Author Topic: Lostways and LDPs  (Read 7069 times)

barewirewalker

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Lostways and LDPs
« on: 10:13:04, 25/10/19 »
How many use the marvelous Library of Scotland's website . After a bit of a lay off because I had down loaded and re-constructed actual sheets of areas of interest I returned to it and got onto the seamless 1888-1913 series. It really is an  interesting way to spend a few spare hours. 


Around the same time I spotted a section of MacMillan way on Streetmap, I googled it and found that the way is was made up of sections of LDP, which have been cobbled together to make a long distance walk across the country from the Welsh coast to the Wash. Now when Arthur Wainwright did his coast to coast he did not stick religiously to rights of way, you cannot walk his original route because it was done pre - the  definitive map and maybe those non rights of way he walked were there on the ground but failed to get onto the DM.


I use GIMP to trace old ways of the old maps and transfer them to current mapping and have made some interesting discoveries. My days of being an energetic long distance walker are receding but my mind still seems to take an interest in these projects, are there others who might find this as fascinating as I do.




BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

harland

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #1 on: 11:13:07, 25/10/19 »
Whilst a bit later than the one you have linked to whilst looking at lots of things that I inherited (put in the loft) earlier this year I found lots of old:-
"Ordnance Survey Maps - Military Edition - War Revision 1940 - Not to be published. Fourth Edition Showing Land Aerodromes, Landing Grounds, Water Aerodromes, Seaplane Mooring Areas or Anchorage, Airship Bases". 
I think that they were a pack of maps for the RAF as they were enclosed in a canvas cover. I seem to recall my father buying them in an old services surplus store in London c.60 years ago.
Whilst the one that covers where I live is interesting I must admit that the others are only of fleeting interest, I must get round to selling them on Ebay or somewhere else as my kids won't be interested!      

vghikers

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #2 on: 12:27:04, 25/10/19 »
I've not heard of that site, quite impressive. I like the transparency control that enables us to fade the old maps onto satellite imagery to compare them with current land usage and mapping.

For interest it would be nice to obtain those old GB maps as .qc3 files for use with Memory-Map. I notice MM have a selection of these old maps on their site, they will be .qc3 files but the only choices are 1600 sqkm or 16000 sqkm - they don't mention a complete map, not that I'm interested enough to pay that much, especially for out-of-copyright maps.
Quote
I use GIMP to trace old ways of the old maps and transfer them to current mapping...
How do you determine the "old ways" on historical maps?.

barewirewalker

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #3 on: 18:28:31, 25/10/19 »
For interest it would be nice to obtain those old GB maps as .qc3 files for use with Memory-Map.
Now that would save a lot of work and would reveal at a stroke that the CLA have been basing their arguments on Lostways on false assumptions.
How do you determine the "old ways" on historical maps?.
First I have to make a copy of the old map either from downloads or screenshots. This I do in GIMP by assembling the sections of map saved, then trace the footpath or bridle road with the Paths Tool. Then you need a file of the new map as .jpg  or .png open that in GIMP and the path can be copied and pasted into the new map. It's scale need to be corrected with the scale tool, then it can be moved into the correct geography.
More than happy to share copies of maps I have already made.


The other way I have only just discovered is the paths can be saved by exporting to a folder as .svg files. Good way of quickly saving a number of tracings, if these are all as one .svg they can be scaled together. Though they will need to be moved by holding the shift key, another little discovery I have only just found out.


Harland; about the age of the OS survey. I have compared a lot of maps, those parishes that made a true contribution to the DM in following the spirit of the 1949 Act seem to have just used old pre-war maps. Most farmers, landowners and land agents were able to buy 25in to the mile sheets of OS and these usually had the footpaths and bridle roads of the older editions on them. It was the landowner influence through their representation on these civil bodies that chose leave off or not fill in the DM that has caused the anomalies and black holes in our access network.
The other cause was the War Department, they did not re-instate prewar rights of way, when land was returned to agricultural use. The WD land department was staffed by land agents trained at the posher colleges and had strong landowner affiliations, probably looking to get a few extra days free shooting invitations, by keeping the countryside free of the taint of public access.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #4 on: 11:50:17, 31/10/19 »
Reading old maps has given me a clue to some useful facts that can be inferred. These might be of interest to those who plan and theorize about long distance routes. OK I harp on about the CLA, but to build a case for the usefulness of LDP's, it is difficult not to point out the difficulties of barriers of no-mans land, and these are often the areas where lostways are present.
Continuity of Way is I think a recognizable trend and is often confirmed, when a destination is found. What if that destination redundant? Does it mean that the way serves no purpose?
Let me provide an example; A clear way to a flag/railway station on a disused line axed by Dr Beeching in the 1960's, perhaps the local authorities were still compiling the Definitive Map and a request stop to a line that is no longer in use at that point of time might seem reasonable to leave off as a right of way.

But it is not the only to this destination, another comes in from the other direction, so there is a continuity of way of the combined distances. Now if we see value in this continuity of way and it is directed towards a destination that has current interest, would in not be a lostway worthy of reinstatement. However these criteria are not allowable as that path will not have been used in recent times because it was not made right of way,

or that is the way I think the law works

Am I right or wrong?
 
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #5 on: 12:27:11, 03/11/19 »
How do you determine the "old ways" on historical maps?.
The tracing of a way on the old maps is only part of an 'all' that I have found to increasingly interesting.
When I first set out on this facet of map reading, learning graphics software was the prime motive. Slowly one level of understanding would merge into another, then every now and then a chance discovery would have common factors in other locations.
Gimp has bought out a new version and I had intended to produce some graphics to explain some of these ideas. So at the moment progress may be a bit slow whilst I download the new version, on top of which I have had some cardiac issues.

There are two terms I believe are important, I have used them for some time, but I am not sure if the underlying relevance has been explained properly;
Continuity of Way and Strength of Way.

To use these terms for a walker solely interested in walking a way for pleasure is meaningless but as part of a vocabulary of assessing the importance of a way sociologically I think they have relevance. To understand how the perception of the meaning of these terms differ to the occupier of the countryside and the user of access is fundamental to explaining anomalies between the old maps and new mapping we use to to bring our countryside to all.
To understand both the above terms it is necessary to presume a destination. So simply continuity of way is what it says, but it can be made up from lostways and rights of way. The greater the continuity of way the way becomes stronger and it's community use widens, so the strength of way can be likened to the flow of a river. The tributaries add to the ways importance.
The seamless map has made following some of these lines of thought easier. It was through a topic on this forum I learnt about this source of old maps on line. A black and white map cannot provides as much defined information as our coloured modern maps, but there are indicators. For those, who might be interested I hope to go on and show some examples.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

vghikers

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #6 on: 20:02:02, 03/11/19 »
Quote
First I have to make a copy of the old map either from downloads or screenshots. This I do in GIMP by assembling the sections of map saved, then trace the footpath or bridle road with the Paths Tool. Then you need a file of the new map as .jpg  or .png open that in GIMP and the path can be copied and pasted into the new map. It's scale need to be corrected with the scale tool, then it can be moved into the correct geography.

Years ago circa 2005 I vaguely remember exploring a similar technique but quickly abandoned it. It was far less messy and more direct to take a .png image of a UK map section and calibrate it in MM. It would then be a correctly georeferenced .qct file and work like any other map. The main problem was, and still is, obtaining a high quality image of a usefully large chunk of map. Actually I've forgotten a lot of that calibration stuff and probably lost my notes now.

Your discussion of lost ways is interesting but in the end, like many others I suspect, I'm left with a shrug and thinking "yes, but what can be done?".

jimbob

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #7 on: 20:07:37, 03/11/19 »
"yes, but what can be done?".
Well it seems that there are people going round the streets buying votes at this moment in time, just mention loudly, frequently and forcefully that we all want the Right to Roam enacted for All parts of the UK. If enough people do this then maybe, just maybe one of them will remember, and try to go down in history for that very thing.

Too little, too late, too bad......

barewirewalker

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #8 on: 08:43:27, 04/11/19 »
"yes, but what can be done?".
Sadly there is no quick fix IMO, but I am convinced that the CLA are running scared of their part in the 'Corruption of the Definitive Map', being exposed. Why our lobbyist have not played this card I do not know, probably the ace is in the detail and not enough of the rank and file even understand it.

2026 is the fulcrum point for Lostways, will the Media take an interest it? Only if there are good stories in the plenty. Detail and narrative will keep a good story running. So I keep digging. Every discussion yields food for thought.
Turning Lostways into Realways needs mapping, VGH is far more advanced than I could ever be and has my gratitude for supplying a valuable tool in this study.
JB wants to turn this study into a political campaign  ;) , and have me standing in the middle of a field with a placard. But if I were to find the holes in the hedges that could turn a few little used rights of way into useful LDPs. This might be the Munro's of Scotland's 2003 to England's chance of total access. What is the logical alternative to a right to roam? That would be a commitment by the occupiers of land to understand how their occupation affects the rest of the community.
Meanwhile I will hopefully post a few examples, just working on the graphics.


 



BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #9 on: 16:05:54, 04/11/19 »
newandold by
Barewirewalker
, on Flickr
On the old map the way is clearly marked as a footpath in three places. It crosses 3 holdings. All owner occupied but I think prewar there would have been an estate boundary crossed. The farmer at Haughton explains the way as access to Haughton Cottages, but the way clearly passes these now non existent cottages. The Chapel that was at Poynton is probably medieval, possibly connected to Haughmond Abbey (off map west of Haughton).
The bridge over the River Roden is clearly marked as footbridge on the 1880 survey, yet the bridge there now would seem of newer construction. I think everything about this lostway adds up to a route passing through Poynton and passing by Haughton. Even in the 19th century and earlier this would have crossed boundaries of ownership several times, yet the estate that that owned land at the Haughmond end had a codicil in there tenancy agreements that tenants were to take all care not to allow rights of way to be created (pre 1949). Is this a way that goes way back to the reformation?

A look at the map of the area will show how much this link would join up to other paths, it is a serious missing piece of the access network of Shropshire.


Now I walked, with permission of the Haughton owner/occupier the track, marked on the new map, as far as boundary hedge to the exact spot where the old path crossed. There was a weakness in the hedge, the field margins beyond lead back to a gate on the lane to Poynton where there is a gate exactly where the old path line is shown to join the lane.

The combined length of way using the field access tracks and the field margins is 1.5 miles.
« Last Edit: 08:54:08, 05/11/19 by barewirewalker »
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #10 on: 09:53:56, 05/11/19 »
Purely in the way we understand the logic of access, there seems to me an interesting conundrum in this example.

Here is a Lostway, it has a RoW at it's west end and important infrastructure, namely a footbridge that would logically be part of the social history of this way, close to it's eastern end. This does not provide the sort of legal proof that is required by a public inquiry as I understand it. How strong is the circumstantial evidence that this should be a right of way and should have been part of our footpath network.
Now should the economics be considered, if the bridge were to damaged, repair work would be at public expense, at the moment all it really serves is to allow the Shropshire Way to cross the River Roden by a road bridge 3/4 of a mile upstream, so that a mile of fairly busy road narrow road is part of that way, before recrossing the River.

It is possible to access the east side of the terrain following the river from the Shropshire Way and local walkers do this quite frequently. It would in fact make the SW a more attractive route, because the lip of the field margins overlook the wooded slope down to the River Roden. For a short local walk the footbridge allows the local walker to return to Roden but access to other than the highway is limited.
When we look further east the value of this footbridge can be better understood. That is to be continued............

Corridors of Counryside is a term I came across during my term on the SCC LAF, it is used for conservation and wildlife but I rather thought it a good term for a county to use when trying to market it's footpaths as an attractive part of a tourism portfolio.
Now I am taking a wild guess here, but I wrote that this way could be very ancient (even before the dissolution of monastries) but the construction of the footbridge not so old, it does have a bit age. Looking at the construction, it could be, just, wartime.
If we walk further east another Lostway spoils the continuity of way and also interrupts the social history this way could tell. Did American GI engineers step in and replace a crumbling medieval bridge, when they were stationed at Ercall Major Airfield training bomber squadrons during WW2. At a time that most local travel was on foot, food supplies needed collecting from the villages by cottagers with a river as a barrier. I suppose if we are never allowed to walk that way, few people will speculate.
And what of that bit of countryside and where will it lead...........................?
« Last Edit: 09:57:35, 05/11/19 by barewirewalker »
BWW
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barewirewalker

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #11 on: 08:54:08, 06/11/19 »
Now an interesting development in this way. I went down to Poynton footbridge yesterday to get some Photos, I thought some good images might be possible with autumn colours.

Don't ask me why I have'nt posted an image :crazy2: but I will. Now this interesting development;
Although this way existed in theory as a lostway, that lostway could not be walked because of a barrier in the form of a strong 'bullock hedge'. It is 3 years since I walked most of the way that could replace the old route and a bit over a year ago local gossip informed me that the Poynton farmer had sold the field the lostway starts at the east (Poynton). This is the field with the 'bullock hedge' and during this year potatoes have been planted on that field. As the new owner of the field, owns the field beyond, he has open a gap in the hedge to aid cultivation's and crop haulage.

Theoretically there is now a clearway from Lilleshall Abbey to Haughmond Abbey by a corridor of near of pure countryside. I think, as long as some other landowner has put up some barbed wire along the way.

One of the main beef's the landowner has against rights of way, as I read their articles, is the exact course of the route is set in law. Now I believe that the 'purpose of the way' should be considered. To bring these two factors together, under the term Integrity of Way, the balance of quality of way due to terrain against purpose in joining destination is encompassed. Here we have a way that can be replaced to join destinations, though the actual course it takes is not important to the quality of way.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #12 on: 10:58:01, 09/11/19 »
Some success with Darktable and GIMP;
poynton from FB by Barewirewalker, on Flickr
This is the footbridge at Poynton and beyond is Poynton Manor Farm. The medieval gable end of a barn is the reason a chapel is marked on the OS map. The walls of the barn seem less ancient timber/brick. Was this an outlying part Haughmond Abbey? This would make sense of the way that links these two locations.
Today the path ends at the road, the Shropshire Way continues by turning right N.
Is this not an attractive view? Especially as part of a natural cross country way to reach Shrewsbury from Cannock, it is not a way I have found suggested in 15 years of lurking on walking forums. Its obvious merits a cross county way are not just masked by this 1.5 mile lostway, but also another. TBC.....


BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #13 on: 10:19:37, 14/11/19 »
Having studied Lostways for a few years now, using the analogy of a the course of a river is a line of thought that has helped me to recognize Strength of Way. Surely a footbridge over an unfordable river with road bridges about a mile upstream and down stream took some motivation to build.
The Right of Way leading directly to the bridge on the East bank, combine 3 sources of foot traffic, so how much pedestrian traffic are these ways directing towards the west? That is the direction of the County Town, Shrewsbury.
Two Villages or hamlets connect from East; Walton and High Ercall and as far as the Ordnance Survey map indicates, that is it. But an Airfield was built in WW2 to the east and before that was built there are footpaths that indicate footfall from much further away.


airfield_lostways
by Barewirewalker, on Flickr
I have overlaid these old ways onto a copy of the OS Explorer map as they were on the prewar map (in red). Also there is an other
old footpath from the Chestnuts to Crudgington Bridge shown. All the lostways due to airfield seem to add continuity of way to those paths that made it onto the Definitive Map and that continuity of way can be seen as possible, by using the hardway provided by the remains from the airfield.

I have walked it, it is a place with an unusual presence, the area is so suited to being an airfield that, when you are in the middle, you almost expect a B17 Flying Fortress to popup on the Horizon. It is a plateau, the sky seems start as the weed strewn tarmac merges with it.
I spoke to the Farmer at the Chestnuts, we found a family connection, he had mostly retired and described the old way down to the bridge at Crudgington as a shortcut to the Rail Station that was on the dismantled railway line. I think a rather defensive description in line with the landowner/Farmer editorial in relation to countryside access, The Chestnut and The Firs would have been two farm holdings and they would have taken milk to the station therefore the footfall to this path station would have come from further a field.
It is worth looking at the Continuity of Way offered by the Righteous Way going north east from here. Mrs BWW and I walked some years ago, some delightful walking along side the River Meese, one of those footpaths often unrecognised for it's quality of way by hill walkers because it is below the horizon. They come as a surprise to those walking in supposed flat land, when you suddenly find yourself down below the ground around.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: Lostways and LDPs
« Reply #14 on: 11:41:27, 16/11/19 »
H ercall_1 by Barewirewalker, on Flickr
There is away through, hard surfaces, now used as agricultural tracks, I walked it in March 2017, perhaps I should not have done so, but it gave me a sense of history of that area that was almost tangible. Till then I only knew of what I had been told about the war. As far as unrecognized ways go, it is not too difficult.
H ercall_2 by Barewirewalker, on Flickr
Well a bit of barewirewalking, but there are those glimpses of history;

H ercall_3 by Barewirewalker, on Flickr
Evidence that our forefathers worked here and left history that is not connected with the current occupiers of this place, it may seem flat and uninteresting to some but I felt and learnt more about the geography of my county by passing this way and felt a a little of the presence of the past.B17-H ercall by Barewirewalker, on Flickr
The integrity of the way is created by the points it joins up, the actual way history bequeathed us is no longer possible, now history has has added sensual and factual content to this section of way. This mile of potential footpath can add recognizable purpose to 15 to 20 miles of Rights of Way that are not being used for the purpose of walking across the county.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

 

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