COURT IN SESSION Records of business that today would be regarded as administrative is also to be found in the session bundles. In part, this is because some administrative business was dealt with in a judicial form. For instance, an out-of repair highway would be “presented” and the parish responsible indicted by the grand jury just as a petty criminal would be indicted to answer for their crime. The justices became responsible for ensuring that parishes carried out their duties with respect to the maintenance of roads under 16th century legislation and large numbers of presentments of highways and footpaths out of repair have survived. To this duty was added, under a statute of 1773, the responsibility for ordering the diversion and stopping up of highways where a more convenient route was possible. As a result of this, there came into existence a long series of documents beginning that year, relating to changes in the county’s road system (see also Q/AH). They include plans, consents of landowners, certificates of road-worthiness of new stretches of road and orders for closure and diversion, records which appear to have been preserved in the sessions bundles. 1558-1971