Tom Patch
West Haddon Enclosure 1765
Also in 1765 the open fields of West Haddon were enclosed, in the face of some opposition, which culminated in a riot in the August of that year. The Patches had no land in the open fields and no common right entitlement and therefore no stake in the process. What effect it had on them is a matter for speculation. They would have lost their customary rights to gather nuts, brambles and other wild fruit in the open fields, cut rushes for rush-lights, pick up fallen branches for fuel, go woolgathering to stuff cushions, collect acorns to feed the pig in the homeclose... such things go unrecorded and the impact of their loss on the household budget is unknown.