appendix. 345 



The Takeley Forest Award. 



Mr. Henley Greaves rendered an important service to the Essex 

 Hunt by procuring an authoritative decision upon a dispute which 

 had existed for a long time with the Herts Hunt, with respect to the 

 right to draw Takeley Forest. A committee was formed to collect 

 evidence, and conduct the case before the arbitrators. Lord Yar- 

 borough and Lord Redesdale. Walsh, in his work on " British Rural 

 Sports," quotes their award, "which," he says, "is a lucid and 

 searching exposition of the merits of the respective claims, and 

 deserves to be placed amongst the archives of foxhunting law, as 

 establishing clear and fundamental principles with regard to the diffi- 

 cult subject of neutral coverts." The award was as follows : — 



" I. Immemorial usage is the common title to a foxhunting 

 country. When the date of the commencement of such usage is 

 known, the right to it will depend on the manner in which it com- 

 menced. 



" 2. In the case referred to us, satisfactory proof is given that 

 the forest has been drawn by both hunts as long as any living man 

 can remember. The evidence of the Calvert family, as to its belong- 

 ing exclusively to the Herts Hunt, can only be received as a record 

 of their opinion. At the time when the statement was made the 

 Essex were drawing it, as well as before and since ; and in making 

 the statement Mr. Calvert does not say that they did so by permis- 

 sion asked and granted, or give the date and particulars of any agree- 

 ment on the subject. 



" 3. There is a wide difference between permission and sufTcr- 

 ance as regards a title to a foxhunting country. No term of years 

 will bar an original right of the liberty to draw, commenced on per- 

 mission granted conditionally with a power to resume. An encroach- 

 ment may be neglected for a time, and, nevertheless, afterwards pro- 

 perly and successfully resisted, if satisfactory proof can be given that 

 it was an encroachment and an innovation on former practice between 

 the hunts. But a practice claimed as a right by one hunt, and suffered 



