Thanks for those contributions, there is some interesting content there, which I am taking note. It is good that a few walkers are aware of what is going on.
It has taken a few years, since doing this walk, for me to realise that I had learnt quite bit from it. At the time I was physically stronger and was looking for longer routes, so perhaps the value of the features within this walk did not fully impact. The location is close to the town of Ellesmere, with an economy based on it's connection with agriculture, Fulward's milking machines were made there and the factory building were there till quite recently. As times change tourism is becoming far more important. Much of the access is based on the old framework of 18th-19th century landownership, I think that most of those estates have been broken up, but it leaves many of the meres tucked away in pockets of 'private land', where the lie of the land hides them.
For this reason the local economy is probably not getting the full benefit of these assets of nature, yet as tax payers we are putting quite a lot of money into that area under the guise of conservation.
Publishing, as VGH points out the pitfalls, could be the way to draw attention to the quality of these assets. But it must done with a subtle touch, as the author is likely to get clobbered.
Personally I think that the old fashion notions of Freehold, that encourages the attitude of 'landownership', costs the country a lot in lost resources. Are these little clues the way to prove this theory?
Andies, we should all appreciate the work you do in investigating a lostway, perhaps if we all looked at the terrain, we are allowed to walk, we might better answer the CLA's claims that lostway hunting is a waste of time and public money. When I include a map of this particular walk there will be a short length of new RoW on it, not connected to my route, but created by a local walker, who campaigned and brought it to a Public Inquiry. The land owner fought it tooth and nail. Perhaps if the CLA had supported the idea that public access brings revenue into the rural economy, public money might have been saved, instead of being wasted.