The Enclosure Movement — The Holts and the Common Land
For centuries before the Tudor period, England’s common land — meadow, pasture and waste — was held by custom rather than by deed. Every family in a township held rights to use it: to graze animals, gather fuel, cut rushes and glean what the seasons offered. These were ancient entitlements, understood by lord and tenant alike, and they formed the economic foundation of rural life.
From the mid-sixteenth century this system began to change across England. The process became known as enclosure: the taking of common or waste land and bringing it into private, consolidated ownership. In the early period enclosures were generally carried out by informal manorial authority rather than by statute. It was not until the seventeenth century that the practice of obtaining Parliamentary authorisation became established, and not until after 1750 that Parliamentary enclosure became the norm. Between 1604 and 1914, over 5,200 enclosure Bills were enacted by Parliament, relating to more than a fifth of the total area of England, amounting to some 6.8 million acres.
In Lancashire, as elsewhere, the men with the legal standing to act were the gentry who held manorial authority over the waste. The Holts of Rochdale were among those families. The evidence survives in a chain of primary sources — inquisitions post mortem, the 1626 Survey of the Manor of Rochdale published by the Chetham Society, and the Victoria County History of Lancashire — that together record a documented pattern of enclosure and land consolidation across several generations of the family.
The Holts and the Common Land of Rochdale
The Holts of Stubley and Castleton were the principal resident gentry family in the parish of Rochdale across more than three centuries. Their lands spread through the townships of Hundersfield, Spotland, Castleton and Butterworth, and their manorial authority gave them direct power over the common wastes that lay between those townships. The documentary record captures their role in the enclosure of those wastes across several named generations.
Thomas Holt
d. 1494
By the late fifteenth century the Holts were already substantial holders in the Rochdale area. Thomas Holt held by knight’s service of the king as Duke of Lancaster: five messuages and sixty acres called Little Wardle; fifteen messuages and sixty acres in Hundersfield; and further lands in Spotland and Butterworth. He left a son and heir Robert, then aged thirteen, whose wardship was granted to James Stanley, clerk.
Source: Victoria County History of Lancashire, Vol. 5, Townships of Wuerdle and Wardle.
Robert Holt
d. December 1554
Robert extended the family’s holdings significantly. In 1542 he purchased the Castleton estate — part of the former lands of Whalley Abbey, confiscated at the Dissolution — from Henry VIII. By the time of his death he held the manors of Hundersfield, Spotland and Castleton, with eighty messuages, three water mills, four fulling mills, and land in Hundersfield, Spotland, Bury, Castleton, Butterworth, Middleton and Tottington.
Source: Victoria County History of Lancashire, Vol. 5; Holts of Stubley, compiled from deeds and county records.
Charles Holt
active c. 1556–1592
Charles Holt carried out the most directly documented acts of enclosure. In 1560 he enclosed two-thirds of the waste land of Castleton common. By his death in 1592 he held ninety houses in Rochdale alone and also owned the water corn mill in Castleton. The 1626 Survey of the Manor of Rochdale, compiled for Sir Robert Heath, the king’s attorney general, records in the jury’s own presentment that two further portions of Castleton common were enclosed by Charles Holt and others approximately twenty-nine years before the Survey — placing a second act of enclosure at around 1597.
The same Survey also shows Charles Holte of Balderstone, his wife Mary, and his son Samuel surrendering copyhold in April and May 1622 of parcels described as “improved out of Castleton Moor”: a close called “Rough Past.” of two acres, and a close called the “over Pasture” of two acres, now passing to other Rochdale families. These copyhold surrenders are the documentary trace of earlier enclosure: land formerly common waste, brought into cultivation, and passing through the manorial copyhold system.
Source: Survey of the Manor of Rochdale, 1626, ed. Henry Fishwick, Chetham Society, 1913; Holts of Stubley.
The 1626 Survey of the Manor of Rochdale
The Survey of the Manor of Rochdale, made in 1626 for Sir Robert Heath and published by the Chetham Society in 1913, provides the most detailed documentary evidence of the Holts’ landholding and their place within the enclosure of common land. The jury’s presentment reported that within the previous thirty years, certain wastes, commons and heathgrounds within the parish had been “wholly enclosed” and others enclosed in part, and that the enclosed portions had in many cases become copyhold lands. The jury recorded further that in their opinion there was not sufficient common of pasture remaining for the inhabitants of Castleton.
The Survey names several members of the Holt family and records their respective holdings across the parish at that date:
John Holte Esq.
Named in the 1626 Survey
Holds by knight’s service in the Manor of Spotland: four score messuages, three water mills, one fulling mill with two stocks, one thousand acres of land, three hundred acres of meadow, one thousand acres of pasture, and forty acres of wood and underwood in Hundersfield, Spotland and Butterworth. He also claims a third part of the Manor of Rochdale held of his Majesty as of the Duchy of Lancaster.
Source: Survey of the Manor of Rochdale, 1626.
Theophilus Holt
Named in the 1626 Survey
Owned one of the water corn mills in Broadwood, recorded among the working mills in the parish at the time of the Survey.
Source: Survey of the Manor of Rochdale, 1626.
Mr Holte of Ashworth
Named in the 1626 Survey
Named as a boundary landmark for closes called Castle Hill, Westcroft and Marcroft, indicating a landholding presence in that part of the parish at the date of the Survey.
Source: Survey of the Manor of Rochdale, 1626.
Richard Holt
fl. mid-17th century
Recorded in a later entry to the Survey: admitted by mort fide on 8 May 1651 to John Allen, his guardian, to ten acres in Castleton Moor. Robert, son of Robert Holt, was admitted after his father’s death to the same holding on 7 October 1652.
Source: Survey of the Manor of Rochdale, 1626 (with later marginal entries).
Later Generations
Robert Holt
d. 1673
The Hearth Tax of c.1664 records Robert Holt with fifteen hearths in Castleton — the largest house in the township — and a second Robert Holt with eleven hearths in Wuerdle and Wardle. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Robert joined the king’s forces under the influence of the Earl of Derby and served in North Wales. In 1645 he surrendered, took the National Covenant and Negative Oath, and compounded; his fine was £1,150. A pedigree of the family was recorded in 1664. He died in 1673, leaving a younger son James to succeed him.
Source: Victoria County History of Lancashire, Vol. 5; Hearth Tax returns for the Parish of Rochdale, c.1664.
James Holt
d. 1712
James died in 1712 without male heirs. His four daughters became co-heirs: Frances, wife of James Winstanley; Elizabeth, wife of William Cavendish; Isabella, wife of Delaval Dutton and afterwards of Sir William Parsons; and Mary, wife of Samuel Chetham of Turton. Samuel Chetham purchased the portions of the other three sisters and so acquired the whole Castleton and Stubley estate. He improved Castleton Hall and died in 1744 without issue. The estate then passed to his brother Humphrey, and eventually back into the Holt family connection through the Winstanleys, before Clement Winstanley sold Castleton Hall in 1772, bringing the direct Holt connection with these lands to a close.
Source: Victoria County History of Lancashire, Vol. 5.
Primary Sources
- Victoria County History of Lancashire, Vol. 5: Townships of Wuerdle and Wardle; Parish of Rochdale (British History Online)
- The Survey of the Manor of Rochdale, 1626, edited by Henry Fishwick F.S.A., published by the Chetham Society, 1913 (Internet Archive)
- Holts of Stubley: family history compiled from deeds, county records, and the Family History Society of Cheshire Journal 8(3), 1979
- Hearth Tax returns for the Parish of Rochdale, c.1664, cited in the Victoria County History of Lancashire, Vol. 5
