Our history in pictures

Walk Friendly Britain

Britain is one of the world’s most walk-friendly countries. With beautiful landscapes, 15 national parks, and over 130,000 miles of legally protected rights of way criss-crossing the country, it’s not hard to see why. These hard-earned benefits have been campaigned for, championed and lovingly protected by Britain’s walking charity the Ramblers
How things were...

It hasn’t always been this way. Between the early 1600s and the 1890s a succession of Parliamentary Acts fenced off half Britain’s countryside. As Britain industrialised, its open spaces became increasingly closed. By the turn of the century, factory workers in Manchester would look longingly on a Peak District that was 99% out-of-bounds, knowing that they risked imprisonment, gamekeepers or even illegal mantraps if they wandered there.
The Great Outdoors

At the same time, however, Britain’s concept of ‘land’ was changing. Under the pens and paintbrushes of Romantic artists, the ‘land’ was transformed from ‘wilderness’ into ‘great outdoors’. Rambling clubs (pictured) sprang up all over the country, as bus and rail companies helped lure a younger generation into the country to spend their new found leisure time.
A Landmark Demonstration

From the outset, rambling was an intensely political act. In 1900 GHB Ward set up the ‘Clarion Walkers Club’ in Sheffield, to enable factory workers to escape the smog and explore the forbidden moors en masse. Ward sparked off a regional movement, culminating in the Kinderscout mass trespass of 1932, where 300+ walkers took to the hills to campaign for access. Although politically unsuccessful (the leaders were jailed), this landmark demonstration made headlines nationwide.
The Birth of The Ramblers

On the 1st of January 1935 the Ramblers' Association. The organisation faced robust opposition from MPs and landowners, with its initial focus on lobbying for Access to Mountains – and all other uncultivated ‘common’ land. Events were taking place in Europe, however, that would change the balance of power…
Fighting for the Countryside

The Second World War turned notions of land ownership on their head. During the war the countryside was often presented as a utopian prize to be shared, post war, with the nation that fought for it. The inscription here reads: “The day will come when the joybells ring again throughout Europe…when victorious nations will plan and build in justice, in tradition and in freedom.”
National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act (1949)

The watershed National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act (1949) provided the framework for walkers’ rights that still stands today, including the creation of National Parks, long distance paths, open-country access agreements and a definitive map on which paths would be legally enshrined as rights of way. Ramblers Secretary Tom Stephenson was an instrumental in creating and achieving this act.
The Definitive Map

Following the Act, Ramblers volunteers from around the country assited local authorities with the painstaking work of drawing up the ‘definitive map’. Work included researching ancient paths, surveying the routes, submitting the information and – if necessary – taking the claims to the local courts. Thirty years later the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) permitted anyone to apply for a right of way to be added to the Map.
Path maintenance

Meanwhile Ramblers innovations continued to shape the nature of walking in Britain; in 1958 the Ramblers persuaded the Ordnance Survey to show rights of way on their maps. But it was not enough just to map paths. Many were obstructed and poorly signposted so local Ramblers groups campaigned to persuade famers and landowners to respect rights of way crossing their land. They also pressed local authorities to carry out their statutory duty to maintain paths and keep them free from obstruction and organised work parties to repair and install stiles and bridges, waymarks and signposts.
2000 Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) act

The Ramblers longest running campaign, however, was for public access uncultivated common land. After 70 years, the founders’ ambitions were realised as the 2000 Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) act opened up 750,000 hectares of mountain, moor, heath, down and common land to anyone who wanted to walk there.
Foot And Mouth

The Government responded to 2001’s Foot and Mouth epidemic, with a blanket closure of rights of way. Following careful lobbying by the Ramblers, a more selective approach was adopted, with paths being closed only where strictly necessary. Meanwhile significant loss of trade by small business, particularly pubs, pointed up the immense contribution made by rights of way users to the rural economy.
Scottish Land Reform Act

Ramblers Scotland was instrumental in securing the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, in Feb 2005. One of the most egalitarian pieces of access legislation in existence, the act establishes a statutory right of responsible access to almost all land and water.
NERC Act

By the early noughties, ‘green lanes’ across the country were being swallowed up for use in new motor sports, such as 4 X 4 trail riding. Enthusiasts used claims that the paths had always been used vehicles; horse and carts! The Ramblers campaigned to prevent such claims, and in 2006 the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 provided that motor rights could not be established over a way by proving that horse-drawn vehicles used it in the past.
Coastal Access

In 2009 the historic Marine and Coastal Access Act entered the statute books as years of solid campaigning by the Ramblers paid off. The Act provides for the creation of a continuous coastal path around England that will see 37% more coast secured for public use than before the Act. Ramblers CEO, Tom Franklin, commented “As a coastal nation we have a unique affinity with our coast and should all be free to enjoy it – that is the ethos driving the bill.”
Outreach

Whilst traditional challenges persist, new challenges such as obesity, increasing car use, and social exclusion means that our work promoting and campaigning for walking has never been more relevant. At the start of the 21st Century, the Ramblers are setting up new programmes that work to introduce families and people living in inner cities to the life-time joys of walking. The founders would have approved.