I dunno the answer to most of your question... but as to ricks.. doesn't hay get stored for animal fodder (or transported? or something?) in Ricks? aren't there hay ricks?
and in the 1830--England-- that was the time of the change in the enclosure laws? when all the old tenants got thrown off their little farms, so landlords could raise sheep, to have wool for the new powered mills, where the first power looms were hard at work creating miles of cloth?..and the luddites (or was it the jethro tulls?) came through the countryside burning things down? (the hay ricks that the sheep feed from?)
(proving a little knowledge is a dangerous thing..)
