Some things never change

Aylesbury Footpaths Secretary, Michael Roe, recently unearthed evidence that the great 'stiles debate' goes back at least 100 years.

Following a land sale in Wendover in 1901 fences and stiles were erected across the line of a footpath which had been used by the public for many years. At a parish council meeting on 11 June 1906 a resolution was passed instructing the parish clerk to write to the landowner telling him to remove the stiles within 7 days or the parish council would take 'whatever action they may consider necessary'. The 7 day deadline came and went so on 21 June 1906 the good folk of Wendover (over 2,000 according to one report) armed with saws and crowbars removed two offending stiles themselves accompanied by much cheering from the crowd.

Common sense prevailed and kissing gates eventually replaced the other stiles on the route and today the footpath is a well-used part of the Ridgeway National Trail. Old and young local ramblers celebrated this fact with a nostalgic walk from Wendover to Coombe Hill on 21 June 2006.

The tendency of bumptious landowners to obstruct paths may not change; the public reaction plainly has. In similar circumstances outside Wells, the locals deployed scythes and a brass band. My father had a story about people parading round the walls of an estate near Bristol blowing a trumpet with reference to Joshua chapter 6. (In the long term, this seems to have worked; it's now a public park) My personal favourite is the Leckhampton incident: a cottage was dismantled, the Riot Act was read and Miss Dorothea Beale, whose complaint triggered all this, though she did not lead her girls in St Trinian's style direct action, did cancel the Cheltenham Ladies' College piano contract with the landowner. Nowadays, some of us might write a stroppy letter to the council: 2,000 people with crowbars? Fat chance. It's enough to convert you to Victorian Values.

Peter Gould