ABSTRACT
Rights of Adjacent Owners Where a highway is dedicated to the public or presumed to be so at common law, the owner of the land retains the property in the soil and may even convey it or leave it to others. In the case of a highway maintainable at public expense only the ‘skin’ ie the formation of the road including drains, (colloquially referred to as ‘two spits’ deep) is vested in the highway authority Tunbridge Wells Corporation v Baird (1896), (25), the public’s right is of course only one of passage, ie the ‘right to pass and repass’.
