MR. CARVELL WILLIAMS (Notts, Mansfield)I beg to ask the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent, as a Church Estates Commissioner, whether the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have consented to sell to the Hornsey Charity Trustees a strip of land in Muswell Hill Road, abutting on Churchyard Bottom Wood, Highgate, on condition that an existing road through the adjacent land belonging to such Trustees is widened by 10 feet; whether this is preliminary to a scheme for building on the site of the Wood, or on a portion there of; and whether, before the adoption of any such scheme, Parliament and other Public Bodies will have an opportunity of expressing an opinion respecting it?
§ THE COMPTROLLER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Mr. LEVESON-GOWER,) Stoke-upon-TrentThe answer to the first paragraph of the question is "Yes." The Commissioners gave for a public park the Gravel Pit Wood, comprising 69 acres, in the year 1886, and in the same year they provisionally agreed on terms for a sale to the Hornsey Local Board of the Churchyard Bottom Wood, of about 49 acres, adjoining the Gravel Pit Wood, subject to the necessary Parliamentary powers being obtained. This sale was not, however, carried out. The condition made by the Commissioners as to the widening of the existing road was for the purpose of providing better access for building purposes to the land belonging to them beyond Gravel Pit Wood, as well as to the Wood itself, in the event of a sale of the Wood to a Public Authority not being effected. In reply to a similar question in the year 1887, it was stated that the Commissioners are not prepared to give the undertaking asked for in the last paragraph of the question.
MR. CARVELL WILLIAMSAm I to understand that it is the intention to destroy that portion of Highgate Woods by building on it?
§ MR. LEVESON-GOWERNo, Sir; my hon. Friend must not understand anything of the kind.