I lived in Wales for twenty years, there was a lot of this kind of thing going on. A well known footballer had a home built and closed a footpath on his land. He eventually put a replacement path past his property because he got fed up with walkers trying to get over his wall lol
Another excellent video. A lot of footpaths were lost in the 1950s & 60s when farmers were encouraged (even given grants) to pull out hedgerows to make bigger fields (and in recent years given grants to plant them again). A study of older OS maps should show the where the paths once were - and it would be interesting to see how many linked up to the ones that just end. At sometime, maybe 1970s, (someone on here will know much better than me) landowners could get paths - ie public rights of way - deleted by declaring that no one used them. I recall various groups encouraging people to use obscure paths at least once a year, and keep a record, as this would be used to stop closure. I think the request for closure would be made via the Local Authority planning dept. So, somewhere, there will be records of permissions for closure, unless they have been destroyed - but generally public bodies are quite good at keeping records. If you find an old path on a map that now longer shows on a map perhaps a Freedom of Information request might reveal something. Would be interesting to find out if British Railways got permission to block the path - my guess would be they didn't. BTW - the path that ended at the edge of a field of some sort of crop - the landowner has to restore the line of the path through the crop. There is a small window allowed during cultivations and sowing when the path can disappear, but the line of it must be restored by, for example, cutting a 1 mtr or so line through the crop to show the line of the path. If this does not happen report it to the local Rights of Way Officer - or whatever their local equivalent is. Keep up the good work - always something interesting every week.
"Would be interesting to find out if British Railways got permission to block the path - my guess would be they didn't. " I can't speak for this specific location but my experience is that the then British Rail Property Board would go to great lengths to check on land ownership and rights of way before infrastructure projects commenced. Especially if existing infrastructure was being changed. I'd hazard a guess they used the "there are alternative Rights of Way within a close distance" argument - but I don't know for sure. One of the big problems BR had was farmers & developer's taking liberties with BR land. In one instance a developer built a car park over a signal and telecommunications cable route. Some things slipped through like a case on top of a tunnel where all records showed that there was no sub division of land, and a deed going back to when the tunnel was built confirmed BR had access and land use rights. Once BR started to use the said land three locals, whose houses backed onto the land, suddenly found a later deed giving them ownership - despite previous personal visits to those households, by BR officers, when they never mentioned their ownership. We should have the Scottish Right to Roam laws applied in England - maybe as a settlement for granting them independence? 😎😎
What some farmers do - in my view reasonably - is alter the path by clearing an obvious swathe to allow it to skirt around a field of crops, rather than through the plants. I don't suppose this is technically legal, but I for one would have no problem following such a route.
Maybe a decade or so ago, while doing my DoE hike, I was responsible for the navigation. We got to a very recently ploughed and cultivated field with no clear path obviosuly, no sighns either. I took a bearing and we set off across the field, heavy mud clinging to our boots. As we crested the hill in the middle of the field, we were passed by the farmer on his quad marking the path. We actually had to step out of his way, which I put down to my map reading. Worth remembering not all landowners are determined to keep people off the public footpaths
Well done guys, where i live developers are big culprits in closing down footpaths due to alleged ground works then build a house on it . We keep fighting
Similar here, housing development proposed, includes childrens playground. Plans passed, building starts then developers find a problem and the playground gets stopped. Miraculously, the ‘issues’ they found stopping them creating a playground don’t seem to stop another 5 houses being built. 🙄🙄🙄🙄 Isn’t that strange, but you can bet the individuals in the local planning department secretly benefit somehow………..
In some cases yes. Where I live OS hadn’t kept up to speed. Whilst they showed the roads and houses of the development on their map, they continued to show the footpaths in their original place. One of them went straight through my house! I half expected irate ramblers knocking on my front door demanding to walk through my living room. Some of them I probably wouldn’t have minded, being a keen walker myself 😊
Near where I live in Oxfordshire there is such a dead-end path which is actually followable with one gate-hop. There is no trace of a path and I've never seen anyone else walking it, but it can be walked and it even crosses some of the finest examples I've seen of the remnants of medieval ridge-and-furrow farming.
You cannot ‘go equipped’ so to speak. So you cannot take a bow saw and a set of loppers on a hike. However you can remove an obstacle with your hands and if you have accidentally gone on a hike with a set of secateurs in your pocket as you’d been pruning your roses in the morning, that’s not ‘going equipped’.
There's a catch 22 in that you can remove an obstruction if you're a "bonafide traveler on the right of way" but you cannot go out for the specific purpose of removing the obstruction.
Great to see efforts to maintain these paths. As a NZer, in 1996, on my very first day in England. my wife and I drove from Dover to a campground at Martin Mill, close by. We went for an after-dinner stroll and found in a few minutes an intersection with a branch signposted as "Old Roman Road", then in the other direction found on a road called "Hollands Hill" the marked start of a right-of-way straight across a crop field. We were just so struck by the Englishness of it all! Also learned in the campground to look out for nettles! Looked every day for the next month!
When I was a teen ( in the middle 1970s ) I wrote to the MOD about an abandoned shelter from the 50 / 60 s "Royal Observer Corp". Anyway they had lost it and said, "where?". So a nice man from the MOD came to my house and asked me to show him. So with my parent's consent, I took him to the shelter in his car. But the kicker was the farmer had blocked the entrance. So the MOD man took the gate off and we went to the bunker. So what the farmer thought I do not know. The next time I went there it was all painted up and the path restored. Great videos and very informative thank you.
It looks like the perfect locations to place a series of geocaches - road to nowhere series! Being at the end of footpaths, there would be little chance of them being muggled, and it would create a reason for walking down to the end of the footpath, other than the joy of just going down to the end of the footpath.
We actually saved a through route. When the line Birmingham- Bristol line had it’s service increased Network Rail decided to close the crossing an effectively shut the path. We fought and eventually and got them to build a footbridge. It could make a great video. I guess you would need sponsorship though.
As an individual who likes to take my dog out walking on public footbaths daily, it is my opinion that this country is drunk on capitalism and deeply corrupted, and it makes me extremely upset. Our freedom becomes more limited every year, and as an RSPB and National Trust member, to see our government doing so little to preserve nature, and so much to destroy it, leaves me rather down in the dumps. Thank you for your information and transparent video! Ive just subscribed and look forward to more
I'm in the same boat as you. Love taking my rottweiler to vast expanses and forests. But I find every year there's a new gate or electric fence blocking the path we used to walk on... It's genuinely saddening
Don't have a dog but my favourite past time is going on walks. Sometimes I debate trying to move to a place like iceland where they have the civil right to roam
As a fellow walker and an atavistic historical follower, I agree. I love our history and it makes me ashamed to see paths blocked and a total lack of responsibility from all concerned. To those who want to explore, good luck. To those that oppose, then shame on you! Our country is rapidly being treaded under by outsiders who have only an eye for profit and no clue as to what history actually managed to achieve.
Why the left wing rhetoric ? . Know your rights and observe the country code many people don’t that’s why land owners get up set just the same as a house holder would get up set if a member of public threw litter into their garden . Public footpaths have to be maintained by the landowners ie broken styles etc, fallen trees blocking the path. Anything blocking the path intentionally by the land owner is illegal and it is also an offence to allow dairy bulls to cross over a field with a right of way. Unless you know the public footpath we’ll always take with you an os map and know your rights. Obstructive landowners can only get away with stopping people if the intended user does not know their rights. Stopping people from using a foot path has nothing to do with capitalism it’s ignorance of the law. Majority of humans are capitalists in one form or another. If a landowner repeatedly try’s to stop a right of way take photographs and keep on at your local councils. Most councils are very good at keeping footpaths open as long as they are updated by the users. Incidentally re cyclists. a countryside foot path has the same laws as a footpath in a built up area yet the number of times that cyclists not only ride on foot paths but expect people on foot to jump out of the way is plain wrong. It is not a criminal offence to cycle on a footpath but it can be classed as trespass so a land owner does have grounds to get you to get off your bike and walk 👍😁
A comment in The Time Nature notes a couple of years ago; The author , Jonathon Tulloch, said that to print footpaths and right of ways on OS maps, they asked the advice of the local parish council etc . The local parish council was often controlled by the squires, gentry and landholders, if they didnt like a footpath crossing their land they just didn't tell the OS, so many footpaths were lost.
Great work. Are you going to report these blocked paths too? Will be interesting to get a follow-up - especially with the one that has been unpassable since the 1960s at the railway line.
@@composedlight6850 the landowner does not get to do that. Once a public right of way is established it can only be extinguished through a definitive map modification order or other applicable legislation such as a development consent order.
@@geoffw1209 Erm, that's trespassing and potentially very dangerous depending on the line. It can also cause massive delays to the rail network if people are on the line. The only places you can cross a railway are bridges, tunnels or level crossings (where a lot of care should still be taken).
@@hannahk1306 Geoff did say cross the line not walk on the line. It probably takes about 2 steps to cross the rail-line, and generally you can see a good distance in either direction, and hear an oncoming train even further out, so you don't step out right in front of a train. If you take care as suggested I can't see it causing the mayhem that you are suggesting. I will concede that it may be trespassing in many parts of the rail-line. So don't video it.
I don't like walking public rights of way over fields, I always feel like I'm trespassing when I'm not. I firmly believe we should protect our public footpaths and rights of way though. Despite my own irrational discomfort, they are there for us to use and enjoy.
Not meaning to be derogative but please try and get over it and walk those paths. These "get orf my land" privileged folk in the UK will only pay attention if the paths are used. All the best and good luck.
Walking the paths around Berkshire and Oxfordshire as a teen, I regularly came across paths which suddenly became a wheat field or hit a barbed wire fence. The worst I had was one which was supposed to have a ferry linking two sections. Got there and an intact slipway but no sign of any ferry. It was a long walk round.
It's fascinating looking back upon old OS maps, tithe maps and the likes (heavily depended on the national libraries of Scotland's side by side maps with the plethora of historic maps lidar and satellite comparisons) and viewing which footpaths, rights of ways, bridleways etc have either succumbed to development owing to disuse or those that remain. Around myself here in West yorkshire, there are numerous ginnels (snickets, alleyways etc) that have retained their belonging over the last century or so of development. The odd ones notoriously existing from their proclamation in the domesday reports. I recently contested the public right 9f access on one of these that had been closed when development was started on land alongside and can proudly hold claim to them now reopening under the public right of way acts. Keep up the awesomeness guys!
Love your videos. I live in Salisbury and am often out wandering the footpaths in the local area. The weirdest one I’ve found locally is one in whiteparish that goes through the garden of what was a pub but is now a house. If you want a very strange footpath that seems like you shouldn’t be there for a future video try that one!
ooh yes please, I recall once upon a time taking a weekend trip to Amesbury, a friend and I put our bikes on the train from London and rode from Salisbury to Amesbury to stay at a BnB. Of course we booked an early morning spot to visit Stonehenge, but honestly the bike ride down the old country roads was just as magical as the henge. I recall stopping at an ancient pub like that around there, it was like a scene out of Wheel of Time or Lord of the Rings or something of that ilk!
I walked a trail like that in Nepal. Right through someone's garden and past their front door. It felt very intrusive, but the children playing in the garden greeted us as we passed.
My OS map for the Salcey Forest, Northamptonshire (south of Northampton) has some paths marked that are cut in half by the M1. I once tried to follow one of these, and it'd basically become nearly fully overgrown. I don't think anyone had been down there since the M1 was built. It ended at the motorway, no bridge of course. So, I scrambled through the forest a bit more to the secret motorway underpass on that stretch, and walked through that only to find a police car parked on the other side! Got away with it - I think they were having their lunch.
We have one near us that has been cut by the A404 yet Council not interested at all it resolving it. There is a very simple diversion to an underpass within 100 m yet total obstruction to taking any action
About 1960 my dad was a parish clerk in Dorset and there was a big thing on footpath/bridleway registration. The local estate wanted to close the lot and to be fair few were used - we hadn't been inundated by Londoners then. Now I live in West Wales and most footpaths were for people to go to chapel so they start on people's drives or at their back doors. Most markers get removed too.
A friend of mine is a Rights of Way officer. His theory is that in the past, there were bridleways to enable droving access across private estates to common land. Roll is forward to today, and that common land is now subsumed into an AONB, controlled by the council, with no interest in extending an old right of way across the land. So we still have the bridleway, but it stops at the edge of the upland.
Im glad this popped up for me and I'm glad you are doing this. Last year in Wales we went on a simple walk and found most of the styles and gates were not where they should have been. We ended up making our way though by alternative means to find our path and then lose it again. Our final path had us in an overgrown forest on the side of a hill. We kept going thinking it would even out but it got steeper and steeper. It was really scary. Then my beautiful dog fell over the top of a ravine. We didnt know it was there because of the thick undergrowth and trees. We just heard a snap and a crack and a yelp from my dog and then silence. There was a river below but it was shallow like a stream. My partner scrambled down to see him but it was so dangerous for him to be near the egde. He just saw a little speck below that was our border collie. He was alive thank god. We had to use what3words to get a rescue team to find us. If the paths were maintained as they should have been that would never have happened. Not really sure if the same rambling rules apply in Wales. My partner did write to someone but never got a response .
Great stuff, as ever. Agreed, it's wrong for paths to be closed just because some landowner simply doesn't like them being there, we've one in our village (Warsash) which really hacks off a house owner who's solicitor obviously didn't undertake a proper search. You say it's not nice to walk across a farmer's crop, normally I couldn't agree more and it really irritates when I see people doing this out of pure laziness (again it happens all the time in one field locally), but it's even nastier when a farmer deliberately plows a footpath!
You are lucky to have those pathways in the uk. We have nothing like them in the .western US, unless it is public lands. You should definitely do everything you can to keep them open or reopen them
The barrier at 1:05 is especially curious to me as I'm pretty sure those are livestock feed troughs and a rather expensive item to use to block a path.
Good work on getting those paths reopened. I despise people who pretend that their adjoining property should override public spaces and rights of way. As kids, we had neighbors on our little cul de sac who tried to tell kids they couldn't play on the street because a ball might go in their yard or hit their car (which, btw, they had chosen not to park in their actual driveway). I've also seen similar things where public paths get blocked by people "accidentally" letting tree limbs and such block them because they didn't want people walking or riding through. Frankly, the right of way laws should have much stronger teeth, where intentional blocking of the pathways should have steep fine enforcement.
My daughter and son-in-law, and their neighbours, received a letter from their housing association telling them they’d be issued an ASBO if they continued to let their children play outside the front of their house, and the parents were not allowed to sit on their doorsteps having a drink or BBQ watching the kids. What is the world coming to??
Yes, the law should be enforced; equally people who deliberately damage legitimate fencing etc., just because they want to, should be prosecuted too - they unnecessarily aggravate and give the rest of us walkers / runners / riders a bad name.
Councils have so much more to worry about on a farm than a footpath. The farms are responsible for their upkeep. This isn't about private land either, its about asset protection. The public causes damage to farm land, so many farmers will let them lapse in an effort to deter you from entering. Dogs killing sheep, people trampling crops, equipment being stolen etc etc, imagine keeping millions in pounds of equipment and livestock safe when the public can literally walk straight through your land unchallenged! This issue is much more complex than privacy and rich people blocking the countryside. It isn't them, they don't own that land or manage it, it belongs to the farmer.
You two need a copy of the' Blue Book', the Ramblers Association (as was - now renamed The Ramblers) bible on the legal situation regarding Rights of Way. Just one basic poiint: if a ROW exists on the map, and unless a diversion exists which has been clearly marked, you should follow the definitive map - be it across crops or whatever. If you go round the edge of a field to avoid damaging crops, you are committing the offence of trespass. If you stick to the correct route, no-one has the right to challenge you, and farmers will not normally do so. They know the law. Private owners and developers are another matter, but the same rule applies. If you meet an obstruction which you can't negotiate, you are legally entitled to deviate to get round it. Many more joys in the Blue Book. Well done for promoting The Ramblers at the end of your video.
The re-implementation of the deadline for registering these paths is horrible. I'm glad you're doing this work documenting them, and a lot more people are needed to go out and make sure these paths are properly registered and recorded so they are not lost forever.
@@viramann what means do you employ to look at these paths and find out if they are blocked and tell farmers to not block them. Do they get any sort of recompense for keeping them clear? Do you rely on public reporting to register or is there a guy who goes out and walks these ways? Thanks.
There’s one near me on the Bucks/Oxon border.A Footpath exists either side of a farm,but the route goes through the Farmer’s garden which is verboten.I did speak to the land owner but got a lot of waffle about the councils involved.It was pretty clear they weren’t exactly happy with my presence so I gave up.Also you reminded me of a teacher many years ago who said ‘Procrastination is the thief of time Mr East’.He was right and I’ve never forgotten it.
Love the videos and the work that you do. So sad to see these paths disappear due to what is essentially some landowners greed. You'd think that local councils would keep on top of clearing and maintaining these rights of way but with the way their budgets have been cut I'm sure this is not a priority for them. So it seems that videos like this and work of volunteers and the general public is all that is keeping paths like this from vanishing
In the case of my local authority there are only a couple of footpaths officers when there were once six. They are usually keen to help, but the workload is now too high..in my opinion.
Agreed, my experience with many local landowners in my area. I also object to the increasing use of barb wire along paths, particularly where school children use the paths.
Absolutely stunning sunken 'green lanes'. Great piece of work highlighting 'enclosure' by stealth and subtefuge. Your efforts suggest that 'land enclosue' continues by a variety of means - some subtle, some very unsubtle, from ambiguous/misleading signage to barbed wire entaglements and worse. Use it or lose it, seems to be key to opening-up the landscape - urban and rural - for all to enjoy. Great stuff. Thank you!
Sunken lanes were beautiful. Well done in getting last years blocked pathway half open. Fab explore again. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Much appreciated. Loved the horse following you but Bessie at end … touch of class.
During the lockdown, I reported a few. The countryside access part of Lincolnshire council were great in their response. It's funny seeing a couple of footpaths in my area that you can't get to on the definitive map, without walking over private land.
I've met Lincolnshire footpath officers a few times. They do a great job covering a vast area with minimal resources. Close to where I live there is a footpath which crosses and recrosses the Notts/Lincs border. They've even recently taken the trouble to put a waymarker close to one of the points where the path swaps counties.
The county ROW Officers were mad busy during lockdown, all those furloughed people (and ones like me that lost their work) with nothing better to do than follow footpaths. Great fun and essential that we keep doing it
Last year I was wandering around my childhood village and followed a bridleway over the railway onto the shore. Great, but I'd planned to use a wooden bridge across the adjacent Grover to access the footpath on that side. We'd used it a lot as kids in the 60s and 70s but I'm not sure it was ever a formal public right of way. Imagine my surprise to find a cross to the gate chained shut with a 6ft high barbed wire fence along the edge of the bridleway! Never a recorded right of way so I guess the landowner could do whatever they wanted.
Great video as always. We did that very same walk a couple of years ago, its beautiful along that sunken path, also interesting to that the one end has been cleared? when we did it it was completely over grown, as we sat there and hand our lunch thinking it went no where. Unfortunately we heave come across a couple of routes around there that have been blocked by land owners as well, its unfortunately a battle where ever you go
My area in Breckland, Norfolk is pretty good regarding established, accessible footpaths. I've walked a few but hope to investigate a lot more. This video has just reminded me to get out & get walking them. As the saying goes; Use them, or lose them. Thx👍
Don’t forget that trespass will soon become a criminal offence rather than a civil one at the moment. Don’t think that landowners won’t call the police on someone just for going off the footpath, getting a bit lost or wind camping responsibly. introduction of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (‘PCSAC’) on 28 June 2022 makes trespass, in some cases, a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment of up to four months and/or a fine of up to £2,500. So you could get arrested if on private land if you cause “distress” and distress is not defined, so I’m presuming a landowner could use this undefined term to get those pesky walkers or wild campers on my land 😢😢😢😢
Probably should get rid of footpaths that go through private land i can see that argument. The government should spend time and resources looking after the ones on public land 🥳🥳
Keep up the good work. We must all fight to keep access open and free. The ancient sunken lanes are wonderful...and I'm sure there were banks of snowdrops there too? I feel inspired to look at some OS maps in my area now!
Well done for doing this. There's plenty like this in Northamptonshire - and we encountered a bridleway in North Yorks last week which had "no public right of way signs about 100 yards along", sending horses through steep old mine workings. Locally one blocked path ends up on the A1 so no crossing there
Good to see these issues being highlighted. Too many landowners try to deter access by blocking up paths, either overtly usung fences, or covertly, by allowing fallen trees, etc, to block the path. Dodgy signage is another big issue. Most people will obey signs that tell them to keep out, even when the signs are illegal. I'd advise anyone to take a photo and note the grid reference of any blocked path and get it reported. Once access is lost it is seldom returned.
My sister owns an old farm with several public footpaths that run along the edges and one that cuts between two of the fields. The cost of maintaining them is not inconsiderable, but she knows she took it on when she bought the land. They have had to narrow access in a couple of places because of unwelcome 'long-term' parkers, but closing rights of way is entitlement of the highest order.
I think the quality and accessibility of footpaths/byways/bridleways varies according to the local authority. I live in West Berkshire and the vast majority of routes that I use are well maintained by the local landowners and well signposted by the council. When I go to my mum’s in north Cornwall it is a different picture and sometimes it is nigh on impossible to follow the route as stated by the OS map. Incidentally we have a bridleway that borders our property that goes nowhere, being bisected by the A34 with no crossing provision. I still keep the path clear & mowed though even though I have never seen anyone use it.
Quite a few round here (Yorkshire Dales) stop at parish boundaries or shooting estate boundaries. Also we have a few bridleways that just become footpaths in the middle of nowhere but on the ground a decent track (often vehicular in nature) continues so it's not as if there is going to be any noticeable damage from horses or bikes.
Footpath stiles are my bugbear. I hike a lot with my Lab and often come across stiles in fences that have no dog access: a vertical plank that can be pulled up. These are often high, hazardous to climb over and often have steep banks either side so older or larger dogs can not safely jump over. Overhanging branches, or even barbed wire wrapped around posts on the stile increase the possibility of injury and also evidence the resentment and apathy of land owners who are supposed to maintain access.
The opposite applies to a footpath near me. To the south of Amersham in Bucks, OS maps and the definitive map shows a footpath going through Rodger's Wood and stopping. Where it stops on the map the footpath continues, it turns and heads north before joining up after about 600metres with another footpath. There are official footpath markers along this route identical to those used elsewhere locally. I thought maybe a permissive path, but there are no notices up advising that.
As a regular walker, I found this video fascinating. Such dead-end rights of way do sadly exist all over the UK. I was pleased to see you continue over the barbed wire fence, which we shouldn't have to do. I was walking the White Horse Trail a few years ago in a group and we encountered an unofficial closure and diversion north of Bratton Camp. I reported this to the council - Wiltshire CC are in the minority, from my experience, as they don't keep in touch or update you beyond receiving the initial report. I've no idea whether that issue has been resolved in the six years since... By comparison, I've found some of the councils around Somerset to be more responsive and communicative to PROW issues. There's also an argument that you could've rightly followed the line of the way across that earlier field where the path had not been reinstated after ploughing (they're supposed to do it within two weeks). I do enjoy your videos. Thanks for all that you do and all the best.
I stumbled upon your channel by accident but so glad i did, please keep up the good work. I've recently retired and taken up walking in my local area and have found a few paths blocked. I've reported this to the local council who have not even acknowledged receipt of the email. Can anyone recommend what are the best and most up-to-date map's to use?
On the map of your folly quest, there is something marked as 'Two Graves'. I'd have had a go at that, myself. Follies are often ephemeral - built quickly, cheaply (Beckford's terrifyingly expensive, and shoddy Fonthill Abbey being the exception), and very often badly, they don't last - although the piles of rubble left behind are often more attractive than the building they were. Lovely video, and I tend not to see landowners' 'F**k Off, Plebs' signs, when put on open rights of way. I do see the M.O.D. ones though - the thought of stepping on a mine, being run over by a tank, or being hit with a 105mm shell, does concentrate your attention wonderfully.
One of the many things I admired about the UK, is the ability for people to walk where they’re going and enjoy nature without having to drive for miles to reach it first like in the states
I always carry a multi-tool with secateurs, a saw, and wire cutters for removing obstacles to maintain footpaths. If wire fences can be removed without damaging then I do, but I have snipped ones blocking legal rights of way before. Wouldn't necessarily recommend others do the same, could be construed as property damage, but I got fed up with landowners deliberately impeding public rights of way.
Far too many landowners get away with the illegal blocking of legally recorded public rights of way by either threatening (illegal) signs or placing various obstructions across the line of the right of way. Another tactic is to "forget" to have the right of way recorded on the OS maps - while not illegal this is a very effective way of stopping people using that right of way. And if they manage to deter use for enough years then they can apply to a court to have the right of way extinguished.
I've tried to follow a few footpaths in the forest of Dean, with a very low success rate. Many paths with stiles and signposts from the road end at the first field boundary with no exit from the field on the path. Also the only place in the UK where I have seen hedgerows still being grubbed up.
I have huge admiration for your enthusiasm in presenting the history of the landscape and encouraging people discover it for themselves. I am puzzled at how when the railways were closed by Beeching in the 1960’s, farmers seemed to think “now we’ll have them”. Were they not in public ownership? The Northampton to Bedford line has only one or two small sections that can be walked, and a beautiful bridge at Olney that you could walk under was filled in with soild and rubble. Presumably by a farmer with no consultation. It makes me feel animosity towards all farmers.
I’ve been struggling with bridle ways around my area. Lots of farms have put in locked gates or fences to climb over (no use when you have a large dog you can’t carry). Some have been left to become overgrown, some have had housing developments put in and the path blocked off, MoD have blocked a few ancient pathways, and others have moved and you have to hunt through hedgerows to find a spot to cross. Council aren’t interested, they seem to encourage it so land can be used for housing. An ancient woodland has recently been cut down and two footpaths are now blocked all for 5 detached luxury homes.
Reminded of this, seeing all the non-accessible paths/land..... The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose off the common But leaves the greater villain loose Who steals the common from the goose.
I remember going on holiday on the Dorset/Devon border a few years back and going on walks with the family and solo cross country runs using the O/S app and found so many blocked or non-existent paths. It was clear it was farmers and residents responsible. I was just amazed that the locals to the village just let this happen. There were lots of dog walkers, I can only assume they were the lazy, unadventurous types as I was not going far of the nearby routes. Very sad on many levels 😢
Locally we have a footpath bisected by a motorway... quite a long way round if you didn't notice (at least one side is quite popular with dog walkers) And when I did a bit of rambling a few years back i did encounter a couple of paths that had been "closed" with barbed wire... most of them had a fence post loose or something thrown on top to lower it down (as obviously I wasn't the first to encounter it)
You make great videos - photographs, maps and all location references included. You must have great patience, not to mention skill, with your editing! Best wishes from the middle of Yorkshire. 😃 Edit: the sunken path is superb. My mum was a historian, and she explained to me years ago that there is a way of getting an (albeit general) idea of how old these paths are by analysing depth and number of flora species - or something like that. I can't recall the exact formula, but it must be out there somewhere! The path you show may well be a very ancient route indeed...
on two lines I’ve travelled on special trains on a weekend and the local farmer had blocked the train line with a wire fence to allow livestock to graze on railway land during the weekend and did not expect the special train. The first time the rail motor went straight through the fence and the second fence the train stopped and the fence was unhooked. On the other occasion the farmer had just let a whole lot of cattle onto the tracks on the weekend to graze on railway property on the weekend. These were not mainlines, but were branch lines. I think the train drivers know where this happens and look out for them.
Three points. I was able to see where you went on GOOGLE MAPS which was heaps of fun. I will probably never come your way in real life (I live in Australia), so it was nice to see what a part of your world is like. Secondly I grew up on a farm in Australia that officially had a bit of road in it. The area was in a paddock, so it was gated off, but even today it can show as a road on some maps. For at least a while we had to pay the local council a fee to use the privately. This always amused me because we actually saved the council money as they would have to maintaied a road the no one else would ever use. Finally, I can see both sides of the the blockage of these old bridal lanes. As a person who loves history and walking, I love the idea that there are these ancient rights of way and I do feel they need to be preserved. However, keeping a route open through a property just so someone, one day, will walk down it, would be a financial and logistical pain in the neck. So I do understand the temptation to stop maintaining a walk and even put fences across. Thanks for your videos
We have a couple of footpaths over our land, marked on old OS maps. We try to keep them open, but no one has used them for years. Right to roam is very important, but people have to use the paths!!
No they don’t, the footpaths are a public right of way used or not - in any case how do you know they are not used, are there looking at them 24hrs a day. Tell us where it is and we will visit to use them.
I have one - once it was barely used but I am glad to say it gets kept open by a steady footfall. It is also a dead end - once crossing two big estates. One kept it off their definitive map.
Just looked at what you have said here again. If they are are marked on old OS maps but not the current ones then it is perhaps not surprising that they are little used. Thank you for keeping them open but could you please advise your Local Authority to consider adding them to the Definitive Map or, the very least, ask for them to be added as a permissive path?
After moving to village on Lleyn Peninsula, N Wales, tried the footpaths, but kept finding they just stopped at farms, and farmer would insist there was no path through. Met with council RoW officer who said when def map produced in 60's, they drew the paths up to farms, and carried on after them but because not technically through the farmyard, the farmers figured this out and so can't get through or past.. Although signposted from road, hardly any paths actually go anywhere. (Bottwnog area).
Well done guys, I tend to just push through too if I am following a public right of way that has been illegally blocked. I am aware of one path that disappears locally that leads to an area of access land that is locked on all 4 sides. I keep fairly quiet about it as its unspoilt and I use it as my own little woodland. Never see anybody there.
I actually walk down one of these paths with my dog regually and it is the oposite, it goes further than the difinative map and ends with a style into a field. You can even see where the path used to go as it was I belive pre war and had an airfield built over it so it stops one side and re starts the other. I have never tried getting to the other side however
This is an issue on the paths around Warminster too, found several routes over the years either turned into unmarked fields or blocked off by barbed wire. Sadly what is shown on the OS maps is often not what you find on the ground.
we get the same issues with the 4x4 club. we often meet blockages, its good you are documenting use of these row. land owners block then apply for a stopping up order under the pretence they are no longer used.
There are many RoW's in Cornwall that come to a dead-end! On closer inspection of an OS map, it's quite often the case that these old routes terminate at a parish boundary. Also, many bridleways come to an abrupt end, but continue as a footpath only!
I and my last wife used to go for Sunday drives back in the 1990's and I loved finding sunken roads with tunnels through the foliage I remember one on an B road outside Buxton(of the spa fame)was particularly heart stiring in spring-summer We Brits are truly blessed in our countryside But it needs like our liberties to be succoured in our time
There's one in Barwell, Leicestershire that ends at the Borough Boundary with Blaby. Apparently footpaths were drawn up by individual Parishes shortly after WW2 to formalise them onto the definitive map and there were..."disagreements"!
Similar problems to what you have shown here is exactly why the Railway Ramblers Group have fought enforced closures of parts of old railway lines with infilled bridges being a good (bad) example.
I am watching you from Norway, and appreciate your extremely vital work. As I see it, the majority of the western world have culturally changed massively, and the idea of “private property” is indoctrinated and reiterated as some truth of law and rights. It’s truly sad. Freedom of movements is a human right older than society. Being a member of, or approved visitor of a country is a grant of free movements within said country. Such rights goes back all the way to any makings and establishments of countries or kingdoms. So, we are here in the realms of legalities going back thousands of years. In Norway we can quite freely walk around anywhere. It’s divided in four bits; “private”, in-field, out-field and the rest. Private is typically gardens, in-fields are those used by farmers to grow something on, out-fields are those used to have animals on during summertime. Only the private and in-fields shall be avoided. In addition there is a 100 meter zone inland of coast having some openings for movements. I find it troublesome seeing “guards” and “security” in Britain quite unable to speak properly, but still proclaims some area to be private. Like the ownership is a valid restriction on movements, spouting “dis da private”, not at all familiar with the history and developments of laws and regulations. Worst as I see it, is not those farmers trying to steal the free movements parts of their property, but rather the councils agreeing to roofing streets when a multi property owner asks to do so. Effectively they then engage sickurity and claim “private property”-stupidity on public property. Anyways, what you do is very important, as in principle every western and European country is under attack of “private sickness” where historical rights tells a different story. Keep up your good work!
Looking forward to the "digital transformation" where the privatisation of access and movement might reach new levels and you will have to buy/rent temporally limited digital licenses or you got to fulfil certain conditions (e.g. based on your scoring) to go to and stay at certain places. New technology means new ways of exploitation for profit afterall.
Looking forward to getting back to "the good old days" - namely 1066 when Billy the Real Illegitimate said "It's all mine and you peasants can like it or lump it!" Or words to that avail! 🙄😱😉
@@eb4661 "In 1066 there was quite a bit of history happening - typically kingdoms and vikings finding solutions to disagreements." You're not kiddin' Pardner! There was so much "finding solutions to disagreements" going on around then that the blood and bone fertilizer added to the European countryside kept the land fertile for years afterwards! 🙄😵💫 It's a pity that we can't persuade our politicians to similarly get around to "finding solutions to disagreements" today. (Amongst themselves that is - leaving us peasants right out of it!) 😉
Quite often find this (Slad Valley a few weeks ago was awful). Couple of years ago had a meeting with a Local Highways Mgr regards a local footpath which was on the Definitive Map. Council Mgr claimed to know nothing regards the existence of such a thing called the Definitive Map. Sometimes you know when your up against it. Good film, thanks.
Hi Paul & Becky, I love your videos I no longer longer live in the UK but I have learnt that walks and bridel ways use them or lose them. Keep up the good work
I live adjacent to a National Park (South Downs), yet within the park we have named footpaths (Stauton Way) on dangerous roads, that could easily be bypassed. But, also footpaths that don’t actually exist on the ground (near Stansted House, West Sussex). Then there are paths/roads that are on the statuary map as rights-of-way, but are not shown on OS Maps?
You also find woods that are technically open to the public but not accessible legally by the public. The Woodland Trust who seem to manage most of these anomalies get awful squirrely when asked about this.
Get 30% off Blinkist premium and enjoy 2 memberships for the price of 1! Start your 7-day free trial by clicking here: blinkist.com/paulandrebeccaww
I lived in Wales for twenty years, there was a lot of this kind of thing going on. A well known footballer had a home built and closed a footpath on his land. He eventually put a replacement path past his property because he got fed up with walkers trying to get over his wall lol
Right of way....over your wall lol
He should of got a pack of dobermans
@@infrared2084 To stop people using a footpath he should not have built a wall around?
@@infrared2084 he was violating the rights of the public and there should be legal proceedings against doing such.
Another excellent video. A lot of footpaths were lost in the 1950s & 60s when farmers were encouraged (even given grants) to pull out hedgerows to make bigger fields (and in recent years given grants to plant them again). A study of older OS maps should show the where the paths once were - and it would be interesting to see how many linked up to the ones that just end.
At sometime, maybe 1970s, (someone on here will know much better than me) landowners could get paths - ie public rights of way - deleted by declaring that no one used them. I recall various groups encouraging people to use obscure paths at least once a year, and keep a record, as this would be used to stop closure. I think the request for closure would be made via the Local Authority planning dept. So, somewhere, there will be records of permissions for closure, unless they have been destroyed - but generally public bodies are quite good at keeping records. If you find an old path on a map that now longer shows on a map perhaps a Freedom of Information request might reveal something. Would be interesting to find out if British Railways got permission to block the path - my guess would be they didn't.
BTW - the path that ended at the edge of a field of some sort of crop - the landowner has to restore the line of the path through the crop. There is a small window allowed during cultivations and sowing when the path can disappear, but the line of it must be restored by, for example, cutting a 1 mtr or so line through the crop to show the line of the path. If this does not happen report it to the local Rights of Way Officer - or whatever their local equivalent is.
Keep up the good work - always something interesting every week.
"Would be interesting to find out if British Railways got permission to block the path - my guess would be they didn't. "
I can't speak for this specific location but my experience is that the then British Rail Property Board would go to great lengths to check on land ownership and rights of way before infrastructure projects commenced. Especially if existing infrastructure was being changed. I'd hazard a guess they used the "there are alternative Rights of Way within a close distance" argument - but I don't know for sure.
One of the big problems BR had was farmers & developer's taking liberties with BR land. In one instance a developer built a car park over a signal and telecommunications cable route.
Some things slipped through like a case on top of a tunnel where all records showed that there was no sub division of land, and a deed going back to when the tunnel was built confirmed BR had access and land use rights. Once BR started to use the said land three locals, whose houses backed onto the land, suddenly found a later deed giving them ownership - despite previous personal visits to those households, by BR officers, when they never mentioned their ownership.
We should have the Scottish Right to Roam laws applied in England - maybe as a settlement for granting them independence? 😎😎
Is there some kind of Walkers Union? If not there should be.
What some farmers do - in my view reasonably - is alter the path by clearing an obvious swathe to allow it to skirt around a field of crops, rather than through the plants. I don't suppose this is technically legal, but I for one would have no problem following such a route.
Maybe a decade or so ago, while doing my DoE hike, I was responsible for the navigation. We got to a very recently ploughed and cultivated field with no clear path obviosuly, no sighns either.
I took a bearing and we set off across the field, heavy mud clinging to our boots. As we crested the hill in the middle of the field, we were passed by the farmer on his quad marking the path. We actually had to step out of his way, which I put down to my map reading.
Worth remembering not all landowners are determined to keep people off the public footpaths
@@eachday9538 Ramblers Uk are a force to be reckoned with
Well done guys, where i live developers are big culprits in closing down footpaths due to alleged ground works then build a house on it . We keep fighting
Similar here, housing development proposed, includes childrens playground. Plans passed, building starts then developers find a problem and the playground gets stopped. Miraculously, the ‘issues’ they found stopping them creating a playground don’t seem to stop another 5 houses being built.
🙄🙄🙄🙄 Isn’t that strange, but you can bet the individuals in the local planning department secretly benefit somehow………..
Same where I live :(
In some cases yes. Where I live OS hadn’t kept up to speed. Whilst they showed the roads and houses of the development on their map, they continued to show the footpaths in their original place. One of them went straight through my house! I half expected irate ramblers knocking on my front door demanding to walk through my living room. Some of them I probably wouldn’t have minded, being a keen walker myself 😊
The sunken lane pathway is incredibly beautiful!
Near where I live in Oxfordshire there is such a dead-end path which is actually followable with one gate-hop. There is no trace of a path and I've never seen anyone else walking it, but it can be walked and it even crosses some of the finest examples I've seen of the remnants of medieval ridge-and-furrow farming.
Where's that, matey?
Worth carrying a few ''technical implements '' to help keep access open when it is known to be a legal path.
You cannot ‘go equipped’ so to speak. So you cannot take a bow saw and a set of loppers on a hike.
However you can remove an obstacle with your hands and if you have accidentally gone on a hike with a set of secateurs in your pocket as you’d been pruning your roses in the morning, that’s not ‘going equipped’.
@@scouterkeith what about bolt cutters?
@@scouterkeith Yes you can! 😁
There's a catch 22 in that you can remove an obstruction if you're a "bonafide traveler on the right of way" but you cannot go out for the specific purpose of removing the obstruction.
Theres a nice walking stick that the handle comes off and has a pruner 😂
Great to see efforts to maintain these paths. As a NZer, in 1996, on my very first day in England. my wife and I drove from Dover to a campground at Martin Mill, close by. We went for an after-dinner stroll and found in a few minutes an intersection with a branch signposted as "Old Roman Road", then in the other direction found on a road called "Hollands Hill" the marked start of a right-of-way straight across a crop field. We were just so struck by the Englishness of it all!
Also learned in the campground to look out for nettles! Looked every day for the next month!
When I was a teen ( in the middle 1970s ) I wrote to the MOD about an abandoned shelter from the 50 / 60 s "Royal Observer Corp". Anyway they had lost it and said, "where?". So a nice man from the MOD came to my house and asked me to show him. So with my parent's consent, I took him to the shelter in his car. But the kicker was the farmer had blocked the entrance. So the MOD man took the gate off and we went to the bunker. So what the farmer thought I do not know. The next time I went there it was all painted up and the path restored. Great videos and very informative thank you.
It looks like the perfect locations to place a series of geocaches - road to nowhere series! Being at the end of footpaths, there would be little chance of them being muggled, and it would create a reason for walking down to the end of the footpath, other than the joy of just going down to the end of the footpath.
Interesting idea as it would likely increase the number of users as well.
Love it
We actually saved a through route. When the line Birmingham- Bristol line had it’s service increased Network Rail decided to close the crossing an effectively shut the path. We fought and eventually and got them to build a footbridge. It could make a great video. I guess you would need sponsorship though.
As an individual who likes to take my dog out walking on public footbaths daily, it is my opinion that this country is drunk on capitalism and deeply corrupted, and it makes me extremely upset. Our freedom becomes more limited every year, and as an RSPB and National Trust member, to see our government doing so little to preserve nature, and so much to destroy it, leaves me rather down in the dumps. Thank you for your information and transparent video! Ive just subscribed and look forward to more
I'm in the same boat as you. Love taking my rottweiler to vast expanses and forests. But I find every year there's a new gate or electric fence blocking the path we used to walk on...
It's genuinely saddening
Don't have a dog but my favourite past time is going on walks. Sometimes I debate trying to move to a place like iceland where they have the civil right to roam
@@greason we have that in Norway and it was one of the things I missed the most when I lived in the UK.
As a fellow walker and an atavistic historical follower, I agree. I love our history and it makes me ashamed to see paths blocked and a total lack of responsibility from all concerned. To those who want to explore, good luck. To those that oppose, then shame on you! Our country is rapidly being treaded under by outsiders who have only an eye for profit and no clue as to what history actually managed to achieve.
Why the left wing rhetoric ? . Know your rights and observe the country code many people don’t that’s why land owners get up set just the same as a house holder would get up set if a member of public threw litter into their garden . Public footpaths have to be maintained by the landowners ie broken styles etc, fallen trees blocking the path. Anything blocking the path intentionally by the land owner is illegal and it is also an offence to allow dairy bulls to cross over a field with a right of way. Unless you know the public footpath we’ll always take with you an os map and know your rights. Obstructive landowners can only get away with stopping people if the intended user does not know their rights. Stopping people from using a foot path has nothing to do with capitalism it’s ignorance of the law. Majority of humans are capitalists in one form or another.
If a landowner repeatedly try’s to stop a right of way take photographs and keep on at your local councils. Most councils are very good at keeping footpaths open as long as they are updated by the users.
Incidentally re cyclists. a countryside foot path has the same laws as a footpath in a built up area yet the number of times that cyclists not only ride on foot paths but expect people on foot to jump out of the way is plain wrong. It is not a criminal offence to cycle on a footpath but it can be classed as trespass so a land owner does have grounds to get you to get off your bike and walk 👍😁
A comment in The Time Nature notes a couple of years ago; The author , Jonathon Tulloch, said that to print footpaths and right of ways on OS maps, they asked the advice of the local parish council etc . The local parish council was often controlled by the squires, gentry and landholders, if they didnt like a footpath crossing their land they just didn't tell the OS, so many footpaths were lost.
Great work. Are you going to report these blocked paths too? Will be interesting to get a follow-up - especially with the one that has been unpassable since the 1960s at the railway line.
you have to report and register that you as the public are still using these paths; if you dont, the land owner will close them claiming none use.
@@composedlight6850 the landowner does not get to do that. Once a public right of way is established it can only be extinguished through a definitive map modification order or other applicable legislation such as a development consent order.
Is it not possible to walk across the railway line, taking care, of course?
@@geoffw1209 Erm, that's trespassing and potentially very dangerous depending on the line. It can also cause massive delays to the rail network if people are on the line.
The only places you can cross a railway are bridges, tunnels or level crossings (where a lot of care should still be taken).
@@hannahk1306 Geoff did say cross the line not walk on the line. It probably takes about 2 steps to cross the rail-line, and generally you can see a good distance in either direction, and hear an oncoming train even further out, so you don't step out right in front of a train. If you take care as suggested I can't see it causing the mayhem that you are suggesting. I will concede that it may be trespassing in many parts of the rail-line. So don't video it.
I don't like walking public rights of way over fields, I always feel like I'm trespassing when I'm not. I firmly believe we should protect our public footpaths and rights of way though. Despite my own irrational discomfort, they are there for us to use and enjoy.
Not meaning to be derogative but please try and get over it and walk those paths.
These "get orf my land" privileged folk in the UK will only pay attention if the paths are used.
All the best and good luck.
Especially when there is an angry Bull in that field...?
@@mikeoglen6848 Yeah, the bull's and even the cows scare me. I'm such a sissy!
@@leejohnson3209nah man. Cows are actually terrifying.
So sad to see ancient footpaths disappearing. Well done for making the council take notice.
Lovely sunken lanes!
Thank you as always
Walking the paths around Berkshire and Oxfordshire as a teen, I regularly came across paths which suddenly became a wheat field or hit a barbed wire fence. The worst I had was one which was supposed to have a ferry linking two sections. Got there and an intact slipway but no sign of any ferry. It was a long walk round.
It's fascinating looking back upon old OS maps, tithe maps and the likes (heavily depended on the national libraries of Scotland's side by side maps with the plethora of historic maps lidar and satellite comparisons) and viewing which footpaths, rights of ways, bridleways etc have either succumbed to development owing to disuse or those that remain. Around myself here in West yorkshire, there are numerous ginnels (snickets, alleyways etc) that have retained their belonging over the last century or so of development. The odd ones notoriously existing from their proclamation in the domesday reports.
I recently contested the public right 9f access on one of these that had been closed when development was started on land alongside and can proudly hold claim to them now reopening under the public right of way acts.
Keep up the awesomeness guys!
Love your videos. I live in Salisbury and am often out wandering the footpaths in the local area. The weirdest one I’ve found locally is one in whiteparish that goes through the garden of what was a pub but is now a house. If you want a very strange footpath that seems like you shouldn’t be there for a future video try that one!
ooh yes please, I recall once upon a time taking a weekend trip to Amesbury, a friend and I put our bikes on the train from London and rode from Salisbury to Amesbury to stay at a BnB. Of course we booked an early morning spot to visit Stonehenge, but honestly the bike ride down the old country roads was just as magical as the henge. I recall stopping at an ancient pub like that around there, it was like a scene out of Wheel of Time or Lord of the Rings or something of that ilk!
I walked a trail like that in Nepal. Right through someone's garden and past their front door. It felt very intrusive, but the children playing in the garden greeted us as we passed.
My OS map for the Salcey Forest, Northamptonshire (south of Northampton) has some paths marked that are cut in half by the M1. I once tried to follow one of these, and it'd basically become nearly fully overgrown. I don't think anyone had been down there since the M1 was built. It ended at the motorway, no bridge of course. So, I scrambled through the forest a bit more to the secret motorway underpass on that stretch, and walked through that only to find a police car parked on the other side! Got away with it - I think they were having their lunch.
We have one near us that has been cut by the A404 yet Council not interested at all it resolving it. There is a very simple diversion to an underpass within 100 m yet total obstruction to taking any action
Why did you get away with it if it was a right of way route - you were entitled to use it.
I doubt if teh police would care anyway!
@@barrieshepherd7694 it wasn't on the line of the original path, and strictly speaking it is under motorway regulations, so no pedestrians allowed!
About 1960 my dad was a parish clerk in Dorset and there was a big thing on footpath/bridleway registration. The local estate wanted to close the lot and to be fair few were used - we hadn't been inundated by Londoners then. Now I live in West Wales and most footpaths were for people to go to chapel so they start on people's drives or at their back doors. Most markers get removed too.
A friend of mine is a Rights of Way officer. His theory is that in the past, there were bridleways to enable droving access across private estates to common land. Roll is forward to today, and that common land is now subsumed into an AONB, controlled by the council, with no interest in extending an old right of way across the land. So we still have the bridleway, but it stops at the edge of the upland.
AONB is private land and has little to do with the council.
Absolutely a problem. We had to fight for our footpath in the woodland next to our village.
We managed to keep all but one route as public footpaths.
Im glad this popped up for me and I'm glad you are doing this. Last year in Wales we went on a simple walk and found most of the styles and gates were not where they should have been. We ended up making our way though by alternative means to find our path and then lose it again. Our final path had us in an overgrown forest on the side of a hill. We kept going thinking it would even out but it got steeper and steeper. It was really scary. Then my beautiful dog fell over the top of a ravine. We didnt know it was there because of the thick undergrowth and trees. We just heard a snap and a crack and a yelp from my dog and then silence. There was a river below but it was shallow like a stream. My partner scrambled down to see him but it was so dangerous for him to be near the egde. He just saw a little speck below that was our border collie. He was alive thank god. We had to use what3words to get a rescue team to find us. If the paths were maintained as they should have been that would never have happened. Not really sure if the same rambling rules apply in Wales. My partner did write to someone but never got a response .
Great stuff, as ever. Agreed, it's wrong for paths to be closed just because some landowner simply doesn't like them being there, we've one in our village (Warsash) which really hacks off a house owner who's solicitor obviously didn't undertake a proper search.
You say it's not nice to walk across a farmer's crop, normally I couldn't agree more and it really irritates when I see people doing this out of pure laziness (again it happens all the time in one field locally), but it's even nastier when a farmer deliberately plows a footpath!
You are lucky to have those pathways in the uk. We have nothing like them in the .western US, unless it is public lands. You should definitely do everything you can to keep them open or reopen them
The barrier at 1:05 is especially curious to me as I'm pretty sure those are livestock feed troughs and a rather expensive item to use to block a path.
Storing them for the Summer, doubling up as a PITA?
Wouldnt make sense to store them in winter, that's when they're most likely to be used. Most cattle are kept indoors over winter and need the feeders.
Good work on getting those paths reopened. I despise people who pretend that their adjoining property should override public spaces and rights of way.
As kids, we had neighbors on our little cul de sac who tried to tell kids they couldn't play on the street because a ball might go in their yard or hit their car (which, btw, they had chosen not to park in their actual driveway). I've also seen similar things where public paths get blocked by people "accidentally" letting tree limbs and such block them because they didn't want people walking or riding through.
Frankly, the right of way laws should have much stronger teeth, where intentional blocking of the pathways should have steep fine enforcement.
There was a Cul-de-sac (close) near where i grew up. people would tell you to go away.
My daughter and son-in-law, and their neighbours, received a letter from their housing association telling them they’d be issued an ASBO if they continued to let their children play outside the front of their house, and the parents were not allowed to sit on their doorsteps having a drink or BBQ watching the kids. What is the world coming to??
Yes, the law should be enforced; equally people who deliberately damage legitimate fencing etc., just because they want to, should be prosecuted too - they unnecessarily aggravate and give the rest of us walkers / runners / riders a bad name.
Councils have so much more to worry about on a farm than a footpath. The farms are responsible for their upkeep. This isn't about private land either, its about asset protection. The public causes damage to farm land, so many farmers will let them lapse in an effort to deter you from entering. Dogs killing sheep, people trampling crops, equipment being stolen etc etc, imagine keeping millions in pounds of equipment and livestock safe when the public can literally walk straight through your land unchallenged!
This issue is much more complex than privacy and rich people blocking the countryside. It isn't them, they don't own that land or manage it, it belongs to the farmer.
@@Mu7eD-Stream So you use the worse possible examples to justify effectively closing off the countryside to public access? Nice one!
You two need a copy of the' Blue Book', the Ramblers Association (as was - now renamed The Ramblers) bible on the legal situation regarding Rights of Way. Just one basic poiint: if a ROW exists on the map, and unless a diversion exists which has been clearly marked, you should follow the definitive map - be it across crops or whatever. If you go round the edge of a field to avoid damaging crops, you are committing the offence of trespass. If you stick to the correct route, no-one has the right to challenge you, and farmers will not normally do so. They know the law. Private owners and developers are another matter, but the same rule applies. If you meet an obstruction which you can't negotiate, you are legally entitled to deviate to get round it. Many more joys in the Blue Book. Well done for promoting The Ramblers at the end of your video.
The re-implementation of the deadline for registering these paths is horrible. I'm glad you're doing this work documenting them, and a lot more people are needed to go out and make sure these paths are properly registered and recorded so they are not lost forever.
The government scrapped that deadline?
@@radicalcartoons2766 For a while, yeah. Then it was reinstated but pushed back a few years, IIRC
Is this like if thwyre not on a map by a certain time they get eradicated?
I work in PROW, the cut off date is now 1st Jan 2031
@@viramann what means do you employ to look at these paths and find out if they are blocked and tell farmers to not block them. Do they get any sort of recompense for keeping them clear? Do you rely on public reporting to register or is there a guy who goes out and walks these ways? Thanks.
There’s one near me on the Bucks/Oxon border.A Footpath exists either side of a farm,but the route goes through the Farmer’s garden which is verboten.I did speak to the land owner but got a lot of waffle about the councils involved.It was pretty clear they weren’t exactly happy with my presence so I gave up.Also you reminded me of a teacher many years ago who said ‘Procrastination is the thief of time Mr East’.He was right and I’ve never forgotten it.
Love the videos and the work that you do. So sad to see these paths disappear due to what is essentially some landowners greed. You'd think that local councils would keep on top of clearing and maintaining these rights of way but with the way their budgets have been cut I'm sure this is not a priority for them. So it seems that videos like this and work of volunteers and the general public is all that is keeping paths like this from vanishing
In the case of my local authority there are only a couple of footpaths officers when there were once six. They are usually keen to help, but the workload is now too high..in my opinion.
Agreed, my experience with many local landowners in my area.
I also object to the increasing use of barb wire along paths, particularly where school children use the paths.
Absolutely stunning sunken 'green lanes'. Great piece of work highlighting 'enclosure' by stealth and subtefuge. Your efforts suggest that 'land enclosue' continues by a variety of means - some subtle, some very unsubtle, from ambiguous/misleading signage to barbed wire entaglements and worse. Use it or lose it, seems to be key to opening-up the landscape - urban and rural - for all to enjoy. Great stuff. Thank you!
Well done for highlighting this Bessie!! Those sunken lanes were amazing, great find
Good luck from Spain!!
Sunken lanes were beautiful. Well done in getting last years blocked pathway half open. Fab explore again. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Much appreciated. Loved the horse following you but Bessie at end … touch of class.
Ancient Footpaths getting lost each day frankly. Sickening.
Best wishes for Paul & Rebecca in such highlighting of the matter.
Keep up the good work on keeping lost ((and almost lost) footpaths open.
During the lockdown, I reported a few. The countryside access part of Lincolnshire council were great in their response. It's funny seeing a couple of footpaths in my area that you can't get to on the definitive map, without walking over private land.
I've met Lincolnshire footpath officers a few times. They do a great job covering a vast area with minimal resources. Close to where I live there is a footpath which crosses and recrosses the Notts/Lincs border. They've even recently taken the trouble to put a waymarker close to one of the points where the path swaps counties.
The county ROW Officers were mad busy during lockdown, all those furloughed people (and ones like me that lost their work) with nothing better to do than follow footpaths. Great fun and essential that we keep doing it
In Yorkshire I've come across Bridleways that go halfway then turn into a footpath. So pedestrians can go all the way but horses and cyclists can't.
As a cyclist this is particularly frustrating. Bridle ways are poorly signed as it is, without suddenly realising it’s turned into a footpath…
I bought a book on procrastination a while ago, but I have not got around to reading it yet. 😊
Interesting video and love the edits in this video. Also strange that the Railway didn't put the underpass back in
probably cheaper to not do so. would also have probably argued that there were crossing points nearby anyways
Last year I was wandering around my childhood village and followed a bridleway over the railway onto the shore. Great, but I'd planned to use a wooden bridge across the adjacent Grover to access the footpath on that side. We'd used it a lot as kids in the 60s and 70s but I'm not sure it was ever a formal public right of way. Imagine my surprise to find a cross to the gate chained shut with a 6ft high barbed wire fence along the edge of the bridleway! Never a recorded right of way so I guess the landowner could do whatever they wanted.
Great work , closing our footpaths is dreadful
Great video as always.
We did that very same walk a couple of years ago, its beautiful along that sunken path, also interesting to that the one end has been cleared? when we did it it was completely over grown, as we sat there and hand our lunch thinking it went no where.
Unfortunately we heave come across a couple of routes around there that have been blocked by land owners as well, its unfortunately a battle where ever you go
My area in Breckland, Norfolk is pretty good regarding established, accessible footpaths. I've walked a few but hope to investigate a lot more. This video has just reminded me to get out & get walking them. As the saying goes; Use them, or lose them. Thx👍
Keep up the good work. I always report any incidents of blocked paths, but unfortunately, the local council does absolutely nothing about it.
someone should try billing the council for having to arrange alternate travel solutions ... im sure they'd get fixed pretty quickly :D ;)
Don’t forget that trespass will soon become a criminal offence rather than a civil one at the moment. Don’t think that landowners won’t call the police on someone just for going off the footpath, getting a bit lost or wind camping responsibly.
introduction of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (‘PCSAC’) on 28 June 2022 makes trespass, in some cases, a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment of up to four months and/or a fine of up to £2,500.
So you could get arrested if on private land if you cause “distress” and distress is not defined, so I’m presuming a landowner could use this undefined term to get those pesky walkers or wild campers on my land
😢😢😢😢
Probably should get rid of footpaths that go through private land i can see that argument. The government should spend time and resources looking after the ones on public land 🥳🥳
Keep up the good work. We must all fight to keep access open and free. The ancient sunken lanes are wonderful...and I'm sure there were banks of snowdrops there too? I feel inspired to look at some OS maps in my area now!
Well done for doing this. There's plenty like this in Northamptonshire - and we encountered a bridleway in North Yorks last week which had "no public right of way signs about 100 yards along", sending horses through steep old mine workings. Locally one blocked path ends up on the A1 so no crossing there
Good to see these issues being highlighted. Too many landowners try to deter access by blocking up paths, either overtly usung fences, or covertly, by allowing fallen trees, etc, to block the path. Dodgy signage is another big issue. Most people will obey signs that tell them to keep out, even when the signs are illegal. I'd advise anyone to take a photo and note the grid reference of any blocked path and get it reported. Once access is lost it is seldom returned.
My sister owns an old farm with several public footpaths that run along the edges and one that cuts between two of the fields. The cost of maintaining them is not inconsiderable, but she knows she took it on when she bought the land. They have had to narrow access in a couple of places because of unwelcome 'long-term' parkers, but closing rights of way is entitlement of the highest order.
Well done Paul and Rebecca for growing balls and going over fences!! Love it
I think the quality and accessibility of footpaths/byways/bridleways varies according to the local authority. I live in West Berkshire and the vast majority of routes that I use are well maintained by the local landowners and well signposted by the council. When I go to my mum’s in north Cornwall it is a different picture and sometimes it is nigh on impossible to follow the route as stated by the OS map. Incidentally we have a bridleway that borders our property that goes nowhere, being bisected by the A34 with no crossing provision. I still keep the path clear & mowed though even though I have never seen anyone use it.
Quite a few round here (Yorkshire Dales) stop at parish boundaries or shooting estate boundaries. Also we have a few bridleways that just become footpaths in the middle of nowhere but on the ground a decent track (often vehicular in nature) continues so it's not as if there is going to be any noticeable damage from horses or bikes.
Footpath stiles are my bugbear. I hike a lot with my Lab and often come across stiles in fences that have no dog access: a vertical plank that can be pulled up. These are often high, hazardous to climb over and often have steep banks either side so older or larger dogs can not safely jump over. Overhanging branches, or even barbed wire wrapped around posts on the stile increase the possibility of injury and also evidence the resentment and apathy of land owners who are supposed to maintain access.
Makes me so grateful for living in Scotland.
The opposite applies to a footpath near me. To the south of Amersham in Bucks, OS maps and the definitive map shows a footpath going through Rodger's Wood and stopping. Where it stops on the map the footpath continues, it turns and heads north before joining up after about 600metres with another footpath. There are official footpath markers along this route identical to those used elsewhere locally. I thought maybe a permissive path, but there are no notices up advising that.
As a regular walker, I found this video fascinating. Such dead-end rights of way do sadly exist all over the UK. I was pleased to see you continue over the barbed wire fence, which we shouldn't have to do.
I was walking the White Horse Trail a few years ago in a group and we encountered an unofficial closure and diversion north of Bratton Camp. I reported this to the council - Wiltshire CC are in the minority, from my experience, as they don't keep in touch or update you beyond receiving the initial report.
I've no idea whether that issue has been resolved in the six years since... By comparison, I've found some of the councils around Somerset to be more responsive and communicative to PROW issues.
There's also an argument that you could've rightly followed the line of the way across that earlier field where the path had not been reinstated after ploughing (they're supposed to do it within two weeks).
I do enjoy your videos. Thanks for all that you do and all the best.
I stumbled upon your channel by accident but so glad i did, please keep up the good work. I've recently retired and taken up walking in my local area and have found a few paths blocked. I've reported this to the local council who have not even acknowledged receipt of the email. Can anyone recommend what are the best and most up-to-date map's to use?
On the map of your folly quest, there is something marked as 'Two Graves'. I'd have had a go at that, myself. Follies are often ephemeral - built quickly, cheaply (Beckford's terrifyingly expensive, and shoddy Fonthill Abbey being the exception), and very often badly, they don't last - although the piles of rubble left behind are often more attractive than the building they were. Lovely video, and I tend not to see landowners' 'F**k Off, Plebs' signs, when put on open rights of way. I do see the M.O.D. ones though - the thought of stepping on a mine, being run over by a tank, or being hit with a 105mm shell, does concentrate your attention wonderfully.
One of the many things I admired about the UK, is the ability for people to walk where they’re going and enjoy nature without having to drive for miles to reach it first like in the states
Sunken paths were also known as Hollow Ways, including Holloway in N London.
I always carry a multi-tool with secateurs, a saw, and wire cutters for removing obstacles to maintain footpaths. If wire fences can be removed without damaging then I do, but I have snipped ones blocking legal rights of way before. Wouldn't necessarily recommend others do the same, could be construed as property damage, but I got fed up with landowners deliberately impeding public rights of way.
Very interesting effort. Thank you both and Betty.
Far too many landowners get away with the illegal blocking of legally recorded public rights of way by either threatening (illegal) signs or placing various obstructions across the line of the right of way. Another tactic is to "forget" to have the right of way recorded on the OS maps - while not illegal this is a very effective way of stopping people using that right of way. And if they manage to deter use for enough years then they can apply to a court to have the right of way extinguished.
I've tried to follow a few footpaths in the forest of Dean, with a very low success rate. Many paths with stiles and signposts from the road end at the first field boundary with no exit from the field on the path. Also the only place in the UK where I have seen hedgerows still being grubbed up.
Great video. There are so many instances of signs being take down or maps not being updated.
I have huge admiration for your enthusiasm in presenting the history of the landscape and encouraging people discover it for themselves. I am puzzled at how when the railways were closed by Beeching in the 1960’s, farmers seemed to think “now we’ll have them”. Were they not in public ownership? The Northampton to Bedford line has only one or two small sections that can be walked, and a beautiful bridge at Olney that you could walk under was filled in with soild and rubble. Presumably by a farmer with no consultation. It makes me feel animosity towards all farmers.
I’ve been struggling with bridle ways around my area. Lots of farms have put in locked gates or fences to climb over (no use when you have a large dog you can’t carry). Some have been left to become overgrown, some have had housing developments put in and the path blocked off, MoD have blocked a few ancient pathways, and others have moved and you have to hunt through hedgerows to find a spot to cross. Council aren’t interested, they seem to encourage it so land can be used for housing. An ancient woodland has recently been cut down and two footpaths are now blocked all for 5 detached luxury homes.
Reminded of this, seeing all the non-accessible paths/land.....
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.
I remember going on holiday on the Dorset/Devon border a few years back and going on walks with the family and solo cross country runs using the O/S app and found so many blocked or non-existent paths. It was clear it was farmers and residents responsible. I was just amazed that the locals to the village just let this happen. There were lots of dog walkers, I can only assume they were the lazy, unadventurous types as I was not going far of the nearby routes. Very sad on many levels 😢
Locally we have a footpath bisected by a motorway... quite a long way round if you didn't notice (at least one side is quite popular with dog walkers)
And when I did a bit of rambling a few years back i did encounter a couple of paths that had been "closed" with barbed wire... most of them had a fence post loose or something thrown on top to lower it down (as obviously I wasn't the first to encounter it)
You make great videos - photographs, maps and all location references included. You must have great patience, not to mention skill, with your editing! Best wishes from the middle of Yorkshire. 😃
Edit: the sunken path is superb. My mum was a historian, and she explained to me years ago that there is a way of getting an (albeit general) idea of how old these paths are by analysing depth and number of flora species - or something like that. I can't recall the exact formula, but it must be out there somewhere! The path you show may well be a very ancient route indeed...
Great video highlighting a problem for walkers all over the country. Sunken paths are a lovely find. Do you ever get challenged on a blocked footpath?
on two lines I’ve travelled on special trains on a weekend and the local farmer had blocked the train line with a wire fence to allow livestock to graze on railway land during the weekend and did not expect the special train. The first time the rail motor went straight through the fence and the second fence the train stopped and the fence was unhooked.
On the other occasion the farmer had just let a whole lot of cattle onto the tracks on the weekend to graze on railway property on the weekend.
These were not mainlines, but were branch lines.
I think the train drivers know where this happens and look out for them.
great video as always Paul and Rebecca , really well done and thank you both 😊
Why do OS follow the landowner's wishes and changes, and update the path to become shortened?
Three points. I was able to see where you went on GOOGLE MAPS which was heaps of fun. I will probably never come your way in real life (I live in Australia), so it was nice to see what a part of your world is like.
Secondly I grew up on a farm in Australia that officially had a bit of road in it. The area was in a paddock, so it was gated off, but even today it can show as a road on some maps. For at least a while we had to pay the local council a fee to use the privately. This always amused me because we actually saved the council money as they would have to maintaied a road the no one else would ever use.
Finally, I can see both sides of the the blockage of these old bridal lanes. As a person who loves history and walking, I love the idea that there are these ancient rights of way and I do feel they need to be preserved. However, keeping a route open through a property just so someone, one day, will walk down it, would be a financial and logistical pain in the neck. So I do understand the temptation to stop maintaining a walk and even put fences across.
Thanks for your videos
We have a couple of footpaths over our land, marked on old OS maps. We try to keep them open, but no one has used them for years. Right to roam is very important, but people have to use the paths!!
Whereabouts?
No they don’t, the footpaths are a public right of way used or not - in any case how do you know they are not used, are there looking at them 24hrs a day. Tell us where it is and we will visit to use them.
I have one - once it was barely used but I am glad to say it gets kept open by a steady footfall. It is also a dead end - once crossing two big estates. One kept it off their definitive map.
Just looked at what you have said here again. If they are are marked on old OS maps but not the current ones then it is perhaps not surprising that they are little used. Thank you for keeping them open but could you please advise your Local Authority to consider adding them to the Definitive Map or, the very least, ask for them to be added as a permissive path?
After moving to village on Lleyn Peninsula, N Wales, tried the footpaths, but kept finding they just stopped at farms, and farmer would insist there was no path through. Met with council RoW officer who said when def map produced in 60's, they drew the paths up to farms, and carried on after them but because not technically through the farmyard, the farmers figured this out and so can't get through or past.. Although signposted from road, hardly any paths actually go anywhere. (Bottwnog area).
Another nice video today. Shame the landowners block your pathway. Hopefully, this stop in the future. Good to see you both again. Cheers mates!❤❤😊😊
Well done guys, I tend to just push through too if I am following a public right of way that has been illegally blocked. I am aware of one path that disappears locally that leads to an area of access land that is locked on all 4 sides. I keep fairly quiet about it as its unspoilt and I use it as my own little woodland. Never see anybody there.
Maybe some wirecutters should go in the rucksack along with the flask and waterproofs!
I actually walk down one of these paths with my dog regually and it is the oposite, it goes further than the difinative map and ends with a style into a field.
You can even see where the path used to go as it was I belive pre war and had an airfield built over it so it stops one side and re starts the other. I have never tried getting to the other side however
Rich entitled privileged landowners taking away our rights……. Not just right to walk on footpaths it seems……
excellent information .... humorous.....one excellent video ......my thanks to paul & Rebecca 😃👍👍
This is an issue on the paths around Warminster too, found several routes over the years either turned into unmarked fields or blocked off by barbed wire. Sadly what is shown on the OS maps is often not what you find on the ground.
we get the same issues with the 4x4 club. we often meet blockages, its good you are documenting use of these row. land owners block then apply for a stopping up order under the pretence they are no longer used.
There are many RoW's in Cornwall that come to a dead-end! On closer inspection of an OS map, it's quite often the case that these old routes terminate at a parish boundary. Also, many bridleways come to an abrupt end, but continue as a footpath only!
Yep that's definitely the case here too.
@@pwhitewick Enjoy your videos. Keep up the great work👍
I and my last wife used to go for Sunday drives back in the 1990's and I loved finding sunken roads with tunnels through the foliage I remember one on an B road outside Buxton(of the spa fame)was particularly heart stiring in spring-summer We Brits are truly blessed in our countryside But it needs like our liberties to be succoured in our time
There's one in Barwell, Leicestershire that ends at the Borough Boundary with Blaby.
Apparently footpaths were drawn up by individual Parishes shortly after WW2 to formalise them onto the definitive map and there were..."disagreements"!
Similar problems to what you have shown here is exactly why the Railway Ramblers Group have fought enforced closures of parts of old railway lines with infilled bridges being a good (bad) example.
I am watching you from Norway, and appreciate your extremely vital work.
As I see it, the majority of the western world have culturally changed massively, and the idea of “private property” is indoctrinated and reiterated as some truth of law and rights. It’s truly sad.
Freedom of movements is a human right older than society. Being a member of, or approved visitor of a country is a grant of free movements within said country. Such rights goes back all the way to any makings and establishments of countries or kingdoms. So, we are here in the realms of legalities going back thousands of years.
In Norway we can quite freely walk around anywhere. It’s divided in four bits; “private”, in-field, out-field and the rest. Private is typically gardens, in-fields are those used by farmers to grow something on, out-fields are those used to have animals on during summertime. Only the private and in-fields shall be avoided. In addition there is a 100 meter zone inland of coast having some openings for movements.
I find it troublesome seeing “guards” and “security” in Britain quite unable to speak properly, but still proclaims some area to be private. Like the ownership is a valid restriction on movements, spouting “dis da private”, not at all familiar with the history and developments of laws and regulations.
Worst as I see it, is not those farmers trying to steal the free movements parts of their property, but rather the councils agreeing to roofing streets when a multi property owner asks to do so. Effectively they then engage sickurity and claim “private property”-stupidity on public property.
Anyways, what you do is very important, as in principle every western and European country is under attack of “private sickness” where historical rights tells a different story.
Keep up your good work!
Looking forward to the "digital transformation" where the privatisation of access and movement might reach new levels and you will have to buy/rent temporally limited digital licenses or you got to fulfil certain conditions (e.g. based on your scoring) to go to and stay at certain places. New technology means new ways of exploitation for profit afterall.
Great post and input E B.
Looking forward to getting back to "the good old days" - namely 1066 when Billy the Real Illegitimate said "It's all mine and you peasants can like it or lump it!" Or words to that avail! 🙄😱😉
@@eb4661 "In 1066 there was quite a bit of history happening - typically kingdoms and vikings finding solutions to disagreements."
You're not kiddin' Pardner! There was so much "finding solutions to disagreements" going on around then that the blood and bone fertilizer added to the European countryside kept the land fertile for years afterwards! 🙄😵💫
It's a pity that we can't persuade our politicians to similarly get around to "finding solutions to disagreements" today. (Amongst themselves that is - leaving us peasants right out of it!) 😉
@@theoztreecrasher2647 The current system is called neofeudalism for a reason.
Quite often find this (Slad Valley a few weeks ago was awful). Couple of years ago had a meeting with a Local Highways Mgr regards a local footpath which was on the Definitive Map. Council Mgr claimed to know nothing regards the existence of such a thing called the Definitive Map. Sometimes you know when your up against it. Good film, thanks.
Ouch
Thanks team, another great video presentation. BTW, any idea who is in, "The Three Graves ", in Kingston-Wood?
Hi Paul & Becky, I love your videos I no longer longer live in the UK but I have learnt that walks and bridel ways use them or lose them. Keep up the good work
loads of pathways are signposted Private Property, when they're not. Saw a lot in the New Forest when I used to walk there.
I live adjacent to a National Park (South Downs), yet within the park we have named footpaths (Stauton Way) on dangerous roads, that could easily be bypassed. But, also footpaths that don’t actually exist on the ground (near Stansted House, West Sussex). Then there are paths/roads that are on the statuary map as rights-of-way, but are not shown on OS Maps?
You also find woods that are technically open to the public but not accessible legally by the public. The Woodland Trust who seem to manage most of these anomalies get awful squirrely when asked about this.