Walking Forum
Main Boards => News and Articles => Topic started by: richardh1905 on 08:20:38, 11/02/20
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/feb/11/walkers-urged-to-help-save-historic-footpaths-before-2026-deadline
I get the feeling that we should all do our bit on this. I'll be studying the maps around Grange.
https://www.ramblers.org.uk/dontloseyourway
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Thanks, Richard. Good news article, and a great effort by the Ramblers - though at this moment their 'Join the search' link is timing out, probably overleaded.
I would like to see this thread pinned so that it is always visible on this site and doesn't become 'lost' among all those that follow it. Then it can come to the attention of all new members and serve as a reminder for the remainder.
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Off line currently so just asking for email address and they will let you know when back online. Hopefully lots of people trying to help. O0
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I would like to see this thread pinned so that it is always visible on this site and doesn't become 'lost' among all those that follow it. Then it can come to the attention of all new members and serve as a reminder for the remainder.
Good idea, but I have been trying to explain how 'lostways' can have a practical use in an effective access network for the 21st century, for over 10 years with little effect.
Have the Ramblers correctly identified what a lostway really is? We have since the Corruption of the Definitive Map a period of lost opportunity, where new ways should have responded to changing times and developing types of walking. They will have little effect until they can be related to real time.........
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Hmm .. got into the site this morning, but cannot register to submit the results of my first square.
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During my walk yesterday I saw two laminated notices fixed to a post at the start of a footpath across an arable field.
The top notice was in legal jargon but the lower one gave a clear explanation. My photo of it is attached below, it saves me typing a summary.
Is there a connection between this and the 2026 deadline?
(https://i.postimg.cc/T3knjMNm/PC-DSC01355.jpg)
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That is a bit of legalize that is a direct result of Sarah Slade, lawyer and landowner in Devon, who is the CLA's adviser on access. She started the campaign around 2010, with seminars and workshops for landowners, all part of the landowners drive to increase grass roots membership. With the loss of many hereditary peers in the House of Lords, the CLA realised that they could no longer rely on the Lords to block legislation that gave more freedom of the countryside. They had to expand their membership to smaller holders of land, stirring up anti-access sentiment was the best way to pinch membership fees of the NFU. They are now are probably using 'Statementing' as an insurance against the re-instatement of Lostways.
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Had a happy few hours discovering old paths in my area and reporting them. Found some good ones across former moorland which I reported and a few that were dead ends leading to a farm or manor but I didn't bother with them.
Does anyone know a way of recording which kilometre squares you have done so save wasting effort or missing squares? I started doing an expanding spiral but then I found lost ways that crossed more than one square and so I followed them. Now I have been hoist by my own petard.
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During my walk yesterday I saw two laminated notices fixed to a post at the start of a footpath across an arable field.
The top notice was in legal jargon but the lower one gave a clear explanation. My photo of it is attached below, it saves me typing a summary.
Is there a connection between this and the 2026 deadline?
(https://i.postimg.cc/T3knjMNm/PC-DSC01355.jpg)
How can you apply to the council not to recognise anymore prows?
Ruddy cheek.
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Some years ago, I named squares by the 6 figs of the map ref. I measured distance of footpaths per square, after some soul destroying hours of endevour I realized that I was wasting my time, this methodical method tells little of the nature of a way. It is the continuity of the way that is relevant and the ways value to a future network.
Only by finding the way and it's destinations, then realizing how it benefits the access network today and in the future, will they stand a chance of getting onto a definitive map. The register of claims will ensure that the claim to an old way can survive after 2026, it will still have to go through the legal process for reinstatement.
Seeing how the old ways interacted with the roads as they were then, often reveals that a so-called shortcut is actually a longer way with a different destination to which the road might seem to show.
If you have a path to a manor, then another leading on from the other side, this creates a throughway and what manner of folk were using them, the clergyman on his rounds, postman, midwives, knife sharpeners and tinsmiths let alone the labourers who would move from farm to farm looking for employment or drifting towards fairs.
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If you have a path to a manor, then another leading on from the other side, this creates a throughway and what manner of folk were using them, the clergyman on his rounds, postman, midwives, knife sharpeners and tinsmiths let alone the labourers who would move from farm to farm looking for employment or drifting towards fairs.
If there was a through way I recorded it. What I found were dead ends - looked like shortcuts once used to get from the road to t'big house. No point in reinstating them as they did not go anywhere. I found I lost track of where I was following old paths across the km squares.
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If there was a through way I recorded it. What I found were dead ends - looked like shortcuts once used to get from the road to t'big house. No point in reinstating them as they did not go anywhere. I found I lost track of where I was following old paths across the km squares.
I'm sure you do, I was not stressing this point for those, who regularly use maps and walk, so understand terrain. Often, when talking to a farmer, I hear a too simplified version of a footpaths purpose or, indeed, history. This is understandable if your read the farming press on access issues, but the stereotype and knee-jerk replies have focused my mind on a delving deeper.
Linking the type of rural population to a way at is often the means of seeing a true destination for a way, which can place it many miles beyond it's actual termination.
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Had a happy few hours discovering old paths in my area and reporting them. Found some good ones across former moorland which I reported and a few that were dead ends leading to a farm or manor but I didn't bother with them.
Does anyone know a way of recording which kilometre squares you have done so save wasting effort or missing squares? I started doing an expanding spiral but then I found lost ways that crossed more than one square and so I followed them. Now I have been hoist by my own petard.
I found the Ramblers website problematic a couple of days ago but I think it just couldn't deal with the number of users. All seems to be working OK now and I have completed thirty squares albeit most of these were in an area I have been researching lost ways in anyway. In order to keep a check of which squares I had completed I printed out an OS map of the area and marked them off thereon, as like you I couldn't see that the site offered a way of doing this.
How can you apply to the council not to recognise anymore prows?
Ruddy cheek.
I think this is just the standard section 31(6) wording where landowners can register with the council that they only recognise existing ROW and no others. That said this registering cannot override a claim for a lost way that pre-dates it. This system has existed I believe for many years, but I have seen a lot more of these recently. As BWW suggests I suspect the CLA, and indeed property agents/solicitors will promote this for their own interests. I have seen a few of these notices actually pinned up in recent years, and Suffolk's ROW Department website has a register of these going back many years, which is in itself a useful reference source. I believe they used to be for a ten year period but that they can now cover twenty years.
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How can you apply to the council not to recognise anymore prows?
Ruddy cheek.
Interesting comment.
I am fairly certain that a property owner has 'statemented' against a possible RoW where there is a lostway that would help to open up a 20 mile route E2W across Shropshire.
2 years ago I was picking up post from a house following a death in the family. This elderly relative got flyers from all the posh estate agents and one expensive brochure (the sort that becomes coffee table adornment in a certain types of household or waiting room) contained an article on the need to statement against possible RoWs, by a young newly qualified Estate Agent, trying to be up with the game.
Now I think that there is enough evidence recorded by the OS on maps to show that the Access Network has evolved without the express permission of landowners. Does this show that statementing is contrary to an earlier common law? The other rather interesting line of thought this comment raises is, "Should a landowner be allowed to statement in an area low in off highway access, should a landowner actually consider how the position of that property may affect safe cross country travel". The Scottish Land Reform Act 2003 in fact provides a very neat answer to this conundrum.
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I've got another grump with the site now. Having complained that there ought to be a way of telling which squares you have already done, it now greys them out and marks them as unavailable. That would be fine if I had actually finished the square. However, while I initially started checking both the historic OS and the Barts maps, I found the Barts was not telling me anything extra so I started ignoring it. Then I discovered what appeared to be a lost way on the historic OS which wasn't marked as an FP or a BW. Checking the Barts map showed an old lane which I recorded. The lane ran on into the next square and into the squares beyond that but they were all greyed out so I could not record the lost way. Now I want to go back and check my original work but I cannot access it any more. We need the means to unlock a square already recorded against the user.
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As a result of mentions on the forum, I registered and got to work on some available squares in my area. I agree with comments about the shortcomings of the system, but I've also enjoyed finding paths that I think would be worth (re)instating.
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Well one Richard for bringing this link to the forum's attention.
Thanks, Richard. Good news article, and a great effort by the Ramblers - though at this moment their 'Join the search' link is timing out, probably overleaded.
I would like to see this thread pinned so that it is always visible on this site and doesn't become 'lost' among all those that follow it. Then it can come to the attention of all new members and serve as a reminder for the remainder.
However, as suspected it is slipping down the page.
I have not yet joined in, sometimes later I will check how many of the lostways that have caught my interest over the years are on or not. I think the Ramblers approach is rather weak, it must be getting on for 10 years since the British Horse Societies campaign has been on the go, they even run seminars on the legal process of recovery of Lostways. The Lostways already registered so that they will stay alive for legal process in Shropshire are mostly done by BHS members, by the looks of them. The problem with the Rambler's approach it does not indicate how valuable the lostway could be if it is part of the access network.
I have just sent 2 letters to the Outdoors dept. of my county council on specific suggestions on how the access network could look if certain lostways were recognised. The first was on the agenda of the last GOSG meeting, but it only got a legalized reply excusing the Rights of way officers as far as their duties allowed them. The letter drew no discussion from the two stuffed shirt members, who are Ramblers. Perhaps my eviction from the forum by Chair in the form of a landowner is keeping them in line. However I do not rate their local knowledge and creative powers high enough to see the possibilities that these small links on a map, when joined up create a potentially exciting picture with many possibilities.
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I think the Ramblers are really using this as a way of generating data that can be used to argue the case against the 2026 deadline. It is clearly an enormous task to determine the scale of the potential lost ways. The use of volunteers may be less than perfect, as is initially only looking at two map sources, but it is something that can be used as a starting point.
The actual exercise of then looking at individual claims remains as before unless the process is changed and especially I would argue simplified.
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Sadly that is probably the case 20 years after the CRoW act that created 2026 and 12 years after the Lostway project died.
They are only asking for what I have being doing for the last 10 years, where ever I have suspected that the DM was corrupted, a reasonable assumption based on basic map reading, the cause pointed out to me by young Rights of Way Officer, before he got too far up the promotion ladder to have his lips buttoned.
Had they found a few really choice examples ten years ago and got national editorial for them, there might be real popular interest now. In 2012, when the CLA published a policy on Rights of Way, the Author and/or editor in chief could have been exposed for having a chunk of Offa's Dyke on his estate 10 miles off course of the Offa's Dyke Trail and living so close to an area of 11 square miles without a right way that he couldn't help tripping over the only right of in the district to view his families broad acres.
It is an area that could stand proper forensic investigation of that part lostways have played in social and anthropological significance in our society historically and for our future.
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I've got another grump with the site now. Having complained that there ought to be a way of telling which squares you have already done, it now greys them out and marks them as unavailable. That would be fine if I had actually finished the square. However, while I initially started checking both the historic OS and the Barts maps, I found the Barts was not telling me anything extra so I started ignoring it. Then I discovered what appeared to be a lost way on the historic OS which wasn't marked as an FP or a BW. Checking the Barts map showed an old lane which I recorded. The lane ran on into the next square and into the squares beyond that but they were all greyed out so I could not record the lost way. Now I want to go back and check my original work but I cannot access it any more. We need the means to unlock a square already recorded against the user.
This is a concern to me, ninthace - what would stop an unscrupulous landowner signing up and passing all the squares covering their land as "no change", thereby rendering them uncheckable by others?
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I thought that but then I presumed, perhaps wrongly, that it was only the individual that couldn't sign back into the square rather than everyone.
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I thought that but then I presumed, perhaps wrongly, that it was only the individual that couldn't sign back into the square rather than everyone.
'Fraid not - large areas are greyed out to me. They should allow access for peer review.
Who knows, maybe they will once the bulk of the unchecked squares have been checked.
I have decided not to submit a square if I cannot find anything.
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Pleased to say that I have found a few old 'FP's down to the forbidden shores of southern Windermere. Duly reported :)
EDIT - Just found, and reported, a cracker of an old FP winding it's way through Holker Park, near Cartmel. Lord Cavendish will not be pleased! >:D
Problem is, I cannot check the continuity of this path in the adjoining square, as it has been greyed out.
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I am systematically but slowly covering an area covering Mid and North Devon. It seems to me there are many more squares with missing paths than ones where there is nothing to report. Are others finding the same? If so somebody has got their work cut out.
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Richard if think your have put your finger on the flaw in the Rambler's basic strategy. So far I have only had a look at the website, tried to sign in but the identity I used for their other footpath scheme seems to have lost my details.
The flaw is the different purposes contributors may be accessing the map for. By blocking a square and not allowing the contribution to be visible it is impossible to assess the continuity of way. Continuity of Way is essential to assess the relevance of away for current and future use, it brings into play other factors that give circumstantial insight into why a way may have been left off the Definitive Map. Much of this can be found out by going out into the countryside and looking at the terrain and speaking to old genuine country people. As I have not yet bothered with this too much yet I do not know if there is a place to leave comments after completing square, as I do not wish to compromise a square.
My suspicions are aroused because I have just looked at an are I have researched; three squares are greyed out and they are the obvious ones but the square that really provides interest to the overall way is available. It would require a bit of inside knowledge to know this. Are the greyed out squares blocked because they have been genuinely filled in, have they been blocked by the landowner or even the county council because they know there is an embarrassing issue here.
However is there is genuine interest in the continuity of way there is always the Library of Scotland's maps to check out. The 1:50k maps are not the best for this purpose, the seamless 1:25k scale is better for spotting anomalies. Then comparing 1880, 1901 and the two pre 1949 editions are better. Further details are sometime found on the 1 mile/6in scale.
Ninethace, when I first started taking an interest I learn that Devon was one of the worst counties for interpreting the DM, I think that was on the old ramblers forum.
The other titbit of interest is Devon is the home of Sarah Slade, adviser on Access for the CLA and according to a fellow member of the Stepping Forward Initiative a rabid anti Access.
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BWW It appears squares are greyed out because they have been "done" or at least that is what I am finding, rather than any great conspiracy. I have been plotting lost ways across estates without difficulty. To prove it to yourself, find Tiverton on the map and track just west of there and you should come to a large greyed out block - that is me.
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I think squares are greyed if either you or two other people have already completed them, and are consequently unavailable to you.
With regard to possible corruption of the process I recall reading in the explanatory notes on the site that they wanted two people to complete each square, and that each square would then be checked by a third person. I assume the checker will be someone trustworthy to eliminate the obviously falsely completed squares. I would think if they find evidence of someone corrupting the process they would then remove all that they have completed and revisit these squares.
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BWW It appears squares are greyed out because they have been "done" or at least that is what I am finding, rather than any great conspiracy. I have been plotting lost ways across estates without difficulty. To prove it to yourself, find Tiverton on the map and track just west of there and you should come to a large greyed out block - that is me.
I am not claiming any great conspiracy, it is a matter of interpretation. Walkers and occupiers get into a big enough mess interpreting grey lanes. The 2 squares I am thinking of show a RoW and a lostway but could be seen as a way to private chapel, but the real purpose of the way is hidden by a cluster buildings and access lanes in the next square, because the right of way was to allow the staff of an estate to cross another estate to get to town. Now the main house of the estate was knocked down before between the wars, but that estate was part of another parish, where the owner of the estate fell out with the vicar of the parish. But his staff would have used the front and back drives as their route to church. This stopped when this landowner built his own church, thus disguising the pedestrian flow that would explain why the drives were part of the footpath network.
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I wouldn't put it past the CLA to get their teeth into this.
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Well they certainly swamped the No.10 opinion Survey on Rights of Way improvements, I don't think the Ramblers even got started on that because because, if they did anything it was within membership. The CLA membership, despite a far lower numerical factor, is more active financially and responsive to there communication command.
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Only gone a far as using the pencil, and filing in a square without committing myself to submit. If the softway already highlights the FP and BR I am curious what the value of the end product will be.
My first choice is a lostway I know a bit of history, one square is already greyed out and some of the other ways are internal drives and lanes within an estate, which constitute the total way, but without an explanation of the original which was a right of way 1900-1930's as it provided a way for the staff of an neighbouring estate to cross the adjoining estate.
My second choice was a square with a very important way in it, key to a 20 mile cross county route that ticks all the boxes the Macmillan Ways are trying to achieve without getting tangled up in existing LDP's. This square is is crammed full of other FPs that are the shortcuts of yesteryear and old ways to work, which are 'the meat and drink' of the CLA's argument against Lostways. So I will wait and see if some Rambler pounces on it thinking they have discovered a jackpot, don't mind if someone else spots the real way, there is another but that is not visible on the old maps. It is another sort of lostway altogether. ;D
P.S. the website suggests that it is good to look for ways that suddenly end, County and Parish boundaries is the best place to find these, they are the classic anomaly. However ex War Office or Min. of Defence land is also an ideal starting place. This is because the sort of green welly, Cirencester graduate the Home Office select for the Estate Agents are usually wannabee landowners, who like to swan around the County Set pretending to be important people, probably one single group of people, who have done more damage to the Definitive Map than any other apart from the defunct aristocracy.
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Trying to keep this alive as previously suggested but I suspect many on here won't be as bothered as I am. In Suffolk access land is almost non existent so I am reliant of the somewhat patchy ROW network with all its corruptions to be able to get out for a decent walk away from the roads, unless I want to travel some considerable distance.
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It is how I pass my time while the TV is on. Laptop on the arm of the chair, a glass of something to aid concentration ...
Edit:
Perhaps we could start a square kilometerage thread to rival the mileage thread?
Ninthace - 470
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Perhaps we could start a square kilometerage thread to rival the mileage thread?
Ninthace - 470
Andies - 74
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Ninthace - 485
Andies - 74
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Living in Scotland, I don’t have the same access issue. Perhaps I could look back close to where I used to live, but there would be others with much more recent knowledge than me.
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Can't add to it yet the new 2.10.18 version of GIMP is occupying my time, but I'll start to have a go. Do you have to register? I registered with the pathwatch scheme but seem to have been locked out with that user name and password, probably because the email address I used needs a microsoft password and that has become too complicated to keep active.
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Yes :-[ you do have to register to submit a square. Not done it yet, still lurking but a project I was working on a couple of years ago has 3 square blanked out, These are the squares that show the highest incidence of 'Lostways' :o , however the square that is, in my mind crucial to the integration of all the lostways to future of our access network, has not been touched. Are there ramblers just looking for the bonanza squares without any deep thinking. :(
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Yes :-[ you do have to register to submit a square. Not done it yet, still lurking but a project I was working on a couple of years ago has 3 square blanked out, These are the squares that show the highest incidence of 'Lostways' :o , however the square that is, in my mind crucial to the integration of all the lostways to future of our access network, has not been touched. Are there ramblers just looking for the bonanza squares without any deep thinking. :(
You have to register so the square can be assigned to you. That way squares you have done can be greyed out so you know where you have got to. Once a square has been done more than once it is greyed out to all users. If this was not done, popular areas would be done by the world and his wife and other areas would not be covered.
Presumably, if there is a query over a square you have analysed, they could come back to you.
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You have to register so the square can be assigned to you. That way squares you have done can be greyed out so you know where you have got to. Once a square has been done more than once it is greyed out to all users. If this was not done, popular areas would be done by the world and his wife and other areas would not be covered.
Presumably, if there is a query over a square you have analysed, they could come back to you.
Thanks for that; It is as I suspected. I would feel happier if the Ramblers had woken up to this earlier than a mere 5 years before 2026. The British Horse Society has been active for at least 5 more years, yet this has not aroused enough public criticism to make local government and even national government aware of the need to take this issue seriously. Even if the lost ways are registered before 2026, they still have to go to adjudication to get re-established and this will fall to the individual members of the public to carry the cost of a Public Inquiry.
Yet most of these ways were left off the Definitive Map by the incompetence or Corruption of the Shire or Parish councils given the task of providing access to our countryside.
The value of these ways must be expressed in their usefulness. For instance my county of Shropshire blocks the way to the Welsh Coast for the very large population of the Midlands. The value of dedicated routes crossing the county both socially and economically could be huge.
This is shown by the attempt by the Macmillan Trust to create cross Britain ways, clearly frustrated by the need to divert down to the South of the county then back up to cross Wales so a route hits Cardigan Bay around the middle.
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Crack on, salvage what you can. I have been following the rules of the site by reporting lost footpaths and roads but from time to time, I have come across an obvious lost way that is not recorded as either a FP or road on the old maps. Where I could bend the rules with a tenuous link to a path or road I have slipped them in under the radar. Whether any good will come of it I do not know.
I have done nearly 600 sq km so far round my local area and have found the exercise very interesting. Not only finding no end of lost paths but also quite a few lost roads. I have also discovered a lot of wild land that has also "gone under the plough" since 1913 - it seems we used to have a lot more moors in the past.
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Crack on, salvage what you can. I have been following the rules of the site by reporting lost footpaths and roads but from time to time, I have come across an obvious lost way that is not recorded as either a FP or road on the old maps. Where I could bend the rules with a tenuous link to a path or road I have slipped them in under the radar. Whether any good will come of it I do not know.
I have done nearly 600 sq km so far round my local area and have found the exercise very interesting. Not only finding no end of lost paths but also quite a few lost roads. I have also discovered a lot of wild land that has also "gone under the plough" since 1913 - it seems we used to have a lot more moors in the past.
I have been 'creative' once or twice too.
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I have been 'creative' once or twice too.
Me too. I suspect the checking phase will be the important thing here, but in any event this exercise can only be indicative of a possible lost way. Just because it's on a couple of old maps means very little when it comes to making the case to have something added to the definitive map.
The definitive map was corrupted when being set up and 70 years on that corruption still remains to a very large extent, with now the threat of being made permanent if nothing is done by 2026.
This process is as BWW says long overdue and it is sad that nothing has really happened before.
I have enjoyed completely some local squares and pleasingly some others have joined in locally as when I last went to do some more of these I couldn't as I had been beaten to it, so will now look a little further afield.
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If I was a conspiracy theorist and a charlatan and the type of landowner BWW constantly berates, I would ensure I got any squares surrounding my land and make sure anything that I wasn't happy with was not notified at all.
Do these squares get reopened for rechecking in the future and what would stop BWWs favourite people from signing in under a different guise.
Just :-\ wondering, :-\ that's all.
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If I was a conspiracy theorist and a charlatan and the type of landowner BWW constantly berates, I would ensure I got any squares surrounding my land and make sure anything that I wasn't happy with was not notified at all.
Do these squares get reopened for rechecking in the future and what would stop BWWs favourite people from signing in under a different guise.
Just :-\ wondering, :-\ that's all.
You have to get there first, crack on. Since each report is assigned to the person who did it and there has to be more than one check to grey out a square, it would be possible to check the input of a user and discount it if it was blatantly wrong. I have not come up against any black holes yet.
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I am not suggesting a conspiracy, but remembering the way the CLA managed to hog the No. 10 questionnaire on the rights of way issue, when David Cameron was in situ, I am certain that the landowners propaganda is far more effectively channeled to their grass roots membership than information gets to the leisure users of the countryside.
As a one time chairman of an NFU group of branches I have first hand experience of how an article in weekly periodical can lead to a furore of activity, country people are closer to such magazines as they are read at the breakfast table after early morning routines then thought about during long periods of working on their own. Now the CLA has had 20 years free rein influencing the farming press since the CRoW Act, without effective counter argument. They have persistently pushed out the message that Lostways are an irrelevance, only likely to cause property owner unnecessary expense to stop a rambler walking through their new build and are running scared of the extent of the exposure of the Corruption of the Definitive Map by their predecessors.
If we cannot see those filled in squares, how can we know that the these square have been filled in to the full extent of local knowledge. I have tried emailing the ramblers in the past but never seem to get past automatic responses or the need to buy membership. Frankly that would just give me less pension to explore the countryside.
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You have to get there first, crack on. Since each report is assigned to the person who did it and there has to be more than one check to grey out a square, it would be possible to check the input of a user and discount it if it was blatantly wrong. I have not come up against any black holes yet.
Thanks for this. Will crack on then.
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....with now the threat of being made permanent if nothing is done by 2026.
I'm not too worried about that, to be honest - the Tories won't be in power forever, and a future parliament could re-open the issue. Or give us Scottish land access rights.
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I'm not too worried about that, to be honest - the Tories won't be in power forever, and a future parliament could re-open the issue. Or give us Scottish land access rights.
I'm sure they won't be and yes it could be revisited, but don't forget that the CROW Act was introduced by a Labour government. I would welcome Scottish land access rights in England but I doubt these would be as simple to bring in especially in primarily arable areas.
Had an email from the Ramblers this morning. Apparently 50% of England & Wales now completed, with the Isle of Wight totally completed first, with Cornwall, Derbyshire & Hampshire nearing completion. I must do a few more squares O0
If we cannot see those filled in squares, how can we know that the these square have been filled in to the full extent of local knowledge. I have tried emailing the ramblers in the past but never seem to get past automatic responses or the need to buy membership. Frankly that would just give me less pension to explore the countryside.
I think that the third person checking each square will be completed by trust worthy people rather than just relying on the general volunteers, and I am sure if they find a corruptive influence when checking that persons completed squares they will be eliminated. It would of course be good if every square was completed by those with local knowledge and that is what motivated me initially to complete certain squares, but some favourite areas are now gone, which is I hope good news. You (BWW) have demonstrated great insight into lost ways with your posts and I think you're the perfect person to hit those squares in your area. If that involves a little additional interpretation and creativity then so be it. I cannot see that demonstrating an obviously lost way can be at odds with the essence of this exercise.
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You (BWW) have demonstrated great insight into lost ways with your posts and I think you're the perfect person to hit those squares in your area. If that involves a little additional interpretation and creativity then so be it. I cannot see that demonstrating an obviously lost way can be at odds with the essence of this exercise.
Thanks Andies O0
I have now registered and have started to fill in a few squares, jotting down the square with a 4 fig OS reference no. of the map as I go along. On the one I have my doubts about I have emailed the ramblers, with an explanation and have received an automated reply with a reference no. so it looks like follow up is possible.
Be interesting to see where things go from here.
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Completed a few more squares this morning O0
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I've been plodding away on my local area mapping for a few weeks and found quite a few lost paths so hopefully it turns out to be a worthwhile venture.
When i tried to log in tonight it says England and Wales has now been completed in 6 weeks.
Just wondering if it took the Ramblers just 6 weeks to have a survey completed, why the heck could these lost paths not have been found and properly recorded by the government decades ago ?
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"WE'VE MAPPED ALL OF ENGLAND AND WALES!"
"Thousands of people have joined the search for lost paths, and together we have mapped all of England and Wales in just six weeks, an amazing achievement. We’re now checking through all the data and soon we’ll be able to announce how many lost paths we have found, and our plans to save them for future generations."
From the website - well done everyone who has contributed.
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"WE'VE MAPPED ALL OF ENGLAND AND WALES!"
"Thousands of people have joined the search for lost paths, and together we have mapped all of England and Wales in just six weeks, an amazing achievement. We’re now checking through all the data and soon we’ll be able to announce how many lost paths we have found, and our plans to save them for future generations."
From the website - well done everyone who has contributed.
Frankly I don't believe it. The total area may be covered but I very much doubt that every lost path has been reported.
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Frankly I don't believe it. The total area may be covered but I very much doubt that every lost path has been reported.
Neither do I.
What this exercise will show are the ways left off the Definitive Map, which the OS recorded in there editions between 1880 and 1949. Mainly because landowners had influence on Parish an County Councils and did not wish to follow the dictates of an Act of Parliament.
There are ways to infer from this unique record how people moved around the countryside due to the needs of the time. Also it is reasonable to suppose that they did this without the express permission of the freeholder, as many ways seem to cross boundaries of freehold.
What are the ways that have been lost between 1949 and 2020, base on the needs that have not been recognized, but have evolved with changing times and types of use.
Also in explaining the access network a past landowner leader described the network as made up of 'old ways to work'. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries the Grand houses set in landscaped Parkland were the primary employers in the countryside, yet the drives to these old places of work do not appear as Public Rights of Way, yet they are often set in excessive areas of privacy occupying many acres of our countryside and forcing the use of unsuitable roads.
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Frankly I don't believe it. The total area may be covered but I very much doubt that every lost path has been reported.
To be fair, I don't think that that is what they are claiming.
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To be fair, I don't think that that is what they are claiming.
Or even trying to do. They were only scavenging lost FPs and roads from the old OS and Barts maps
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Or even trying to do. They were only scavenging lost FPs and roads from the old OS and Barts maps
In doing so they are exposing the level the Definitive Maps was Corrupted, now can it be interpreted to a level that shows incompetence by the authorities responsible for the compilation enough to get a political solution to improving access.
The landowner, who wrote that we have the best access network in the world, lives in an area where there are 11 square miles without an off road Right of Way and is influential in local and national policy.
Today the people of Shrewsbury are tightly locked into a Town surrounded by at least 6 estates passed on to family heirs for generations, all could open ways that were used by our ancestors, but they are too conditioned by their class to be able to understand their sociopathic behaviour.
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I wonder how many are looking at the completed map with a little local knowledge. I am discovering some significant errors. Is it due for a number of compilers more eager to complete squares rather than thinking about the details the maps were comparing?
Before I was even aware of the Corruption of the Definitive Map or knew anything about Lostways, I was walking across the Breiddens on the Shropshire/Welsh border. Dropping off Rodney's Pillar into the Bytherig, I followed a right of way across a beautiful sloping permanent pasture, looking down onto the River Severn. This approach should be the best crossing of the Welsh border for a walker by a Bridge called the Maginnis Bridge. The bridge has been recorded but sadly this fragment of approach has been missed together with a few others, which really put the meaning into a corridor of countryside.
I hope the Ramblers make it open for editing, I have heard little about the opportunities these lostways could offer. Yet I have walked many cross county ways, which should be on the map if the dots had been green and not grey or blank.
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I've now looked at the Ramblers map where the lost ways are marked by blue dashed lines (when you zoom in). In my area SK22, most of them are relatively trivial. The map shows two paths that have now been submerged under the Kinder Reservoir! Presumably the 1890s map paths have just been overlaid onto the latest map. Some editing is need here and perhaps elsewhere?
Dave
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I've now looked at the Ramblers map where the lost ways are marked by blue dashed lines (when you zoom in). In my area SK22, most of them are relatively trivial. The map shows two paths that have now been submerged under the Kinder Reservoir! Presumably the 1890s map paths have just been overlaid onto the latest map. Some editing is need here and perhaps elsewhere?
Dave
How do I look at the map? As I am not a member of the Ramblers.
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Here you go;
https://dontloseyourway.ramblers.org.uk/map
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Here you go;
https://dontloseyourway.ramblers.org.uk/map (https://dontloseyourway.ramblers.org.uk/map)
Any way of getting it without using that portal?
I don't really want to give my details out to them.
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Didn't need a log in last time I used it. Must have changed.
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I've now looked at the Ramblers map where the lost ways are marked by blue dashed lines (when you zoom in). In my area SK22, most of them are relatively trivial. The map shows two paths that have now been submerged under the Kinder Reservoir! Presumably the 1890s map paths have just been overlaid onto the latest map. Some editing is need here and perhaps elsewhere?
Dave
And yet in others the reverse may be true, in I know of one that shows the true reason for a footbridge over the River Roden. This footbridge is quite a substantial structure, prossibly rebuilt by American Airforce Personel in the war, from an airfield that is the reason for other missing ways. Follow these ways and they show the basis for a 50 mile cross county way along a true corridor of countryside.
Curiously the approach to the Roden Bridge has Medieval cut stones, yet the bridge only serves as an unnecessary kink in the Shropshire way to put it onto a mile 0.8 miles of road that is a busy ratrun, whereas the obvious field margins, used by locals, provides a much more scenic route.
Now the true route involving lostways joins Lilleshall Abbey to Haughmond Abbey.
How do I look at the map? As I am not a member of the Ramblers.
I'm not a member and I am using it, I would welcome contact from the Ramblers so that I could point out some of these anomalies. The 2 buttons that switch from 1880 map to current are very useful for spotting the anomalies. I think some earlier people filling the their squares were too eager and did not look for the continuance of way from footpath to white lane. The compiler of an adjacent square has seen this potential, but has not been able to show the whole route because of earlier activity.
One of the flaws of this approach is still white/grey lanes, such as the long drives up to large Halls and Manors, these grand houses were part of the economic community, when the footpath network was in full use as a part of a rural economy and these were integral to the continuity of way. Start putting these into the access network and then the visualize the leisure usage as a modern economic asset, you may start realize that this extended privacy is a negative factor in achieving a fully effective access network.
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I'm a Ramblers member and I tried to do my bit for the campaign.
I know my area extremely well, having walked every single PRoW and road for miles around where I live, so that's the area I worked on (working on an area I didn't know well would have been pointless and almost certainly counter-productive!).
I wasn't able to work on as many squares as I'd have liked, because some were already 'done', but I did manage to find some lost ways that I thought would be genuinely valuable. That is, ways that would lead from A to B without having to take the current more circuitous route, and that would have some kind of intrinsic desirability.
But when I looked at the results I was dismayed by what people had done. The great majority of 'found' ways would be either totally unnecessary or impossible to implement. Here's just one example from dozens I could have chosen for my area:
(http://www.cruisingmates.co.uk/coppermine/albums/userpics/10054/LostWays.jpg)
There we have the blue dashed lines criss-crossing a dual carriageway and its slip roads, as well as a couple being on top of existing roads. What on earth was that person thinking?
I realise that the rubbish can be ignored or removed, but (IMHO) inviting everyone to join in the free-for-all was probably a very bad idea.
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Yes, I think that some people have been a little over enthusiastic, which devalues the project somewhat. I was careful to follow the instructions given by the Ramblers - to look for paths marked 'FP' on the old maps.
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I think that plotting from the Bartholomew 1/2" map results in some very approximated routes when viewed on the modern 1:25000 map.
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There we have the blue dashed lines criss-crossing a dual carriageway and its slip roads, as well as a couple being on top of existing roads. What on earth was that person thinking?
I'm afraid that I can beat that, Dave - someone has plotted some old rights of way under Haweswater Reservoir!
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I'm afraid that I can beat that, Dave - someone has plotted some old rights of way under Haweswater Reservoir!
If they can build a bridge over the M62 for the Pennine Way why can't they build a tunnel under the reservoir? ;)
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I'm a Ramblers member and I tried to do my bit for the campaign.
I know my area extremely well, having walked every single PRoW and road for miles around where I live, so that's the area I worked on (working on an area I didn't know well would have been pointless and almost certainly counter-productive!).
I realize that the rubbish can be ignored or removed, but (IMHO) inviting everyone to join in the free-for-all was probably a very bad idea.
I think that the exercise as a whole was very valuable, it grabbed the popular attention of the popular media and produced a staggering figure of ways left off the Definitive Map. The pro access lobby groups have failed to extend this media attention to the mismanagement of the intention of the 1949 Act that should be recognised as political corruption.
It is only public opinion that will change the method of reclaiming the lostways from a politically recognized need to correct past mistakes and not by legal means.
There other lostways; these are ways lost by the access network failing to keeping pace with the needs of enviromental change and public need, recognizing these and linking them with historically mapped lost paths is the sensible and logical approach.
The LAF's later GOLG's set up by the 2000 CRoW act are hampered by the landowner lobby group denial of past vested influence, a public inquiry into the administering the 1949 Act with Rights of Way Officers freed from the restraints of their employment terms would produce some interesting results.
Yes, I think that some people have been a little over enthusiastic, which devalues the project somewhat. I was careful to follow the instructions given by the Ramblers - to look for paths marked 'FP' on the old maps.
There is a footpath across an estate in the Edgelands of Shrewsbury that could be interpreted as a footpath from a tenanted farm to a Private Chapel on that estate, yet the tenant of the farm was instructed by the then Squire that the footpath was a right of way. Only by linking in those grey lanes on the estate can the real purpose of the Right of Way be understood. The total way allowed the staff of the adjoining estate a shorter route to walk into town. It was just this sort of route that the 1949 Act intended to open up to public use.
That adjoining estate used to be part of an other Church Parish, which would use both front and back drives as the route for tenants and household staff as their route to church. Not marked as FP, yet beyond there is a filled in FP/lostway beyond linking a forge to Telfords A5 sandstone bridge over the River Severn at Montford Bridge.
This continuity of way in the context of a modern access network has, to my mind, 4 very useful purposes.
1). At Montford bridge the Severn Way (described as the longest continuous riverside walk in the country) loses contact with the river because it goes south of the river to cut across the neck of a bow. This bow is a significant change in the river's course caused by the geology of the county, the route offered by the lostways would more accurately represent the credentials of the Severn Way.
2). As the geology that causes the alteration of the course of the River Severn is a buttress of the Cheshire/Shropshire sandstone that is the basis of Cheshire's popular Sandstone Trail, these lostways would for provide a fitting conclusion to a Shropshire extension of the Sandstone Trail linking it to the county town.
3). Thomas Telford's sandstone bridge for the old London to Holyhead road was a road traffic bottleneck on the A5 making it unsuitable for leisure use. With new road development and an alternative two lane bridge over the River Severn, the bridge is now as a major river crossing suitable for pedestrian, equestrian and cycling, should this be recognize by improving access by reinstating the ways lost to the WD by the nearby disused Forden Airfield.
4). The opening up of these ways to MB and north concentrates focus on Nescliffe where there is a suspension footbridge over the new 2 lane A5. This bridge was built for the village school, which closed at the time the new highway opened. Further lostways to the War Department, never reinstated, would connect this underused asset, to theWelsh border and in particular the picturesque Tanat valley.
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I have found some paths that are named on the latest OS Explorer maps, but not rights of way. I believe that they are walkable and without any access problems.
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Welcome to the Forum, LostWays.
Where are you from and where are these paths, there are many grey paths on the OS Explorers map yet the have long since had any worthwhile footfall. Often they are only part of the story and to see the full extent of the way they were once part of you have to refer to older maps.
There are few here, who have studied lostways over a good number of years, with different perspectives. The walkability and level of access problem will be determined by the local occupiers' interpretation of Lostways. The establishment of Rights of Way by the 1949 Act has encouraged a more rigid notion of Private Land in many areas, so it is necessary to read the signs of occupational tolerance locally before being too eager to step off the Righteous Way.
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Named Paths that are enclosed lanes are probably more likely to be reinstated than the old routes that go across fields?
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You are probably right, I think it was this that scared DEFRA of their pilot projects. Most of the recoverable ways would be like for like so; RUPPs or BOATs and the lineage out of proportion to the value at an enormous cost.
All part of the folly of looking for a legal solution to the Corruption of the Definitive Map.
Any thoughtful map reading of these old ways reveals that the cross fields footpaths extend the continuity of way if you find the destinations that explain the way. The value of this comes apparent if you then see the value of the route in the modern-day access map.
For instance; in the Mansell Lacy X zone of 11 square miles, there was a station in the middle, on a disused line. Ways from either side produce ways right across this barren zone, which happens to be on a sightline between the Malvern Hills and the Black Mountain. This pure cross country way leads almost directly to the only non-urban bridge over the River Wye in 20 miles.
It is in this area that the author of the CLA's Policy on Access lives and pretends to be a farmer on his families 2000 acre Estate.
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This article may add to the information? It's in today's Guardian.
It may not open, it's secured by the Guardian, to open it just needs your email address on The Gurdian site.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/17/roaming-british-countryside-rights-of-way
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Good call GWM, at last, the Guardian is getting nearer to the nuts and bolts of the issue.
The article opens with Tourism, this is the Economic issue that has been underplayed and not properly studied or understood. Land is a resource, countryside is part of that resource. As walkers, we should be trying to make that resource more effective, having good reasons for crossing or entering areas considered private land that can only be defended by pure self interest is one of the ways of furthering the cause.
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If you look at some modern OS maps, some areas have fields that are criss crossed with paths, obviously some areas recorded their paths better than others.