Today we all know what a field is: a piece of land, of varying size and shape but generally square or rectangular, fenced off from the fields next to it by a hedge, a ditch, a wall or a wooden fence, with a gate for access; growing one crop, belonging to one person. Two hundred years ago, such a piece of land was not known as a field: it was ‘an enclosure’ – or, as it would have been spelled at the time, ‘an Inclosure’.
