Interpretation of Commons Registers
As explained in Creation and Quantification of Rights, the Commons Registration Act 1965 required that all rights of pasturage be quantified. Interpreting this quantification can be difficult and some explanations are provided below:
An entry may refer to rights for a set number of sheep, cattle or horses/ ponies, but more usually it will stipulate this set number and followers, e.g. 850 ewes and followers. Followers being offspring. The age at which a follower ceases to be such is usually interpreted according to the custom and practice on the common. Occasionally the number of followers will be stipulated, e.g. 850 ewes and 380 followers.
In some upland areas entries will be found which specify the number of ewes, the number of shearlings and the number of hoggs, e.g. 40 ewes and 12 shearlings and 17 hoggs.
Some entries refer to a number of sheep and a number of cattle and a number of horses, e.g. 200 ewes with their followers and 20 cattle with their followers and 3 horses with their followers.
Entries may provide that not all the stock listed may be grazed but that there is some transferability between the different categories, e.g. 300 ewes and followers or 30 cattle and followers or 40 horses and followers. In this case, the owner of the right could not graze sheep and cattle at the same time.
A similar type of entry to that shown above indicates an equivalency between different types of stock, e.g. 300 ewes and followers or an equivalent number of cattle and followers or horses and followers where 10 sheep equal 1 cow. In such cases it is usual for the register to state the exchange rate between different stock types.
An entry may refer to a specified number of beast gates or stints (see Glossary). The register will usually stipulate the number of cattle or sheep per stint (although technically it should not as number of animals comprising a stint would originally have been set on a year to year basis to reflect the conditions and available grazing).
The rights section will state the area of the registered land over which the rights of common can be exercised. However, it must be remembered that this is a record of management at the date of registration and it is highly likely that grazing areas or hefts (see Glossary) will have shifted considerably since the original registration. The area of the heaf is not a legal right but merely reflects custom and practice.
The Dual Rights section refers to the issue of multiple registrations of the same rights, usually referred to as dual registration. This is where the same registration is duplicated across a number of commons. Some of these dual rights are recorded in such a way that it is clear that the registration is to be read along side the dual registration on the other common and that the rights can only be exercised once; others make no reference to the dual reference and more often the registration is ambiguous as to how the rights should be exercised. An example may be along the lines: “to graze 50 cattle, 50 ponies or 250 sheep over the whole of this register unit and register unit no’s CL123, CL124 and CL125 as set out in those register units”.