The 1841 Langham tithe map in its printed form consists of three separate sheets.
1.
The core village dwellings, garden plots, paddocks and orchards.
2.
The main fields with each holding numbered.
3.
A smaller sheet which shows the eastern end of the parish in detail with numerous individually
numbered tiny fields, for which there is no evidence on the ground that these really existed.
This third map has always been something of a mystery, it marks this land as “Leasehold Property held
under Sir Gilbert Heathcote Bart.” The majority of the parish was held by the Gainsborough Estate
[The Noel Family]. Why had the large fields of earlier mapping remained much the same for the
majority of the parish when this land at the eastern edge was shown subdivided on paper into numerous
small parcels of land.
There has been ongoing discussion, about this and similar small plots discovered in the neighbouring
parish of Whissendine, was this a way for major landowners to pay their long serving staff a pension or
to retain essential staff, or, as it something more devious.
At this date, to have the vote you needed to be a land/property owner which of course led to the
majority of the population being without the opportunity to elect their MP. This period was when
parliament was leading up to the repeal of the “Corn Laws”, the two main parties, the Tories (The
Conservatives) and the Whigs (The Liberals) were locked in augument. Not a nice cosy coallition as
today [2012].
Read the July/October 1841 Lincolnshire Chronicle articles by selecting the button above which will go
some way to provide an explanation for these small plots of land. To make best use of the complete
tithe map and its apportionments you need to make use of layers within the Adobe Acrobat Reader
software, if you need instructions click here to visit the Tithe Page and select the instruction button.
Langham Village History Group
