rambling

So you may think that I've taken up trespassing, since my morning walk goes through various fields of horses and cows, but it's actually part of the British system. All over town are signs for public footpaths. I was super excited at first, but often it's hard to see where the path actually goes; the grass grows so quickly and gets so tall, that you have to stand at the beginning of the field and just stare for a while until a faint path of slightly more crushed greenery stands out. Also, I've followed paths just to be dumped out on a main road. Now if I had a trail map I'd know where to pick up the trail again, and if I wasn't an overly cautious pregnant lady I might just trek along the road until I found the next footpath. But instead I just turn around and head back the way I came.

Today I started wondering where this system of trails came from, and found a quick history of rambling in Britain (and here you thought my title meant the verbal rambing I do in these posts...). Apparently after the industrial revolution, the British turned to the countryside as a respite from city life. This was all fine and great until the turn of the last century when landlords started getting territorial about their land fearing poachers (heard of man traps?). By the 1930's walking about the countryside was getting almost impossible. Enter the Rambler's Association in 1935, a group dedicated to preserving the British tradition of walking about. They started campaigning against such territoriality.

By 1949, the group had some success, and 10 National Parks were created. On top of that, they went about recording any footpaths that still existed. By the 1960's, a law was passed requiring surveyors to note footpaths when they did a land survey, preserving many of these paths for posterity. Further campaigning forced local Councils to start posting footpath signs.

Finally, in 2000 the Countryside and Rights of Way act was passed, turning all footpaths into legally protected rights of way. Anything that had been recorded as a footpath for 20 years or more was now required to remain as such. Farmers could continue to grow crops, graze animals, whatever, as long as people could still walk through. So now I know that I can continue to walk through the big field even when the cows are there because the landlord isn't allowed to keep bulls older than 10 months near a footpath. The cows are pretty big, though, so I'll still give them a wide berth.

Well, if you've read all the way through this rambling post (ha ha) you know more than you ever wanted about walking in Britain!