A big thankyou to Ninthace and Eyelet for there interest in this topic. Their contributions have been most stimulating. The anomaly of the slipped or misplaced RoW, seems to to be more an effect of historical use and perhaps deserves a name such as the '
Offset Pavement Effect'.
Yesterday we put this very act of trespass into practice, we were walking with friends, who prefer to walk in shoes, nearly all the route was dry but after walking across an open field and crossing by a stile into a section of green lane, we were confronted with a sunken section of the lane flooded right across the lane. Fortunately due to many years of neglectful hedge management, the recently machine mutilated hedge was so porous with weed species that we were able to climb up the the field margin adjacent and continue our walk with dry feet.
I have noticed another example of the '
Offset Pavement Effect'. Probably so minimal that it would not have seemed relevant had I not been giving this idea some thought.
The footpath that starts by the telephone kiosk runs parallel the lane, starting near St Jame's Well. Is this merely a shortcut from the farms at Willstone to Cardington or is the continuation by grey lane designated an ORPA significant? If you care to copy and past these coordinates 52.55218, -2.73651 into Google Earth there is a rather damp picture of the lane in Street View.
Anyone wanting to
explore further click here it is possible trace back, the end of the track continues along a number of footpaths and bridleways towards a market town.
So which was the greater destination the village pub or the market town, which is on one of the major roads for coaching traffic linking the county town of Shropshire to that of Herefordshire?
Is it coincidence that this area of between the Hope Bowdler Hills and Caradoc under Battle Rock is where I first read, on a county council information board of the connection between Scot's Pines and Drover's ways? Yet it was a Rights of way officer who told me that this anomaly is due to the inaccurate reconciliation between old and new mapping.