A stile is something to be climbed

This is our third piece about Stiles, clearly something Ronnie was very passionate about.  This is a piece we have put together from various scraps of paper of Ronnie’s ponderings about stiles, whereas the previous two pieces were complete, this was a little trickier to put together. We hope we have done Ronnie's thoughts justice and you enjoy this piece as much as we did discovering it and putting it together.

Ronnie's Notes

A stile is a construction in a barrier restraining the movement of animals but allowing the movement of humans.  A structure that provides people a passage through or over a fence or boundary via steps, ladders or narrow gaps.

I feel compelled to write about stiles because they are part of our landscape which is fast disappearing.  More and more stiles that I have known, some of them I have loved, are being removed and are being replaced by the ubiquitous galvanised kissing gate.  Stiles are under danger from political correctness!

Ronnie walking Glyndwr's Way

Why do we have stiles and how old are stiles?

This goes back to the origins of paths…wild beasts made the first tracks and prehistoric man then followed these tracks as they hunted their next meal.  In later years, paths suggest continuity, a linking of the past and present of those that made them on their way to work, church or family.

Stiles were often used as meeting places during the war, usually of courting couples, hence the phrase stepping out.  Often messages were left at the chosen stile, or the lovers name carved into the top bar, some messages may have been written in chalk or true love knots of flowers.

Stiles and gates would have come into existence from farmers who needed beast proof barriers with gaps for a path to pass from one field to another.  Enclosing land accelerated in the 1750’s and in 1792 the Parliamentary Enclosures Act came into force, however this is not when we first saw stiles.

We know this because Chaucer’s Pilgrims Progress written in 1678 mentions stiles and stiles were also mentioned in an early 17th century lyric poem by Robert Herrick.

To His Ever-Loving God

Can I not come to Thee, my God, for these

So very many meeting hindrances,

That slack my pace, but yet not make me stay?

Who slowly goes, rids, in the end, his way.

Clear Thou my paths, or shorten Thou my miles,

Remove the bars, or lift me o'er the stiles;

Since rough the way is, help me when I call,

And take me up; or else prevent the fall.

I ken my home, and it affords some ease

To see far off the smoking villages.

Fain would I rest, yet covet not to die

For fear of future biting penury:

No, no, my God, Thou know'st my wishes be

To leave this life, not loving it, but Thee.

Chris walking the Cornish Coast Path

The beauty of stiles

In Clare’s Journal of 1824 he wrote “took a walk in the fields saw an old wooden stile taken away from a favourite spot which it had occupied all my life, the posts were overgrown with ivy and seemed so akin to nature and the spot where it stood as though it had taken it on.  It hurt me to see it was gone for my affections claim a friendship with such things”.

And that is my feelings for one of my favourite stiles and much used stile between the playing field and farmers field in Llanymynech.  It has been replaced with a modern pine two step stile, courtesy of volunteer Ramblers.  The two steps are not aligned and one of the footpath signs nastily screwed in so that it overlaps the wooden upright.  And this favourite stile was not worn out, it was old, it was not rickety, just well weathered.  A unique thing gone and lost forever.

On old stiles the top bar worn and glossy with use, whether in being crossed, or used to sit and gossip, or ridden as a wooden horse by small boys or courtship or just a resting place.

Is it just possible that in 100 years’ time stiles will be so scarce that they will be marked on OS maps in the same way as hill forts, tumuli, ditches, dykes, standing stones, circles and milestones are today?  Any idea what the symbol would be?  \-/ perhaps marked in brown?

Ladder Stile on the Berwyn Mountains

The styles of stiles

The styles of stiles reflect what material was and is traditionally available to the farmer or landowner together with their financial means.  Of the more unusual are iron bedsteads and wooden oars.  This is true today when the local authority is most often the body responsible for replacing stiles. 

In Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park there are several hundred wooden ladder stiles, usually with metal gauze on the steps either placed over walls and fences when the wall or fence impedes the path.  Ladder stiles are normally built over a wall and look like a step ladder, obviously put in place to prevent damage to a wall or fence.

The step stile can be raised stone embedded perpendicular to the wall or a set of stepping stones, looking like a staircase, for climbing over the wall.  With a similar stone or set of stones on the other side.

A variety of stile known as squeeze belly is a stile made of two pieces of usually timber set close together in the ground and curving outwards.  The squeeze belly is narrow at the bottom to prevent livestock or horses from passing through and tapers outwards to allow a person of normal size to go through sideways. 

Cornish Stiles are often topped with granite columns laid on their sides, these are the remains of field rollers.  This is part of a description of a walk around Dodman and Gorran Haven by Marshall Cavendish “there must have been bowling green smooth fields as there are many topped with these granite blocks”!

The falling stile is a moveable stile, you push on one end and the pole falls downwards so that you can step through.  When the downward pressure is released, the pole bounces back into place.

Ronnie’s Notable stiles

One stile that most walkers have heard about in the last 15 years is that of the “lost” stile in Cornwall, uncovered one day by someone who wondered why it was there.  The story is fairly well known, but to me not a surprise.  There are Saints Ways all over Cornwall.  Our known local one is from St. Endellion to Bodmin, one day I hope to walk it.  But in Cornwall you can find old or even ancient stiles almost anywhere.

And then take the Abbots Way on Dartmoor from Buckfastleigh to Okehampton, nowadays a competition walk, it was my first walk over Dartmoor, 24 miles completed in 8 hours 24 minutes!

In August 1994 my first hair raising stile on the cliff path at Whitsand Bay.

Walk Across Wales, Llangollen to Pistyll Rhaeadr, after leaving Llangollen climbing the stile where I admired the views on three sides, to the left the Vale of Llangollen with the Panorama Walk and Eglwys Rocks above the town up towards Worlds End.  In the distance is Ruabon, coming around the area known as Maelor with Overton, Chirk and the Dee Valley, ahead are the hills above Ceiriog Valley and to the right is the Berwyn Ridge.

Stunning stiles between Zennor and St Ives on the Cornish Coast Path.

Sometimes climbing a stile changes the whole perception of where you are in the landscape and opens up new horizons