Grazing on common land

[Mike4]

If you're going to do this you should aim for the rear of the animal as they seldom decide to move backwards!

You've obviously never driven your car across Hungerford Common through the mob of 150 cows.....

[GoSeigen]

If you're going to do this you should aim for the rear of the animal as they seldom decide to move backwards!

You've obviously never driven your car across Hungerford Common through the mob of 150 cows.....

Yes, getting 150 of them all facing the same direction would be a problem I must admit!



GS

[Lootman]

Having been brought up in the Forest of Dean, I know quite a bit about commoners' rights. If your sheep are grazing on common land, all well and good, but if they wander into town, or somebody's garden, then they are likely to be put "In Pound", and a fee will be demanded for their release. Traditionally the fee was £1.

I would have thought that any animal on my land becomes my property. Tonight's dinner, perhaps?

In the US it is common for drivers who hit an animal on the highway to take it home and eat it. As the saying goes: "Roadkill - from the Interstate to your dinner plate"!

[tjh290633]

Having been brought up in the Forest of Dean, I know quite a bit about commoners' rights. If your sheep are grazing on common land, all well and good, but if they wander into town, or somebody's garden, then they are likely to be put "In Pound", and a fee will be demanded for their release. Traditionally the fee was £1.

I would have thought that any animal on my land becomes my property. Tonight's dinner, perhaps?

In the US it is common for drivers who hit an animal on the highway to take it home and eat it. As the saying goes: "Roadkill - from the Interstate to your dinner plate"!

I recall a friend of mine who killed a sheep in the Peak District. One of the hazards during snowy period was finding a fog coloured sheep licking at the cat's eyes in the middle of the road.

He put it in his boot and got the local butcher to deal with it. Then he found that his boot was infested with fleas, etc. and had to have the car disinfected.

Later that same year our local Round Table had a sheep roast in Edale. I spent the evening carving meet from two sheep, with occasional help. My wrists were like jelly by going home time.

TJH

[UncleEbenezer]

Around here (Dartmoor) and in many other scenic/hilly areas, there's nothing separating open grazing land from the roads. We routinely encounter cows, sheep and ponies, and none of them is a problem. You just occasionally have to slow down and negotiate.

Not quite the same story for dogs, as the ponies can occasionally be quite aggressive towards them. I guess they're seen as a threat to the foals. I've also seen geese being quite aggressive towards dogs.

[torata]

So I was knackered and looking forward to putting the tent (and the feet) up, when I encountered the wild horses. They saw me before I saw them, and the alpha stallion had no intention of letting me walk my intended course across their area. So I had to do a dog-leg around them, and was even more knackered.

Oh yes, I had that stallion thing in a field with a public footpath, also half a lifetime ago. We heard the bogger coming at us before we saw him, but he was all testosteroned up for a fight, and intent on malicious damage.

We, on the other hand, had a picnic and two small children with us. We made it across the stile with seconds to spare, and the horse hit the barbed wire fence so hard that he must surely have scarred himself. Had to leave the picnic stuff abandoned in the field. The stuff of recurrent nightmares. My god, what might have happened.

BJ

Someone I know works as a 'ranger' (not sure if that's the term she uses) for a very rural UK county, and monitors public rights of way, including following up complaints from the public about these kinds of incidents. You'd be surprised the number of ways that landowners use to try to stop people walking across their land on public rights of ways.

(OT to grazing on common land, I know)

torata

[RockRabbit]

DAK how grazing on common land is regulated in England. I expect there must be a concise summery somewhere but I also would imagine a lot is based on common law (pun unavoidable) so not codified. What is particularly pertinent to me is how obligations and liability are assigned, e.g. if I am grazing my animals on some common land and then they enter neighbouring private property and cause damage how is that sort of situation resolved? Is some blame allotted to the private landowner for not having secured his property with a fence or hedge for example? Or what if the animals leave the common land and wander through a town, presumably they can be impounded, but what law prevents the owner allowing his animals to stray off the common land? Alternatively I could imagine the commonage is the responsibility of a parish or council who are supposed to ensure (using fencing, gates etc) animals cannot escape from that area? Not likely but possible I suppose.

GS

I don't think you will get a clear answer to this query as you will need to consider both national legislation, any local legislation pertaining to the specific common in question and the interaction between said national/local legislation. I suspect in practice that the legal debate about liabilities arising from the scenarios you outline would be lawyers' gold!

AFAIAW, all common ground in England has an 'owner', the only difference being that there are some limited rights of legal access (eg for animals to graze, walkers to roam etc) attached to the land. (which would differ from common to common). Therefore legal liabilities will still be divided between the owners of the land and the occupiers of the land (who may be the same or different people) as with any other land. The division of those liabilities can be contentious even in a more conventional set up, for example a landowner renting a field to a farmer under a lease, so common land would almost certainly be more complicated.

Below is a link to the escaped animals liabilities issue for a specific common, I don't know how well it would read across to another common.

https://greenhamcommoncommission.org.uk ... nimals.pdf

[Newroad]

Morning All.

I've personally driven cattle between properties multiple times (in Australia) - via three roads (one of them a short stretch on a highway, though not a heavily trafficked one) - about four miles in total (a bit less as the crow flies). It's not too hard, but it can annoy/bemuse the odd motorist. Can't ever remember one of them hitting a car though - it's not something they want to do - would probably require an impatient motorist.

In terms of getting them to move, that's interesting. One problem that we had was getting cows to cross a bridge with running water beneath (they don't seem to like it). Our conclusion was to get a bull to the other side of the bridge, but the bull didn't fancy moving either. That's where the air rifle came in - no danger of it penetrating the bulls rump, but enough of a sting to get him moving.

All ended well

Regards, Newroad

[Kantwebefriends]

"So I suspect the ancient "rights" of all the townsfolk to graze animals on common lands is in practice far more controlled these days."

There were no such universal ancient rights. Common rights were almost always restricted to a bunch of people called "commoners" who were identified by the property they occupied.

Most of what is repeated about historical common land is tosh.