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Enclosure - IV The Lopper and the Landgrabber

from Echoes: Unearthing Stories of the Forest by Ellie Wilson

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Gatefold card digi-sleeve plus 8pp booklet. Cover artwork by Kat Flint (@katandkin), specially commissioned for this project.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Echoes: Unearthing Stories of the Forest via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days

      £10 GBP or more 

     

  • Poster/Print + Digital Album

    A3 Graphic Score inspired by a c19th map of Loughton Camp. This work is track 6 (Ancient Earthworks: The Past has a Life in the Forest) on the Echoes album.

    250g matte paper. Sent in card tube + album download code

    (Frame and plant pots not included!)

    Includes unlimited streaming of Echoes: Unearthing Stories of the Forest via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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      £12 GBP

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

The song tells the story of how working-class activism help saved the forest from enclosure during the 19th century.

Ellie writes ‘My main focus for the song is Thomas Willingale, a labourer from Loughton who continued to practise his ancient right of lopping trees in Epping Forest despite strong resistance from the Lord of the Manor. Thomas played an important role in saving Epping Forest and the Willingale story is a wonderful collection of fact and folklore, including court cases, prison sentences and devious plots. There is also a personal connection - he is one of my ancestors! The folk song’s title takes its name from a William Morris quote. He complained that “the grip of the land grabber is over us all; and commons and heaths of unmatched beauty and wildness have been enclosed for farmers or jerry-built upon by speculators in order to swell the ill-gotten revenues of some covetous aristocrat or greedy money-bag”.’

Ellie Wilson (vocals, violin), Thom Ashworth (vocals, bass, mandolin), Fran Foote (vocals)

lyrics

Enclosure came and trampled on the grave
Of labours rights and left the poor a slave
Each little tyrant with his little sign
Shows where man claims earth glows no more divine

It levelled every bush and tree and hill
Hung moles for traitors though the brook runs still
And birds and trees and flowers without a name
All sighed when lawless law’s enclosure came

Enclosure like a Bonaparte let not a thing remain
No rest until it’s torn apart, the landgrabbers' claim.

Old Tom made his living on the land
And at the stroke of midnight made his stand
He lopped a branch from winter’s leafless oak
To save the forest for the Common folk.
'
Back to the inn he entered with the limb
And held it high before the crowd within
No Lord would part him from his ancient right
as he leapt the fence upon St Martin’s Night.

Enclosure like a …

The lords and ladies take what’s yours and mine
But lop a branch and you shall do the time
You’ll pick the tarry oakums, tread the mill
For gathering fuel to beat the winter’s chill

Remove those mind-forged manacles and see
The forest's fate depends on you and me
and beauty all around you’ll never lack
cos in the end we'll go and steal it back.

Enclosure like a …

words by John Clare (v1, v2, first line of chorus) and Ellie Wilson

credits

from Echoes: Unearthing Stories of the Forest, track released October 18, 2019
Recorded and mixed by Thom Ashworth
Produced by Ellie Wilson and Thom Ashworth
(p) & © 2019 Ellie Wilson

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about

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Ellie Wilson England, UK

Ellie Wilson is a violinist/composer. Her work melds contemporary classical, folk & electronica, creating a haunting, textural soundworld that explores themes of lost & fragmented memories, lingering traces of the past. Ellie is a former member of 5-time BBC Radio 2 Folk Award nominees, Stick In The Wheel.

'Exquisite beauty offered by Wilson’s controlled violin’ Mojo ... more

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