The Battle for Broxhead Common
A wire fence blocks off use along the old road to Lindford
The Case for Hampshire County Council – PART 52
- So, there it was in black and white “The roads and footpaths in this title are subject to public rights of way.”
2014 Land Registry Broxhead part of ICR report 201407072017 - Nine Public Inquiries. Each occasioned by Hampshire County Council’s refusal to address the problem of access by horse riders for their loss of at least 23 trails on Broxhead Common lands because of the unauthorised fencing of 80 acres of it. The last three of these Inquiries were provoked by the shamefully made objection to their own Order for a bridleway between BW54 to Cradle Lane, along an old highway over the common land: and now it is revealed by Land Registry title documents that all the roads and footpaths in the title are subject to PUBLIC RIGHTS OF WAY.
- You could not make it up. It is hard to believe that Hampshire County Council did not receive any communication from the Land Registry on first registration in 2001, when they have been renting 100 acres of it since 1980, and have removed 80 acres from the Register of Common Land without any statutory consent!!
- To recap: C. W. McAndrew bought Headley Park in 1906. Headley Wood was added in 1928. Headley Park was sold in 1948, while Headley Wood was inherited by his son G. A McAndrew in 1954. Sold by his widow Patricia Barnard in 1962 to Sefton Siegfried Myers who sold it to Mr A. G. P. Whitfield in 1970.
- Probably because McAndrews had lived adjacent to the common for sixty years, first at Headley Park and then Headley Wood Farm, they came to believe that they owned the common land as well. However as can be seen from the sale catalogues and deeds to both these properties and in the Statutory Declaration of MRP the Headley Wood Estate Manager since 1962, there were no documents to support that belief.
1926 Headley Wood sale particulars
National Farm Survey 1947
1948 Headley Park official title plan
1910 Finance Act Map showing Headley Park and part of Broxhead Common
Next time: The 2001 Statutory Declaration by MRP