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Old field boundaries in Embsay and Eastby.

The oldest field name that we know about in Embsay-with-Eastby belongs to a small field at the far south east of the parish. It is on your left as you cross the little stream (Berry Ground Beck) into Halton East. This field, called Aldermire, was recorded in the Bolton Priory Accounts a number of times between 1299 and 1315 when it was meadowland. It seems likely that Berry Ground Beck had a ford where Low Lane crossed the river, so the field boundary between the road and the meadow originated from this time. From the road the boundary looks like a bank with thorn bushes growing out of it. When looked at from the field, stones are set into the bank.  This is the earliest form of field boundary to be found in the parish. It could be built by one person with simple hand tools. Similar boundaries can be found across Embsay and Eastby. The best example found so far is at the top of the field next to Sawley Grange.

It is generally thought that stone field boundaries started to become common in the second half of the 14^th century. The earliest wall in Embsay is probably the wall between Embsay and Eastby Moors and the fields in the villages. This wall was built and maintained as a collective effort by the tenants of the farms within the villages and was built to keep wild animal out. The last wolf in England is thought to have been killed in South Cumbria in the 14^th Century, but the moor wall was probably built to keep out wolves even though it probably only had to repel deer.

The wall on the north-eastern side of the reservoir still has some of its early features. It is still 8 foot (2.4m) tall and still has orthostats, or large upright boulders, at the base of the wall. This is an early construction technique. The wall also shows evidence of multiple re-builds. The wall between the moor and the village fields was a shared responsibility for the whole village before the fields were enclosed. The Manor court organised who was responsible for which lengths of wall, the wealthy being made to repair greater lengths. Records from the Manor court survive as late as the 1760s ordering that the moor wall be repaired in Eastby. After Enclosure and the decline of the Court the responsibility for repair fell on the landowner or tenant-occupier of the field next to the moor wall.

The earliest walls surrounding village fields are built of ‘cobbles’ or rounded stones. These stones would have been cleared from the fields during ploughing or were available to collect from the commons, and so were more readily available. Cobble-built walls are not very stable and required frequent re-building. Thus, many of these early walls are ‘wiggly’ where they have regularly collapsed and been re-built. When re-building, some of the larger cobbles have been worked to better fit the available spaces.  A good example of a cobble wall can be seen next to the footpath leading west from Hill Top Farm.

Once the cobbles were all used people had to find other sources of stone. Feudal law permitted villagers to gather ‘freestone’ from the moor, that is stone that could be collected without quarrying. This meant that stone from the large Crookrise or Sheltercliff quarries was not available. But large boulders that sat on open ground on Embsay and Eastby moors could be broken up and brought to the village. The hollow-way sled runs still visible near to Crookrise testify to the quantity of stone brought down from the moor. Walls built from these boulders contain sharp-edged or worked stones. This type of walling stone probably makes up most of the gritstone walls in the villages.

During the 18^th century sources of stone and building methods changed. There were few people still  exercising their Feudal rights to free-stone. Instead there is evidence that people were commercially quarrying the remaining boulders, bending the rules by extracting stone from  some of the rocky outcrops on the moor. Shaped wall capping stones were quarried on Harts Hill moor. But a cheaper source of stone soon became available from Haw Bank quarry. Late in the eighteen century the quarry was a major enterprise providing good quality limestone which was exported from Skipton on the canal. Most of Embsay and Eastby was enclosed by this time, so few walls are completely limestone built, but many walls have repairs that use sharp-edged limestone blocks and flakes.

It is a common misconception that stone walls were all bult in the 19^th century in a period of enclosure instigated by acts of parliament from London. On the high Dales hills it is common to see Victorian walls that were built to enclose the moorland but this is not true for Embsay and Eastby.  Many of the Victorian walls were built to a standard construction method with long stone ‘throughs’ being used to bind the walls together. When walls are repaired today, this is the technique that is often used by commercial and volunteer wallers which means that the historical associations for a particular wall are lost for ever. One such recently rebuilt wall can be found on the footpath between Hill Top farm and Hag Farm.

Gateposts
Gateposts are often an indicator of the age of a field boundary. Early gate openings have gateposts set 8 foot (2.4 metre) apart. Most have been widened for modern traffic so it is common to only find one post left. Before they were hung on hinges gates were created by one or a series of poles. These poles were slotted into holes in either gatepost. A development on this style was a drop-in pole where a fixed-length pole was located in L shaped slots. There are a number of pole-gate-posts in Embsay and Eastby, often set within ditch-and-bank boundaries.

Chris Lunnon. Embsay with Eastby Historical Research Group. May 2023