are far easier to capture on camera than birds!! I really wasn't expecting to see the lambing season, seems early? We are on the cusp of the flowering of the almond and cherry trees which in those areas where they are grown commercially transforms the landscape to a sea of different colours. In our neck of the woods there are less and only one or two are are starting to blossom. You mentioned Manor Courts and my ears pricked up, mainly because our secondary school was called that although I had never considered why, the manor would have been Drayton but these days it's no longer a village as it once was and is the Northern boundary of Portsmouth. Your comments about land access were very interesting and have provoked some interesting reading in the comments. From my time walking across England and Wales I don't really recall any access problems, maybe I would feel differently today if there were historical sites which were unaccessible. I don't have any solutions but it really does seem absurd that there are open access islands scattered across the country. Maybe national legislation isn't required and we should revert to local solutions resolved in Manor Courts!! Great video, all the best!!
@AllotmentFox
@AllotmentFox 4 күн бұрын
Thanks David. I can’t wait for the blossom, it is not far off. I have two cherry trees, two pears, two apples and a plum and I am slowly getting to grips with exploiting them properly. One of the cherries I have to harvest everything one week before they are ripe because if I wait all of them get a worm and rot. The plum suffers from a two-legged group of pests that don’t understand boundaries. Again, I have to pick them a few days earlier than peak ripeness
@davidberlanny3308
@davidberlanny3308 4 күн бұрын
@AllotmentFox Wonderful, today the world is small and my local supermarket tries to sell cherries from Chile, they are I think my favourite fruit when in season. There is, so I'm told, a variety of cherry particular to our village, at least that's what they say. I have a lemon tree which we originally had in a pot and a loquat (nispero). They both need constant attention. When the loquats ripen the ants go mad for them, I've put up signs (no, I have, really) but they seem to think our tree is open access. I personally don't like them, too sweet and have large pips, my wife loves them. It originally came from my brother-in-law's father who had a small plot of land in the country.
@adrianvodden8327
@adrianvodden8327 8 күн бұрын
A purported ancestor in the Thirteenth Century was fined for delayed payment to someone who helped with harvesting their land presumably in the common holding.
@AllotmentFox
@AllotmentFox 6 күн бұрын
Ooooh, you’ve got as far back as the 1300s, you lucky devil. Tell me more
@slave2damachine
@slave2damachine 8 күн бұрын
20 years ago I lived in a property in Cornwall that had grazing rights for 2 cattle and 5 sheep on Cubert Common. The national Trust now manages the common but the right remains.
@AllotmentFox
@AllotmentFox 6 күн бұрын
Did you exercise that right? How did you get on?
@slave2damachine
@slave2damachine 6 күн бұрын
@AllotmentFox The property was only short term so it was not practical, the only grazing animals I saw were horses owned by other commoners.
@mikeharris2650
@mikeharris2650 8 күн бұрын
Providing public access to monuments may help to protect them. They dont need to advertise the fact, just grant provision. If locals and genuine enthusiasts can build relationships with these places it will increase their value. May even improve community relations.
@AllotmentFox
@AllotmentFox 6 күн бұрын
Yes I agree, but mobilising state power ti force people against their will is not the way forward
@mikeharris2650
@mikeharris2650 6 күн бұрын
@AllotmentFox it's none of the state's business, agreed 👍
@StormchaserJockMcGinty
@StormchaserJockMcGinty 8 күн бұрын
I am reminded of the line from Crocodile Dundee that arguing over ownership of the land is like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog
@AllotmentFox
@AllotmentFox 8 күн бұрын
As funny as that is, a pithy line is not necessarily a good basis for good government policy. Wasn’t that somethung to do with race relations as well?
@StormchaserJockMcGinty
@StormchaserJockMcGinty 7 күн бұрын
@ It was about how aborigines view themselves as belonging to the land, whereas Europeans view land as belonging to them.
@treesareafewofmyfavoritethings
@treesareafewofmyfavoritethings 8 күн бұрын
Love your videos but hard disagree with your views on access. Compared to every nation I've spent significant time in, our country is badly out of touch with our land. I believe its been manufactured through centuries of the type of disenfranchisement from the land that you just talked about! Through this detachment we feel little loss when we hear that we're one of the most nature depleted countries on the planet, because most of us never had that nature to begin with. We need desperately, as a country, to reframe our connection with OUR land, and part of that is giving people a sense of ownership and participation. That begins with, amongst other things, open, responsible, access. All this 'it's not your land, you don't care' stuff is silly and unedifying. Of course we care. I care deeply when I look around at the monoculture land that the farmers, through no real fault of their own, have created. I don't blame them, I grew up in the countryside and understand the pressures, but looking at the statistics about the state of nature on this isle, it's obvious that the stewardship role has been not adequately fulfilled and they need assistance.
@AllotmentFox
@AllotmentFox 6 күн бұрын
“OUR land” is a political statement: poetic, softly nationalistic, populist and doesn’t reflect how property works. We already have access to footpaths, NT, Wildlife Trust, Woodland Trust, nature reserves, etc. A few more would be nice, but giving general access to the public is dis-appropriation of a farmer’s right to have full enjoyment of their property, property they have paid for. It is the sort of state overreach the Scottish government was famous for in more than one area.
@treesareafewofmyfavoritethings
@treesareafewofmyfavoritethings 6 күн бұрын
@AllotmentFox 'our land' is definitely political, and all of your other descriptions to be honest! However I think it's exactly the kind of nationalism we should be promoting. It's pretty solidly good, imo, when people take pride in their natural environment and, if we want something we can all jointly get behind as a nation divided, it should be celebrating and cherishing our natural world. It increases engagement and funding and a better understanding of the countryside, natural processes and the planet as a whole. We're a people dispossessed and resigned when it comes to our land. We're naturally creatures of our history, and that's seen us taught to know our place, what we're allowed, and where we're permitted to go by our betters. We implicitly understand that some things are for some types of people and others are for us, and we accept that as the just order of things. Look at our national anthem - featuring God + Monarch. No mention of people, unity, courage, self determination or our fabulously beautiful land. It's a pusillanimous dirge. I don't believe people should be locked out of the vast majority of their country because they don't happen to know anyone with land. And I really don't like how the amount of access you have is likely to correlate with wealth. I was fabulously lucky to grow up on the edge of a small common and that gave me the opportunity to really freely connect with the place and I resent that others don't get to have those sorts of experiences. Most people's experience is going to a local nice wood or similar occasionally, if at all, and staying on the path, trying not to get dirty before getting bundled back in the car home. How do you learn to love a place if you can't feel it and touch it and feel part of it? When a quarter of kids can't identify a robin, you know something has gone badly wrong!
@richmiller7834
@richmiller7834 6 күн бұрын
why not reach out to farmers for information on the available payments for protecting ancient sites?
@AllotmentFox
@AllotmentFox 5 күн бұрын
I wouldn’t tell me if I was them. The info is on the gov web site but it is quite byzantine
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