Mike Silburn and John Nottingham have been working on the joint Melbourne/Storwood 1777 Enclosure map, although enclosure was not enacted until 1782. Unfortunately, the source enclosure map is badly faded and generally difficult to decipher; especially the western portion covering Storwood (previously Storthwaite). The main Melbourne parish and village inset graphics have the 1777 enclosure close (field) boundaries superimposed onto satellite imagery, but much of the accompanying table of close Owners and close acreage information has necessarily been either inferred or left blank. The Storwood data on the 1777 map is so badly degraded that the Storwood parish has been omitted. (Storwood was united with East Cottingwith in 1935.)

The Pocklington Canal post-dated the 1777 enclosure but is shown on the satellite imagery for ease of cross-reference. (The 'Melbourne Arm' of the canal, along with some narrowboats, is evident to the north of the Village close 36.)

The main landowner at 1777 was a John Danser Esq of whom little is known other than 2 references to his being an attorney and of Howden (Melbourne Hall was not constructed until shortly after 1782). However, British History Online has a reference that: "Sarah Stephenson devised the manor [of Melbourne] in 1775 to her cousin Elizabeth Danser, who had succeeded by the following year, and she sold it to John Walker in 1786." So it is conjectured that she was the Elizabeth Hall who married John Danser in 1746 and that, as Elizabeth's inheritance from her cousin pre-dated the Married Women's Property Act of 1882, her holdings then came into John Danser's ownership. The indications are that the manor of Melbourne shortly passed to the Vavasour family of Melbourne Hall.

To view the map at full-scale, please click on the 'View fullscreen' link. Then zoom in and scroll around to see the parish map, the separate village inset, and the table of landowners in more detail.