Background Information

The Agriculture of Portland:

From the earliest times, Portland had always been an isolated community. Although not an island in the true sense of the word, this large limestone land mass projects over four miles into the English Channel. One of the most spectacular shingle beaches in the world is the only natural, albeit indirect, link with the mainland. Access had therefore always been difficult and the large scale opening up of the island did not commence until 1839 when the smallmouth ferry was replaced with the first bridge link.

Agriculture had necessarily been a very important component part of the island's self sufficiency. Given their limited land area and resources, the islanders had, like many medieval communities, long ago devised a very ingenious communal farming system based mainly on sheep and corn. This was strictly controlled with various procedures being enforced by the island's local governing body the Court Leet.

From the Account Rolls of the Manor of Portland (1248 - 1249) it can be seen that the annual farming wages were not insignificant :

18s for four ploughmen, 6s 8d for the hayward, 4s 6d for the shepherd and 3s for the dairy woman. At harvest boon-day, one bacon pig & one ox were provided and 2½ quarters of wheat for the 360 men at harvest.

This last figure indicates that the whole community joined forces in order to get the harvest in quickly and at the right time. One of the most commonly quoted extracts of John Leland's visit to Portland in the late 1530's summed up the island very well :

The soile is sumwhat stony and the shore very rocky.

The Isle is fruteful of corn and gresse and hath plenty of sheep.

A survey made in 1715 of the local fortifications noted that Portland:

.....produces corn enough for its inhabitants and some to sell.

Fifty years later, Hutchins in his History of Dorset notes the large quantities of corn produced on the island. A report written later in 1815 for the Board of Agriculture by Mr W. Stevenson noted that 18 bushels of wheat per acre were produced on the island compared with 17.75 elsewhere in Dorset. He had reported that the methods of agriculture were strange and that the islanders still followed the ancient practice of leaving half the arable landfallow (ploughed but not sown) each year. This was even higher than the average third or one in three yearly cycle employed elsewhere.

The local farmers were quick to point out that inadequate supplies of manure necessitated this natural resting of the land. Sheep were generally acknowledged as excellent natural fertilizers of land. Not only did they distribute their manure evenly but were also good at treading it into the ground ! In coastal areas, wet seaweed was also used to good effect along with its ash. Nevertheless in Portland there was a shortage of manure.....

This shortfall of manure, despite the numerous sheep, arose due to the fact that with virtually no trees on the windswept island, domestic fuel was scarce. Sheep dung or clotts was therefore collected, dried and used as fuel instead. To overcome this dilemma, the ever resourceful islanders had an old and unusual practice known as chamber-lye. This involved storing all urine in casks during the winter and then spreading it over the land where wheat crops were to be grown. This process was carried out between September and March. In addition, ash may well have been added to this very potent fertilizer. To avoid losing the whole crop, great care would have been taken when applying this to the land to avoid the small plants and any periods of hot weather.

Although oats, peas & vetches were grown, the chief crops were wheat & barley. By the early 1500's over 100 acres of corn crops were being grown. Some horned cattle were kept along with oxen and horses for ploughing and stone haulage. In earlier times even a coney (a warren for furry animals with long ears !) had been maintained on the island. There are records of foxes having been killed to safeguard these animals and the lambs.

In the early 19th century, Stevenson had recorded that :

There were 800 acres of waste, 400 arable, 250 meadow and 1350 acres for sheep.

The latter area had little grass being grazed by some 3000 sheep.

This represented an average of 2.25 sheep per acre against the maximum of 5 per acre permitted by the Court Leet. The Portland sheep, the true breed now being extinct, was a small, nimble, & hardy animal once valued for fine wool and fine flavoured mutton. After grazing rents had to be paid in the latter part of the 19th century, this small sheep was no longer economic.

Although subject to local disagreement by the Court Leet in some details, John Taperell's Tithe map of 1841, illustrates the eight arable fields on the island. These were each divided into numerous strips known generally asselions. On Portland these narrow strips of land were known as lawns. These were grouped in small numbers & divided from one another by baulks of unploughed turf known locally as lawnsheds. The lawns have slightly curving shapes which are characteristic of land developed using ox ploughing.

Space was needed to turn the awkward oxen team and primitive plough. Where adjoining roads, paths or waysdid not exist, headlands were left unploughed and were often used by the adjoining lawn as well. There was a custom that the southern lawnshed belonged to the north lawn whilst the eastern one belonged to the west lawn. No custom governed the ownership of walls. As many such lawns could only be reached by crossing other lawns, the necessary right of access was another reason for communal farming.

The oxen team and plough were often also shared in such communities. No doubt, in earlier times when quarrying was on a smaller scale, these oxen were also used for moving stone the short distances from quarryface to stonepier. When ploughing, the oxen would generally pull a straight furrow of about 120 feet before needing to rest. The whole work tempo would have been slow with a rest being taken at each headland followed by the fairly difficult turning process.

Ploughing the land ready for corn was most easily carried out using oxen. The primitive west country type of plough used on the island were known as sulls (pronounced "zowls"). A timber plough sledge would have been used to transport the plough to the field. Once on the move, a plough staff was used to cut clogging weeds free or to dislodge stones from the plough coulter. This pole had a metal cutting end and was known as a zowl stickon the island. More obstinate stones had to be knocked free when stopped using a plough mell - a short metal headed hammer with a pointed metal end.

After metal tipped blades became common on the sulls, fewer oxen were needed but only a single furrow was still ploughed during each pull. Early ploughs only really scraped the ground. The depth of this scrape depending on the strength of the ploughman who not only had to keep the plough in the ground but also had to steady and guide it as well. The oxen were yoked in pairs and attached to the plough by a long ox chain, the whole team usually being led by a ploughboy. At the end of each furrow, the sull had to be literally yanked out of the ground, turned in a wide sweep before starting back again in a parallel line.

Open field systems were often used in areas with little or no woodland and where there was no room for expansion. Maximum use was thus made of the finite farming land on the island. Little evidence would seem to exist as to how the open field system actually worked in practice. Some sort of field book may have existed to identify individual holdings. On Portland with its limited land area and small stable population, this may not have been such a problem. There do not appear to have been many disputes over the ownership of the lawns although this is hard to prove as even land transactions were verbally agreed.

Some rare and even unique units of measurement were used on the island:

A "Portland Yard" was a quarter of an acre (or rood) and one & half times this area being known as an "over-yard".

A Portland quarryman's Foot measured 12.5 inches.

Stone walls on the island were measured in lugs, each one being 15 feet.

The Goourd or Gore was a linear land measurement.

A plot was an area of 1 pole by 40 poles. A pole or perch or rod varied throughout the country between 9 and 26 feet before being standardized at 16.5 feet.

The Court Leet, ensured that although the land was farmed by many individuals, the crop grown in a particular area was a common one (the main ones being either wheat or barley). This meant that harvesting took place all at one time and that the land was then available for grazing by sheep and cattle. The animals were kept out of the crops by Haywards who ensured that walls or fences were maintained around the fields. Some walls were of traditional dry stone type whilst others were vertical slabs of stone known locally as slats. The Enclosure Acts of between 1720 and 1840 had abolished this open field type of farming almost everywhere else in the country.

On Portland, the potential value of the stone under the ground was the main reason for the individual freeholding tenants wishing to retain their own (part) shares in the lawns. Another surviving local custom of sharing inheritance subdivided the actual ownership of these already small strips still further. Despite several attempts by the larger landowners, Portland thus retained its Open fields and Common lands until the whole local community's economy changed with the introduction and growth of the large inland quarries and the various government establishments.

A further interesting insight into 17th century Portland agricultural life is recorded by Peter Mundy during his visit to the island in 1635 :

The Island for soe it is also called affoards noe fewell of Wood, there being very few trees or bushes on it. But I thinck the Earth is naturally not soe apte to produce them, It beinge high, drye, a shallow mould and somewhat stoney in most places. With the loose stones they make the hedges or partitions by only pileing them one upon the other (beinge flatt) which resembles Park walls. It yieldth good store of Corne, grasse and some hey. Store of cattle especially sheepe, some excellent plaines and levell ground. For Fewell they use Cowdung kneaded And tempered with short strawe or strawe dust which they make into flatt Cakes and clapping them on the side of their stoney walls , they become dry and hard and soe they use them when they have occasion .......They finde on the seaside a flatt stone which the poorer sort use to burn but it skinketh abhominably in burninge.

The latter fuel mentioned was presumably Kimmeridge shale. The gathering of clotts or picking up shen was again recorded in a 1838 edition of the Penny Magazine which noted that on Portland :

"........... the females collect dung on summer mornings and carry it in baskets to sunny spots to dry it".

As well as being daubed on the stone walls, it was also laid in rows with square borders. Up to 500 clotts being turned ocassionally by a boy.

The Lord of the (Royal) Manor of Portland has been the King since before Norman times. The Court Leet has thus been a direct link with the Crown with no intermediaries. The islanders as tenants of this Royal Manor have always enjoyed special rights and payments especially from stone extraction. It has members representing the Crown and the tenants. In the past the Reeve recorded payment of quit rent by inscribing a wooden reeve staff.Although not of such importance today, the Court Leet is almost unique in having managed to survive the numerous amendments to property acts and laws.

An extract below of some rulings by the Court Leet in 1800 show some examples of agricultural management operating since "time out of mind"

WE Do order that no one shall enter their stock or flocks of sheep in any of our Commons of Worth or Wares, before the 21st day of November next nor suffer them to continue there no longer than the 12th day of February following..............

WE Do order that no Persons whatsoever within this Manor shall be suffered to gather any Dry fuel, commonly called clotts in any of our Commons of Worth or Wares before the 24th day of June next, on pain of AMERCEMENT. (fine)

WE Do order that none shall enter their flock of sheep in any of our stubblefields before the ninth day of October next, called Old Michaelmas Eve nor suffer them to continue there no longer than 21st day of November following on pain of 10s.

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