Stammers against Dixon
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 06 February 1806 |
| Date | 06 February 1806 |
| Court | Court of the King's Bench |
English Reports Citation: 103 E.R. 77
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH.
7 EAST, 201. STAMMERS V. DIXON 77 stammers against dixon. Thursday, Feb. 6th, 1806. One may hold the prima tonsura of land as copyhold, and another may have the soil and every other beneficial enjoyment of it as freehold. And ancient admissions of the copyholder and those under whom he claims the land, by the description of " tres acras prati," may be construed only to carry the prima tonsura, if in fact they have enjoyed no more under such admissions, while another has had the after-crop, and has cut the trees and fences, scoured the ditches, repaired the fences, and kept the drains; though the copyholder may have paid all the rates and taxes, which was in his own wrong. Trespass for breaking and entering the plaintiff's close called Birds Mead, in Langford, in the county of Essex, and removing the earth there, &c. The declaration contained four counts, the two first for trespasses committed on the 16th of May 1803, and on divers other days before the exhibiting of the plaintiff's bill, and the two last for trespasses committed on the 31st December 1804, and on divers other days, &c. and carrying away a wooden tunnel from the close. Plea 1st, not guilty; 2dly, as to the first and second counts, that the close in which, &e. was called and known as well by the name of Monks Hope as of Birds Mead, and was a copyhold tenement of the manor of Hatfield Peverell in Essex; and that before the trespasses complained of, viz. on the 28th of September 1782, the lord granted the said copyhold to one S. Sandford, habendum to him his heirs and assigns, at the will of the lord according to the custom of the said manor, by virtue whereof S. S. entered and was seised in fee, according to the custom of the manor; and then the defendant, as his servant, and by his command, justified the breaking and entering, &c. And as to the trespasses in the third and last counts, the defendant justified in like manner under S. S. as a customary tenant of the said manor under a grant from the lord of a customary tenement on the 12th of April 1804, to S. S., his heirs, &c. The replication joined issue on the plea of not guilty, and [201] denied that the close in which, &c. was a copyhold tenement, as alleged in the second plea, or a customary tenement, as alleged in the third plea, of the manor of Hatfield Peverell; on which issues were also joined. The action was brought at the last assizes for Essex before Heath J. in order to try the plaintiff's right to the soil of the close in question; the plaintiff claiming it as his freehold, the defendant insisting that it was his copyhold or customary estate holden of the manor of Hatfield Peverell. It appeared that the close was known as well by the name of Birds Mead as of Monks Hope; that it was low meadow land, consisting of three acres, bounded on one side by the river Blackwater, on another ide by a small ditch or grip, beyond which was a piece of land, half an acre, in the occupation of the plaintiff, rented by him of a Mr. Westcomb, and called Westcomb's Half-Acre. The plaintiff had scoured the river, and laid part of its mud on the banks for the purpose of raising them; the throwing back of which into the river by the defendant was one of the trespasses complained of. And the defendant had also removed from the grip or ditch an old trunk which bad a valve that prevented the river from flowing into the close in times- of flood, and at other times carried off the water from the close, which was the other act of trespass complained of. It appeared in evidence, that the plaintiff and all former occupiers of the close under Mr. Westcomb, and those whose estates he has, for more than 60 years past had exercised divers acts of ownership upon the...
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