Down With The Fences

Battles for the Commons & Saving Open Space in South London

by Alex Hodson

A5 pamphlet, 84 pages

Between the 16th and the 19th centuries, much of the land in England was enclosed: surrounded with fences, hedges, ditches, or other barriers, its resources denied to the poor, or sold off for development.
But many green spaces still exist today because they were preserved by collective action: by campaigning, petitioning, legal agitation, or through rioting, sabotage, tearing down fences & re-opening up enclosed land.

This pamphlet tells some of the South London stories of this resistance.