England has completed the King Charles III England Coast Path, a path that permits hikers, ramblers, runners, day-trippers and everyone else to walk around its entire coastline.
If the Hadrian’s Wall Path, which joins the west of England to its east, is added (the wall is not the border with Scotland, as some people think), it is now possible to walk around the entire mainland coast of the country.
Scotland has different laws on public access, which already includes the right to walk on all its coasts. The Welsh coastal path, 870 miles in length, is part of a full loop of the country, so it is possible to walk around the entirety of England, Scotland and Wales.
England and Wales contain more than 140,000 miles of footpaths that permits anyone to wander at will across owned land and through national parks and other areas of scenic beauty.
There are rules of conduct — keep to the paths, close gates, take litter home, etc. — but if common sense prevails, there is no threat that landowners can close these routes.
The British footpath system, in my opinion, is one of the jewels of the U.K., and hoteliers and everyone else should celebrate and advertise them. Many hotels do, with posted walking routes available for their guests.
It is a very sound idea, I feel, not to allow anyone to own coastline, too, or, if they do, to secure public access to it.
There probably has always been access to the coast below the high-water mark, but now there is a navigable route, a firm path, that permits all 2,700 miles of British coast (save for that of Northern Ireland) to be walked.
A hotel, or any other business or residence, whose grounds extend to the coast now must allow access.
The formation of the King Charles III path will permit some marketing opportunities and the creation of extra business.
Hikers need to eat, and it is a tradition for all hikes to end up at a pub or hotel pub or bar.
The British coast is an amazingly craggy, hilly and complex one. The distance between two points might be, say, 3 miles as the crow flies, but if a hiker takes the coastal path that distance might be 5 or 6 miles, or more.
In 2012, I was invited to attend a celebration to mark the first country to fully open a hiking route around its whole perimeter.
That was Wales.
The Welsh coastal path measures 870 miles, and the inland Offa’s Dyke Path measures 177 miles.
I attended festivities at Flint Castle, and I walked 10 miles of the route.
This freedom to roam, we should remember, has not always been the case.
In six years’ time, we will celebrate the centenary of the Kinder Trespass, a mass trespass of the mountain of Kinder Scout in the Peak District (now a national park) to highlight the lack of access to private land, which led to a public outcry and a change in the law.
Landowners often fenced off land to stop access, even if the Kinder Scout path, as was the case for probably every path in today’s system, had been a route used for millennia for driving livestock to market or for walking to the next village or town.
I have taken part in running events to ensure footpaths are kept open, the law being that landowners can close paths if they choose to try and prove no one has used them for a certain period of time.
Following my run, I went home, but some participants in the Kinder Trespass spent time in prison for their audacity.
Luckily, that is not the case today as we walk between hotels and pubs to enjoy some of the most beautiful scenery and excellent hospitality in the world.
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