Text taken from the 1951 'A guide to the town and neighbourhood' published by the Barnard Castle Publicity Society and Chamber of Trade.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT - PART THREE
These grants gave the
burgesses of the town rights in land covering about 9,700 acres
and privileges as to buildings, baking of bread in their own ovens
and if they so wished, collecting manure before their own doors!
Their corn, however, had to be ground at the lord's mill at the foot
of the demesnes where the miller took his multure and a sixteenth
for the lord.
The demesnes were kept for the lord's own use and
on which the towns people were obliged to render certain ploughing and harvesting services several days each year.
The organisation of the town was by court baron and court
leet. At the court baron the chief bailiff presided, all disputes as
to land were settled and allocation of strips for cultivation agreed
upon.
A large area on the east was used for the grazing of cattle,
but nearer the town certain areas were divided into three, one
of which had to lie fallow each year. On the other two fields
each man drew lots for his particular strips to be cultivated, these
being interspersed among those of his fellows.
The court leet tried petty offences and in the early period the
lord had right of gallows to hang those guilty of more serious
crimes. Galgate, or Gallowgate, is a sinister reminder of this
aspect of feudal life.
Records of this period do not exist but it
may be assumed that the community would be divided into tens
or a tithing, with one of their number elected as head and each
to be responsible for the good behaviour of the group. In this
way discipline was enforced. This arrangement can be traced in
the manorial byelaws of later times.
In 1783 and 1794 the town fields were enclosed by Act of
Parliament so that a more intensive cultivation could be developed.
Thus we see so many small enclosures in the neighbourhood of
the town. The plans, made in 1796 to implement the act for
enclosing Barnard Castle Moor in Maywood, were made by John
Dixon of Cockfield and are beautiful examples of the surveyor's
draughtsmanship.
Dixon was one of a remarkable family of
mathematicians and surveyors. His brother George was the first
to produce illuminant gas from coal and another brother,
Jeremiah, surveyed, along with Charles Mason, the boundary
between Pennsylvania and Maryland in the U.S.A. known as
the Mason-Dixon line.
Another and later John surveyed the
land for the Darlington and Barnard Castle railway in 1854.
With these enclosures the ancient court baron ceased to play an
important part and in course of time the ancient ceremonies,
with their regalia, now in the Bowes Museum, became things of
the past.
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