1) A piece of land ‘taken in’ from the waste, enclosed and improved in preparation for its use as arable, meadow or pasture.
Field-names provide the earliest evidence: 1231-2 ‘between the field called Intak and the Use’, Naburn
1305 le Intak de Bordelay
1316 ‘to the field called le Intakes’, Adlingfleet
1342 ‘the place called le Intakes’, Heckmondwike
1425 ‘parcels in le intac ... abutting on le mur’, Sandal. The verb ‘to take in’ features regularly from this period. In 1481, with regard to a certayn waste grounde full of bushes in Barwick in Elmet, the lessors’ requirement was that the takeyng ynne of the said waste grounde shalbe no noiseaunce to our tenauntes . It was a practice that increased a landlord’s income, as John Kaye noted when speaking of his father: c.1550 he hath suffrid parcelles of the wast to be takyn into tenaunteys which augmenteth this Rental, Woodsome. In 1611, a Huddersfield lease took into account the expenses of Thomas Brooke ... in taking in, enclosing, fencing and reducing into husbandry one piece of barren ground of the waste ... called Sheepridge. Over the centuries the intakes continued to nibble away at the moorland in the upland townships, establishing a characteristic pattern of irregular enclosures at the highest level of cultivation. A survey of 1805, which is in the Dartmouth estate office at Slaithwaite, provides an insight into the labour which created this intake landscape: A great portion of these hamlets have been cultivated from Moorland by the present tenants and their Forefathers within the last Century ... However, there still remain large tracts of Moor Land ... Patches of which are annually taking in [sic] ... and cleared of Rocks ... at great Labour and Expence. With these Stones, when broken, the fences are formed.