The Two Sides of Britain’s Long Distance Trails

Last week’s news about King Charles opening the world’s longest coastal path around England inspired us to share a piece we recently discovered among Ronnie’s writings. With the spotlight now firmly on our National Trails, it felt like the perfect moment for this blog, a chance to highlight both the joys and the challenges these routes bring.

As many of you know, Ronnie walked a great number of these trails — including the Cornish Coast Path, Offa’s Dyke, and Glyndŵr’s Way, so it was fascinating to come across this reflection and the articles she had gathered. The piece captures two contrasting perspectives...the hopeful vision that shaped our trail network and the warnings about what could be lost if we’re not careful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRzMqqFi7Mk

Edward C Pyatt wrote the HMSO official guide to the Cornwall Coast Path in 1976 and says in his Introduction;

“The Cornwall Coast Path is the central portion of the 515-mile South-West Peninsula Coast Path, which extends from Minehead in Somerset to South Haven Point beside Poole Harbour in Dorset.  After the second world war there was a resurgence of feeling about access to and preservation of the British countryside, which led the Minister of Town and Country Planning to call for a comprehensive report.  The result was the now famous National Parks of England and Wales, by John Dower, which foreshadowed the many innovations and developments of subsequent years.  His recommendations included the setting up of “footpaths and bridleways, with signposts, stiles, gates and bridges”.  “I found”, he said of the Cornish coast, “long stretches of ‘coastguards paths’ still plain on the ground … and I see no reason why all should not readily be linked up again with continuous public rights of way.” A National Parks Committee was set up which, reporting in 1947, recommended “continuous cliff-edge routes generally following the line of the old coastguards’ path.  Indeed a coastal path by cliff, bay, dune, beach and estuary, round the whole of England and Wales … is not beyond conception.”

He goes on to explain that the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949 set up the National Parks Commission and detailed work was begun on a number of long-distance routes.  Proposals for a Cornwall North Coast Path of 135 miles was approved in 1952 and for the Cornwall South Coast Path of 133 miles in 1953-54 but it was not until 19^th May 1973 that the two paths were opened as the Cornwall Coast Path, due to protracted negotiations with landowners.

However, he is even more scathing in the introduction to his book Coastal Paths of the South West (1971 David and Charles) and the only thing I can do is repeat it in its entirety;

“That National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949 was the culmination of a long series of attempts, going back more than half a century, to secure statutory recognition of our right to enjoy the wilder parts of England’s countryside.  For a time it seemed that a real advance had at last been made in the preservation of amenities and that we might look forward to continuing improvement in various outdoor issues, access, rights of way, and so forth, which had for so long seemed hopeless.  The executive body set up under the Act, known as the National Parks Commission, was charged with the task of designating and developing certain areas as National Parks, and began its works with a will – the future seemed to be full of hope”.

Now, more than twenty years later, we know that there are threats to the amenities of the countryside that have prevailed, not once but many times, against the spirit of the Act.  We have seen hydro-electric schemes, industrial and water supply reservoirs, military training grounds and ranges, television and radio masts, radar installations, power lines and extensive afforestation in our National Parks, which we believed to have been preserved for us.  Preserved they certainly are – for really intensive despoliation.  Recently we have seen land bequeathed to the National Trust for preservation for all time and then taken over by legal act for development; we have seen motorways routed through Nature Reserves, atomic power stations strewn along flat coastlines.  Indeed there would seem to be no defence against the spread of the technological age.

Some of the Long Distance Trails Ronnie Walked

Peter Simple of the Daily Telegraph describes the situation in his characteristic way;

“We cannot” says the Minister for Planning and Lane, “totally forbid reservoirs in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, prohibit afforestation or the application of modern farming methods, the winning of raw materials and all other developments.”

It is becoming more and more obvious, in fact, that although these developments are incompatible with the idea of national parks as it was first conceived by an earlier, more civilised tribe of planners, we cannot forbid them at all. When greed of gain (whether disguised as ‘inevitable progress’, ‘the national interest’, ‘higher living standards’ or otherwise) fights with natural beauty, there is never any doubt which will be the winner.

There is only one conclusion to be drawn from the arguments of the Minister for Planning and Land or of other public apologists who claim to be able to do two opposite things at the same time.  It is this.  If you want to see what is left of our country, go and look at it quickly.  It will not be there much longer.

Among the provisions of the 1949 Act was one for the setting up of certain long-distance footpaths.  The work on these proved unexpectedly complex and took longer than was originally envisaged, but nevertheless a number are now available – The Pennine Way (250 miles from Derbyshire to the Scottish border), the Cleveland Way (93 miles over the North Yorks Moors, the Cleveland Hills and along the Yorkshire coast) and the Pembrokeshire Coast Path (167 miles from Amroth to St Dogmaels).  Considerable progress has been made on the South Downs Way (80 miles from Beach Head to the Hampshire border), Offa’s Dyke Path (168 miles along the Welsh border), the North Downs Way (141 miles from Farnham to Dover) and the South-West Peninsula Coast Path (over 500 miles from Minehead to Studland).  The last is the subject of this book.

Mr Arthur Skeffington, joint Parliamentary Secretary Ministry of Housing, says that the Government, by the terms of the Countryside Act of 1968, is aiming to provide a thousand miles of new footpaths for the enjoyments of walkers. These, like the Pennine Way, will be in attractive parts of the country and will supplement the 86,000 miles of footpaths and bridleways which are said to exist in England and Wales already.

Perhaps so.  But it is also possible that these new, official, State-sponsored footpaths (or ‘walkerways’ as they might be called) will help to complete the process by which the old footpaths are being dug up, fenced off and otherwise obliterated from use and memory.

In a forward-looking country it is simply a nuisance for forward-looking people, such as scientific farms or scientific forestry-managers, to have walkers wandering about unorganised all over the place and getting in the way of their scientific operations.

It would be much more convenient if these walkers could be channelled into designated routes, their numbers being controlled by computers.  If they showed any tendency to stray, they could be firmly escorted back to the approved path by a new corps of Countryside Pedestrian Traffic Control Wardens.

It will of course never come to this; though when we compare the realisation of today with our hopes of 1949 concerning many aspects of the Act we may well ponder on what may happen if we do not remain eternally vigilant.

Ronnie highlights that the dream is a protected countryside with open access for all. But that the reality is very different with creeping development, lost rights of way and the fear that we’re losing the very landscapes the Act was meant to save.

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