HISTORY
Historically everyone in the county had a right to graze on
the Commons of Devon except the burghers of Totnes
and Barnstaple, and many indulged it until the mid
1920s, driving cattle up to ‘the moor’ in May and back
in October especially from the South Hams. Manorial
commons were, and are, subject only to rights held
within the manor though the lord of the manor could
let or licence grazing of his own or of any surplus forage.
Nearly all common rights are attached to enclosed land,
usually a whole farm but sometimes to a field or a few
fields. That land is known as the ‘dominant tenement’.
The historic principle is that that land should be capable
of holding the stock which may graze the common
under the rights in question, it is known as the principle
of “levancy & couchancy”. In law the right may not be
severed from the land to which it is attached except in
a few rare cases. A few rights are held ‘in gross’ and are
not attached to land and they may be leased, licenced or
sold to a third party.
The lord of the manor (or other owner of the common
which may be an institution rather than an individual) has
the sporting rights and mineral rights on or under the
land, and individual commoners may have other rights
than grazing which were once essential to support life in the uplands: to dig peat for fuel (turbary), to collect
firewood or wood for repairs and bracken for bedding
(estovers), to take stone or gravel for repairs (common in
the soil), to take fish (piscary) and to feed pigs on acorns
or beechmast (pannage), all of which entitlements are
only for the domestic use of the commoner.
FOREST OF DARTMOOR
Some farmers in 23 of the parishes which surround the
forest of Dartmoor could pay the Duchy of Cornwall,
which has essentially owned the Forest since 1239,
for the right to graze on the Forest by day – useful for
those whose ‘home’ commons abutted the Forest. The
23 parishes in question were said to be ‘in venville’,
(‘venville’ = “fines villarum”) and some ‘venville men’
continued to pay their ‘dues’ right up until the 1970s.
The fact that payment persisted signifies that the Forest
was not a common then, but in 1984, at a hearing
under the Commons Registration Act of 1965,
the Duchy did not oppose its registration
as a common. Those who had rightly
anticipated that outcome and registered
a right on it under the same Act were
confirmed as its commoners.
