Long distance linear versus circular

[White Horse Walker]

It just depends on the public transport available. It's pretty bad around here and a lot of the area is very remote so planning a walk that would end or start somewhere near a bus stop is difficult. I've only walked The Ridgeway - and had baggage transfers as I don't like a heavy pack. Must plan another one when retired.
Circular walks can be long distance as in our local one the White Horse Trail and I don't think it really makes much of a difference as long as you're not repeating sections. Circular day walks are so much easier around here as long as you have a car.

[youradvocate]

Sussex Border Path. I have a publication, all on separate sheets and on PDF as well. If anybody wants a PDF copy, just email me and I'll email the PDF back to you.

[BuzyG]

Interesting thread.  I suspect most people will do circular routes on one day walks.  I certainly do but as it's mainly open moorland, I seldom walk the same path just strike out across the moors and often make the route up as I'm walking depending on how I feel on the day, this makes for a very free flowing day with none of the targets / limits of a set route.   


If i'm walking with my wife we will some times park a car either side of the moor and then walk between the two. Again not following any particular well trodden paths, we just strike out across the moorland and pick a few tinner's huts peat passes stone circles and Tors to visit on route.


Personalty the Cornish coast path does nout for me.  Nice views, but a boring procession, full of emits.

[altirando]

Linear is best when the route follows a natural feature - a good example being the length of Wenlock Edge in  Shropshire. Or the Clwyd ridge in north Wales.  Difficult to organise nowadays with the limited rural bus services. Another route that comes to mind is the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire.  But perhaps these are not long distance?  The length of the Welsh border would be very satisfying.

[barewirewalker]

But perhaps these are not long distance?  The length of the Welsh border would be very satisfying.

Offas dyke path is a fairly close approximation for this, even thought the real start would appear to be in Herefordshire on Harry Cotterell's Estate;
http://www.walkingforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=30054.30
An area of little access and many lostways.


The Cheshire Sandstone Trail is another shortish LDP contained within one county. Starting at Frodsham and ending close to Whitchurch, it is fairly well by serviced at both ends by public transport. The geology it follows could provide an extension in Shropshire, meandering  across N.Shrops to Shrewsbury, but the powers that be have failed to recognise this and as the lack of righteous way will deter all but a few from following nature's route, the counties economy will not benefit from this particular attraction.


Curiously the Open Space Society have been assisting a campaign here;
http://www.oss.org.uk/we-call-for-public-access-to-shropshire-woodlands/
which is exactly on the route that a Shropshire Sandstone Trail might take.


It would be interesting to know which county the OP (of 1 post and no intro in the welcome section) is referring to. Geographical information and detail is far more relevant to linear routes than circular.


I have observed, when using the train to travel south from Shrewsbury to Church Stretton or Craven Arms many walkers, who have started their journeys from Cheshire and further north. Do these walkers use the request stops in north Shropshire (Crewe line) and walk across to the Shrewsbury Chester line. A past leader of the Shropshire Access team expressed a wish to make the North of the county more popular for walking but always pointed out the risks of promoting linear walks.
Yesterday Mrs BWW and I walked a superb route north of Ellesmere, circular using our car, but I noticed a potential linear route. I googled public transport and the actual start is a 9 minute taxi ride from a rail station, have not bothered to get a price??? but these are part of the research needed to factor into linear walks and now possible with the internet.

[HB]

Apologies, i haven't been watching the thread for a day or two.  Thank you to all who responded, there are some really good comments/opinion out there.  The County i'm referring to is in fact Shropshire as mentioned by a few of you.  You can access the survey through the Shropshire's Great Outdoors website at the bottom of the homepage.  There are 4 route options but what is essentially being asked is, 'if there was a new "main route" for the Shropshire Way which would be the most appealing as a tourist product to the LDW', the existing web of the Shropshire Way would remain with its associated guide book but this is about a clear main route.

I think the OP should give us some guidance on the the question asked. The title of the topic suggests a comparison between LDP linear and single day circular, because there are very few LD circular.


Shropshire has a LD circular but I have rarely heard of people using it at a 'Tick' for their LDP list.


I think that Shropshire misses out by not recognising that it has a very good transport network which is compatible with short distance linear (SDP) routes, I agree with Glovepuppet and others about the achievement felt by success of completing start and destination, SDPs are not for those who are not prepared to do their homework and as publishers are not prepared to risk publishing linear walks because the factors, which might make them possible, are at risk of altering, they do not appear on official websites or in promotion pamphlets.


Look at the past members comments on 2 TR's I posted on SDP linears;
http://www.walkingforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=29473.0 [nofollow]
 http://www.walkingforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=29473.0 [nofollow]


I have found it well worth the effort in teasing out a linear route from both map and the public transport timetables, then putting those ideas into practice against the actual terrain in completing the route.
It is frustrating when path blockages and other difficulties work against the tighter timetable of a linear, but that's life, its part of the challenge. I'm too old to be swinging around on a hand jam high up the side of Llanberis Pass.
SDP linear versus circular is a better question, I think they can be great and those involved in the recreational industry are idiots to ignore them.

[barewirewalker]

Imagine opening a school atlas with the county of Shropshire as the subject of the page, the county is roughly square so not too much of the adjacent counties will show, draw # as if to play noughts and crosses across the whole county and see if the routes can be achieved as through routes, that would be 3 vertical, 3 horizontal and 2 diagonals. This will give approximately 450 miles of routes.   
Overlay that map with the 1880's Ordnance Survey first edition and these route become more viable even though the road network has changed. I have been a member of this forum for @ a decade and monitored other walking forums during that time, the increase in walkers exploring independent LDP's is increasing and Shropshire, as the largest inland county should look to its particular geography in relation to factors outside of it's borders to find tourist attractive routes.


I have mentioned the continuance of the Cheshire Sandstone Trail, I made a comment on the Open Spaces website about the CLA's direct influence that has led to the closing of access now being sought by a local group(wood near Lee Brockhurst). Just look at the terrain there and see if good routes are not possible. A local retired farmer organises walks there but that is not going to measure on any tourist scale for earnings to the local economy.
It was another linear route, which I think is a very good one but cannot be walked unless you are familiar with the owners of part of the route, which sparked off this topic.
It lies between 2 very regular bus routes in Shropshire;
http://www.walkingforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=30054.0


The reluctance of those landowners to open up the old routes, which connect X2Y and Y2Z might be influenced by a certain Harry Cotterell, featured on pages 4-5 of that topic I think and his own circumstance in Herefordshire, appearing to be the basis of a major lobby groups understanding of and policy on access.


Were Cross Shropshire ways unobstructed, that part of the revenues earned by those LDP's which have been economically surveyed and showing returns £X000-£X0,000's per mile per year, might be, by continuity of way be adding a substantial multiple and yielding far more than the Shropshire Way on it's own.


But if HB is interested in Shropshire's anomalies I hope to post more, they are interesting, hilarious and frustrating, please return. The great irony is the CLA, who claim to promote the interests of landowners and property owners in their endeavor to prise membership from the NFU, do not recognize the scale of earning from access. The scale of these earnings are such that they seem more likely to influence property values positively rather than negatively and the CLA directly oppose the repair of the Definitive Map from the corruption by their forefathers.

[barewirewalker]

I have contributed to the survey, even downloaded the 4 PDF's(though rather lacking in detail).
http://www.shropshiresgreatoutdoors.co.uk/shropshire-way-main-route-survey/
 Though I find it difficult to have a firm opinion on the questions asked. I have long thought that an ever evolving and more convoluted Shropshire Way a difficult marketing subject.
If compared with Wild Edrics Way, a short linear in South Shropshire, which has been adopted by Contour Holidays.
But to decide between linear or circular with a figure of eight thrown in is creating complexity where simplicity is the key. Far better to market a number of simple products rather than one complex jumble of routes.


 The North 2 South should be just that and the route shown emphasises a problem Shropshire has, now with a Landowner and active CLA member in the chair of the Shropshire County Councils Local Access Forum may be the time to focus on such anomalies as this N2S route demonstrates. A N2S route down the centre line of the county should join the three market towns of Whitchurch, Shrewsbury and Ludlow but the line shown on the PDF veers off east, north of Shrewsbury, as if to avoid the town. Then a bit like a driver on the M6 in the overtaking lane, realising the 2nd slip to the M54 is along side, the way veers into the town from an angle irrelevant to the linear route.
The reason, it joins the old Shroppy Way, a meandering circular walk, so it has no integrity of its own and the real underlying reason is an X zone of about 1800 acres blanketing the north of the town, largely occupied by one landowner (occupancy going back several generations). This landowner runs a very popular business, a form of farm shop using the history of the Battle of Shrewsbury as a marketing tool for its identity and promotion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shrewsbury
 Here is the conundum; the landowner owns the land where the battle may have been fought and uses the intellectual property of that knowledge without further sharing the access to the battlefield, which in this instance could provide a perfect entry point for a linear walking route into the borough of Shrewsbury from the battlefield and it's historic memorial church. There is a line of field margins directly along the ideal route.

[rural roamer]

I enjoy both.
Linear walks for a multi day, long distance walk, you have the feeling that you're "getting somewhere".
Circular walks for days out.

[barewirewalker]

For interest here is the central part of the linear route the OP mentions;

The graphics are not good, making the line indicating the route less opaque would be better. This would involve using graphics software with layers and as this is off the County Council website they may plead poverty, I recommend GIMP, it is free  .


As I mentioned, my previous post, the the route gets onto the meandering circular route, which is the old Shropshire Way. Curiously there is an old route called the Marches Way and this accesses the town more directly. If the purpose is to create a linear route, as a marketable product, its appearance on the map should herald its intention.


This route would also appear as a dogleg, but the E 2 W detour is only 2.8 miles shown in a pink overlay on this map;



I have highlighted in red the field margins, which lead directly to the Battlefield church. I do not know for certain if these have been left uncultivated to attract Single Farm Supplement for conservation, but I have seen much of this in this area. Although the landowners stress the conservation angle and claim that field margins should not be seen as a reason for walking, a proportion of this allowance of the taxpayers money brings visitors closer to where their money is being spent. Shooting estates do seem to take full advantage of this conservation allowance.


The business run at Battlefield Farm benefits enormously from the intellectual property gathered from history, research and other common sources. This is free gathered by the whole community and that part of the terrain, which is a gentle sloping approach to the borough, shown on the map by the contour lines is in private ownership.
Is this is the line of approach made by Harry Hotspur, perhaps people walking would be attracted to see the ground Henry IV managed to bring him to battle;


This sort of conundrum does not seem to be mention here;


Page from CLA policy on access called 'common sense'.

[barewirewalker]

The OP's opening post refers to 'Achievement Walks', a neat phrase with how much thought?
The above example to a N2S linear north of Shrewsbury, indirect line adds at least an extra 8 + miles to a line between two destinations, Wem and Shrewsbury, which are achievable because both are transport hubs. These are 10 miles apart, as the crow flies, to add an unnecessary 8+ miles will affect the marketability of the route.


This reminds me of a walking promoting article included in a county council publication 10 years or so ago. A retired person set himself to circumnavigate the county, and claimed it was doable from public transport. I check one leg against the actual bus times, using Naismith and fairly fast walking speed, I failed to see how the bus connections could be made. It was just possible to do the route in the reverse direction because this ended up at a rail station and the last train was well after the last bus times.


Based on that I didn't bother follow this persons route much further around the county.