RURAL COMMONS. 285 
Common still remains open to the public, though much 
in need of a regulating scheme. 
A case of somewhat opposite character was that of 
Thurstaston Common, near Birkenhead. The Common, 
of about 150 acres, was one of great beauty, occupying 
the highest land on the peninsula between the Dee and 
the Mersey, and commanding fine views of the estuary 
of the Dee and the Welsh mountains. Its surface was 
also picturesquely diversified by masses of rock; and it 
contained one stone of much antiquarian interest called 
Thor’s Stone, believed to have been a place of sacrifice 
in the time of the Danes. Unfortunately almost the 
whole of the parish was owned by two landowners, the 
Lord of the Manor and another wealthy proprietor, the 
remajning thirty acres being glebe. A threat was held 
out to the Inclosure Commissioners that if Parliament 
would not consent to the inclosure of the Common 
under the Act, the Lord of the Manor would by 
agreement with the other two persons interested, effect 
its appropriation. The Inclosure Commissioners in 
their report to Parliament, said that, considering the 
crowing population of Birkenhead and the almost equal 
nearness of the great city of Liverpool, they would have 
declined the application for inclosure in order to keep 
the entire Common for public resort ; but seeing that the 
owners might by agreement appropriate the whole 
Common for themselves to the exclusion of the public, 
they thought it better, by consenting to the scheme, 
to secure a part of it for the public. They agreed to the 
proposal, therefore, upon the terms that forty-five acres 
