Free Country

I'm reading an excellent book by Nick Hayes - "The Book of Trespass" (Crossing the lines that divide us). He is drawing attention to the extent to which the country in general and the countryside in particular is closed off to Joe Public - a process which arguably started in Medieval Times with the first enclosures and still goes on. We are currently able to access, in his estimation, only 8% of the land we call ours.

This was brought home to me yesterday as we tried to find a (legal) way through from a campsite to The Jurassic Way footpath in Leicestershire. On the OS map there were three possible path/tracks marked (though none as a footpath/right of way) - and in my optimism I thought that we would be able to get along at least one of them. Sadly not. Two were 'private' (pic shows the second hail-fellow-well-met greeting) and one had been ploughed into oblivion. We didn't get through to the Jurassic Way which was a shame because we're allowed to use that - for the time being.