Description
The second volume contains manuscript maps of Saddleworth produced over the period 1625-1822. These maps were drawn by local surveyors for estate management, tax and legal purposes. The earliest map of 1625 illustrates how Quick Moor, a large 1000 acre common, was enclosed and divided-up between the three major Saddleworth land owners. The area was subsequently rapidly settled with communities at Scouthead, Strinesdale and Highmoor emerging. Two eighteenth-century private estate maps are reproduced; the estates of Giles Shaw at Uppermill and Furlane and the fourteen farms of John Buckley in Saddleworth and elsewhere. Two major maps cover large areas of the Parish, the 1770 map of the manorial estates of James Farrer encompasses the two major divisions of Lordsmere and Shawmere and parts of Quickmere. A key gives details of every farm, the field names, tenants and acreages. The second of these comprehensive maps is the township map of 1822. This was produced for tax purposes and the whole district is covered with each land holding and tenant identified. Only parts of the key have survived and that for Quickmere and Shawmere is included; but acreages are given in other areas based on surviving drafts of the map. Two enclosure maps are reproduced, that of Harrop Edge in 1810 and that of Denshaw moor in 1812. The latter is a set of maps showing the the commissioner’s process in arriving at definitive boundaries of the common and the final allocation of land.
