The whole case depended on the currency and location of supposed 'agreements' purporting to be between the Oyster Company and FLINT & Co. Canterbury Brewers, owners of The Stag Public House.

The Oyster Company claimed that a 10th Oct 1860 hand-written document said to be a copy and on which...
at first glance... signatures of Flint & Co appeared, was an 'agreement' for land beneath the Pub.
Rent 10shillings p/a.

The document was not signed at all, but entirely the creation of the Company's solicitors in 1860,
Stephen and Edward Plummer. The supposed signatures were written by these Company agents.
It was a try-on.
Remember at this time the Company's lands were certainly below High Water.

Stephen Plummer was also the Company's Steward, creator of the 1860 Table of Tolls... complained
of by the tradespeople of Whitstable at that time.
These circumstances throw into question the validity of this said 'agreement' ...above HWM.
Whitstable's older residents say it would have been for pub customers to pull boats up...
at the margin of the sea.
The land is described as "sea-beach and shore"... so must straddle High Water. Sea-beach and shore are almost synonyms whose legal meaning is tidal lands, i.e. lands between High and Low water.

In 2003 Mr Bensted's solicitor advised him to look into historic records.
This he did and in the local museum discovered another 'agreement' dated 10th Oct 1867...
for land 22ft by 38ft...North of...i.e. seaward of the pub.

22ft is the exact width of the Pub site, and in 1867 it was 38ft above HWM... obviously. ...
the 'agreement' was for land behind the Pub.
The rent was 17/5d p/a ... exactly a farthing a sq ft.
There was no seal or signatures on the document. It was however singed
(in the 1950's a director of the Oyster Company had a bonfire on the beach... of old documents. This particular one blew into adjoining streets...
where it was retrieved by a member of the public and eventually donated to the Whitstable Museum)

Clearly if either of the so-called agreements were credible the later was to supercede the earlier.

In the judgement the Judge said...

"It is correct that there is a lease dated the 10th October 1867. If this lease covers Stag Cottage then, as a matter of law, it determines the 1860 Lease".

Both 'agreements' say that The Stag is abutting to and south of the land supposedly rented out.
Properly understood there is no possibility that the later did not overlay, wholly or in part...
the earlier, irrespective of where you place the landward boundary of the fishery...
so killing/determining it.

He also said...

"Although the 1860 Lease makes no mention of buildings actually on the land, it contemplates the construction of buildings on the land "

Clearly therefore all structures shown on maps/plans prior to the said 'agreement' are not on the land supposed the site of 'extensions'.

The Judges two statements above, contained in the judgement, seem to contradict the plan on the judgement order when taken together with the historic factual, physical and geographic evidence.

It was therefore crucial for there to have been a correct understanding of the geographic location and validity of these two supposed 'agreements'.

Sadly this was never achieved.

The amount of money claimed by the Company in 2004, in back rent...was based on £1 14s 10d p/a and amounted to almost £6...("sick squid" as one local mariner commented)

Intriguingly £1 14s 10d is exactly double 17/5d

Clearly it was the 1867 'agreement', that was for land behind the Pub, that was in operation and so...the claim of the Company to land beneath the Pub should have been dismissed.

The geographic placement in court,of the land supposedly described in the 'Agreements'...
had two different orientations for North
One for each 'agreement' and separated by 90 degrees.
(It is our belief that this was a device to avoid the legal principle outlined by the Judge)

That is foolish...

Mr Bensted pointed this out to the court but was ignored.

Given the above inconsistencies in the Judgement it is amazing how it has come to be, that a former fishery company, now a property company, has been awarded the rear end (seaward/north) of a house that was in existence many years prior to the date of the document on which the claim was founded,
when the company owned no land above the high water mark as verified by the Lord Chief Justice.