The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of conveyance and the right of way in property disputes.

Venkatasubba Rao, J.

1. One Rangaswami Chetty sold to the 1st defendant under Ex. I, dated 26th June, 1917, a strip of land about 102 feet long and 21 feet wide having a frontage on a public road out of a large block of building vacant site of which he was the owner. The portion purchased by the 1st defendant I shall call site No. A. The land exclusive of site No. A may, for the purposes of this appeal, be regarded as consisting of two parts : (1) The portion south of and contiguous to what was sold to the 1st defendant opening also on the public road (this 1 shall call site No. B); and (2) the bulk of the property at the back of the site No. A and the site No. B to which access from the road was over the said site No. B (this I shall call site No. C).

2. Three days subsequent to the sale of site No. A Rangaswami Chetty sold the remainder of the block, sites Nos. B and C, to certain persons from whom the present plaintiffs de-. rive title. On the site No. C the plaintiffs constructed a ginning factory. The 1st defendant, to start with, built a small house facing the road on her own site, site No. A, leaving the rest of her land at the back of her house as an open space. She then built another house on the vacant land and as it has no frontage on the road, she claimed a right of way over the site No. B.

3. The short question to be decided is, whether she is entitled to this right of way? The basis of her claim is the fact that in the sale deed executed in her favour the southern boundary of the site conveyed to her is described to be " pathway 18 feet in breadth which I am going to set apart." The lower Courts having negatived her right, she has preferred this second appeal. It is found that there were negotiations at the same time in regard to the sale to the 1st defendant as well as to the plaintiffs predecessors in title. Whether the 1st defendant has acquired the right she claims depends entirely upon the construction of the conveyance in her favour. In regard to the surrounding circumstances, two facts seem, in my opinion, to be of outstanding importance. (1) The land sold to the 1st defendant was about 102 to 105 feet in length and it was vacant building land. It was not to be expected that the 1st defendant would only build one house upon it. If more than one house was to be built, the access to the house at the back of the first house would naturally be over the site No. B. (2) The sites B and C were not laid out in building plots, but on the contrary they were regarded as forming one block to be conveyed to one purchaser. That being so, there was no significance in describing site B as an intended pathway unless it was a pathway intended also for the use of the 1st defendant.

4. These two circumstances strongly support the 1st defendants case. On a construction of the words relied on I am of the opinion that her contention must prevail. In Espley v. Wilkes (1872) LR 7 Ex 298, Kelly, C. B., quotes with approval the following observations of Mansfield, C.J., in Roberts v. Karr 1 Taunt 495 (127 ER 926):

If you (the lessor) have told me in your lease this piece of land abuts on the road, you cannot be allowed to say that the land on which it abuts is not a road.

5. In the same case the observations of Lawrence, J. are also cited:

If a man buys a piece of ground described as abutting upon a road, does he not contemplate the right of coming out into the road through any part of the premises ? " The facts of Espley v. Wilkes (1872) LR 7 Ex 298. are these : The plaintiff demised by a lease under which the defendant claimed " All that plot of land bounded on the east and north by the newly made streets a plan whereof is indorsed on these presents. " On the indorsed plan the site of the new street was shown and was marked as " new streets." The lease contained covenants by the lessee to build two houses on the land. The plaintiff afterwards granted to the plaintiff a lease of the land comprised in the site of the one of the pro