Scottish Court of Session Decisions

By interlocutors of the Court of Teinds, dated 19th March 1877 and 13th January 1879, pronounced in a petition at the instance of the Rev. James Stewart, minister of the parish of Peterhead, in the Presbytery of Deer and county of Aberdeen, presented on 31st May 1876, authority was granted in terms of the Glebe Lands (Scotland) Act 1866 (29 and 30 Vict. c. 71) to feu the three parts of which the glebe' consisted. Of these three parts two were subsequently feued for building purposes, but the rest remained unfeued.

The conterminous proprietors of the portion unfeued were the Governors of the Merchant Maiden Hospital of Edinburgh. By the 17th section of the Glebe Lands (Scotland) Act 1866 it is enacted—“When the Court shall have made an order or interlocutor granting authority to feu or let on building lease and fixing the minimum feu-duty or rent, any proprietor whose lands are conterminous with the glebe mentioned in such order or interlocutor may, within thirty days of the date of such order or interlocutor, intimate his willingness to feu or lease or to purchase so much of the said glebe at such a rate of feu-duty or rent or price as the Court may, on a consideration of the whole circumstances of the case, and after directing such inquiry as they may consider necessary, determine.”

The Governors of the Merchant Maiden Hospital of Edinburgh, and the petitioner, with the consent of the Presbytery of Deer and of the heritors of the parish, lodged a minute in the petition on 8th December 1887, praying the Court to allow the Governors,, notwithstanding the fact that they had not exercised their right of preemption within the statutory period, to purchase that part of the glebe which was unfeued, at such a price as the Court after due inquiry should fix.

The Court, following the course adopted in regard to the minute for The Heritors of Inneresk and the Rev. John G. Beveridge (dated 30th June 1881) in petition the said John G. Beveridge (boxed 16th November 1867) [not reported], granted the prayer of the minuters, and pronounced the following interlocutor:—

“The Lords having considered the minute for the Governors of the Maiden Hospital founded by the Company of Merchants of the City of Edinburgh and Mary Erskine, and for the Rev. James Stewart, petitioner, and heard counsel thereon, Find that the price or value of the piece of ground marked field No. 1 in plan, forming part of the glebe of the parish of Peterhead authorised to be feued, shall be £836, 5s. sterling; and the Lords, in terms of the 17th section of the statute, sell, dispone, adjudge, decern, and declare the said piece of ground … to pertain and belong, heritably and irredeemably, to the Governors of said Hospital: … But supersede extract until consignation of the price shall be made in the hands of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the receipt be deposited in the hands of the Clerk of Court, and decern.”