"Took a walk in the fields saw an old wood stile taken away from a favourite spot which it had occupied all my life the posts were overgrown with ivy and it seemed so akin to nature and the spot where it stood as though it had taken it on lease for an undisturbed existence it hurt me to see it was gone for my affections claim a friendship with such things..."

(John Clare's 'Journal', Sept 1824)

For most of us the 'way in' to the countryside close to our homes or in far-away places has been along the footpaths, bridleways and lanes. The disused railway line taking you all the way out of town, the canal towpath, the path from village to village, and the criss-cross of lines, their purpose long forgotten but their pleasures still abundant, all give you the chance to know more closely the corners of your 'territory'. The paths provide a means of movement but they have many values in their own right. If the scale of the parish 'feels right' then the footpath is surely fitted to that scale. The variety it offers underfoot, in taking sheltered routes by the hedges or striking out unashamedly across a field, in meandering through the woods and by the stream, in the details of stile and gate, all are part of that very richness that the locality offers.

A simple line hardly impinging on nature - the path - is the oldest mark to be made upon the landscape by man. History written in a single line - the link with all the feet that have trodden the same trail gives the humble path another significance to us. Those windy tracks across the moors linking village with village and valley with valley, those ridgeway paths to the cider house, 'deadmans lane' (the way the coffin was carried to church), the lovers lanes, the smugglers lanes, the path to the gibbet at the edge of the parish - are all part of the rich cultural tapestry of our countryside.

Our pattern of footpaths both illustrates and symbolises rights of passage created by generations of ordinary people going about their everyday business. That footpaths are an inheritance to be cherished simply for their commonplace qualities and because they are everywhere may seem odd - but for those who are landless and for those who care about the whole of the countryside, that intricate network of common paths provides the only vital popular link with land and place. To lose a footpath is to lose an ancient right hard won and to let down both our forbears and our children.