The Marquis of Exeter is accused here of stealing land which had previously been considered ‘common’ and used as grazing by the freemen. But he was a man of great influence, and nobody dared to cross him.
“Strange things are doing in what have heretofore been considered the ‘open fields’ of Stamford. Mr. Torkington, the Town Clerk, is inclosing his land with stone walls, and proclaims his intention of so surrounding all his 177 acres. The average rental of the land in the fields has not hitherto exceeded 24s.: but Mr Torkington, it is stated has let 100 acres to Mr. Robt. Islip at 50s. an acre, the increased price being in consideration of the enclosure. All this is said to be based upon the worthy legal gentleman’s having last year prevailed in his action against Mr. Wm. Reed, for prostrating the first stone fence which he put up, in the field at the back of Rutland-terrace. The freemen who, as commoners, have an interest in the herbage of the land at certain times, look on with wonder at this invasion of their right; but it is doubted whether any person will be bold enough to take this bull by the horns. The rage for now shutting out the public from what they have for ages enjoyed, actuates both peer and commoner: the Marquis of Exeter has lately taken in large slips of land beside the Great North Road. In St. Martin’s parish, Stamford, on the pretence of a frontage-right, and of the road’s having been more than 60 feet wide. In this way he has within the last year acquired several acres of valuable ground; and he still continues his righteous system of appropriation, without interrupion from the Trustees of the Turnpike, or from anybody else, although this extension of his park walls will still further exclude the sun and air from the road, and make the condition of it disagreeable and the repair expensive. The Act for the inclosure of St. Martin’s parish passed in the year 1797, and the public have ever since enjoyed the use of the land which Lord Exeter in now inclosing; and still no hand is raised to stop him, though many tongues are wagged to reprehend his course; but what cares he for that? The award of the Commissioners under the Act would set out a road called ‘Salter’s Lane,’ leading from Wothorpe to the Great North Road : it is now obliterated, and the whole area of it is thrown into Lord Exeter’s estate. A similar process had more recently deprived the town of the Nun’s Road in the same parish, which led from the meadows to the Wothorpe Road: it is now thrown into the field of the Noble Marquis, by the side of which it ran. And there are manuy similar instances of honest acquisitions to keep in countenance the ploughing up of balks and footpaths by ‘meaner men’ on the other side of the water ; until, at last, comes the climax of inclosing land by hundreds of acres at once, and bidding the ‘will’ of the appropriator ‘avouch it.’ Men say that great results will arise from this, for that is must bring on the general and legal inclosure of the fields. This the Burghley family have long resisted, from a knowledge that the extension of the town which must follow, will soon destroy Lord Exeter’s political influence in a borough where the right of voting proceeds from the occupation of rateable property within it.”
The Stamford Mercury, 7th February, 1845.