Alluvial Meadows: A Comparative Study of Grazed and Mown Meadows

HISTORICAL Port Meadow is the largest of these meadows and borders the left bank of the River Thames for a distance of 12 miles (about 2-7 km.). It is 2 mile (just over 1 km.) across in its widest part and contains a total area of 400 acres. It is common land to the freemen of Oxford and as such is mentioned in Domesday Book, A.D. 1085: All the Burgesses of Oxford have in common without the wall a pasture, and again at an inquisition in the fourteenth century it is stated that the city had possessed the meadow from time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary. The purpose of these quotations is to establish the fact that the meadow is very ancient, and also that it has been treated solely as a pasture for centuries. This important fact is further confirmed by an entry for the years 1643-5, during the Civil War, when it was specially ordered to be mown for use of the king's cavalry who then occupied Oxford. There is no other record