In the last year of the reign of William IV, an Act was passed for the commutation of tithes into annual monetary payments. It sounded the death knell of the ancient, but long controversial, system whereby the parson or other owner of the tithes collected them in kind. The great tithe barns that have survived bear testimony no less to the magnitude and inconvenience of that task than to the inequity of the system.
    The commutation was to be by agreement between the tithe owner and the landowners of each parish, subject to confirmation by a newly formed body of Tithe Commissioners or, in default of agreement, by the Commissioners’ compulsory award. Ash was one of a majority of parishes in which, to the relief of the Commissioners, agreement was reached. Across the 

border, Hartley was less successful. The Ash agreement was concluded in April 1839 and confirmed in the following September. The commutation for Hartley was effected by compulsory award in 1844.
   Apart from the Commissioners themselves, the dramatic personae of the Ash agreement consisted of the rector, the Revd Thomas Lambard, the Ash landowners, James Russell of Horton Kirby Court Lodge, a major local farmer who had been appointed as valuer, and William Hodsoll, whose great map of the parish was ‘Taken, Enlarged and Corrected’ by him from the survey made by T. Fulljames in 1792 ‘in compliance with an Order given by the landowners On the second day of May 1838. The map ended up annexed to the agreement.