The enclosure of the mediaeval open fields in the English countryside took place from 1450 onwards. In Yorkshire, as in much of lowland England, enclosure of the fields was quite late – often in the 18th century.

In Seaton Ross, there appear to be several phases of enclosure. Just from looking at the field shapes, it is possible to see an early phase of enclosure – creating fields known as ‘closes’ – mainly in the area to the SE of the village where Old and New Hall now sit. As Old Hall was built in 1702, this may date that enclosure. Later enclosure, possibly in the mid and late 18th century, enclosed the rest of the open fields.

Note that the small pieces of land next to the village houses – the ‘garths’ – usually occupying 1-4 acres – were often also enclosed early on and were used as small-holdings. See the 1817 ‘snapshot’ of farms for more details of these.

Finally, the common – Seaton Common – was enclosed around 1811-1814. It is this last phase of enclosure that we have details of. Essentially the ‘John Foster plan of Seaton Ross common and Carr 1814’ maps the enclosure and provides the acreage.

The details of enclosure are also given on the Pocklington History Society website.

The map below shows the extent of Seaton Ross Common before enclosure. It may be seen that it completely wraps around the north end of the village. The roads across the common and hence the north, east and west access to the village were also quite different from today.

The map below shows the areas of enclosure within the Seaton Ross parish. All the orange areas were taken by M. C. Maxwell Esq. of Everingham Hall (who already owned the largest part of the parish). New ‘enclosure’ roads were built across the old common changing the access to Seaton Ross forever.

Notice the small area on South End also enclosed at this time. This was the village green – at that time this part of South End was known as Green Road and Green Farm also got its name from the village green.