 as comprising Little Dagnall, Great Dagnall, Mount Field, Out Field next Mount Field, Middle Field, Field next Thornton, and the Out Field next Dagnall Great Field. (fn. 236) Virtually the same names appear in a late 17th-century survey made for the 2nd earl of Sunderland. (fn. 237)
It is impossible to say for certain how the open-field arable, which in 1717 was already in the process of piecemeal inclosure, was distributed in the Middle Ages, especially in a parish whose landscape history is complicated by the presence of a large area of woodland and a 500acre park. Perhaps the best explanation is that the fields to the north and east of the village (Wood Furlong Field, the Great Field and Kingdom Field) belonged to the manor of Wick Dive (although the latter lies to the south of the brook which is supposed to have been the boundary between the two parishes); that a hamlet at Dagnall had its own fields; and that the arable adjoining the village to the south, together with the Out Field beyond the Buckingham road, represented the common fields of the manor of Wick Hamon.
Some piecemeal inclosure, as well as additional imparking, took place at Wicken around the turn of the 16th century. In 1490 Thomas marquess of Dorset converted 30 a. of arable to sheep pasture, displacing four families, and in 1512 John Spencer did likewise with a further 40 a. (fn. 238)
The Wicken Estate in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Spencers let the farms on their Wicken estate on 21-year leases, each typically including a house, buildings, one or more closes of pasture, and land in the open fields and meadows, the latter generally reckoned in half-yardlands. (fn. 239) The manor house and park were also let, (fn. 240) which led to litigation against a tenant in 1590 concerning the alleged cutting down of 400 oaks belonging to Sir John Spencer in the park. (fn. 241) In 1630 the estate was producing a gross income of about £290 a year, most of which came from the park, which appears to have been let in two halves. The Wick Dive farms were