Stoke Park Woods

Records relating to Stoke Park Woods, Bishopstoke

Whilst researching ancient family connections to the area, Paul Emery, who grew up in Bishopstoke, discovered records relating to Stoke Park Woods, which he has kindly shared with us, and which we would like to share with you.

Bishopstoke History Society has also acquired a report from 1952, instigated by Eastleigh Borough Council, relating to disputed alleged rights in Stoke Park Woods. This document was researched by the Town Clerk, to aid discussion to support an agenda item, relating to the purchase of Stoke Park Woods by the Forestry Commission, at a Council Meeting. The Forestry Commission were concerned that if common rights existed, they would impact on the commercial nature of their investment. The original document was marked “strictly confidential, not for publication”.

History of Stoke Park and Woods at Bishopstoke 1545-1682

By Paul Emery

The period between 1545 and 1682 saw significant changes in the ownership and landscape of Stoke Park and its surrounding woods in Bishopstoke. During the Tudor era, the dissolution of the monasteries led to the redistribution of land, with much of the area passing into private hands. Over the following century, the estate was shaped by successive owners who managed the woods for timber, hunting, and agriculture, gradually transforming the character of the local environment. These developments laid the foundations for the parkland and woodland features that can still be traced today.

A map of a land with many trees AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Hardwick Hall © National Trust

Stephen Gardner, 1483-1555, Bishop of Winchester

(Bishop of Winchester in 1531 & 1553)

National Trust Collection Hardwick Hall Derbyshire

Stoke Park Woods was one of the ancient possessions of the See, (a bishop’s see refers to the area of a bishop’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction, often synonymous with a diocese) of Winchester. Bishop Stephen Gardiner disparked it and leased the woods to one Nicholas Lentall for forty-one years, from Lady Day, 25th of March 1545. Lentall sold the lease to the Winchester College Society, who wanted the land for grazing purposes. The license to assign the lease to the College bears Gardiner’s signature.

In 1549 Gardiner renewed the lease for a term of ninety years, and in 1589 Bishop Thomas Cooper granted a fresh lease at the old rent for the same term, to begin at the end of Gardiner’s lease in 1639. At this time such improvident alienations of the estates of the See were forbidden by Statue of Elizabeth the first, the same device was resorted to and employed in the case of the Ropley property, of taking the lease in the name of the Queen and then assigning the lease to the Warden and Scholars-Clerks of Winchester College.

This lease was later renewed many times for terms of twenty-one years, the maximum length allowed by law, and continued until Lady Day, 1888, when the property reverted to the Ecclesiastical Commission. Custus pasturae de Stoke, (Keeper of the land at Stoke), became a new heading in the Computus rolls, (dates for Easter), and Bursar’s Books after 1546.

The Society kept their sheep and oxen at Stoke Park and in some meadows at Otterbourne parish, which Robert Colpays owned. These meadows were bequeathed in 1448 as a donation in his obit, which included the supply of animals to Winchester College, when required for food.

The death of Henry VIII in January, 1546-7, relieved the College from the danger of dissolution, which it had been exposed to since the passing of the Act 37 H. VIII, c. 4, (Act 37 H. VIII, c. 4, refers to the Dissolution of Colleges, Chantries, and Free Chapels Act of 1545.)  at the King’s pleasure. In the course of the visitation of the whole kingdom which the Council determined on soon after the accession of Edward VI, the College was visited by Sir James Hales, Knight., Francis Cave, D.C.L. (Doctor of Civil Law) and Simon Briggs, D.D., (Doctor of Divinity), as Royal Commissioners. They issued a court order in September 1547.

In 1566 complaint was made that there is a wooden crucifix in the church at Bishopstoke, the Bishop being Thomas Cooper.

Some of the items listed in expenses for Winchester College in 1567 were – Oxen and heifers, forty-two, value, £127 10s 0d, besides one ox from Eling parish, (a heriot) a heifer from the tenant at Huntborne parish, and three old cows from Stoke Park.

Sheep totalling seven hundred, valued at £157 19s 1d, thirty-nine sheep were then resold, two sheep were given to the prisoners of Winchester goal, one sheep was cooked and eaten at Stoke Park when the new granary was built, and one sheep died. This granary building was constructed using timber which was 53½ ft long and had cost £3 11s 4d to erect and 15s 10d for felling the trees and tarring the timber. Also purchased were 7200 logs from Stoke Park Woods.

In 1569 the church wardens of Bishopstoke church were charged with not having presented absentees from church services or levied any fines.

1595. Stoke Park

Under the Keeper of the land of Stoke the following expenses accrued. Half-a-quarter of peas to fatten a boar (purchased £0 6s 8d for wild Boar)

(In Tudor times, half a quarter was a half of a farthing, which was a very small coin worth one-quarter of a penny. Therefore, half a farthing would be one-eighth of a penny).

(In Tudor times, grubbing tree roots, meaning removing stumps and their root systems).

(A rod measurement of length, or called a perch or pole, equal to 16.5 feet)

Grubbing roots of trees £0 8s 2 d

Forty-four horseshoes £0 7s 3 d

Twenty-six removed, horseshoes £ 0 1s 1d

Twenty-two rods of paling Wooden fencing (22 Stone and posts for deer fencing) £0 11s 0d

One-year reserved rent to Bishop of Winchester.  £7 0s 0d.

Haymaking (sickle and work this year) £0 3s 0d.

Total £8 17s 2d.

Earle, the college tenant at Stoke Park, was properly speaking, representing the court of the Bishop as Lord of Stoke Manor in which the steward presided.

11th January 1608

The Parke called Stoke Parke should not be alienated, leased, or applied to any private man’s use, but that the wood and all other the profits rising from the same be converted to the public good of the house, (the house being Winchester College)  and that it shall not be lawful for the occupier of that parked to till or convert any part of that park to his private use, but such as shall be allotted by the Warden and more part of the Fellows, to be continued and altered as they see fit , and at every audit it shall be straightly examined by those who take the accounts, whether the best profit has been made for the College or not , and that the said accounts so examined shall be ready to be showed to the supervisors, if requested by them. Item, that the College horses maintained in the said park, and likewise kept in the College stable, be not utilised for any private man’s use, neither shall the Warden place any other horse of his own or his friends into the said park, only these allowed by the College, neither shall any Fellow or other person belonging to that College put  any horse of his own in the park.

1642 – 1646

The account of the bailiff at Stoke Park for quartering soldiers between December 1642, and March, 1645-6, amounts to no less a sum than £99 9s. 0d. The allowance for a day and night’s billet was eightpence for a man and eighteenpence for… Warden Harris. There were 333 men and horses at this time. In 1646 the Society had to find £1 for a week’s maintenance of two troopers belonging to Colonel Sheffield’s’ legion.’ In 1645 the Royalists held Winchester Castle under Sir William Ogle, and martial law superseded the local Pie-powder Court’, to which Frampton, the College brewer, would have addressed his complaint at any other time.

(Pie-powder Court’, The court dealt with problems that came up at markets or fairs)

John Harris (c.1587–1658), DD, Fellow of New College, Warden of Winchester College

John Harris, Warden of Winchester College

1630-1658

Painting held by Winchester College.

In September 1630, John Harris was elected Warden of Winchester College, where he built the Sick house, founded in 1640 on the site of the old Carmelite friary, completed in1656

During the British Civil Wars, Colonel James Sheffield was a Parliamentarian officer, serving in the New Model Army.  Son of Edmund Sheffield, 1st Earl of Mulgrave, he gained the title of Lord Sheffield when his father became Earl. James Sheffield was elected to Parliament in 1640 becoming a captain in the Earl of Essex’s parliamentary army before rising to the rank of Colonel in the New Model Army in 1645.

The Warden and Fellows were exempted from the assessment to ship money, except for Stoke Park, which they farmed themselves, on the ground that their lands were contributing to diary produce.

10th October 1687; 16th October 1671; 10th September 1677; 16th May 1683; and 25th October 1696.

(Ship money, a nonparliamentary tax first levied in medieval times by the English crown on coastal cities and counties for naval defence in time of war.)

1682

The Reverend and Warden of Winchester College and the Fellows required better accommodation for the children at Winchester College and other pupils that are permitted to come to this school, and request permission to build a new school, of a larger and airy structure. To enable this build, permission is granted to extrait some timber out of Stoke Park towards the construction, this timber belonging to the bishop.

The wardens are commanded and required to appoint the Warden and Fellows, or authorise others on their behalf, to select timber in the woods of Stoke Park where the trees are thickest, and may consequently be best, and most conveniently spared, for thirty loads of good timber, and have my permission. Given under my hand and seal the first day of March, Anno Domini one thousand six hundred and eighty-two. Signed – George Winton (1682).

The above text shows how Stoke Park which included the woods were owned and leased by the Bishop of Winchester and later by Winchester College, utilizing the land for growing timber and grazing sheep, cattle and wild Boar, also in billeting the troops during the British Civil war 1642-1651.

The timber from Stoke Park Woods was used to build a new schoolhouse at Winchester College.

Paul Emery August 2025.

All reference taken from the Annals of Winchester College by T. F. Kirby 1892, 1382-1682.

Written and researched by reference to the Annals of Winchester College published 1892.

Research by Roland J. Roddis, Town Clerk, Eastleigh Council. November 1952

Law, Parliamentary & General Purposes Committee

9th December 1952

Borough of Eastleigh

——————————————————————————————-

Manor of Bishopstoke

Report of the Town Clerk upon alleged rights in Stoke Park Woods.

  1. For at least the last seventy years, there has existed a dispute between the residents of the Manor of Bishopstoke (which comprises the present day Bishopstoke Ward of the Eastleigh Borough, the major part of Fair Oak Rural Parish and part of Colden Common Rural Parish) and the Lord of the Manor, as owner of the soil, of what is nowadays referred to as Stoke Park Woods, as to certain rights in these woods.
  2. Recently the Forestry Commission have purchased the Woods for reafforestation and the question of these ancient rights has been raised with them by Fair Oak Parish Council. Certain negotiations took place between the parties without reference to the Eastleigh Borough Council or, presumably, the Colden Common Parish Council.
  3. The Eastleigh Borough Council has recently come into the picture at the request of the Forestry Commission. So far as is known, the Colden Common Parish Council, which is interested only as regards the Brambridge part of their area, have not taken any action or been consulted by anybody.
  4. It should be stated that none of these Councils is by law enabled to come to terms with the Forestry Commission as to waiver, extinguishment or other dealing with rights of common. In fact, only the Borough Council and Winchester Rural District Council have any statutory powers. Such powers are those set out in Section 26 (2) of the Local Government Act 1894 as under: –

“A district council may with the consent of the county council for the county within which any common is situate aid persons in maintaining rights of common where, in the opinion of the council, the extinction of such rights would be prejudicial to the inhabitants of the district; and may with the like consent exercise in relation to any common within their district all such powers as may, under section eight of the Commons Act, 1876, be exercised by an urban sanitary authority in relation to any common referred to in that section; and notice of any application to the Board of Agriculture in relation to any common within their district shall be served upon the District Council.”

What are the rights claimed?

  1. The rights claimed at the present time are – (a) the right to roam at will; (b) the right to gather snap wood; (c) the right to gather nuts and flowers; and (d) the right to take as much fern as can be carried on a man’s back.
  2. The forestry Commission, in their letter of the 18th of June 1952 to the Town clerk, state “If these claims were admitted, my Department considers that it would be impossible to reafforest the Wood at public expense, the purpose for which the land was acquired.”
  3. The Borough Council authorised and instructed the Town Clerk to make enquiries regarding the validity of these claims.
  4. The Fair Oak Parish Council was asked by the Town Clerk for evidence in support of these claims, and possibly the Parish Council might be willing to pool their evidence in due course. It is suggested that in the common interest all information should be pooled and that nobody has anything to lose and may well have something to gain if this were done.
  5. In this connection it is not known whether the Fair Oak Parish Council have gone over the same ground as the Town Clerk or whether they have taken legal advice on the information they have obtained with a view to coming to conclusions. However, a meeting is soon to be held between the two authorities when it is sincerely hoped that this may be settled. The fact is that at the present time, the Forestry commission refuse to admit the claims enumerated above. In view of their powers referred to earlier in this Report it might be as well that the Clerk to the rural District Council and of the County Council should be invited to be present at a subsequent meeting.

Sources of Information

  1. The sources of information include the following – (a) the two Bishopstoke Enclosure Acts and awards; (b) the Presentment Books of the Manor of Bishopstoke from 1652 to the present time; (c) Newspaper files for the last sixty years (the files of the Eastleigh Weekly News are in excellent condition and reports of meetings held in the past have been drawn up apparently with great care. It is believed that a former Editor or owner of the paper was keenly interested in the subject); (d) the Borough Council’s own files; € a Deed of composition of the right to claim wood for the purpose of repairing highways, bridges, stalling the river and stocks in the possession of the Borough Council; (f) the files in the offices of the Church Commissioners; (g) various legal documents principally Court-rolls in the possession of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; (h) Information obtained from old inhabitants; (i) Records of the Public Records Office; (j) The Bishop’s Registers.
  2. A quite intensive search has now been completed by the Town Clerk although he could probably spend a good deal more time with the records of the Church Commissioners and at the public Records Office. It is possible that the Ecclesiastical muniments kept by the Diocesan Registrar and documents and books in the Library of the Dean and Chapter at Winchester might reveal something if a search were made, but it is doubted whether the time and expense involved would be in keeping with the likely results. This is, however, a matter for the Council to decide, but it is conceivable that such further enquiries might take the Town Clerk personally up to weeks of his time and the Council will know that such time is not available for this purpose. Alternatively, a searcher could be engaged but this would be quite expensive.
  3. The result of the Town Clerk’s researches have been considered very carefully by him in the light of his knowledge gained as a student of local and legal history, etc and his observations are as under.

History of the Ownership of the Manor

  1. The Manor of Bishopstoke has been held as part of the temporalities of the Lords Bishop of Winchester from at least the time of the Domesday survey of 1086 and the ownership of Stoke Park Woods has never been out of the hands of the Ecclesiastical Authorities from that time (except of course in Cromwell’s time when it reverted to the king’s hands on one short occasion) until recently when it was sold to the Forestry Commission.
  2. As was customary, the Bishop leased most of the properties on the Manor with the probable confusion which commonly followed as to the rights of the inhabitants of the Manor.

Entries in Manorial Records

  1. The rights which, undoubtedly, belonged to the Manor are referred to from time to time in the manorial records but none of these records, not in the Inclosure Awards have I found anything which related to the claims referred to above.
  2. There is indeed a claim which occurs from time to time which is usually referred to in the following words – “that all wood and timber growing on our copyhold lands is our own to dispose of as part of our inheritance and hath been our possession time out of mind”. This first appears in a Presentment at a Court-leet of the manor held on the 14th of March 1675 and has been repeated from time to time and in later centuries. But this has no reference to the alleged right to go into Stoke Park woods and gather snap wood there. Clearly this relates to the rights of individual copyholders which have since been rendered void by the Law of Property Acts 1922- 1926.
  3. The other Presentment which occurs at intervals from the 21st of April 1677 is the claim to be allowed timber for setting up a gate called Hatchly Gate, for the repair of the highways, for the repair of Highbridge and other bridges, for the repair of stocks, for the repair of a Parish Pound and for the stalling of streams and rivers.
  4. This right quite probably was not a right at all, but an act of grace on the part of the Bishop who had an interest in keeping the bridges and streams in good repair and control for the benefit of his own Estates, and it ought to be noted that in Presentments, the wording was by way of application rather than by way of demand.
  5. In any event this custom has been compounded by a money payment as appears by a Deed in the possession of the Town Clerk.

Common Rights

  1. The law relating to commons and common rights is almost now part of the subject of legal history, and one rarely meets a legal question arising in relation to commons in these days. The law is couched in the main in ancient language and the interpretation of the law has been the subject to an extremely large number of cases going back through the centuries to the time of Richard I.
  2. Each Manor had its own customs and customary or common rights and these common rights, although capable of classification under a number of heads, varied in nature and degree from place to place.
  3. A right to common is a right to take something, e.g. wood, turves, fish, or stones from the land of another who is usually the Lord of the Manor, and such persons exist, even today although they have been shorn of their importance largely by virtue of the enfranchisement of copyhold lands. The Church Commissioners as successors of the Bishops of Winchester as regards landholding are the present-day Lords of the Manor.
  4. The land on which such rights of common may be exercised is, of course, usually called a common, and it must be emphasised that the right to play games or roam at will is not a right of common, because it does not consist of taking something from the land.
  5. The right to play games, although admitted in respect of certain lands, notably at Stockbridge in this County, is obtained in relation to a common by virtue of an allotment of land for the purpose in an Inclosure Award, or by virtue of one of the provisions of the Law of Property Act 1925.
  6. The rights to play games and thus to roam at will over lands owned by another, were exercised in regard to village or town greens, but such village or town greens were not always commons within the legal meaning of the term.

What do other Records Reveal

  1. As stated above, there is nothing in the book of Presentments or in the Inclosure Award which refers to the alleged rights in question, and it is considered that some reference would have been made to such rights if they had really existed in former times.
  2. The Town Clerk has had the privilege of inspecting a number of Presentments or Minute books of Court-leets in a number of Counties, and he has found an almost universal practice to set out somewhere or other in such record books a list of the rights claimed by the dwellers within the Manor as against the Lord.
  3. In Southern Hampshire, it was common to hold what was called a “Court-leet and Law Day” once at least in every year and in a number of Court-leet records the Town Clerk has seen that it has been customary to set out a list of the customs of the Manor and even an amount of the fines for offences against the customary Laws of the Manor. Most of these customary laws have, of course, become obsolete, but a statement of such customary rights in the records of the Court-leet of the Manor is good and satisfactory evidence of the existence of common rights. The fact is, as previously stated, that no references are contained in the records of the Court-leet relating to the claimed rights although other rights mentioned above are referred to from time to time.

The Inclosure Award

  1. During the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th, Lords of Manors and others were busy promoting Inclosure Acts and Awards whereby commons and common rights attached to them were done away with.
  2. The procedure was to obtain a private Act of Parliament to appoint Commissioners and a Surveyor to inspect the common lands and the boundaries of a Parish, and to apportion the common lands to the various owners of lands in the Manor to compensate for their loss of common rights.
  3. Such a private Act was promoted by the Lord bishop of Winchester early las century and a further one was found necessary relating to Stroud Wood at Fair Oak somewhat later. The Town Clerk has transcribed a number of copies of the earlier award.
  4. At the time there were several commons in the Manor and the Ecclesiastical Parish of Bishopstoke, the largest perhaps being Stoke common, the next largest being Horton Heath and there were various smaller ones here and there throughout the area.
  5. There was no reference to Stoke Park Woods as being a common in the Inclosure Award and, consequently, it is suggested that Stoke Park Woods was not, in fact, regarded as a common at this time.

What is a Park?

  1. Nowadays we speak of a Park as meaning a Public Pleasure Ground or place where games are played by the public, but this is an expression which has only come into use in the last one hundred years or so.
  2. Formerly it had a special legal significance, and it arose in this way. Lords of Manors were commonly lovers of the Chase and quite soon after the Conquest, such Lord’s sought to enclose large parts of the common lands of the Parish for the purpose of their own sport and recreation.
  3. To enable such Inclosures to be made a Royal Licence had to be granted and one of the conditions usually was that a pale fence had to be erected and, in the documents, relating to Stoke Park Woods in the Offices of the Ecclesiastical Commisioners, I have found references from time to time to the restoration of the “pale”.
  4. I found a reference in the records of the Church Commissioners that Stoke Park Woods was made a Park by Bishop Stephen Gardiner of Winchester in or about the year 1540 and I have no evidence that the area has become disparked.
  5. A search in the Register of Bishop Gardiner does not reveal any reference to the imparking of Stoke Park and the note given by the Solicitors to the predecessors of the Church Commissioners at the end of the last century does not carry any reference with it. It may, therefore, be incorrect. On the other hand, the Register of Bishop Gardiner seems to me to be rather incomplete, and it may have been omitted by the Registrar.
  6. But I have now obtained from the Public Record Office information that there was a Park at Bishopstoke belonging to the Bishop of Winchester as early as the year 1305.
  7. This is revealed by the Patent Rolls of Chancery of Commissions of Oyer and Terminer. The first dated 18th of July 33 Edward 1 (1305) was to William de Bereford, John Randolf and Thomas de Warblinton touching the persons who entered the park of Henry Bishop of Winchester at Stokes, (i.e. Bishopstoke) co. Southampton, hunted therein and carried away deer. The second dated at Nottingham 15th of July 8 Edward III (1334) was to John de Stonore, John de Hampton and Robert de Hungerford on information that Robert Hacket et al entered the park of Bishopstoke co. Southampton, “which is of the area of Winchester now void and in the King’s hands”, hunted there and carried away deer.
  8. When an area such as Stoke Park had become thus legally enclosed, it followed as an inevitable consequence that no common rights, if they ever existed over such land, could continue to exist and that is probably one of the main reasons why a Royal Licence was necessary because the Crown Authority was no doubt deemed to be necessary to deprive commoners of their rights.
  9. So much inclosure of common lands for parks took place in certain periods of history that there were uprisings in consequence including the notable uprising of the year 1515.
  10. From this I conclude that there cannot have been common rights from time immemorial, but there remains the possibility that in more recent times, the Bishop may have granted to his copy-holders certain rights in the wood, because it does seem strange that a claim to these rights should so persistently have been made during the last seventy-five years or more.
  11. It is possible, of course, that during the last six hundred years these public rights may have been granted by means of an out and out grant by the Bishop for the time being. This I very much doubt because it would not, in my view, be proper for a Bishop, as a corporation sole, to grant away rights which were part of the temporalities of the Bishopric for which he was merely in effect the life holder.
  12. I return, later, to the question of whether such rights may have been obtained by prescription, that is to say, long user without interruption.

Is there Confusion as to Rights

  1. There is a possibility that the right to take wood etc., may be confused with the duty of the Lord to provide wood for the repair of highways, bridges etc., and certainly there was confusion on this question in 1896 as appears by the report on page 7 of the Eastleigh Weekly News in their issue of the 11th of July 1896.

What Steps have been taken to Assert the Alleged Rights

  1. The files of the Eastleigh Weekly News (there are references in other local newspapers and, in fact, in the “London Standard” relate to cases where criminal proceedings have been brought against Bishopstoke people (and it is feared they may also have been from Eastleigh) for taking wood from Stoke Park Woods.
  2. On each occasion, the people of Bishopstoke seem to have got together and formed some kind of Defence Committee to defend the accused, and in one case there is reason to suppose that the Editor of the Eastleigh Weekly News himself sponsored the defence of a Bishopstoke man when a barrister was briefed for the proceedings in the county Magistrates Court at Winchester.
  3. From time to time, public references have been made to the successful action of Bishopstoke people in defending their rights, but there is quite clearly no such success established in the records which I have seen.
  4. In two cases where prosecutions for taking wood came before the Court, the accused was acquitted because the claim was set up that he had taken the wood under bona fide claim of right e.g.in pursuance of the common right to take wood.
  5. It is here that the wrong conclusion has been arrived at because a bona fide claim of right can be a good defence to an action for larceny, but none the less it in no way establishes that such a right exists. Members of the Council who are Magistrates will be thoroughly aware of this difficult obstacle to the prosecution in cases often coming before Magistrate’s Courts.
  6. The cases were not for trespass on the land and had they been for trespass and “this right to roam at will” had been put in as a defence, then it could probably have been claimed thereafter that the right had been established.
  7. An act of trespass in this country (it is not so in others) is not a criminal offence and, in fact, the notice board which commonly reads “Trespassers will be prosecuted” constitutes a threat which cannot be carried out.
  8. I have been privileged to look through all the correspondence in the files of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners relating to the two cases in question; to other cases which were contemplated and correspondence relating to searches into the records relating to alleged rights.
  9. At no time can it be said that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners acknowledged any of the claims and in fact they took action against blatant cases of what they regarded as larceny, in Stoke Park Woods.
  10. For example, the records show that in two other cases people were apprehended for taking wood and the Commissioners decided in each case not to prosecute when the persons concerned submitted – (a) an apology and (b) a written statement that they were not claiming to exercise any of the rights referred to in taking wood etc.
  11. I also find that the Church Commissioners went to some pains to investigate alleged claims and on one occasion during the previous century, they incurred a bill of legal costs of no less than £134 for investigations into the alleged claims.
  12. At one time they had decided, according to their minutes, to authorise a very full investigation and to employ the services of Mr Stuart Moore, the well-known legal historian and barrister, whose reputation stood out at that time above all others and whose ability in such matters was outstanding.
  13. What happened, however, was that each time on which action was taken against anyone removing wood, people kept out of the woods for a time as shown in reports made by the wood-reeve and others to Messrs Cluttons, the agents of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
  14. In recent times there seems to have been an increase in the numbers of people roaming through the Woods and no doubt a continuance of this would make the proposed reafforestation by the Forestry Commission very difficult and possibly an unprofitable task.
  15. In fact, I have seen a report by Messers Cluttons to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners advising them to sell the Woods because of the nuisance caused by trespassers, which would make reafforestation by the Church Commissioners impracticable.

Are there Prescriptive Rights

  1. In this connection the Prescription Act of 1832 states that claims to right of common and other profits à prendre are not to be defeated after thirty years enjoyment by merely showing the commencement of the right and after sixty years enjoyment, the right to be absolute unless shown to be had by consent or agreement. It is here that I am afraid I must be very technical as regards the point of law at issue.
  2. Rights which may be claimed because of a long user may be by custom or prescription. Custom is local and prescription is personal.
  3. There cannot be a custom for inhabitants (as such) to have a profit à prendre in the soil of another. Therefore, it is not possible for there to be a custom for all the inhabitants of the area comprising the area of the Manor of Bishopstoke to have a profit à prendre in Stoke Park Wood, although undefined and fluctuating bodies of persons may acquire rights to profits à prendre under an actual grant from the crown.
  4. The next question is, therefore, whether the inhabitants of the area (as a body) have obtained by prescription the profits à prendre referred to in the claim, and I am of the opinion that prescription cannot arise in such a case because it is clearly against sound reasoning to assume that when an individual goes into a Wood and takes away snap wood he is doing it for and on behalf of an unidentified number of people. Clearly, he is doing it for his own benefit and therefore it seems to me that a profit à prendre in the form of taking away snap wood can only be acquired by prescription by individual people and that such a right therefore dies with the individual who has acquired the profit. The number of people who may have acquired such a right in the form of a profit must be very few in number because they are limited to those who have, over a period of thirty years, habitually exercised the rights which are in the nature of profits referred to in the claim (this, of course, does not refer to the right to roam at will, which is not a profit or a right of common.
  5. There may be such people and a diligent enquiry amongst the old inhabitants would very probably result in one or two people being discovered.
  6. Having found such people we can say that there are such rights in existence which would prevent the reafforestation of Stoke Park Wood without compensation, but I must confess that the basis of any objection to the reafforestation is thus terribly narrowed down.

Conclusions

  1. I wish that it had been possible to spare the time for making wider research, but it is not recommended that this be done unless it is done by a qualified person other than the Town clerk which, of course, would have to be done for payment.
  2. But on the basis of the Town Clerk’s own researches he begs to submit the following conclusions and opinions.

Against the Claim

  1. There is no documentary evidence in support of the claimed rights.
  2. If such rights existed, it is very probable that documentary evidence in the form of entries in the manorial records would exist.
  3. The rights claimed, with the exception of the right to roam at will, are rights of common and Stoke Park Woods is not referred to as a common in the two Bishopstoke Inclosure Awards. (The right to roam at will, although not a common right seems to be consequential upon the exercise of the other three rights).
  4. Stoke Park Woods is a legally inclosed and established park within the meaning of this ancient legal expression and no common rights can, in the Town clerk’s opinion, exist in the areas of such parks.

For the Claim

  1. The apparent deep-rooted conviction of Bishopstoke (and latterly Fair Oak) people that they have such rights raises the presumption that such rights may legally exist and some written evidence of the granting of such rights may still be found.
  2. I have seen it alleged that such rights were confirmed to Bishopstoke in the Court Roll or Roll of Proceedings of the year under date 27th of April 1827 in which the following Presentment id dealt with.

“We present that the Stewards and Officers of the Manorial Court are not warranted in making or demanding more than the ancient and customary charges, or exacting higher pay than are sanctioned by Law, according to the ancient custom of the Manor; and we earnestly present that a tariff of the fees, charges, expenses, and customs of the Manor be produced at each Court held within the Manor, subject to the inspection of the suitors and tenants and parties interested; that regular and fair accounts of the charge demanded be afforded each suitor, and receipts given for the money paid”.

  1. A printed paper exists relating to this difference with the Lord of the Manor and a copy is on the file of the Church Commissioners. The records show that the Bishop agreed that the customary charges and customs of the manor should be observed but I have found no details to show what were the customs, the deprivation of which led to the Presentment.

Roland J. Roddis.

Town Clerk.

Town Clerk’s Office,

Eastleigh.

November 1952