Surname Index

to

Arena Cornubia:

The Claims of the Commissioner of Woods and Forests
to the Sea Coast and Banks of Tidal Rivers in Cornwall and Devon

by

J W Pycroft, Esq, FSA, MRAS

(3rd Edition). London: W G Benning (1865), xvii, 63 pp.

Prepared by Michael Steer

Few matters exemplify the complex relationship between Devon and Cornwall, and the Crown via the Duchy of Cornwall as does "Riparian" Law. As an example, from the time of James I, the property in the bed and water of a tidal river as high as the tide ebbs and flows at a medium spring tide is pre-sumed to reside in the crown or a grantee of the crown, generally the lord of a manor, and the bed and water of a non-tidal river are presumed to belong to the person through whose land it flows, or, if it divide two properties, to the riparian proprietors, the rights of each extending to mid-stream (ad medium filum aqum). In order to give riparian rights, the river must flow in a defined channel, or at least above ground. James Wallis Pycroft (1847-1880) was an antiquarian and a prolific pamphleteer who wrote on an extraordinary range of topics. He eventually became insolvent and was expelled from the Society of Antiquaries. This rare book was produced from a digital copy held by the Bodleian Library that can be downloaded from Google Books. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.