The lie of the land

Land. There are those who, through quirk of their birth, claim entitlement to vast swathes of it. Others will buy and sell it. Some remains common property, belonging to all of us.

But what happens when land is created? Who owns it then?

On opposite banks of the River Severn in Gloucestershire sit the villages of Slimbridge and Awre, and in the early 1200s these communities were locked in a most bizarre dispute. The way in which the mighty river flowed and deposited silt meant that there was a patch of land which switched its allegiance from time to time, sometimes resting on the Awre side and sometimes accessible only from the Slimbridge side. Understandably, the residents of Slimbridge and Awre were not entirely satisfied with this situation and in 1233 a jury was convened to decide once and for all who the land belonged to. Their conclusion: no matter what the river might do, the land belonged to Slimbridge.

A settlement of sorts, but this decision also opened another can of worms. Was this gift of the river to be common land, used for the benefit of all, or was it part of the manor of Slimbridge, held by the powerful Berkeley family?

The Berkeleys seized the initiative, with Thomas de Berkeley (1293/96-1361) making improvements to the riverside land in the 1300s. Then, in the 1550s under Henry Berkeley (1534–1613), work began to protect the land from the Severn's fickle ways and ensure it always remained on the correct side of the river. Finally, a series of legal cases determined that the land, now known as the New Grounds, could not be considered common land because they had been "cast together by the tides within memory of man". New land, it seems, had to have an owner.

But whilst the Berkeley family were asserting their right to own and profit from the land reclaimed from the Severn at Slimbridge, there was a revolution taking place just across the river. Between 1628 and 1631 inhabitants of the Royal Forests of Gillingham, Braydon and Dean rioted against the sale and subsequent enclosure of what had previously been held as common land. This royal moneymaking scheme threatened to deprive foresters of their ancient rights to graze and take timber, ruining livelihoods and challenging the very basis of established custom. Help came, as it often does in the English countryside, in the form of a fictional character.

In these disafforestation riots, participants rallied behind the name Lady Skimmington. In the south of England, a 'skimmington' was a wooden ladle used in cheesemaking. It was also a name given to a form of vigilantism in which a noisy parade was held to express community displeasure at perceived acts of immoral behaviour. It made sense then that those protesting this overturning of long-established traditions in the Royal Forests would choose Lady Skimmington as their leader. In Gloucestershire this part was played by John Williams and under his leadership some 3,000 rioters set about pulling down all of the enclosure fences within the Forest of Dean.

By June 1631, Lady Skimmington was on the move and heading in the direction of Slimbridge. In return for promised victuals, one of Williams's lieutenants, William Gough, plus five of his company resolved to head to Slimbridge by lighter to tear down the fences enclosing the New Grounds. Their plan failed when all were arrested and brought before magistrates in Gloucester. Three were imprisoned, but Gough escaped.

Lady Skimmington may not have been able to threaten the Berkeley family's possession of the New Grounds but a new revolution was brewing and, amidst the chaos of the English Civil Wars, George Berkeley (1601-1658) petitioned the House of Lords, stating in 1646: "since these unhappy wars began some persons unknown to me, in a riotous manner, have digged down the banks thereof, and pulled down the houses thereon, laying it in common for all mens cattle". A few years later, during the Commonwealth, a Digger colony was founded somewhere in Gloucestershire. Historian Christopher Hill has suggested that this group may have been based at Slimbridge.

If the Berkeley family were able to repair their fences and return the New Grounds to the exclusive use of their tenants after the Restoration, it wasn't for long. The 1801 Slimbridge Inclosure Act appears as something of a victory for those who had fought so hard over the centuries to have common use of the land. It reasserted that the Berkeley family owned the soil, but finally allowed freeholders of Slimbridge and nearby Frampton on Severn rights of common on the land.

Fast forward to 2022. The New Grounds continue to be part of the 6,000 acre Berkeley Estate and whilst it's certainly difficult for the freeholders of Slimbridge to exercise any rights of common over the land they can perhaps take comfort in knowing that anyone can visit and enjoy it, providing they are prepared to pay an entry fee. The land reclaimed from the River Severn is now home to the Slimbridge Wetland Centre (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre).

References and further reading

D.G.C. Allan, "The Rising in the West, 1628-1631", The Economic History Review, New Series, 5, 1 (1952): 76-85

Nick Hayes, The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us (London: Bloomsbury, 2020)

Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (London: Temple Smith, 1972)

Francis Pitt, The Frontier of a Barony: The New Grounds at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire (1948)