Estate trustees lose out in legal battle over Welsh mudstone

The trustees of the Wynnstay Estate, a large estate in Powys, Wales, have lost a legal dispute with the Natural Resources Body for Wales over the use of mudstone, a very common, brittle stone. The trustees claim the NRBW, which manages land on behalf of the Welsh Assembly, need to pay for mudstone quarried on the estate, citing conditions put in place when the estate was sold in 1919. According to the judgment, handed down at the Court of Appeal this week, when the estate was sold off in 1919 it was stated the sale did not include “all mines beds and quarries of coal and ironstone and all other metals stone and minerals within and under the hereditaments and premises thereby conveyed”. Lawyers for the trustees say that this means that the mudstone, quarried and used by NRBW while managing the estate to make walls and as shale for paths, must be paid for. This, they argue, is because mudstone is a stone. However, the Court of Appeal disagreed – ruling that, when the condition was made in 1919, mudstone wouldn’t have been considered a stone worth quarrying. The ruling backed up an earlier ruling in the High Court. According to the ruling, ‘stone’ can’t refer to any stone any more than ‘mineral’ can refer to any mineral, otherwise the estate would only be selling a thin layer of topsoil. Neither can it mean ‘useful stone’ as anything can be given a use. According to the earlier High Court judgment, “mudstone is without doubt the common rock of the district” and “clearly does not satisfy any test of exceptionality”. “Quite apart from being ubiquitous in the area, it has one of the lowest values for any rock. It has limited uses. Its character does make it suitable for forest roads and tracks, but that cannot make it ‘exceptional’ in any meaningful sense. Some use can be found for most materials,” the High Court judge found. She said she had “no doubt that mudstone would not have been viewed as a material that was worthwhile quarrying and selling commercially, whether in 1816 or 1919”. Nobody, she said, in 1919 would have considered mudstone to be captured by the wording of the condition, and therefore the current trustees aren’t entitled to payment for mudstone used by the NRBW. The Court of Appeal agreed, saying that the High Court judge was “clearly right” to state that mudstone didn’t qualify. The three-judge panel dismissed the claim, leaving the trustees with a bill of more than £750,000 for the NRBW’s legal costs. (1) David Heneage Wynne-Finch (2) Richard William Kendrick Price (3) Rupert Thomas Mead v Natural Resources Body for Wales   Court of Appeal (Henderson LJ, Arnold LJ, Birss LJ) 12 October 2021