From the Huddersfield Daily Chronicle – Thursday 17th July 1890

A CURIOUS CASE.

Mr. Justice Kekewich, on Wednesday, decided a curious case raised by the Ecclesiastical Commissioner, who, in 1862, were made lords of the manor of Vauxhall, who now brought an action against the devisees of James Bridger, lord of the manor of Biggin and Tamworth. and also the lords of the manor of Mitcham and Ravensbury, to recover one-fourth of the profits derived by the defendants from the gravel digging on Mitcham Common. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners contended that they were successors of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury. the title being traced back to the reign of Edward I., who granted the manor to the Black Prince, who transferred it to the convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, and on the dissolution of the monasteries it was vested in the Crown in the reign of Henry VIII. The plaintiffs urged that the manor extended to Mitcham Common, which belonged to them and the other lords of the manor as tenants in common, and that, therefore, they were entitled to take their share of the gravel. His lordship gave judgment against the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, with costs, holding that they had failed to make out their case.