Turbary is the ancient right to cutturf, orpeat, for fuel on a particular area of bog.[1] The word may also be used to describe the associated piece of bog or peatland and, by extension, the material extracted from the turbary. Turbary rights, which are more fully expressed legally ascommon of turbary, are often associated withcommonage, or, in some cases, rights over another person's land.
Turbary was not always an unpaid right (easement), but, at least in Ireland, regulations governed the price that could be charged.[2]
Turf was widely used as fuel forcooking and domestic heating but also for commercial purposes such as evaporatingbrine to producesalt. The right to take peat was particularly important in areas wherefirewood was scarce. The right to collect firewood was protected byestovers.
In theNew Forest of southern England, a particular right of turbary belongs not to an individual person, dwelling or plot of land, but to a particularhearth andchimney.[3]
In more recent times, as the ecological significance of the bog lands has been better understood, and as the amount of remaining peat has been decreasing, partly due to fuel usage and partly due to usage of peat as fertiliser, as well as agricultural incursions into drained bog lands, some of the remaining bogs have come under environmental protection. This has created controversy over the rights of turbary, and in some cases extinguished the right.[4]
Geographic regions of turbary works in Europe include theNetherlands, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, andThe Broads inNorfolk andSuffolk, England, and theAudomarois marshlands nearSaint-Omer,France[5][6] The term is also used in colloquial language by older generations in Ireland, in places such asCounty Clare, to refer to the area where turf is cut, or to the material extracted.
The word is derived from Anglo-Frenchturberie and Low German,turf. Compare Sanskritदर्भ (dharbá), meaning "tuft of grass".[7]
Turbary Park inBournemouth,Dorset has a name derived from the term.
