Agricultural History Review, Volume 44 Part 1 (1996), pp. 35–46

This paper revisits the violent and protested riots which followed the enclosure of Otmoor in Oxfordshire. The redistribution of property rights attended upon enclosure united local conmmnities in protest, fostering social solidarities which transcended class divisions. In order to contain the disturbances magistrates were forced to experiment with new methods of policing. The article suggests that, where enclosure intruded new notions of property rights into conmmnities where traditional entitlements were extensive and widely valued, new patterns of economic allocation would require new police powers to make them work. 

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