History, research and info of one specific site
I am including this site complete with all the research I carried out on the location for two reasons. One is that I have taken adverse possession of the site a year ago, and am currently emballtled with a neighbouring farmer who claims to own the land and I will show here that this land was clearly abandoned, and a legitimate target for adverse possession. The second is to demonstrate the kind of information you can find online using the various sources available, and how this helps you work out if a site is genuinely abandoned.
This a site at Tremain, a small village that hugs the A487 between Cardigan and Aberaeron in West Wales.
The site location is 52.109775, -4.577268. Copy this into google maps, or any online map and it will take you to the location.
What three words is helps.hips.balconies
nearest postcode is SA43 1SL
Here is a photo captured from Google Streetview. It clearly shows no evidence of use on the land, and you cannot even determine that there is an entrance to the property at all, it is so completely overgrown. This is what most people will have been seeing anytime for the last few decades when passing the site. Many local people I have spoken too had no idea that there was anything here, it was so completely overgrown.
Here is a video I took, probably a couple of days after I came to the land. It shows the extent of the Japanese knotweed, and all the material you can see is last years growth of Japanese knotweed that dies back every year leaving the solid stems remaining. These are easy to destroy, you only have to walk through them as they’re dry and brittle, but just look at the knotweed that was growing in the entrance to the building. You can see that it’s starting to regrow, and the size of the shoots it is producing. This is extremely mature knotweed that had never had any active management and each stem is around 1 inch in diameter. Each root produces dozens of stems which results in a virtual forest of Knotweed. You can get the scale of the root network when I dig up the rhizome. These things are massive, and they cover a very large area I have only ever seen one other location with growth this bad. This is the result of decades of inactivity.
Here are a series of images from Google Earth showing the site from 2006 to 2022. You may notice the 2022 image shows some activity hapening in the top left of the site. That is where I opened up access and sited my caravan, and you can just about see this.
Here are the various land registry documents I bought and downloaded that show the extents of the neighbouring properties, and which clearly show that the land is surrounded by normally registered properties, but that this property has no title held at the Land Registry.
This shows the land immediately adjacent to the land. Notice the strange way it curves around the land at the bottom right. This is actually the location of the small river, and there is a small area which links to that field where the animals would probably come down to drink. What this does do however is very clearly define the land that is registered from that which isn’t. Land registry titles often appear to have odd little quirks like this shown on them which clearly shows the way the land was used historically.
I haven’t included the title map with this as I had already ascertained that this title includes the field directly opposite the site, as well as the house itself. You can establish this by using the map search facility on the Land Registry, clicking on different locations, i.e. first of all the house, and then the field seperately, when you search it shows the same title. You don’t need to download the map to see this
You will see that this only shows the plan. At this point I realised that if I don’t need to know who actually owns the property, there is very little point paying extra for a name. What I was looking for was the extents of the registered land, and this is clearly shown here.
This is the title of the property which is a few hundred yards away from the site, and owned by the farmer who is claiming to own the land in question. More accurately it appears to be owned by his wife, and another lady who I believe is her mother. This is the lady who arrived on the first and second days after I moved on the land, and claimed ownership based on her grandfathers will. There has never been any other evidence forthcoming.
I only recently downloaded this title after I needed to find out more about the farmer who has attacked my presence on the land. It proved very useful as it shows the address of the farm where they actually live, and own.
K & J F M Edwards. Category: Dairy Farmers Address: Palle Farm, Eglwyswrw, Crymych, Dyfed, SA41 3PR.
Husband is Kevin Edwards, wife shown as Janet Frances Mary Edwards
And here is the information that relates to the farm itself. What I discovered to my surprise is that he doesn’t actually own the farm that is his base, it belongs to the local County council. Perhaps this is one of the reasons he is so unhappy at the though of losing land he actually did believe that he owned.