shutt

1) A variety of meanings, including a division of land; a synonym for 'furlong'; or an enclosure of a town field.

The word ‘shot’ has numerous meanings and in one definition it is said to be a division of land. ‘Shutt’, which occurs in Yorkshire, is a variant spelling and the evidence we have at present suggests that it may have come into use towards the end of the sixteenth century, as a synonym of ‘furlong’: in some cases it identified part of the unenclosed town field: 1601 septem seliones terre arrabilis iacen in le overfield super shuttam sive furlangam voc. le Overshutt, Kirkheaton. In other cases it was an enclosure in what had formerly been a town field: 1604 that … Thomas Wood by exchange of lands might take in and inclose one close called the Neither Shuttes, Lepton

1687 the footway leading downe their groundes unto the shutt, Northowram. It remained in use after land had been in thenow in a close taken in under Bincliffe House, Brampton: in this deed of exchange four divisions in the Cliff Field of Brampton had ‘shutt’ as a place-name element. Lepton field maps of the 1700s show the Nether Shutts as large enclosures to the north of a town field that was still in common ownership: it is clear that this land had been cleared of trees at some early date and brought under the plough as an extension of the older Northfield. Downshutts is a relatively common field name in the south Pennines and more research may show some comparisons with Nether Shutts. Certain aspects of the history of ‘outshut’, which was similarly an extension, are worth noting.

dates 1601 1604 1680 1687

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