A patch of common land on Dartmoor between Princetown and Walkhampton has been officially registered as common land – more than 50 years after the first attempt was made.

The move has been welcomed by countryside access charity Open Spaces Society who applied to register the 12 square kilometres known as Walkhampton Common.

The land, immediately south-west of Princetown, is grazed and uncultivated.

In 1968, Walkhampton Common was provisionally registered by Devon County Council but, following objections, it was in 1982 excluded from registration because no longer part of a manor.

However this has now been reversed, relying on a test case in the courts in the meantime and new legislation.

The application made by the society showed that the land is manorial in origin and remains ‘waste land of a manor’ to this day—that is, open, uncultivated, and unoccupied.

Frances Kerner, the Open Spaces Society’s commons re-registration officer, said: ‘This is an excellent result. We are particularly pleased that the effect of the registration is to link the long-registered part of Walkhampton Common in the north with the neighbouring common of the Forest of Dartmoor in the south.’