COMPOUNDED COWS

Pounds and Pinfolds were originally built to hold animals found straying from their owner's land or grazing on the common without common rights. The animals would only be released on payment of a fine to the Pinder who was an officer of the Lord of the Manor.
Each village or township as early as the 16th century would probably have had a Pound or Pinfold but relatively few remain today. Surviving Pounds and Pinfolds are often listed buildings but many more are falling into disrepair and disappearing from the landscape.

I'd never heard of Pinfold's until I moved in to Manage a sheltered housing site near South Shields a few years back, I'v found a good number of them since