Page:The English Reports v3 1901.pdf/779

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VOLUME II.

ENGLAND.

in error from the court of king's bench.

Inhabitants of West Riding of Yorkshire,—Plaintiffs (in Error); The King (on Prosecution of R. Buckley)—Defendant (in Error) [Nov. 8, 1813].

[Mews' Dig. xv. 186. 5 Taun. 284; 7 East, 588. Considered in Reg. v. Lincoln (Mayor of), 1839, 8 A. & E. 65, 70, 72. See also R. v. Bucks, 1810, 12 East, 192; Nottingham County Council v. Manchester, etc. Ry. Co., 1894, 71 L. T. 430; also, as to bridges erected after 20th March 1836, the Highways Act, 1835, s. 22.]

[By the common law, declared and defined by the statute 22 Hen. 8, cap. 15 [should be cap. 5, s. 7], and the subsequent Bridge Acts, where the inhabitants of a county are liable to the repair of a public bridge, they are liable also to the repair of the highway at the ends of the bridge, to the extent of 300 feet; and if indicted for the non-repair thereof, they cannot exonerate themselves except by pleading specially that some other is bound by prescription or tenure to repair the same.]

At the township of Quick, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in a highway there leading between the towns of Huddersfield and Manchester, there had been, immemorially, a public foot-bridge, and [2] a public ford for cattle and carriages, across the river Tame. Some time previous to the year 1756, a public stone bridge was erected by voluntary subscription across the river about five yards higher up than the ford. In the year 1756, this stone bridge was swept away by a flood, and another stone bridge, a little larger than the former, was rebuilt by voluntary subscription which was also swept away by another flood in the year 1799. The present bridge was then built and completed in the year 1802, at the expense of the inhabitants of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and was made a little wider and larger than either of the two preceding bridges.

That part of the highway which lies immediately westward of the bridge is in a district called Shaw Mear, and that part of it which lies immediately eastward of the bridge is in a district called Lords Mear; both which districts are in the township of Quick and parish of Saddleworth. These two districts had immemorially repaired so much of the highway in question as lies within each of them till a short time previous to 1803, when (the highway at each end of the bridge being out of repair) an indictment was preferred against the Riding for not repairing the highway to the extent of 300 feet at each end of the bridge. The indictment was as follows:—

That from time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary, there was, and yet is, a certain common and ancient King's highway, leading from the market town of Huddersfield, in the West Riding of the County of York, to-[3]-wards and unto the market town of Manchester, in the county palatine of Lancaster, in,

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