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The Birtwhistles of Craven and Galloway
in Craven. Manorial surveys of Long Preston of 1499 and 1579 show that the typical holding was still the oxgang, albeit augmented by small portions of demesne land no longer required by the Lord of the Manor. North Craven remained an essentially feudal society, with tenancies handed down unchanged through the manor court from father to first son. This feudal arrangement came to an abrupt end in 1603, when George Clifford, the Third Earl of Cumberland, came close to bankruptcy, and was forced to sell tenancies to those tenants who could afford to buy them.
Figure 3 A section of the Long Preston “out-dyke”, the wall of late medieval origin which excluded the cattle on the pastures from the arable fields
A movement away from arable farming started in Craven after the Civil War. Although there was now a significant financial incentive to embrace pastoral farming, only those who held land in closes, such as the freeholders to the north of the township and the former monastic tenants, were able to make this transition. The farmers of the townfields (to the east and south east of the village, see figure 2) continued to be restricted to subsistence arable farming because of the communal nature of open field farming. It was the influx of droving animals in the middle of the 18^th century which finally created the incentive for many Craven townships to enclose their townfields, to satisfy an increased demand for hay. Long Preston was however slower to enclose its townfields than many other townships; it had a preponderance of small farmers who rightly suspected that enclosure would lead to them being displaced by large farmers from outside the township. William Birtwhistle was the principal petitioner to parliament for the enclosure of the Long Preston townfields and pastures, and the Birtwhistles were the biggest beneficiaries, acquiring most of the Langber pasture to add to their adjacent Crake Moor holding (see figure 2).
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