Wills J said: ‘All highways, all rights of passage over the property of individuals, have their actual or presumed origin, although it is not often the origin in point of fact, in a dedication by the owner of the soil, that is to say he either says in so many words, or he so conducts himself as to lead the public to infer that he meant to say: ‘I am willing that the public should have this right of passage.’ If a man has actually conceded that right of passage to the public it is irrevocable, and that is expressed by the maxim with which we are all familiar, I suppose, ‘once a highway always a highway.’ Up till the year 1835 when the Highway Act which is the foundation of our present system, was passed, if there was a dedication of a road to the public by the owner either expressed by deed, as occasionally happens, or inferred from public user for such a time as to any tribunal who judges the case will appear sufficient to found that inference, if the proper inference was that he had said or so conducted himself as to imply that he had granted that right of passage to the public; and the public had on their part accepted it and used the road, from that moment there was not only a right of passage on the part of the public but there was the liability to repair on the part of the parish . . .’
Judges:
Wills J
Citations:
[1892] 56 JP 517
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Todd, Bradley v The Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs Admn 22-Jun-2004
Application was made to quash an order modifying the Council’s definitive map of public rights of way.
Held: Before the Secretary of State could confirm a Council’s modification of a right of way shown on the definitive map, where that . .
Approved – Moser v Ambleside Urban District Council CA 1925
Atkin LJ said: ‘It has been suggested that you cannot have a highway except insofar as it connects two other highways. That seems to me that too wide a proposition. I think you can have a highway leading to a place of popular resort even though when . .
Cited – Kotegaonkar v Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Another Admn 19-Jul-2012
The court was asked: ‘can a way which is not connected to another public highway, or to some other point to which the public have a right of access, itself be a public highway?’ A path had been registered over part of te claimant’s land, but with no . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land
Updated: 06 May 2022; Ref: scu.199323