7 a visitor described how Mrs. Prowse entertained the labourers and their families (some 60 people in all) at harvest time with music, large bowls of syllabub, bread, cheese and ale, helping to ensure that they remained the 'happiest set of peasants in England'. She also invited her family and 'select friends in the neighbourhood' to a fête champêtre in the park, which the country people were allowed to watch from beyond the ha-ha, before being invited in by her servants to finish off the food. (fn. 277)
Within twenty years of inclosure a new farm, Little Hill, was established on the former open fields between the Buckingham road and the river, and Mount Mill had been assigned a large acreage of new inclosures. (fn. 278) In 1768 Mrs. Prowse converted all the farms from 'written agreements' (apparently annual tenancies) to leases, losing only one tenant in the process. (fn. 279) The number of separate holdings, however, did not change greatly: in 1778 Mrs. Prowse noted that she had insured nine farmhouses, the maltster's house and kiln, two tiled houses, and 51 thatched cottages, (fn. 280) figures very similar to those of 1717 and 1738. (fn. 281)
The estate was producing about £1,000- £1,100 in rent in the last quarter of the 18th century, from which Mrs. Prowse normally drew around £800 a year for repairs and domestic expenses, including the cost of the school. (fn. 282) One of the farms was kept in hand, although Mrs. Prowse charged herself a notional rent for the holding and carefully accounted for other expenses and income there. (fn. 283) The eight let farms were yielding about £1,250 gross in 1797, when a new survey suggested that advances of around 20 per cent could be achieved on re-letting. The farms, which all had their land in reasonably compact blocks around the house and buildings, ranged from 102 a. to 363 a. around a mean of 200 a., with considerable variation in the proportion of arable and grass between different holdings. Two had between 40 and 45 per cent of their land under the plough; on two more the proportion was exactly half, and on the two others for which the shares can be calculated the figures were 67 per cent and 80 per cent. (fn. 284) In 1796 Sir John Mordaunt of Walton (Warws.), the heir apparent to the Wicken estate following his marriage to Mrs. Prowse's sister-in-law Elizabeth, persuaded the Wicken tenants that they, and not Mrs. Prowse, should pay the tithe composition of £130 due from the estate, rather than face an increase in rent. (fn. 285)
The estate was only slightly affected by the building of the Buckingham branch canal in 1800-1, when Mrs. Prowse sold 2½ acres of land to the Grand Junction, part of which was later sold back to her. (fn. 286) She appears to have accepted payment for the land in shares. (fn. 287) Also in the early 19th century a new house and buildings were erected at Mount Mill, after the mill went out of use, (fn. 288) and a third new farm, Park Farm or Sparrow Lodge, was built midway between Dagnall and the village. Manor Farm and Home Farm, the two main farmsteads in the village itself, were improved. (fn. 289)
An important element in the economy of the estate in this period, and of the local community as a whole, was the large acreage of woodland, from which sales of underwood, faggots and hedgerow wood were producing about £200 a year between the 1770s and Mrs. Prowse's death in 1810, (fn. 290) representing an addition of nearly 20 per cent to income from the farms. This figure was only two thirds of that included in the valuation of 1662, (fn. 291) presumably a reflection of the contracting market for wood as a fuel during the 18th century. By contrast, the farm rental quadrupled over the same period, which also saw a reduction in the number of holdings. During the 1770s and 1780s timber was only occasionally felled for sale, but between 1795 and 1808 annual sales realised an average of £280 a year (including bark). These were made at the request of Sir John Mordaunt, who was to inherit the Wicken and Grafton Park estates after Mrs. Prowse's death; in 1809,