Alice's Meadow is the name given to a small field in the Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

 parish of Fencott and Murcott

Fencott and Murcott

Fencott and Murcott is a civil parish about south of Bicester in the Cherwell district of Oxfordshire, England.The parish is bounded on the north and west by the River Ray and has an area of about . It includes the villages of Fencott and Murcott and has a population of about 250 residents. There...

, England. It became the focus of a campaign by local people and Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth (EWNI)

Friends of the Earth is one of 70 national groups around the world which make up the Friends of the Earth network of environmental organizations...

 in the 1980s, who opposed government plans to route the M40 motorway

M40 motorway

The M40 motorway is a motorway in the British transport network that forms a major part of the connection between London and Birmingham. Part of this road forms a section of the unsigned European route E05...

 across Otmoor

Otmoor

Otmoor or Ot Moor is an area of wetland and wet grassland in Oxfordshire, England, located halfway between Oxford and Bicester. It is about above sea level, and has an area of approximately ....

.

The name 'Alice's Meadow' is a reference to Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

's book Through the Looking-Glass

Through the Looking-Glass

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

, which is said to have been partly inspired by the 'chessboard-like' field pattern of Otmoor. It lies to the north of Otmoor, between Fencott and Murcott, and was directly on a proposed route for the motorway, which would then have continued, bisecting Otmoor.

Conventional campaigning and action under the planning process led to a public inquiry

Public inquiry

A Tribunal of Inquiry is an official review of events or actions ordered by a government body in Common Law countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland or Canada. Such a public inquiry differs from a Royal Commission in that a public inquiry accepts evidence and conducts its hearings in a more...

. Although this ruled in favour of the objectors its decision was not binding on the Department of Transport

Department for Transport

In the United Kingdom, the Department for Transport is the government department responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which are not devolved...

, which decided to proceed with its original route. While the planning appeals process had been exhausted, landowners of plots along the proposed route still had grounds to appeal through the compulsory purchase procedure. Joe Weston, one of the campaigners, had the idea of taking advantage of this by identifying and purchasing a plot of land on the route, as close to Otmoor as possible.

The field was purchased by Wheatley

Wheatley, Oxfordshire

Wheatley is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about east of Oxford.-Archaeology:There was a Roman villa on Castle Hill, about southeast of the parish church. It was excavated in 1845, when Roman coins dating from AD 260 to 378 and fragments of Roman pottery and Roman tiles were...

 Friends of the Earth and then sold off to supporters in small plots. This was intended to delay the construction of the motorway significantly by allowing protesters formally to appeal the compulsory purchase of each of the 3500 individual plots.

This tactic was possible only because under the HM Land Registry

HM Land Registry

Land Registry is a non-ministerial government department and executive agency of the Government of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1862 to register the ownership of land and property in England and Wales...

 regulations then in effect for England and Wales

England and Wales

England and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...

, transactions involving small plots of unregistered land were exempt from registration. The regulations have since been revised; any unregistered plot, regardless of size, must now be registered on transfer. The Land Registry charges that would be payable under the current regulations would make a similar sale of micro-plots prohibitively expensive today. Interestingly, under the regulations for the Land Registries of Scotland

Registers of Scotland

Registers of Scotland is the Scottish Government agency responsible for compiling and maintaining records relating to property and other legal documents in Scotland....

 and Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 small "souvenir plots" are still specifically excluded from registration.

The motorway was eventually built on an alternative route (avoiding Otmoor) that had been recommended by the public inquiry.

The field is currently managed by the Fencott and Murcott Parish Council, which lets out the grazing rights.

Influence

In 1989 the World Land Trust

World Land Trust

The World Land Trust is a UK-based nonprofit environmental organization established in 1989. Its primary aims are to ensure conservation of plants, animals and natural communities in areas at risk...

 began purchasing plots of land in the Amazon Rainforest

Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...

 in order to protect them from illegal logging

Logging

Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...

 and deforestation

Deforestation

Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use....

. However, this differed from Alice's Meadow in that the land was not offered directly to supporters but held by the Trust.

In 2009 Greenpeace

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

 began a similar campaign with 'Airplot', a small meadow in Sipson

Sipson

Sipson is a village in the London Borough of Hillingdon, in west London, England. It is situated west of Charing Cross and near the northern perimeter of London Heathrow Airport.-Toponymy:...

, a village which would be demolished under plans for the construction of a third runway

Expansion of London Heathrow Airport

The expansion of London Heathrow Airport involved the proposal by BAA Limited to build a third runway and a sixth terminal at Heathrow. The plan was supported by businesses, the aviation industry, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Confederation of British Industry, the Trades Union Congress and...

 for London Heathrow

London Heathrow Airport

London Heathrow Airport or Heathrow , in the London Borough of Hillingdon, is the busiest airport in the United Kingdom and the third busiest airport in the world in terms of total passenger traffic, handling more international passengers than any other airport around the globe...

. In this instance the prohibitive land registration charges associated with micro-plots were avoided by employing the legal concept of beneficial ownership

Beneficial ownership

Beneficial ownership is enjoyed by anyone who has the benefits of ownership of a Security or property, and yet does not nominally own the asset itself....

.