Enclosure

The Enclosure of Common Land
Enclosure entailed the fencing of common land with the eventual intention of cultivation by individual owners. The process occurred on three ways. Around Moelfre and on Mynydd Mechell illegal, piece-meal enclosure by squatter-colonisers took place. In Heneglwys in 1809 and Llanfair Mathafarn Eithaf in 1815 land was voluntarily enclosed. Most of the county's common land however was enclosed by parliamentary legislation, and the map shows places thus enclosed, together with the acreages and the relevant dates.

The largest enclosure involved the reclamation of Malltraeth Marsh, consisting of salt marsh inundated periodically by high tides and used occasionally for grazing. The long and detailed Acts of 1788 and 1790 gave the commissioners powers to raise money for building embankments and drainage channels, but these were so costly that the work stopped until 1809, when some 'friends of ...