Using the Parish Footpath Network Responsibly

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Comments 35
27 Jul 2026

Using the Parish Footpath Network Responsibly

A Right of Way Older Than Your House

The parish path beneath your boots is rarely a modern invention. Many of these routes began as church paths, drovers' tracks, or the shortest line between two hamlets, worn into the landscape long before anyone thought to draw them on a map. They survive because they were recorded, protected and, crucially, walked. Every one of them is a public right of way, but almost every one also crosses land that belongs to someone: a working farm, a paddock, a garden, a field of barley.

That combination — a legal right held by the public and a practical reality held by the landowner — is what makes parish walking so rewarding and so easy to get wrong. A little knowledge and a good deal of courtesy will keep these paths open and pleasant for everyone.

Reading the Waymarks

Waymarks are the quiet signage of the countryside, and the colours tell you exactly what you are allowed to do. A yellow arrow marks a footpath: walkers only, no bikes, no horses. A blue arrow marks a bridleway, open to walkers, horse riders and cyclists. A red arrow indicates a byway open to all traffic, though you will rarely meet anything wider than a quad bike on one. Purple marks restricted byways, which are open to walkers, riders and non-motor vehicles. The acorn symbol means you have joined a National Trail.

Waymarks appear on gateposts, stiles and fence posts, with fingerposts where paths meet. They can be weather-beaten, turned by livestock or missing entirely. If you find a broken fingerpost or a waymark that has vanished, note the grid reference and tell your parish council or the county highways team — they are responsible for keeping rights of way open and signposted, and they genuinely want to know.

Carry a paper map as well as a phone. Signal disappears in every properly good valley, and a footpath that looks obvious on a screen can be distinctly elusive in a field of waist-high oilseed rape.

Gates, Stiles and Small Courtesies

Leave gates as you find them. Open, leave open; closed, close it behind you, even if you are the tenth person through it this morning. A gate left swinging is how livestock end up on the road.
Use the stile or kissing gate. Never climb a dry stone wall, squeeze through a gap in a hedge or unfasten a gate that has been tied shut for a reason.
Stick to the line of the path. Across a growing crop, walk between the rows along the legal route rather than taking the tramlines as an easier shortcut.
Report obstructions. A padlocked gate or an overgrown stile is a maintenance issue, not a personal slight. The highway authority can and will act on it.

Dogs on the Parish Path

Most parish paths run through land grazed by sheep, cattle or horses, and livestock do not distinguish between a spaniel and a fox. Under the Countryside Code, keep your dog on a lead of no more than two metres around livestock, in fields where stock may be present, and wherever signs ask you to. Sheep in lamb and cows with calves are the two situations most likely to end badly for everyone involved.

Between March and July, ground-nesting birds such as skylarks, meadow pipits and lapwings are sitting on eggs and chicks in exactly the rough tussocky edges where a dog most wants to run. A single off-lead circuit can destroy a nest you never saw. Where the path crosses a garden or a farmyard, a lead is simple good manners.

Dog fouling is an offence on public land and a particular misery on a path that doubles as a child's route to school. Bag it, carry it and bin it. Hanging a bag on a hedge is not disposal — it is litter with extra steps.

Crossing Working Land

Farmland is not a park. Fields are somebody's income, and a path crossing them is a privilege that runs alongside a legal right. Do not feed or stroke livestock, and never let a dog loose among cattle. If a field contains a bull, remember that bulls under ten months old, or kept with cows, may lawfully be grazed on a right of way — but no view is worth the risk. If you feel uneasy, take an alternative route rather than crossing.

Do not touch electric fences, and do not prop them open. If you meet a farmer moving machinery or stock, stand to one side on the field edge and give way; a quick wave goes a long way towards the goodwill that keeps these routes pleasant.

Litter, Wildlife and the Long View

Take home everything you bring, including apple cores and banana skins, which take far longer to disappear than most people assume. Leave wildflowers where they grow: uprooting a wild plant without the landowner's permission is an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and some of our loveliest verges are rarer than they look. Do not move stones, logs or deadwood — they are habitat, not clutter.

Keep drones grounded unless you have the landowner's permission, and remember that a path passing a farmhouse window is someone's sitting room view. Walk quietly, shut gates, note what you see. These routes have survived for centuries because each generation used them gently and handed them on. Do the same, and the path will still be there for whoever comes next.

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5 Comments

Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply
- John Abraham says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
  
  I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
  Reply
  - Robert Sonnysays Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
    
    I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
    Reply
Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply

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