My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

CHAPTER VSURVEYING INBEDFORDSHIREIt was, I think, early in the summer of 1837 that Iwent with my brother William into Bedfordshire tobegin my education as a land-surveyor. The firstwork we had was to survey the parish of HighamGobion for the commutation of the tithes. It was asmall parish of about a thousand acres, with thechurch, vicarage, and a good farmhouse on the highestground, and a few labourers' cottages scattered about,but nothing that could be called a village. Thewhole parish was one large farm ; the land was almostall arable and the fields very large, so that it was asimple piece of work. We took up our quarters atthe Coach and Horses public-house in the villageBarton-in-the-Clay, six miles north of Luton, on thecoach-road to Bedford. We were nearly a mile fromthe nearest part of the parish, but it was the mostconvenient place we could get.An intelligent young labourer was hired to drawthe chain in measuring, while I carried a flag ormeasuring-rod and stuck in pegs or cut triangularholes in the grass, where required, to form marks forfuture reference. We carried bill-hooks for cuttingrods and pegs, as well as for clearing away branchesthat obstructed the view, and for cutting gaps in thehedges on the main lines of the survey, in order toof