January 21, 1899.
THE ESTATES GAZETTE
92
was to know whether the land was agricultural land at the time the rate was made.
Mr. Glen replied that Dr. Lyons was using the land as meadow and pasture land only, and not as a park. The question whether the land was a park or not must depend mainly upon the use which was made of it. The fields were used in the ordinary way in which a farmer used his meadow land. They were not used for the purpose of pleasure.
Dr. Lyons said he had retired from the Army. He took the land round his house for pleasure, and not for profit. The land was forced upon him; he could not take the house without the land.
!Replying to the Vice-Chairman, witness said the land was really more than he required. He wanted one meadow for his horses, and to rear poultry. He retired from practice, and he wished to lead the life of a country gentleman.
In further examination, witness said when he found he could not sub-let the land he took cattle in at so much per head.
Cross-examined : He was practically a farmer. His rent was £200 per annum. Some parts of the ground were fairly well covered with trees. There was no agreement in writing with his under-tenant, Mr. Northrop. He thought lie had the right to go over the land let to Mr. Northrop. The lawn and the flower garden he regarded as pleasure grounds. There was a punt on the water, and no one objected to him using it. He was not satisfied with his bargain, but he had not given notice to quit because the proper time had not arrived when he might do so. His gardener called the land a park.
Mr. John Edward Thurnall, P.S.I., of Roys-ton, said he had made an inspection and survey of the appellant’s lands. He called them grass paddocks. They were used solely as pasture lands. The orchard contained a few old fruit trees. No part of the ground was a park in the ordinary sense of the term.
The Vice-Chairman: Supposing you were agent for the owner of this property, should you be content if it were described in the catalogue as a house surrounded by agricultural land?
Witness: I should describe it as a house surrounded by grass paddocks.
The Vice-Chairman: Not even “ park-like surroundings ?” (laughter).
Witness : No.
The Vice-Chairman: You are a very conscientious surveyor (laughter).
Cross-examined: He did not think the trees constituted a park. Most of the trees had been planted within the last SO years. He would not call the residence a * mansion house,” but a “gentleman’s residence.”
Re-examined: He had never heard the land described as a park.
The Vice-Chairman: Is this place practically such a place as the park at Royston?
Witness: I should say it is about the same size.
The Vice-Chairman: That conveys more to my mind than all the other evidence.
Mr. Arthur T. Grain, F.S.I., estate agent and auctioneer, Cambridge, said he had had 25 years’ experience. He would describe the land as accommodation grass land.
The Vice-Chairman : How would you describe lit if you had this land for sale?
Witness: It would depend whether I felt justified in exaggerating it or not (laughter).
The Vice-Chairman : Tell us as an auctioneer how you would describe it.
Witness: If you want my opinion what it is,
I should call it accommodation grass land. If I wanted to sell it—
The Vice-Chairman: Is it park-like land?
Witness: There is not a park-like tree upon
Cross-examined : He did not think it would be a fraudulent misrepresentation to say that Cherryhinton Hall was surrounded by a park, but it would be a misdescription. He considered the land a burden to the house. The residence was not a mansion ; it was a country gentleman’s house.
Mr. Northrop, recalled, said he paid Dr. Lyons a rent of £2 10s. per acre for the land in front of the hall, and so much per head for the cattle put on the land at the back of the hall. Witness did not pay the rates.
Mr. H. J. Cheffins, land agent and auctioneer, of Saffron Walden, said he agreed with the evidence of the last two witnesses as to the
perty they could crowd into Kerry and Mochdre the better for them, a circumstance which was only natural. Counsel then went into figures, and submitted that Mr. Hedley’s estimate was substantially near their own.
Mr. Lloyd said their figures having been admitted the appeal must be dismissed, and the costs borne by the respondents.
Mr. Marshall thought each side should bear its own costs.
The Chairman said the Court would take time to consider their decision, and judgment, together with the hearing of the Newtown Gas Works Appeal, would be respited to the next
LIVERPOOL CORPORATION APPEAL.
The appeal of the Corporation of Liverpool v. the Assessment Committee of the Llanfyllin Union and the Overseers of the parish of Llanwddwyn,” was mentioned at the Montgomeryshire Quarter Sessions on the 5th instant.
Mr. E. Honoratus Lloyd, with whom was Mr. C. G. Wilbraham, applied to have the judgment of the Queen’s Bench Division entered as the judgment of Quarter Sessions. On July 8 last the High Court quashed the decision of the Quarter Sessions, who dismissed the appeal of the Corporation against the assessment of their waterworks, and decided that judgment should be entered at Sessions for the appellants with costs, and that the rate or assessment be amended by reducing the gross rental of the appellants’ property to £12,057 and the rateable value to £9,630. This judgment had been appealed against by the respondents, but the entry of judgment would not prejudice the respondents.
Mr. Marshall, Q.C., with whom, was Mr. E. J. Griffith, consented to the application, and the Court entered the judgment, the costs being ordered by consent to be taxed out of Court; such taxation to be postponed until judgment was delivered by the Court of Appeal.
Mr. Lloyd also applied that the appeals affecting the parishes of Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant (Montgomeryshire and Denbighshire), Pennant, Llanynog, and Hirnant, should be further respited. He added that it was probable the parties would come to an arrangement on the subject before the next Sessions.
The appeals were respited.
AGRICULTURAL OR PARK LAND ?
At the Cambridgeshire Quarter Sessions, on the 6th instant, Dr. Richard Thos. Lyons, of Cherryhinton Hall, appealed against the assessment of his premises in the parish of Cherry-
hinton, on the ground that the land in his occupation was agricultural land, and that the value thereof was not separately stated, as j required by the provisions of the Agricultural Rates Act, 1896, and that part of the land was not in his occupation.
Mr. Glen and Mr. Emery (instructed by Mr. Squires) appeared for the appellants; Dr. Cooper and Mr. H. O. S. Ellis (instructed by Mr. J. E. Symonds) represented the Chesterton Union Assessment Committee.
Dr. 'Cooper stated that the objection that the land ought to be described as agricultural land was not a ground of appeal for this Court.
Mr. Glen replied that his friend had misapprehended the object of the agricultural rates order in the Act. There was nothing in the Act to take away their ordinary right to appeal.
The Court overruled the objection.
Mr. Glen said the main question in dispute was whether the property had to be treated as agricultural land or not. The quantity of land was put down at 34 acres, but they could not make more than 31a. Or. 25p. The main part of the land consisted of four fields. The property had belonged for some 50 years to the Cambridge Waterworks Company. The company purchased it because they got their head of water for the supply of Cambridge from that place. Sometimes the house and land were let separately, but in this case they let both to the appellant. The lease was for 21 years, and it was dated December 27, 1893. Dr. Lyons was a retired medical man. At the time the lease was executed the land was let to three people. The lease described the ground as “ several pieces of pasture, meadow, and planta- ] tion ground.”
The Vice-Chairman said what they had to do !
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taking of £167 10s. rateable value. On October 31, 1S98, a rate was made upon the valuation against which they appealed, and the valuation list upon which that rate was based gave these figures in respect of Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn: Newtown, gross, £785; rateable, £667 6s. ; Llanllwchaiarn, gross, £250 ; rateable, £196. The assessments in the two parishes of Kerry and Mochdre were unchanged. The assessment had been raised because instead of the former total rateable value, £167 10s., they arrived at now the rateable value ot £919 lhs. On a notice of objection the case of the company was heard by the Committee, who confirmed the assessment. The question the Court had to decide was whether or not the rateable value of £667 5s. and £195 could be maintained. He submitted with confidence that the assessment was exceedingly high, and from the expert evidence the Court would find that the rateable value, based upon the ordinary calculation adopted for the purpose would amount as under: Newtown, £145, instead of £667; Llanllwchaiarn, £40, instead of £195.
Mr. R. W. Hedley, E.S.I. (Messrs. Hedley, Mason and Hedley, 41, !Parliament-street, S.W., and 31a, Colmore-row, Birmingham), said he iiad valued the whole of the company’s property on the principle detailed by counsel. In the parish of Newtown the receipts were £1,073, and, calculating the rateable value of the productive works at £125, he added to that sum £19 as the value of unproductive works, giving a total rateable value ol £144. In) Llanllwchaiarn his estimate of the rateable value of the productive works was £38, making the total rateable value of the two parishes £182.
Mr. E. H. Stevenson, E.S.I., M.I.C.E., 38, Parliament-street, S.W., .examined by Mr. R. M. Montgomery, said that 5 per cent, on the reservoir was a very reasonable figure; and whether he was acting for the local authority or the company he always made the same figure, 5 per cent. The percentage made by the Assessment Committee on the mains worked out at 47 per cent.
Cross-examined by Mr. Marshall: The actual amount paid for the land was £759:	he
accounted for the remaining £1,200 as the cost of conveyancing, barristers, and arbitration.
This closed the case for the appellants.
Mr. Marshall said he had no evidence to offer.
Mr. Lloyd commented upon the absence of evidence on the part of the respondents. During the cross-examination his learned friend had had the assistance of Mr. H. J. Castle, a well-known London valuer, and now announced that he could not call a soul to support their gigantic valuation. Coming to the apportionments between the two parishes, they had presented to them an amusing state of affairs. He was very curious to know how the respondents could have ascertained anything ׳which led them to make that monstrous inequality between the four parishes, that. 47 per cent, on the mains of Newtown. The respondents made a shot in the dark because it was difficult to see how they could apportion between the different parishes since they had never asked to see the company’s books until long after the rate was made. The Assessment Committee made the rate without any sort of information—without any assistance, and they went further, and actually allocated it to the different parishes without in any way knowing what the rates of the particular parishes were. That was just where tile Committee got into such' a hole. Mr. Castle might have come with a valuation, but he could not have brought an apportionment, because he had not the receipts to go upon. The apportionment of the Assessment Committee was not a mathematical calculation. He submitted that the figures given were not only uncontradicted but uncontradictable, and it was also a very unusual thing to see any Union in such a position that when they had heard the evidence of the appellants they could not call a surveyor.
Mr. Marshall, in reply, said the position was that the company was formerly rated for the undertaking as a whole in the amount of £157 10s., and no more. The appellants themselves after having consulted an experienced valuer and an experienced engineer, came into Court and confessed to a net rateable value of £695, which the respondents admitted. The grievance of his learned friend was, Why did not the respondents contradict that after the admission of the substance of their case? That he did not know. The natural thing the appellants did after that was to dispute the allocation between the parishes. He admitted that their allocation was to a certain extent incorrect, but that was due to not having materials for doing it better. The appellants refused to let them see a single figure. The object of the company was clear. In the allocation they had made between the two parishes, Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn on the one hand, and Kerry and Mochdre on the other, the company wanted to get as much rateable value as they could in the parishes where the rates were lowest. The rates at Kerry and Mochdre were about 2s. 6d., and in Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn about 5s. 8d. to 5s. lOd. Therefore, the more pro-
tops were formed either by huge slabs of marble or by pietra dura work.
Mounts in ormolu or gilt bronze were being employed to decorate cabinets, sideboards and other furniture. Prepared wood was also being sent to China to be lacquered for use in commodes and screens.
Marble slabs were also beginning to be used for the tops of commodes, as in No. 686 in the Jones Collection at South Kensington, in which a slab of red variegated marble surmounts a specimen in mahogany kingwood and rosewood mounted with chased ormolu.
Then again caskets were being made similar to No. 701 in the same collection, which is of rosewood, covered with plaques of brass inlaid with emblems in mother-o’-pearl, white metal, and coloured shell.
(To be continued.)
THE LONDON BUILDING ACT AND THE OFFICIAL SUPERVISION OF BUILDINGS.
To the Editor of the ESTATES GAZETTE.
Silt,—Permit me to correct a mistake—a serious one—made in the report of my speech in the course of the discussion that took place on Mr. Weaver’s paper on January 9, at the Surveyors’ Institution.
Let me say at once that I do not wonder at mistakes being made, as it is most difficult to hear anyone in the halJ now used temporarily in Savoy-street. I am reported to have said that “ there was not much in their duties (that is, of district surveyors) that required them to be surveyors so much as that they should be architects.”
This is precisely what I did not say, but exactly the contrary.
One would have thought that had the duties discharged by these gentlemen been of a purely architectural character they would have been described as district architects. This is not the case. They are called “ district surveyors,” and, speaking for myself, I think that the duties they have to discharge are those rather of the surveyor than the architect.
Whether they should be the servants or officers of the central or local authority is another matter altogether, but I think the report of the Royal Commission clearly covers the case and relegates their duties to the local authority rather than to the central.
I hope, as I believe, that the coming measure will sanction the view that I have ventured to express.
Yours, etc.,
T. W. WHEELER.
1, King’s Bench-walk, Temple, January 19, 1899.
anil ivathtg.
THE ASSESSMENT OE THE NEWTOWN (MON.) WATERWORKS.
At the Montgomeryshire Quarter Sessions, held at Welshpool on the 5th instant, the New-town Waterworks Company appealed against the assessment of their waterworks by the Assessment Committee of the Newtown and Llanidloes Union.
Mr. E. Honoratus Lloyd with Mr. Montgomery appeared for the appellants; and Mr. E. Marshall, Q.C., with Mr. E. J. Griffith, M.P., for the respondents.
In opening, Mr. Lloyd said the company had property in several parishes, the rating of two of which they were appealing against. This would necessarily make two appeals, and he suggested that the more convenient way would be to take them together. The question raised was whether or not the waterworks company was over-rated in respect of the hereditaments it owned and occupied in the several parishes of Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn. The company came into existence in the year 1892, and was incorporated by Act of Parliament passed in that year, and in virtue of the powers contained in that Act they constructed the various ־works and laid the various mains for the purpose of supplying the district within the limits of their supply. These works lay in four parishes, Kerry, Mochdre, Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn. In the two former parishes there were only works of which he would speak as works indirectly productive, because in Kerry and Mochdre there were no houses or individuals supplied, merely reservoirs, dams, etc., whereas in the parishes of Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn there were both mains and service pipes, and the consumption of the company’s ־water there took place. With reference to the assessment, the company’s undertaking was assessed on the last occasion, in 1897, at the following sums!: — Kerry, gross, £30 ; rateable value, £25 10s. ; Mochdre, gross, £35; rateable, £31 10s. ; Newtown, gross, £100; rateable, £85; Llanllwchaiarn, gross, £30; rateable, £25 10s., a total of the whole of the company’s under-