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Royal Tunbridge Wells
suitors. An alternative was to leave the settlement to the courts, but neither party desired the delay and expense consequent upon such proceedings. In the end the matter was arranged in the most primitive way, by the drawing of lots. " All the shops and houses, which had been built on the manor waste were divided into three lots, of which the tenants were to draw one, and the other two were to remain to the Lord of the Manor," Hasted has recorded. " The lot which the tenants drew was the middle one, which included the Assembly Room on the public walk, which has since turned out much the most advantageous of the three." Finally, Maurice Conyers, Lord of the Manor, and the tenants, entered into an agreement by which the walks and wells were made open and free for ever to the public. This settlement was confirmed by a private Act of Parliament, passed in 1740, which may be called the Charter of Tunbridge Wells, for a restricting clause declared it illegal to erect any buildings on the Common, or, in short, to build on any spot wherever a building had not previously existed. " To this act," Amsinck rightly said in 1810, " Tunbridge Wells may be said to owe its continued pros-68 |
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