jan 1, 1457 - acredike

Description:

It was Angus Winchester who drew attention to the names given to the ‘fence’ which acted as a boundary between cultivated land and the open hillside in upland parishes. He discussed, among others, the terms felldyke, headgarth and acredike (AW53), and the last of these, with local variations, is well documented in Yorkshire. ‘Acre’ is a reference to the cultivated land although the precise meaning of the compound term may have differed from one community to another: <i>c</i>.1200 <i>ad caput ipsius rivuli quod est in Acrewal et sic de Acrewall recte intransversum versus …, </i>Beamsley (EYCh7/130); 1334 <i>et eciam fugare ad vulpes et lepores infra les Acredikes de Alverstan et Farmanby</i> (NRR3/112); 1354 <i>communa pasturæ quæ habeo vel habui … infra Acregarth in villis de Whiteby, Stakeseby, Neuham, Presteby </i>(SS72/429). Among later references quoted by Winchester are <i>akerdykes</i> at Lartington in 1444 and <i>akirgarthez </i>at Sedbergh in 1457 (AW55). It should be noted, though, that identical terms occurred away from the uplands. For example, in undated deeds of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, land in North Cave lay ‘next <i>Ackerdyk</i>’ (YRS83/84) and <i>Akerdic</i> occurred in Bempton, again undated (ERPN107).

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