Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1Property
Subject_2Possession
Subject_3Right to Foreshore of a Public Navigable River
Subject_4Where a Barony Title is followed by Possession.
Facts:

Parties holding a barony title to certain lands situated on the banks of the river Clyde, which was a public navigable river, raised an action against the Crown concluding for declarator that the foreshore ex adverso of their lands belonged to them in property, subject to such rights of navigation or other rights as the public and the Clyde Navigation Trustees under their statutes might have over it. The Clyde Navigation Trustees got themselves sisted as defenders (Jan. 15, 1876, 13 Scot. Law Rep. 213), and after a proof had been led regarding the state of possession, it was held ( aff. judgment of Lord Curriehill, Ordinary) that the acts of possession proved, which consisted, inter alia, in the use by the pursuers and their tenants of all available portions of the foreshore for pasturing their cattle, in the cutting of reeds and sea-weed found there,

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* Decided 19th December 1877.

Page: 383↓

and in the carrying off of sand and stones for building purposes, extending over the prescription period and following as they did on a barony title to lands so situated, constituted a right of property in the foreshore, although there was no express grant thereof in the title.

Opinions per Lord Curriehill and First Division (in accordance with the case of Agnew v. The Lord Advocate, decided by the Second Division, Jan. 21, 1873, 11 Macph. 309) that a barony title to lands so situated, which does not contain any express grant of foreshore, or any such specific boundary as can be held to include the foreshore, is not sufficient to confer that right, if unaccompanied by any proof of possession.