Silver jubilee of village-green revival

It is twenty-five years since the gates reopened to allow people to register land as a village green where that land had failed to be registered under the Commons Registration Act 1965.  On 1 August 1990, a quarter of a century ago, the society led the way in advising people what they could do, with stories in the…

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Championing Chiltern commons

As the Chilterns Commons Project comes to an end, project officer Rachel Sanderson reflects on its achievements. In the south-east of England, a large number of small commons provide important recreational facilities for people in urban and semi-urban communities.  Over the last four years, the Chilterns Commons Project, run by the Chilterns Conservation Board, has…

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The Royal Commission on Common Land at 60

Today, 25 July, marks the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment by parliament of the Royal Commission on Common Land in 1955.  The commission made far-reaching recommendations for the future of commons in England and Wales. The society had been pressing for a royal commission for some time.  In October 1953 it asked the Minister of Agriculture for…

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What’s best in Britain?

The World At One (BBC Radio 4) is 50 this year and has invited people to offer suggestions for where Britain is best.  We have sent in our idea: common land.  This is what we wrote. Common land goes back to before medieval times when land was shared and people lived off the land; then…

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Improved scheme at Whitwell Common, Norfolk

We are pleased to have won improvements to a scheme, proposed by the Whitwell Common Trust, to fence part of the common near Reepham in Norfolk. The trust proposed to fence the common to enable the fen habitat to be grazed by livestock, in the interests of biodiversity.  The society was concerned that the fencing…

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Lord Eversley’s message to members, 19 July 1915

One hundred years ago, on 19 July 1915 the fiftieth anniversary of the society’s foundation, our president and chairman Lord Eversley gave an address to the members.  It is published in a 16-page booklet marked, for some reason, ‘confidential’.  Here is a summary of what he said. On the 19th of July, 1865, fifty years ago…

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Giving Henley a hand for Entente Florale

At the invitation of our member Henley-on-Thames Town Council our general secretary Kate Ashbrook spent part of our 150th birthday on Sunday meeting the judges of the Entente Florale European competition.  The council had entered for the award, having been nominated by a Britain in Bloom judge. The ten judges came from all over Europe,…

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Counting our battle honours

150 years ago on Sunday (19 July) at a meeting in a lawyer’s chambers in London, our organisation was launched: Britain’s oldest national conservation body.  Without the society countless commons, green spaces and public paths would have been lost for ever. And there would be no National Trust, since it was the society’s founders who…

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