Cookham Commons Updated.
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I have mentioned the commons of Cookham before in this blog, but now I have some old maps to go with the passage post here below:
The common fields were
enclosed in 1852. A fierce controversy waged by the inhabitants in defence of
traditional footpaths across these fields was decided in 1847 in their favour.
The inhabitants have long enjoyed special benefits in two enclosed commons,
Widbrook and Cockmarsh. The Abbot of Cirencester had a right of free pasturage
for cattle in Widbrook and for hogs in Cockmarsh, continued after the
Dissolution to the possessor of Cannon Court. In the time of Philip and Mary
the inhabitants claimed pasturage, and after a long struggle Queen Elizabeth in
1597 granted the commons to trustees for their benefit during the lives of the
trustees. Royal grants of the reversion in 1623 and 1675 were strenuously
resisted by the inhabitants throughout the reigns of Charles II and James II,
and they were finally victorious in 1697. From that time the administration was
undertaken by the churchwardens, and has recently, as far as Widbrook is
concerned, been transferred to the charity trustees. An attempt by the
purchaser of the manor from the Crown to plant these commons and the wastes of
the manor and village greens for his own benefit was given up after a suit in
1826. An attempt in 1903 to make a road across Cockmarsh was also defeated and
proceedings are now pending for the establishment of conservators under a
scheme of the Board of Agriculture.
If you click on the map and look at the top, you will find that a house that I remember as Cliveden View was at that time owned by the Earl of Orkney. In researching I find that he also owned quite a bit of property in Taplow as well.
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