"What are you doing on that path?" (Methven II)

This is the second part of a story that started here.

On the way past Methven Castle farm, going east, I hadn't seen a soul. Max was off the lead. If we approach farmyards with buildings on both sides, he is usually leashed because of chickens, dogs, people, machinery. More often than not he refuses to advance, apparently through fear of livestock & I have to carry him - a large, hairy, invariably muddy bundle. Despite being a rescue dog, over the last year he has developed better recall than I have seen in some farm dogs. He was near me as we approached the farm, the place seemed deserted.

On the return, approaching the same farm from the opposite direction, three or four dogs under no sort of control shot out from a field on the right, crossed the track at speed and disappeared into the farmyard. They were followed by a woman who glanced in my direction and shouted at me to put my dog on a lead. Max was standing on the path just ahead of me, ears pricked, staring at where the dogs had disappeared. He returned when called and I did put him on the lead in case he decided to exercise his good judgement on bad characters and start barking at her aggressively. With hindsight it would have been unlikely given the number of dogs and his fear of farmyards.  Most people in my experience, unfortunately do as ordered by controlling types whether the martinet is right or wrong.  Controlling types are inevitably wrong yet, doubly misdirected, are convinced by their rightness.  Most people I have met say they obey the many signs that abound, put up as a deterrent, unaware they are deterrents and illegal.

But on reflection, why should this woman, a stranger to me, issue orders to people? Why should she demand my dog already under control be leashed, particularly when several of her own were neither leashed nor controlled. The track is a well-used core path. The farm buildings are to one side of it. What jurisdiction do the people here have to issue orders to others quietly going about their business? A minority of dogs may chase sheep, but then a minority of people steal, fight and cheat. Do we, without knowing anything about them, order everyone about just because we expect them to behave that way, because we don't trust them?  Not normally, but in the country, some landowners do, despite having no right to do so.

A few steps ahead an older man in country clothes had just pulled up in a large black vehicle. He said to me, certainly not in apology, "There's sheep in that field and the next one". Why say so? My dog was already leashed. I began to wonder if they were bullies.

If we have to go through a field of sheep, Max, a fearful soul through and through, tugs at the lead desperate to get away from them. I looked at where the man was pointing. There were indeed sheep, - two fields and two fences distant. If you zoom in you'll see them.

The second lot of sheep he'd meant were a good quarter of a mile away, down by the road, behind substantial fencing. If some landowners had it their way, dogs would never be off the lead in the country. Other people's dogs that is.

But I simply asked if he knew who the woodland mentioned in the last post belonged to. Quite civilly, he gave me the name of the man and the farm which he said was on the Crieff Rd. I thanked him."  You're welcome," he said in a tone of continued civility.  I went on my way.

He got into his vehicle and drove probably less than a hundred yards towards the sheep he'd just indicated.

I thought perhaps he was going to feed them. But he got out again and hailed a tall man with a ginger beard and a boy coming up the path, next to the field. I'd met them earlier coming the other way earlier. We'd said hello.

The vehicle track on the left and what looks like a path on the right.

In a dramatic change of tone the country man said, "What are you doing on that path?"   Earlier, I had noticed a sign on the main track near where I am standing saying "Please stay on the path", which I thought potentially confusing, not to mention probably illegal.

There is also a sign just up from the actual path by the field (not the track on the left) saying Private House. I had thought the latter was quite sensibly informative rather than e.g. Keep Out.

The tall man looked at his phone and replied, with heavy sarcasm, "Oh, I'm so sorry".

Country Man: "This is a private drive to a private house. How did you get on to it anyway?"

The tall man muttered: "Walked up, walked back."

I wished he was a bit more forthright but then he hadn't seen, as I had, that there seemed to be a pattern of harassment. 

I said to the country man: "It's not obvious that path is a private drive. It looks like path."

Country Man: "It is private and there's a sign at the bottom there."

"Did you see any sign?" I asked tall man.

He shrugged and said:  "He can say what he likes, he doesn't own Scotland."

The country man, possibly feeling more challenged than he had expected then said, rather lamely: "It's not my drive. It belongs to the man at the bottom."  But the tall man had moved on in apparent disgust.

I was tempted to say "Don't you have enough problems of your own?" but what was the point? Perhaps what I might have asked was: "How many people have you harassed on this track, today?" More usefully, in the future I might ask: "What exactly is it that upsets you so much about people using this track?"  They must have a reason.

The country man got back in his car and drove the hundred yards back again to the farm.

I heard later that the landowner here is trying to get this core path closed.  I don't know if there are any grounds on which he can do this. So far he has been unsuccessful.

Another locked gate! (Methven)

I wanted to try a circular walk around Methven via Dalcrue from the car park in Methven by the recreation ground. Setting off with the dog in an anticlockwise direction, we walked east along the busy A85, Crieff road.   The core paths - designated by the council, protected by law, and available on a clickable map. are shown in purple. My planned route is shown in green.  

 

It is noisy, dirty and not fun walking along an A road.  Still, we'd only have to do it once.  We turned off up the track to Methven Castle Farm, which I'd been to before from the other direction.  Previously, we'd come by accident. Walking from the east side of Methven woods, my son and I had been looking for the path through the woods immediately east of the farm.   Chatting, we'd missed it, overshot by quite a bit and found ourselves at the farm.  The reason we'd missed it was because the woodland was fenced and I hadn't noticed the tall stile that served as 'access'.  Accessible to some, but not others, and not accessible to my dog.  Yes, the waymarkers indicate another route. I'd already done that route.  And it doesn't mean we have to do what they suggest.  

This time, as I approached this woodland from the farm I noticed a gate in the fence on the woodland's west side.  Oh joy, it was only closed with wire!  It wasn't a normal gate certainly not a 'welcoming' one  - even once open you had to duck under fencing.  Indeed, it looked as though somebody might have tried sabotaging the entrance.  Apart from the loose barbed wire on the ground there was a dump of many rusty, poky rods. 

Still, it was a gate not a stile and Max managed to pass through without being speared.  We walked through the woodland along what had probably been a substantial track at one time.  You can tell from the channels on either side and the raised aspect of the route.  I'd seen the same thing on the old and now very overgrown Lynedoch carriageway not far away.

A map of 1864 shows there were in fact two tracks running through this woodland. Methven Castle Farm was called Home Farm at that time.

Of course, I could have gone on a route I'd done before and knew to be open, through Methven wood further east.  But it was longer, I didn't have much time, I like the road less travelled and besides, I was curious.  Below - green:  the route I wanted to go; yellow:  the route I could have gone.

In law, I don't actually need a reason for choosing a particular route.  You're not obliged to follow core paths, in fact the yellow route isn't even a core path.  Happily, you just have a right of responsible access.   

At the end of the woodland there was a gate.  It was high and locked with a chain. So much for access.  It had chicken wire all around the base.  I could have climbed over, at a push, but the dog couldn't get through.  I looked along the fence for holes but as with so many fences nowadays, it was efficacious.  

Location of the padlocked gate

There is nothing to steal here.  There is no livestock, no expensive equipment.  It is just trees. There was no obvious reason why this gate should be locked.

Regretting that no-one braver than me had been along before, with wire cutters, I gave up on yet another walk and we retraced our steps.  There wasn't time to do the other route now.  After a difficult day you look forward to a walk. Walking in the country is indeed a miracle pill.  But locked gates, intimidating signs and shouty landowners change all that and you can wish you hadn't gone out at all - which is what some of them want. Along the road, the dog flinched and cowered flat at every passing, thundering vehicle bigger than a car. It took a while.  

The 2003 Land Reform Act gave us seemingly enormous freedoms.  But on the ground, it is often hard to see them. If landowners don't want you on their land, they will simply lock the gates and many do.  I probably encounter at least as many gates locked as unlocked.  I know, because of the relief I feel when I find one I can get through.  You don't feel relief when it's more normal to find gates unlocked.  

What council or voluntary group has the resources to chase every landowner even if they had the will?  In a country community where a lot of people know one another, few have the will to take on belligerent, very possibly well-connected landowners who think they're above the law.    If you have a proactive council and if you're lucky they might write a letter.  But a landowner can easily ignore letters, knowing, fairly safely, that no or little more pressure will be brought to bear upon them.  The public may have rights in theory, but when it comes to walking, it's what happens on the ground, that counts.

Moreover, when there is an alternative it is all too easy to get fobbed off or ignored:  "Oh, just leave it she can learn to go the long way and stop making a fuss".  I haven't raised this as a complaint with the council because an email asking questions on another matter was ignored and I thought "what's the point?"  (I subsequently made an FOI which was answered).  Since then though I have heard that, with the support of the Access Forum, a group elected to represent access issues, the council will sometimes write letters to intransigent landowners or ones that harass walkers so I might try.  It is important that gates are not locked when there is not good reason for it, otherwise what is the point of land reform laws?

This is not the end of the story of this walk.  On the way back I was ordered about and witnessed another walker interrogated and harassed.  More to come soon.