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Along the Moors - Crudgington Green
Measure for Measure
By the mid-1580s, tenants of the Lilleshall Estate were said to have enclosed all of the moors between Wrockwardine and Kynnersley, leaving only the marshiest and poorest soils in their wake. The main method behind this transformation involved improving local drainage and included scouring and widening the River Strine between Crudgington and Rodway to a new width of six yards — a task for which tenants of the estate were provided with a special measure! It proved so successful that scouring the river subsequently became seen as a recognised means for townships in the north of moors to imply their right of common on land adjoining the waterway.
While Leveson’s programme certainly had the desired effect in creating new pasture, allowing grazing and the mowing of hay to take place for the first time in many areas, his lack of regard for the common rights of others created ill-feeling and resentment among those who had seen a noticeable reduction in the amount of land they could use for grazing. The agreement Leveson had reached with the Earl of Shrewsbury arose directly out of a series of incidents where mobs of up to 60 people from Wrockwardine and Eyton had descended on Kynnersley Moor, destroying hedges and a bridge over the Black Dyke constructed by Lilleshall tenants. The progress of enclosure was such that incidents of this kind became increasingly commonplace in the west of the moors, as rival landlords sought to assert their own exclusive rights to the area.