Enclosure in the context of Worsted wool

Nomadic pastoralism, also known as nomadic herding, is a form of pastoralism in which livestock are herded in order to seek for fresh pastures on which to graze. True nomads follow an irregular pattern of movement, in contrast with transhumance, where seasonal pastures are fixed. However, this distinction is often not observed and the term 'nomad' used for both—and in historical cases the regularity of movements is often unknown in any case. The herded livestock include cattle, water buffalo, yaks, llamas, sheep, goats, reindeer, horses, donkeys or camels, or mixtures of species. Nomadic pastoralism is commonly practiced in regions with little arable land, typically in the developing world, especially in the steppe lands north of the agricultural zone of Eurasia. Pastoralists often trade with sedentary agrarians, exchanging meat for grains; however, they have been known to raid.

Of the estimated 30–40 million nomadic pastoralists worldwide, most are found in central Asia and the Sahel region of North and West Africa, such as Fulani, Tuaregs, and Toubou, with some also in the Middle East, such as traditionally Bedouins, and in other parts of Africa, such as Nigeria and Somalia. Increasing numbers of stock may lead to overgrazing of the area and desertification if lands are not allowed to fully recover between one grazing period and the next. Increased enclosure and fencing of land has reduced the amount of land for this practice.

The Highland Clearances (Scottish Gaelic: Fuadaichean nan Gàidheal [ˈfuət̪ɪçən nəŋ ˈɡɛː.əl̪ˠ], the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860.

The first phase resulted from agricultural improvement, driven by the need for landlords to increase their income – many had substantial debts, with actual or potential bankruptcy being a large part of the story of the clearances. This involved the enclosure of the open fields managed on the run rig system and shared grazing. These were usually replaced with large-scale pastoral farms on which much higher rents were paid. The displaced tenants were expected to be employed in industries such as fishing, quarrying, or kelp harvesting and processing. Their reduction in status from farmer to crofter was one of the causes of resentment.

Hedgelaying (or hedge laying) is the process of partially cutting through and then bending the stems of a line of shrubs or small trees, near ground level, without breaking them, so as to encourage them to produce new growth from the base and create a living ‘stock proof fence’. It is a countryside skill that has been practised for centuries, mainly in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with many regional variations in style and technique.

The first description of hedgelaying is in Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War, when his army was inconvenienced by thick woven hedges during the Battle of the Sabis in Belgium. Hedgelaying developed as a way of containing livestock in fields, particularly after the acts of enclosure which, in England, began in the 16th century.

Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century. Scholars regard the publishing of William Wordsworth's and Samuel Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads in 1798 as probably the beginning of the movement in England, and the Coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838 as its end. Romanticism arrived in other parts of the English-speaking world later; in the United States, about 1820.

The Romantic period was one of social change in England because of the depopulation of the countryside and the rapid growth of overcrowded industrial cities between 1798 and 1832. The movement of so many people in England was the result of two forces: the Agricultural Revolution, which involved enclosures that drove workers and their families off the land; and the Industrial Revolution, which provided jobs "in the factories and mills, operated by machines driven by steam-power". Indeed, Romanticism may be seen in part as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, though it was also a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, as well as a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. The French Revolution had an important influence on the political thinking of many Romantic figures at this time as well.

A croft is a traditional Scottish term for a fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable, and usually, but not always, with a crofter's dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer, especially in rural areas.

In Northern England, crofter was a term connected with tenant farming and rural employment. For example in the textiles industry; someone who bleached cloth prior to dyeing, laying it out in fields or 'crofts'.

William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restrain foreign activity, and raise wages, with the goal of easing poverty among farm labourers and small land holders. Cobbett backed lower taxes, saving, reversing commons enclosures and returning to the gold standard. He opposed borough-mongers, sinecurists, bureaucratic "tax-eaters" and stockbrokers. His radicalism furthered the Reform Act 1832 and gained him one of two newly created seats in Parliament for the borough of Oldham. His polemics range from political reform to religion, including Catholic emancipation. His best known book is Rural Rides (1830, in print). He argued against Malthusianism, saying economic betterment could support global population growth.

The inclosure acts created legal property rights to land previously held in common in England and Wales, particularly open fields and common land. Between 1604 and 1914 over 5,200 individual acts enclosing public land were passed, affecting 28,000 km.

Kett's Rebellion was a revolt in the English county of Norfolk during the reign of Edward VI, largely in response to the enclosure of land. It began at Wymondham on 8 July 1549 with a group of rebels destroying fences that had been put up by wealthy landowners. One of their targets was yeoman Robert Kett who, instead of resisting the rebels, agreed to their demands and offered to lead them. Kett and his forces, joined by recruits from Norwich and the surrounding countryside and numbering some 16,000, set up camp on Mousehold Heath to the north-east of the city on 12 July.

The rebels stormed Norwich on 29 July and took the city. On 1 August the rebels defeated a Royal Army led by the Marquess of Northampton who had been sent by the government to suppress the uprising. Kett's rebellion ended on 27 August when the rebels were defeated by an army under the leadership of the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Dussindale. Kett was captured, held in the Tower of London, tried for treason, and hanged from the walls of Norwich Castle on 7 December 1549.

Agriculture in Scotland includes all land use for arable, horticultural or pastoral activity in Scotland, or around its coasts. The first permanent settlements and farming date from the Neolithic period, from around 6,000 years ago. From the beginning of the Bronze Age, about 2000 BCE, arable land spread at the expense of forest. From the Iron Age, beginning in the seventh century BCE, there was use of cultivation ridges and terraces. During the period of Roman occupation there was a reduction in agriculture and the early Middle Ages were a period of climate deterioration resulting in more unproductive land. Most farms had to produce a self-sufficient diet, supplemented by hunter-gathering. More oats and barley were grown, and cattle were the most important domesticated animal. From c. 1150 to 1300, the Medieval Warm Period allowed cultivation at greater heights and made land more productive. The system of infield and outfield agriculture may have been introduced with feudalism from the twelfth century. The rural economy boomed in the thirteenth century, but by the 1360s there was a severe falling off in incomes to be followed by a slow recovery in the fifteenth century.

The early modern era saw the impact of the Little Ice Age, which peaked towards the end of the seventeenth century. The closing decade of the seventeenth century saw a slump, followed by four years of failed harvests, in what is known as the "seven ill years", but these shortages would be the last of their kind. After the Union of 1707 there was a conscious attempt to improve agriculture among the gentry and nobility. Introductions included haymaking, the English plough, new crops, crop rotation and encloses were introduced. The resulting Lowland Clearances saw hundreds of thousands of cottars and tenant farmers from central and southern Scotland lose access to land and either become landless agricultural workers or emigrate to the growing industrial cities or elsewhere. The later Highland Clearances involved the eviction of many traditional tenants as lands were enclosed, principally for sheep farming. In the first phase, many Highlanders were relocated as crofters, living on very small rented farms which required other employment to be found.

Hampton is a suburb of Greater London on the north bank of the River Thames, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England, and the historic county of Middlesex. Hampton is bounded by Bushy Park to the east (and to the north of St Albans Riverside facing Tagg's Island), the suburbs of Hampton Hill and Fulwell to the north, green belt to the west, and the Thames to the south.

Historically, the manor of Hampton included Hampton Court Palace (and Bushy Park), Hampton Hill, and Hampton Wick (which are now known collectively as "The Hamptons"). Originally settled in Saxon times, the manor was awarded to the Norman lord Walter of Saint-Valéry following the 1066 Norman Conquest, passed by his heirs to the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem in 1237, and acquired by Henry VIII following the Act of Supremacy 1534 (26 Hen. 8. c. 1). The enclosure of common land in 1811 and rapid growth of 19th-century London saw agricultural fields converted to market gardens, and later nurseries. The construction of the Hampton Water Treatment Works in the late 1850s and early 1860s, and the opening of the Shepperton Branch Line to London Waterloo in 1864, led to a steady growth in the population of Hampton, and fields in south Hampton near the station being converted to suburban housing in the late 19th century and interwar period. Refrigeration, air freight and cheaper overseas labour ultimately rendered the market gardens and nurseries uncompetitive and derelict, and after a lengthy planning process the Nurserylands estate was established in north Hampton in the 1980s.

Worsted (/ˈwɜːrstɪd/ or /ˈwʊstɪd/) is a high-quality type of wool yarn, the fabric made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from Worstead (from Old English Wurðestede, "enclosure place"), a village in the English county of Norfolk. That village, together with North Walsham and Aylsham, formed a manufacturing centre for yarn and cloth in the 12th century, when pasture enclosure and liming rendered the East Anglian soil too rich for the older agrarian sheep breeds. In the same period, many weavers from the County of Flanders moved to Norfolk. "Worsted" yarns/fabrics are distinct from woollens (though both are made from sheep's wool): the former is considered stronger, finer, smoother, and harder than the latter.

Worsted was made from the long-staple pasture wool from sheep breeds such as Teeswaters, Old Leicester Longwool and Romney Marsh. Pasture wool was not carded; instead it was washed, gilled and combed (using heated long-tooth metal combs), oiled and finally spun. When woven, worsteds were scoured but not fulled.

The medieval English wool trade was one of the most important factors in the medieval English economy. The medievalist John Munro notes that "[n]o form of manufacturing had a greater impact upon the economy and society of medieval Britain than did those industries producing cloths from various kinds of wool." The trade's liveliest period, 1250–1350, was 'an era when trade in wool had been the backbone and driving force in the English medieval economy'.

The wool trade was a major driver of enclosure (the privatisation of common land) in English agriculture, which in turn had major social consequences, as part of the British Agricultural Revolution. Medieval England had an extensive local supply of wool ("unrivalled elsewhere in Europe", according to one economic historian). The English innovated mechanised methods for fulling cloth in the 13th century.

Sheriff Hill is a suburb in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead in Tyne and Wear, England. It lies on the B1296 road 2 miles (3 km) south of Gateshead, 2.5 miles (4 km) south of Newcastle upon Tyne and 12 miles (19 km) north of the historic city of Durham. According to the 2001 UK census it had a population of 5,051.

Historically part of Gateshead Fell in County Durham, Sheriff Hill was the site of a battle between William the Conqueror and Malcolm III of Scotland in 1068. A road was built through Gateshead Fell in the early 13th century, attracting some settlers. A procession of bishops, sheriffs and noblemen known as the Sheriff's March took place on the road in 1282, and continued biannually until the 1830s. By then, Gateshead Fell had been enclosed and a village had grown around the road, largely populated by an influx of tinkers, coalminers working at Sheriff Hill Colliery and workers at the local pottery, mill and sandstone quarry. By the turn of the 20th century these industries were in steep decline. The local authority built a large council estate at Sheriff Hill to alleviate dangerous overcrowding in Gateshead, effectively turning the area into a residential suburb. It ceased to be an independent village on 1 April 1974 when it was incorporated into the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead under the terms of the Local Government Act 1972.