changed his Christian name to William.
   Other woodland scattered about the parish included Mr Gunning’s Great Wood of ten acres, Mr Tisedell Fulkham’s Goose Wood and Mr Waters’ Waters Wood, each of six acres, Mr Medhurst’s Brake Wood and the Croft Shaws on Cuckolds Corner Farm which, like Brake Wood, covered five acres. Idleigh’s two little woods, Dell and Redsteadles, could not then muster five acres between them, but they deserve mention for their longevity and their pleasant names,¹⁸
   Woods and shaws apart, there were well over four hundred arable fields, hop gardens, orchards or meadows in the parish; their names were legion. Naming of fields was subjective and geared, at any rate in origin, to a particular holding, so that many fields enjoyed the same names. Location was the most popular yardsticks there were Nether, Hither, Further,

Middle, Bottom, South, West, North and Corner Fields, though strangely no East Field. Home Fields, with occasional refinements such as Homewards, abounded. There was one ‘Field across the Road’.
   Specific area was a frequent choice, from ‘Half Acre Field’ upwards. Sometimes a little rural irony crept in; the true extent of ‘The Forty Acre Meadow’ on Gooses Farm was half an acre. More genuine, if not very informative, were the ‘Little’ or ‘Great’ of sundry Crofts or Fields. Shape was also popular, particularly with ‘Long’ Crofts or Fields. ‘Three-cornered Field’ appears and, although there was no Round Field’, there was a ‘Round Shaw’; the latter was unusual in that the shaws were usually named after their neighbouring fields.
   Kind of soil accounted for several ‘White Lands’,