62 BERKHAMSTED COMMON. 
to districts to the north and south. ‘he inclosure 
meant expropriation, immediate or prospective, of the 
whole Common. 
When remonstrances were made on the subject in 
the columns of Zhe Limes, 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 copyhold 
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. 
