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On August 19th, 1778, the Award of the Commissioners for the
Enclosure of the Forest of Knaresborough came formally into effect
under the provisions of the Enclosure Act of 1770. From that date
the control and management was established of 200 acres of the
open common in Harrogate which had been pastured by all and sundry
from time immemorial.
During July and August, 1978, to commemorate the 200th
anniversary of the award of the Harrogate Stray, a series of
articles by this writer appeared in the Harrogate Advertiser,
detailing the Stray's history and setting in perspective the long
and often controversial process whereby the enormous asset to Harrogate,
in which a the outset private and public interests conflicted,
eventually came permanently into the trusteeship of the Harrogate
Borough Council. Those articles are here published as a booklet in
response to many requests that they should be available in that
form.
Over several years of research into this and other aspects of
Harrogate's civic history I have had occasion to be grateful to
many sources of information - the files of the Harrogate
newspapers, the minutes of the Harrogate Improvement
Commissioners, and, in respect of the Stray's history, to the
unique Powell File to which the late Mr Alec B Currie gave me
exclusive access, a privilege recently extended to me again most
helpfully by Mrs Currie. Without the Powell File, much of the
Stray's history would be quite unknown and, what is equally
important, without the file it would not have been possible to
trace and record the human factor - the motivations and
relationships of people concerning the Stray.
When Preparing the articles for booklet form, I found the need
here and there for a rather more detailed examination of some of
the subjects than they had been given. In order not to disturb the
narrative of the original text, these have been printed as notes
at the end of the booklet.
H H Walker
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