In this vivid photo-essay, Adam Robertson Charlton looks at the way barbed wire confines and controls access to the land

Matthew Kelly writes about Jeremy Burchardt’s Lifescapes: The Experience of Landscape in Britain, 1870-1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).

Last year I walked along the middle section of Hadrian’s Wall Path, a National Trail that opened in 2003 and follows the line of the Roman Wall for 84 miles coast to coast, between Wallsend in the east and Bowness-on-Solway in the west. Beginning at the Roman fort Vercovicium (Housesteads), I set out for Cawfields Quarry, just over 5 miles away. I walked westwards into the prevailing wind, but the reward was a feeling of authenticity in the knowledge that I was proceeding in the same direction as the Romans when they constructed their northern frontier from 122 AD

Why are urban paths often not the subject of campaigns to register them as Rights of Way? And what makes for a successful campaign if they are? This blog uses a long-running controversy in Oxford to begin tentative answers to both questions.

Clare and Abbi from In All Our Footsteps and Dr Sarah Bell (Exeter University) recently facilitated a workshop at the 2023 annual conference of the European Society for Environmental History in Bern (Switzerland). Here, Abbi reflects on their workshop and shares a collaborative tramping poem co-written by workshop participants.

In October 2022, during the 40th anniversary year of the Yorkshire Wolds Way National Trail, Andrew Elliker-Reeve became the first blind man to walk the entire 79 miles of the route in seven consecutive days to raise money for Guide Dogs, and shared his journey through his blog Travelling Blind. As last Saturday was World Trails Day, it seemed like a great opportunity to share Andrew’s experience of walking this East Yorkshire trail and what it meant to him.

In this piece we reflect on the range of formal and informal signs seen along rights of way and what these might convey, in terms of both meaning and affect, to those who encounter them.

The concept of a ‘Public Walk’ as a particular urban feature which emerged in the late eighteenth century has an interesting background that intersects with the histories of public health and leisure – two key concerns which still impact our thinking on rights of way today.

Read about Lucinda Carroll’s ‘Saving Our Paths’ internship at Oxford Brookes University and how evidence is uncovered to help save paths in Headington.

In my last blog-post, I explored the idea of stiles as heritage features. Here, I want to focus on stiles and access to public rights of way, particularly in relation to physical access for disabled path users.