Author Topic: Xzones or Black Holes on our maps?  (Read 33085 times)

DevonDave

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Re: Xzones or Black Holes on our maps?
« Reply #90 on: 12:55:22, 13/05/17 »
I never knew that the OS used to produce maps to a scale of 25 inches to a mile.  That is a massive scale that must have allowed a tremendous amount of detail.  I used to work in the house-building industry and it was part of my job to carry out site surveys to be used in the planning process.  Like you I remember going along to our local OS agent and purchasing maps, but these were the 6 inches to a mile scale. 
I wonder if anyone remembers the old 2.5 inch to a mile maps that were the forerunner of today's 1:25,000 scale maps.  They covered a much smaller area than today's maps.  I still have the ones covering Dartmoor, and it was necessary to have about eight maps covering the National Park, an area that is now covered on just one map.

barewirewalker

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Re: Xzones or Black Holes on our maps?
« Reply #91 on: 09:18:11, 14/05/17 »
I cannot remember the actual scale, nearly 50 years since I handled one. I only quote the farmer as it has bought back memories I have found hard to have corroborated by other sources. The detail was great, every field had its acreage printed in the middle to 2 or 3 decimal points. A 20 -30 acre field could be measured with a six inch rule, though I cannot remember now what scale I used. It was accurate enough to be able to work out single passes of a corn drill and use a slide rule to check the application rates of seed drills.
It was some years ago that I posted on a topic, that it is a shame the OS do not print the locations of gates and field access points on explorer maps. I have been using Google Earth for a number of years now to identify these access points. A small cross might be useful sign to let one know where to get through a field boundary. This I was told would be too difficult for the OS, I did not pursue it at the time, but I knew these details were on these old scale maps. It is the reason why I look closely into overgrown hedges to see if their is an old gate or stile hidden, when a path has been obliterated, surprising what detail there still is littered around the countryside.



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barewirewalker

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Re: Xzones or Black Holes on our maps?
« Reply #92 on: 10:17:05, 31/05/17 »



Last week I walked nearly the whole way between Haughton and Poynton. Not along the route of the old lostway, this was covered with crops but the grey dotted line is a very walkable farm track, running parallel to Poynton Springs and when I came to the end of this I turned right then left along a field margin until I came to a boundary hedge. I believe I walked this way through two holdings and reached the boundary of a third. This would have given me only one field to cross to reach the lane, that would join to the right of way leading to the bridge. Had the Ministry of Defence done their job properly when finished with the airfield at High Ercall this would be the only lost way to recover to create a 20 mile near continuous walk of pure countryside directly across Shropshire from East to West.
Given that a similar route is blocked between Wellington and Shrewsbury by a similar situation, it throws into light the propaganda of the CLA that has persuaded farmers and landowners that they should defend their property from the risk of creating Rights of Way.
As far as I can tell it would need 4 farmers to see the value of a continuous way over their farms to create this long distance way across Shropshire. I call them farmers because the are all working farmers, who have bought there land within 2 generations. Three of the farms are owned by families related to each other. Had the pressure groups behind the agricultural industry put more effort into trying to understand how the access network can benefit the rural economy, I could see this particular example of a lost way healing itself without the need for outside intervention.
BWW
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barewirewalker

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Re: Xzones or Black Holes on our maps?
« Reply #93 on: 09:53:49, 22/06/17 »


Given that a similar route is blocked between Wellington and Shrewsbury by a similar situation, it throws into light the propaganda of the CLA that has persuaded farmers and landowners that they should defend their property from the risk of creating Rights of Way.
There is a 1150 acre area immediately west of the town of Wellington, Shropshire, which blocks access to the countryside very noticably from the transport hubs of this town. It would appear that a large proportion of the land without access is in the ownership of one person.



Is this the way for a leading landowner to set an example? Has he used one of the common anomalies that beset the Definitive Map to his own advantage quite legaly, as the law on access is, but is it a good moral position? And does it add to the suspicion that a national lobby group produced a national policy on access without fully researching facts and evidence that was within the knowledge of their own membership.



I came across this anomaly about 4 years ago, a member of this forum was doing a cross England walk, a Coast 2 Coast from The Wash to the Welsh coast Barmouth or Harlech. He asked my advice as I had done a couple of X Wales routes starting from Shrewsbury and this was where his next stage of his route was. On reflecting his walk so far from the East, I wondered how he had made the Wellington to Shrewsbury connection. There are some good lengths of cross country footpaths, but they are not linked, though older maps seem to show a common purpose for these routes.  Sections left off the Definitive Map that is shown up by that 'Snapshot in Time' created by the Ordnance Survey from the mid 1800's to the 1940's seem to tell a more complete story of how country people traveled on foot to these towns.
The anomaly at the Wellington end of the route is a right of way that ends at a white lane. As the white lane is the back drive to a large house, the anomaly is the lack of continuity of the way. The landowner, who I met recently states that the RoW was a path for servants to reach the hall from the town, but was a right of way necessary over his own land and this contrary to the intention of the 1949 act, which was to create access to the countryside for all.
Is this reason a convenient excuse to justify the lack of the right of access along the back drive? But was the drive the real part of the route. The back drive leads to a village, Wrockwardine, a place where there was a population with a need to access the commercial heart of Wellington as much as the servants from Orleton Hall.



Section of OS map 25 inches/mile taken from National Library of Scotland


 The older maps show a more direct route from Wrockwardine (highlighted in red), which would seem to indicate that the section of right of way is in fact the final part of a much longer route.
Today the town center is the location of the railway and bus station key services in economic structure of access, yet the landowner in the center of an area short on access has no responsibility to evaluate his position and the effect his convenience has on the surrounding community. A closer look at the old maps shows that the landowners of the 1800's took their duty in this regard more seriously as a way appears to be carefully crafted to avoid private areas of the house (servants and all) and links the way through in a straight line to the village. Was this way older than the house? The 1880 OS maps gives us a very detailed snapshot of time into our history,  but this way continued through to the 1900 edition, would the later editions show that they the use of this way continued up to the 1940's and immediately prior to the formation of the Definitive Map? Perhaps only the landowner has the maps that would corroborate this and would that information be forthcoming.
The reason why this first step out of the town of Wellington could be of benefit is a potential cross country route all the way to Shrewsbury avoiding the major highways developments that have become the traffic links between the two towns, using long lengths of footpaths, which have made it onto the Definitive Map of Shropshire. What this example highlights is that there is a zero requirement on the occupiers of our countryside to be aware of how their occupation affects the surrounding community and raises the question; Is their husbandry of our countryside as fair and tolerant as the example shown by the history shown on this map.


During my conversation with this landowner, he told me that he was a member of the Telford Local Access Forum and this footpath was no interest to the Shropshire Access Forum. It seems to me that a lack of knowledge of the importance of long distance routes to the tourism economy is a serious deficiency in a member of so responsible a civic body, it is this total lack of understanding of continuity of way that stands out in the CLA's policy document on access.
BWW
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barewirewalker

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Re: Xzones or Black Holes on our maps?
« Reply #94 on: 13:55:46, 06/07/17 »
The commercial occupiers of our countryside make a great distinction that the need for access has changed to leisure activities from a more important requirement of travel, when walking was the main mode of transport for the many. How much of this attitude has been fostered by the organization, who likes to call 'freeholders' of land as landowners, to the disadvantage of property owners fully benefiting in the growth of the leisure industry.
The pedestrian traveler, who originally marked out those routes in our countryside, which were captured by the OS surveys pre-1949, needed to go into towns, whereas the main purpose of the leisure walker today is the reverse. Does this make those routes of yesteryear obsolete?
Harry Cotterell as Vice President of the CLA wrote;
“Our members know their own rights of way better than anyone else, they know which ones work and which ones do not.”
But the owner of Orleton has interpreted the reason for the footpath that appears join his house to the town of Wellington in a way that suits his wish to deny access rather than to allow it. This would fall into the category of some footpaths also mentioned by Harry Cotterell in the same article;
“We would have to go out of way to show how many pointless paths there are around the country and, perhaps, to demonstrate sensible alternatives which provide more and better access for everybody.”

If we look at the potential of the overall route, it would seem to offer more.


One reason why, I think, the old network is important is that it provides a framework that could, if allowed to evolve, be fashioned into an asset serving the leisure industry to the advantage of many more than the individual freeholders of large areas of agricultural land. It would be a shame that those producers, who have worked hard to pay for their acres, should have to be reminded that their customers have a choice, where to buy the produce they provide. Should it be jeopardized by a 'landowner', who according to articles on the internet, inherited this estate from a father, who was given the house and 2000 acres by the Earl of Powys because he had married his favourite niece?


Since I have been posting on this forum I have read many posts about members wishing to or actually walking across Shropshire, if the county were truly hospitable you would think that this could be achieved by walking through some of the best countryside and have routes, which avoid those roads that carry the most of the counties traffic. If this is not so then surely it should be an aim for those looking to develop the counties access network.


Nearly all, who have posted here seem to be drawn to the part of the Severn Way between Telford and Shrewsbury, to cross this part of the county, resulting in a 4.5 mile road walk. It would appear that 100 years ago people walked into Wellington (now part of Telford) from 5-7 miles away and also did similarly walking to Shrewsbury. The route that appears to enter Wellington through the Orleton Estate actually seems to source from an area that also gathers tributaries, which focus on one of the historic ferries over the river Severn, to access Shrewsbury. Now a new road has been the reason for new bridges, are these reasons for the access network to bend and conform to changing times?


There is also a new feature, which falls into the path of a direct route between the two towns. Part of a quarry near Overley was used for landfill, this has resulted with a new high point. One of the finest features of the new A5 is the spectacular scene of the plain of the River Severn against the backdrop of the distance hills, a panorama stretching from the South Shropshire Hills and Welsh Mountains all the way to the Clywyddians, as a car driver breasts the bank by Overley, should not this view be thought a valuable asset to be part of the improvements to the experience of walking through this county. Not very likely as the owner of the Orleton Estate thinks many people coming from the town onto his land are a potential danger to children on his estate and as this man is the President of the Shropshire branch of the CLA there would seem to be little hope for Harry Cotterell's suggestions to bear fruit, not that those thoughts showed at all in the official CLA policy on access, published during his Presidency.


Whilst our local authorities furnish and protect little used rights of way, which the CLA pressures for their termination, it may be in the knowledge of the CLA's members(with their 25in per mile OS maps)  how to bring back those little used footpaths into a full and useful participation of the leisure industries contribution to the rural economy.
 
But then the 'Corruption of the Definitive Map' has always been a subject of denial and especially by the heirs of the main perpetrators.




In the above map the length of Severn Way on hard road is highlighted in red, the Orleton lostway is highlighted in purple and lengths of cross country footpaths highlighted in green, which sadly appear to have little use relative to their charm, nearly equal the length of roadway walked on the Severn Way. Is this one landowner contributing to a waste of public money used to furnish and protect these Rights of Way?
Bus and Rail stations are also highlighted, just one of the ways our leisure activities link into the commercial heart of the countries economy. 

« Last Edit: 14:11:40, 06/07/17 by barewirewalker »
BWW
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barewirewalker

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Re: Xzones or Black Holes on our maps?
« Reply #95 on: 13:19:50, 07/07/17 »
Sadly all the images have gone, Photo Bucket emailed me this morning to say I appeared to be using 3rd party hosting, which is part of the service I thought I had signed up for, and tell me I now have to pay £310 to continue. This is too much to pay, so I suppose I will have to watch their little dial to click down, which is no doubt their little bit of extra pressure to try to make me cough up. May be some companies who have been using other peoples images for commercial purposes may do this, but I have been following up some interesting research first triggered off by being verbally abused by a landowner, who looked very much like a farmer in outward appearance, but judging by his splenetic outburst his brain was infected with ideas from the 18th and 19th century.


Fortunately I copied the entire pages up to yesterday, I have been logging the hits on this topic and they seemed unusually high, is bott activity or interest from silent readers. Some PM's I have received suggests a few with a serious interest in out access network have been following on a regular basis. If anyone has need of the illustrated version of this topic please contact me with a PM, in the meantime I will have to try to find another hosting site, which allows third party hosting and does not wipe out the links after a period of time.



BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: Xzones or Black Holes on our maps?
« Reply #96 on: 11:48:06, 20/09/17 »
The explicit examples that this topic has collected over it's term have lost their impact with the loss of graphics thanks to the antics of Pbucket. One of the reasons I started it was linked to a question I raised on another forum, now defunct; that forum was hosted by the publishers of Country Walking Magazine and Trail.


The question I asked was "Are Lostways Important?", I was told by one of the few on that site that they were not worth the effort!! This and the fact that the editorial interest on that site being practically zero on this issue, though not surprising to me, was a disappointment.


One of the titbits of info I picked up along the way, is the estimation of English Nature or was it Natural England that 10% of our footpath network was not put on the Definitive Map.


This may stir the interest of some, but the examples I have unearthed from my contributions to this topic and some further ones that I may have posted, had Pbucket not interrupted my flow, show an interesting bit of fact that should be developed and that is the;


Importance of Continuity of Way.

Say a footpath goes from A to B and another goes from C to D. If there is a lostway that is B to C, the distance of AD, is far greater and probably more effective.
This was not studied in Natural England's pilot projects on Lostways, yet most of the examples of lostways I have found have this as a common denominator.


So how much contribution could lostways make to our access network?

The Area around Garnons, the home of the landowner, who was president of the Country Landowner's Association when they published their current policy on access, is a vast area of Herefordshire of several civil parish councils without rights of way. It lies across the sightline from the Malvern Hills to the Black Mountains, which the River Wye flows across. This area of no RoW's, many thousand of acres of our countryside, that is an exclusion zone, blocks any non highway approach to the only non urban bridge over that river in 20 miles.


Do Lostways connect valuable infrastructure?

The lostway that could produce continuity of way through the Orleton Estate west of Wellington, Shropshire thus joining the important transport hubs of these two towns, is occupied by an office holder of the Country Landowner's Association, who is a member of Telford Local Access Forum, a body set up to advise the council on matters related to access.


Does the loss of continuity of way lessen the economic value of the access network, figures published on the revenue that goes into local rural economies suggest that recognized ways can earn £1000s per mile per annum, perhaps £10,000s even £100,000s, multiplied by the length of the way.



Are there stories tied up in these lost way that could make good journalism, that could interest the readers of magazines targeted at people who want to get out into our countryside? Other that targeting those, who want a new anorak to watch Bear Grylls or Julia Bradbury on the TV.


On Monday, thanks to another forum (adalard) member I explored a fascinating feature that could really improve the quality of access in the area I walked.


Lostway were raised on the form fairly recently, though I was disappointed that the OP seemed to think that it would only interest those with historical interest. Lost ways once led to places, is there a current interest on the way and the destination the way led too? That is the question.





BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

 

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