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These burgesses had to be freemen: those who were entitled to practise a trade within the town and to participate in electing members of the town's ruling council.
In the very earliest chartered foundations, predating the [[Norman Conquest]], the burgage plots were simply the ploughland strips of pre-existing agrarian settlements. In towns like [[Burford]] in Oxfordshire and [[Chipping Campden]] in
The basic unit of measurement was the [[Pole (length)|perch]] which was 5.5 yards (5.03 m) and the plots can be identified today because they are in multiples of perches: at Cricklade most were 2 by 12 perches (10.1 by 60.4 m), while at Charmouth in Dorset, a charter of the year 1320 provided plots 4 perches wide and 20 perches long (about 20 by 100 m), giving a typical plot size of half an acre (0.2 hectare), held at an annual rent of 6[[penny|d]].<ref>[http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getfaq.php?id=216 Wiltshire County Council]</ref>
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