VILLAGE GREENS. 307 



in all directions could be punished, provided they did 

 no injury to the property of the Lords of the Manor 

 or of the Manorial tenants. The public were at law 

 trespassers, but they were dispunishable trespassers. 

 They had no right to claim that the Common should 

 remain in statu quo, or that inclosure should be prevented ; 

 their continued enjoyment of the Common therefore 

 depended on the maintenance by the Commoners of 

 their rights over the land. Where a great popu- 

 lation has grown up round the Common, people have 

 practically taken the place of cattle, but the law, which 

 had originally recognised the user of copyholders to 

 turn out their cattle on the Common, and had given 

 it the sanction of right, has failed to adopt the same 

 course with respect to the still more important user by 

 people. 



There are not wanting, however, signs that the 

 judges are disposed to take a more popular view of the 

 rights of the public to recreation, and not to be bound 

 too closely by the doctrine of extinction of the local rights 

 by the more general user by the public at large. Quite 

 recently, in 1892, an important case was tried and 

 determined at the Bristol Assizes, in which, though it 

 was in the hands of a local solicitor, the advice of the 

 Commons Society had been taken as to the right of 

 inhabitants to a Common for recreation. 



It arose in respect of Walton Common, which lies 



on the edge of the hills stretching along the coast-line 



of the Bristol Channel from Clevedon to Portishead. 



On the level ground at the top of this hill is a well- 



u 2 



