Get orff my land!
. . . or why ramblers got a nasty shock when a BBC guide book directed them on to the Queen’s estate
THE BBC has been forced to scrap a walk in a Countryfile guide book after it directed ramblers on to private land owned by the Queen at Sandringham.
A group of walkers was confronted by armed men bearing semi-automatic weapons, understood to be police or soldiers protecting Her Majesty. They abruptly sent the ramblers back – and urged them to ‘throw away’ the guide.
The publication i n question, The Mail on Sunday has learned, is 2010’s Countryfile book Great British Walks. A seven-mile trek entitled The Wash takes walkers on a route including private farm tracks on land owned by the Queen.
The BBC is believed to have received complaints that Royal security and privacy were put at risk, although Norfolk Police and the Sandringham Estate declined to comment.
The walk was hastily removed in 2011 and replaced by another one along the coast. But thousands of copies of the original book are likely to be still in circulation,
‘Two guys brandishing sub-machine guns’
and last week The Mail on Sunday discovered a ‘Look Inside’ feature on the new version’s Amazon listing which allowed access to the deleted walk.
The feature was swiftly removed after we informed BBC Books. It too refused to comment.
The £12.99 book, with a foreword by former Countryfile presenter Julia Bradbury, included the itinerary across the Royal estate among ‘ 100 unique walks’. One recent visitor using the book said: ‘We had only gone a short distance when we began to see security cameras.
‘A few minutes later two guys in camouflage brandishing submachine guns – police or soldiers – drove up at speed on a quadbike and demanded to know what we were doing on Royal property.
‘ We told the officers we were following the route in the book of walks. One said we should throw the book away as we were trespassing and had to leave immediately.
‘They said they had complained about this guide book on a number of occasions and had dealt with quite a few people who ended up straying on to Royal land.’
Retired artist John Riley, 70, said he and his wife Harriet, also 70, were confronted by a Sandringham worker when they tried to walk the route in August 2015.
Mr Riley, from Bridlington, East Yorkshire, said: ‘We followed the route to the letter. We got a couple of miles up a track when a farmhand told us we were not supposed to be there.
‘Ever since then, we have had a standing joke about the Queen kicking us off her land.’
The walk starts from Dersingham Bog and passes the former Wolferton railway station, where the bodies of George V and George VI were loaded on to trains following their deaths, then directs walkers down a farm track across an area used by Royal shooting parties. The route runs near a farm sometimes used as a weekend retreat by the Queen and Prince Philip. It has also hosted Princes William and Harry on shooting weekends. A Mail on Sunday reporter found the track blocked by a locked gate last week. Sandringham Parish Council chairman Ben Colson said: ‘I am perplexed that the BBC included the path in its walk around the area. Everyone around here knows it is private.’ BBC Books refused to confirm or deny that the walk was removed due to complaints from Sandringham or police. Publisher Random House said: ‘We regularly update our editorial and that route has not been in circulation for six years.’