62 BERKHAMSTED COMMON. 



to districts to the north and south. The inclosure 

 meant expropriation, immediate or prospective, of the 

 whole Common. 



When remonstrances were made on the subject in 

 the columns of The Times, Lord Brownlow's solicitors 

 replied that " the public has no more right to pass 

 over the Common than a stranger has to pass through 

 a Commoner's private garden, and that even a cop v hold 

 tenant of the Manor, entitled to common rights, can 

 only go upon the Common in order to place his sheep 

 there, and to look after them when there, and, therefore, 

 with that qualification, any person who drives, rides, or 

 walks across the Common out of the public highway is 

 a trespasser."* 



It is fair to say that Lord Brownlow himself could 

 scarcely be held responsible for this inclosure. He was 

 at the time in very broken health, and left matters 

 almost completely in the hands of his Trustees and 

 agent. It often happens in such cases that the agent 

 and lawyer are more eager to aggrandise a great estate 

 than the owner himself is, and are mainly responsible 

 for such acts as the above. It was asserted by these 

 gentlemen that the object of the inclosure was to pre- 

 serve the wild character of the place intact, and not to 

 exclude the public. It was claimed that three other 

 Commons in the neighbourhood those of Hudnall, Pit- 

 stone, and Ivinghoe had been inclosed in like fashion 

 within recent years, without detriment to their beauty. 



However that may be, this arbitrary and high- 



* The Times, February 16th, 1866. 



