Lammas Land


The fields under the knife (picture from SWOP website)	The area today

Sad the loss of grazing rights,
Sad the loss of fields,
The modern world at any price,
And older ways must yield.
Where once the sheep grazed happily
And cows would chew the cud
The buttercup and daisy grow
Through tarmac now, not mud.

This land was used by the villagers for grazing their cattle as per the rights of Lammas - see below. The land was lost when the M40 was built and the industrial estate was developed.

From the web: Lammas rights entitled commoners to pasture following the harvest, between Lammas day to 6 April, even if they did not have other rights to the land. Such rights sometimes had the effect of preventing enclosure and building development on agricultural land.

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