Discover a lost path
Take part in the detective story on your doorstep – and help save the nation’s footpaths forever…
Welcome to an adventure story in which you’re the hero.
IF YOU NEED a winter walking project that’s right on your doorstep, take a look at a campaign called Don’t Lose Your Way.
Run by the Ramblers campaign group, it’s a bid to ensure commonly-used footpaths and rights of way are fully documented and secured in law, in time for a deadline in 2026. Here’s the story.
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
The footpath network of England and Wales has developed over centuries. Many of the paths we use today date back to medieval times, and even earlier. But here’s the thing: it’s estimated that around 10,000 miles of rights of way aren’t documented on the official record known as the Definitive Map. Some are in regular use, while some may be fading away; inaccessible or impassable. But whatever state they are in, if they’re not recorded by January 1st 2026, they will cease to be registered as rights of way, and we can’t legally walk them any more.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
The Ramblers are asking walkers all across England and Wales to check their local footpaths and ensure they’re on the Definitive Map (the simplest way to check is to see if they show up on the Ordnance Survey Explorer and Landranger maps). But you can also do a bit of detective work: take a look at historic maps of your area, look for
FP and BR (footpath and bridle road) and make sure they’re still there on the modern-day map.
HOW CAN I FIND A HISTORIC MAP?
There are several sources but the best and most fun is the National Library of Scotland’s website: maps.nls.uk (which is somewhat ironic, as Scotland itself has free access and thus does not have the same problem as England and Wales). Toggle to ‘georeferenced maps’ and you can select any part of Britain, view it in vintage map format to see where the footpaths (marked as FP) and bridleways (marked as BR) are, and use the clever slider button to merge it with aerial photography of the landscape today. Cross-check against your OS map, and if a path isn’t marked today which was clearly there on the older map (and especially if it’s still in evidence on the ground), it could be at risk. Let the Ramblers know by emailing the details to dlyw@ramblers.org.uk
THE DETECTIVE STORY
Sometimes the modern-day OS map will show up oddities that don’t make sense, which may indicate a lost or at-risk right of way. For instance… A right of way that suddenly stops for no obvious reason, perhaps at the line of a parish boundary (which is shown on the map but invisible on the ground). It’s rare for a right of way to hit a dead end, so it may be that the line should continue on the other side of the boundary. Check the historic map and you may find that the original line continued quite happily, and should be recorded on the Definitive Map as a right of way.
A right of way that doesn’t quite reach a road. It may be that the road has moved over time, but the recording of the right of way wasn’t adjusted with it. A parish with loads of rights of way next to one that has hardly any. Some parishes kept recording their rights of way faithfully while others were a bit less fastidious about it. Again, the old maps might reveal that the second parish did have plenty of them – and still should.
THE URGENCY
The campaign has found a willing champion in Country Walking columnist Stuart Maconie, who also happens to be the President of the Ramblers.
“Back in 2000, when the Countryside and Rights
of Way Act brilliantly opened up large parts of our countryside to public access, the recording deadline of 2026 probably seemed a generous timescale,” explains Stuart.
“But now it is only six years away, and one Cornish Ramblers volunteer has estimated that they will have to put in two applications to the council per week to ensure all their paths remain on the statute books and maps. Never has the phrase ‘use it or lose it’ been more apt. So get out there and get searching!”
AND WHAT IS A RIGHT OF WAY, ANYWAY?
Rights of way are created simply by walking. If it can be proved that a path has been in reasonably constant use for 20 years, it becomes a right of way. The oldest rights of way began life as trade routes, corpse roads, pilgrimage paths or connections between neighbouring villages. They are marked on OS Explorer maps in green, or on Landranger maps in cerise. A footpath right of way is represented by short dashes while bridleways and byways which are rights of way are marked by with long dashes: