The path leaves the lane at a gate with no waymark, crosses two fields that are usually in wheat, and rejoins the road a mile short of the village. It has been a right of way since before the road was surfaced. You would not know it was there.
What the map says
On the printed sheet it is a short green dashed line, the notation for a public footpath, and it is drawn with the same confidence as the motorway six miles north. The map is not wrong. The map has simply never been asked to prove itself against the ground.
A right of way is a legal fact before it is a physical one, and the two are only loosely acquainted.
What the ground says
There is no stile. There is a gate, and the gate is tied with baler twine in a way that suggests it is opened rarely and by the same person each time. Across the first field there is no line in the crop at all. In the second there is a faint one, which may be the path or may be where a tractor turns.
- The gate is unmarked but unlocked, which is what the law requires.
- The crop is planted across the line, which the law permits if the path is restored.
- It has not been restored, which is where the law stops being theoretical.
Walking it anyway
It takes fifty minutes, which is twenty more than the road, and it is better in every way that matters. Two hares in the second field. A hedge that has been laid rather than flailed, which is rarer every year. The sound of the road arriving before you can see it.
I have walked it eleven times. On four of those I have met somebody. On three of those four, they asked me whether this was a path.