solidated 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 1777 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