Abstract

SUMMARY This paper is a survey of the present-day survival of Lammas Meadows together with an account of their origins and characteristics, with special reference to the Lugg Meadows near Hereford. Information has been collected from a wide range of sources on the number and condition of common meadows (variously known as Lammas meadows, dole or lot meadows) surviving in a functional form in England and Wales today. Sixteen of these ancient hay meadows have been found which still have the status of registered commonland but few of these retain many of the other features characteristic of the medieval system, i.e. strip ownership and management, with the strips marked by mere or dole stones, and an active commoner's association controlling the grazing rights and preventing misuse of the meadows by owners. The Lugg Meadows, near Hereford (Pl. I) have been found to be the largest of these surviving meadows and the one where medieval practices are still most closely followed. A second list has been compiled of about thirteen meadows which, though managed more or less as Lammas meadows, have no commoners. These meadows can be at risk of enclosure by individual owners with subsequent conversion of the strips to permanent pasture or arable. In comparison with the extent of the other three elements of the medieval open field system still surviving, i.e. arable land still visible as ridge and furrow fossilised under pasture, ancient woodlands and manorial waste (now statutory common land), the acreage of the surviving common meadows is minute—c. 2,000 acres. None of these meadows have statutory protection in their own right though some are designated SSSIs (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) because of the outstanding meadow flora that has resulted from long continuity of management as hay meadow. Because of their origins these meadows are situated in the flat flood plains of rivers and this situation has made them very vulnerable to modern, large-scale road and motorway building. Many have already been seriously damaged by this and others are threatened by proposed roads.