§ MR. D. GRANTasked the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works, Why the public highway on Hampstead Heath, described in section forty-one of 1792 "The Hampstead Heath Act, 1871" (34 and 35 Vic. c. 77), as the "road or public way on the Heath leading from Telegraph Hill to Golder's Hill," has been in part converted into a bridle road and closed to carriages, and in another part is so badly kept as to be useless or dangerous; and, whether there is any reason why the right of user, reserved by the same section of the Act to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and to Sir Spencer Wells, should not be extended to the general public, if such right did not previously exist?
§ SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGI beg to inform the hon. Member, in reply to his Question, that although the words "road or public way" are used in "The Hampstead Heath Act, 1871," the road to which he refers never was anything but a rough bridle or cart track across the turf of the Heath, and it still exists in the state it always has been in, except that a portion of it, which was utilized by the Board when they made a ride for the use of equestrians, was improved, and this is, of course, in a better condition than the part which the Board did not utilize. No vehicular right of way exists over the Heath, except, perhaps, as regards certain vehicles going to Sir Spencer Wells's or the Ecclesiastical Commissioners' property; and the Board do not consider it to the public advantage to allow vehicles generally to be driven over the Heath.