300 VILLAGE GREENS. 



Green appears to have been for the first time recognized 

 by the judges in the time of Charles II., when, per- 

 haps, there was a reaction in favour of such amuse- 

 ments, after the stricter notions and habits of puri- 

 tanical times. In the seventeenth year of the Merry 

 Monarch, the inhabitants of a parish in Oxfordshire, in 

 an action for trespass on land belonging to the plaintiff 

 in the case, pleaded " that all the inhabitants of the 

 village, time out of memory, had been used to dance 

 there at all times of the year for their recreation," and 

 justified their entering on the land for this purpose. 

 It was objected that such a claim " to dance on the 

 freehold of another, et spoil son grass" was void, 

 especially as it was laid at all times of the year, and 

 not at seasonable times, and that it was also ill-laid in 

 the inhabitants who " claim easements as in Gateward's 

 case, yet there ought to be easements of necessity, as 

 ways to a church, etc., and not for pleasure." The 

 judges, however, held it was a good custom, and that 

 it was " necessary for the inhabitants to have their 

 recreation." * 



This case was followed by another, in which the 

 inhabitants of a parish claimed by custom, from time 

 immemorial, to have enjoyed the liberty of playing at 

 all kinds of lawful games, sports and pastimes, in a 

 certain close, at all reasonable times of the year, at their 

 free will and pleasure. The judges in this case acknow- 

 ledged the validity of the previous decision. " It has 

 been objected," they said, " that it is not alleged that 



* Abbott v. Weekly. Levinz, 176. 



