ong them the mill and the farm held by the Gibbses), as well as 17 cottages and seven houses built on the waste. (fn. 253) Several other tenancies, besides the Park Lodge and Manor House, continued to be let on 21-year leases. (fn. 254)
The 18th-Century Estate and Inclosure.
After he bought Wicken in 1716, as well as building a new mansion in the park, (fn. 255) Charles Hosier had the estate surveyed. This revealed that he had about 440 a. in hand, excluding the woodland, with most of the rest let to nine principal tenants, whose holdings ranged from 46 a. to 418 a. around a mean of 140 a. They included Charles Gibbs, who was also the main freeholder, and the tenant with the smallest farm had 13a. of freehold. What is striking, however, is how the long tail of smaller holdings evident in the 17th-century surveys had disappeared. About 300 a. belonged to freeholders, of which Gibbs's Dagnall estate (128 a.) was the most important, and there were 126 a. of glebe. (fn. 256) Hosier's policy over the next few years was to buy up the freeholds. In 1717-18 he paid £331 in two stages to acquire Stocking Close and other premises, which had been the Snoxall family's freehold, (fn. 257) and £1,300 for the farm at Mount Mill, which had once belonged to John Seaman (or Simmons), the other freeholder mentioned in the 1630s. (fn. 258) Hosier also bought 3 a. of arable for £25 in 1718; (fn. 259) two cottages with half a yardland of arable for £200 the following year; (fn. 260) and in 1726 purchased a cottage newly erected on a pightle of land that had once belonged to the Seaman family for £28. (fn. 261) In 1735 and 1741 Hosier bought (in two moieties) 4½ a. in Dagnall Fields for £17, (fn. 262) and appears to have made other small purchases of which the details do not survive. (fn. 263)
Twenty years after Hosier's purchase of Wicken there were still nine farm tenancies on the estate, as well as the woods and a considerable acreage of farmland in hand. There were also 58 cottage tenants, far more than fifty years before, which must reflect either an increase in population or, more likely, a reduction in the status of houses which had once belonged to the smaller farms whose land had been merged into larger holdings by 1717. (fn. 264)
It was left to Hosier's successor, Thomas Prowse, to make the most important purchase for the estate, that of the two farms, a cottage and three yardlands (just over 100 a.) at Dagnall, for which he paid Charles Gibbs of Towcester £3,050 in 1753. (fn. 265) From that date practically the whole of the parish of Wicken, together with about 200 a. of woods in Leckhampstead, belonged to the estate. As Prowse's daughter-in-law Elizabeth later observed, only the parsonage and glebe (including two houses), plus five cottages in the village (one of them the White Lion) were not owned by her family. (fn. 266)
The way was thus open for Prowse to inclose the remaining common arable and meadow in the parish by agreement with the rector and bishop, which he proceeded to do in 1757. The glebe in the open fields was consolidated into a single farm of 126 a. (which was described as a gain of 36 a. to the living) and a composition of £130 a year agreed in lieu of the tithes due from the Wicken Park estate. Although the parties undertook to obtain an Act to confirm the agreement they did not do so. (fn. 267) At the same time Prowse made an exchange with one of the handful of small freeholders in the parish. (fn. 268)
Thomas Prowse gave up Wicken Park to his son George in 1764, (fn. 269) three years before his death. (fn. 270) George also died in 1767, (fn. 271) leaving a widow Elizabeth, who never remarried and ran the estate as a resident proprietor until her own death in 1810. (fn. 272) Both her own detailed accounts (fn. 273) and the comments of others testify to the close interest she took in Wicken and its people. She supported a day school for girls as well as boys, (fn. 274) suppressed any sign of Nonconformity, (fn. 275) and ensured that there was no poverty, no rebellion and no sedition in the parish. (fn. 276) In 177