Common land — Ownership — Evidence of ownership — Whether evidence that Crown divested of ownership — Whether commissioner entitled to find Crown divested of ownership — Meaning of sheep-walk — Appeal by Crown allowed
In December 1982 Dyfed County Council referred to the Chief Commons Commissioner, under section 5 of the Commons Registration Act 1965, a dispute as to the ownership entry in the register of commons in respect of some 2,133 acres of hill pasture being part of the waste land of the manor of Croythin, Upper Llanfihangel and Croythin. It was agreed that the Crown is lord of the manor, but the respondents claimed ownership of the disputed land through their predecessors in title, the Bonsall family, and objected to the Crown being registered as the owner.
The Chief Commons Commissioner found that John Bonsall appeared to have claimed ownership of the common by virtue of an entry in the tithe apportionment of 1847 and that if he had grazing rights only on the land his interest would not have been the subject of the tithe apportionment. The commissioner accepted the evidence of the enclosure award of 1866 where the disputed land had written on it the name of John Bonsall and other evidence, including a conveyance of 1885, in deciding that the Bonsall family acquired the freehold prior to 1847 and that the Crown was not the owner of the land.
The commissioner stated a case for the opinion of the court; the appellants contending that he had erred in his decision and that the Bonsall family never acquired the freehold to the land; there was provision for profits a prendre to be recorded under the tithe Acts; and the owner of a sheepwalk, being the owner of the profits, was the person entitled to be recorded for the purposes of the tithe apportion.
Held The appeal was allowed.
The commissioner had erred in law for the reasons given by the Crown. He was not entitled to find that the conveyance of 1885 threw light on the question of ownership because it does not accurately reflect the significance of the land. There was no satisfactory evidence to divest the Crown of the land. Because the respondents had failed to register any interest they may have had in the land under the Commons Registration Act 1965, it was now too late to assert ownership thereunder.
Frank Hinks (instructed by Farrer & Co) appeared for the appellants; and Winston Roddick QC and Andrew Lydiard (instructed by Gareth Owen of Lampeter) appeared for the respondents.
