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 mu