3 min.
WHERE THE PATH LEADS
The signs were everywhere, but I rarely saw them: slender green arrows mounted on metal posts, pointing out over fields, along rivers and canals, the white words painted on them, public footpath, getting not so much as a thank-you for their service.
GREAT BRITAIN, MY NATIVE LANDSCAPE, is overridden with these footpaths—roughly 150,000 miles of trails known as public rights of way. The land they cross is often private, but public rights of way—which allow anyone to traverse that land on foot, bicycle, or horse—have been part of the country’s history since the Dark Ages, enshrined in law for centuries.
We all found our own ways of coping with lockdown. Some people turned to fitness videos, some to baking. I escaped to the footpaths. My parents’ cottage in Buckinghamshire, 40…
