Description
Note: This is a secondhand book in great condition, although has some small marks on the bottom of the front cover (shown here) and on the top of the back cover (similar).
First produced in the mid-1500’s by Edmond Twyngho, The Bassingbourn Field Book covered all the parish of Bassingbourn, Cambridgeshire, and was revised twice within twenty years or so, in July 1570, and again in 1578.
The transcription set out in this volume was from a copy of the book written in 1695, or soon after. It was expanded then to include a survey made that year of the open fields of the adjacent parish of Kneesworth, as well as various other items of differing periods relating to land use in the two townships. The Kneesworth land information is not included, but details of the flocks of sheep and the use of the commons in 1695 are, since they are about Bassingbourn and relate to the way the land was managed, which the Field Book itself does not.
Evidence for the year the first survey was carried out is considered. The date on the front of the book is 1563, but research relating to the text itself and the activity of the crown during Queen Mary I’s reign has suggested and alternative date for this. Also, it has offered a probable reason why the survey was undertaken. A review of the other early field books and surveys of villages in Cambridgeshire has examined if any.
A view of the landscape of Bassingbourn in the mid-1500s and some of the people emerging from the book is followed by consideration of the possible location and history of the book until it was gifted to the parish library in 1871.
