The Green is ours

After 470 years, the parish now legally owns its ‘sporting place’

The West Peckham Parish Council was granted Title Absolute on 22 May 2007 by the Land Registry (Title No. K917527) to one of the most important Parish assets - the Village Green.

The project has taken the Parish Council and its responsible sub-committee: Ken Gunn; Kathryn Ritchie; Gary Coppins and Susan Canning (Parish Clerk), working with Warners as legal advisors, over two years to complete.
Title ownership now provides an important benefit for all in the Parish, for today and for future generations. In addition, when the formal Deeds of Easement to the property/land owners using the access roads around the Village Green have been completed, they will also benefit from having good property/land titles, which were previously somewhat defective.

The land now owned by the Parish is shown on the plan. The access road in front of the Swan-on-the-Green has also now been clearly defined and designated part of the ‘publicly maintained highway’ by the Land Registry and Kent Highways. This will now assist property/land owners accessing or adjacent to this road to provide definitive boundaries for their own land titles.
The other main benefits to the Parish of having Title Absolute to the Village Green are:

• It gives the Parish increased legal powers to act under the Land Registration Act 2002 against squatters and any adverse possession by others who may wish to misuse the Village Green and its access roads.
• A registered title is a guaranteed title and defines the rights and includes a definitive plan of the land area registered.
• Proof of ownership is also filed in the Property Register of the Land Registry.
• The process of registering the Green has provided many interesting facts about West Peckham its past and its Green:
• West Peckham was originally known as “Little Peckham”. (c.f East Peckham which was known as “Great Peckham”.)
• In the Domesday Book, the Parish was called “Pecheham”. (Peac-peke or summit of a hill in Saxon; ham = village.)
• Little Peckham was in the possession of the Earl of Leoswine (brother of King Harold) before the Conquest (he was also killed at the Battle of Hastings).
• Afterwards William the Conquerer gave Little Peckham to Odo, Bishop of Bayeaux (half-brother) who became Earl of Kent. The manor of West Peckham was valued at £15 in the reign of King John.
• The village green and the surrounding land was given to the inhabitants of the Parish in 1637 by Mildmay Earl of Westmoreland, for “a sporting place and a more commodious way to the church”.
• The area of land given to the Parish was 2 acres and 18 perches and originally extended up to the Swan-on-the-Green and to its adjacent buildings (now removed).
• It was listed in the 1841 tithe awards as a ‘sporting place’ for the Parish (Kent Archives Office catalogue mark CTR285A).
• The Village Green was originally called the “Parish Green”.
• The West Peckham Parish Council held its first meeting on the 20th December 1894, following the Local Government Act of 1894.

A complete set of Parish Council minute books from 1894 to the present day are kept in the Parish Council archives.

There were more than 50 Parish Council minute entries concerning the Parish/Village Green up to 2007.
  .
A schedule of these Minute entries will be given in the September ‘Record’; these provide an interesting history of the Village Green and the life of the village over the last 110 years.

In 1967 the Parish Council applied for part of the present Parish Titled Land to be registered as the ‘Village Green’ under the Commons Registration Act of 1965.This was formally registered on the 1st February 1973 and is listed under reference VG17 in the listing.
 
The formal process of voluntary first registration of Title for the village green with the Land Registry commenced with a Statutory Declaration, sworn by our Parish Clerk, Susan Canning on the 21st February 2007, which included some sixteen exhibits of evidence to support the claim for ownership.

Hasted’s History of Kent 1782 (volume V, pages 56-69) gave some of the evidence required to prove the Parish ownership and it also provides an interesting and detailed history of West Peckham (“Little Peckham”) and its manorial past.

The Parish Council wishes to express its grateful thanks to all property/land owners located around the village green for their constructive assistance over the last two years, enabling this complex project to be realised for the present and future benefit of the inhabitants of West Peckham.

Ken Gunn
from Mereworth & West Peckham Record, July/August 2007