Some of those blue dotted lost paths don't link with anything at both ends, they don't go anywhere. I realise that it is a work in progress so perhaps we shouldn't expect too much.You can, perhaps, help me with something I've been trying to work out. The OS maps at 1:25000 level have lots of "white roads" sometimes these also have the green dotted or dashed lines showing that it's a PRoW but most do not.
There are some that I know locally that need packing out with a little local knowledge. On that seems a meaningless RoW within a private estate, when I filled it in, I added some White Roads that were drives and tracks within the estate,but my Mother-in-law, a lady of 102 years of age can fill in the real reason. The way was used by the staff and visitors to the adjacent estate as a way through to the town and as this was part of the parish within the town they would need to reach church by crossing the estate. An important reason in the 18th and 19th century, when these ways were being formed.
This does not mean that it does not have a modern day value, it could be part of important cross country ways as it shows how a loop of the River Severn, created by the Cheshire/Shropshire sandstone, could be used to great access benefit.
Another example is the Orleton Estate west of Wellington, here the back drive another white road is shown as a lostway but there is another footpath shown to the nearby satellite village of Admaston. I was seen off by a very disgruntled owner here, who told me the deadend right of was just an old way from the servants quarters. His father was given the house and a 2000 acre estate by the Earl of Powys, when he married the Earl's favorite niece around 1940, at this time War Ag was ploughing up pasture that formed the Parkland that surrounded these Estate Hall's. The ploughed up path would have been replaced by the back drive. The real destination of this path is clear from a smaller scale map, it leads directly to the market center of the old town and the country beyond Admaston shows ways that increase the foot traffic toward that commercial hub.
These lostways could be part of a line of footpaths that join Shrewsbury to Wellington. The only walking routes between these towns force you onto roads that are dangerous rat runs.
