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We are delighted that another, extensive, piece of the Dartmoor National Park in Devon has been registered as common land. Planning Inspector Mark Yates has granted the society’s application to register as common about 12 square kilometres known as Walkhampton Common. The land, which is immediately south-west of Princetown, is grazed and uncultivated.
Photo of part of the newly-registered land, looking east. Photo: Open Spaces Society
In 1968, Walkhampton Common was provisionally registered by Devon County Council but, following objections, a hearing was held by a commons commissioner in 1982. The commissioner excluded much of the common from registration because it was no longer part of a manor. The commissioner relied on the legal case known as Box Hill, the effect of which was to cause applications for the registration of waste land of a manor to fail if the land was not still owned by the lord of the manor at the time of the hearing.
In 1990, Box Hill was overturned in the House of Lords by the Milburn case, but that was too late to save Walkhampton Common.
However, part 1 of the Commons Act 2006 reopened the opportunity to rescue lost commons which were excluded in these circumstances. Under paragraph 4 of schedule 2 to the 2006 Act the rest of the land at Walkhampton Common became eligible for re-registration. The application made by the society showed that the land is manorial in origin and that it remains ‘waste land of a manor’ to this day—that is, open, uncultivated, and unoccupied.
Says Frances Kerner, our commons re-registration officer: ‘This is an excellent result. We are particularly pleased that the effect of the registration is to link the long-registered part of Walkhampton Common in the north with the neighbouring common of the Forest of Dartmoor (CL164) in the south.’