Park sharks
Our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, considers how commercial exploitation is threatening our parks and green spaces. As I walked through Battersea Park in the February sunshine I found it hard to imagine what it would be like here in July. Then the quiet roads around the park will be converted into a motor-race track for the international…
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150th anniversary of Berkhamsted Common battle
On Sunday (6 March) with the National Trust we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the night raid to free Berkhamsted Common. On 6 March 1866, the year after its foundation, the Open Spaces Society organised a trainload of brawny navvies to pull down Lord Brownlow’s illegal iron fences and reopen the common to the people.…
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Commons – global and local
The Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) of the University of Gloucestershire has published its new book, Commons—Governance of Shared Assets, coinciding nicely with World Book Day. It can be downloaded as a pdf or as epub from the university’s website. The book is a collection of recent blog posts on the CCRI website, centred on…
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We call for public access to Shropshire woodlands
On Saturday (5 March) we shall call for greater public access to Weston Heath Coppice, Old Coppice and Bury Wood, at Weston-Under-Redcastle in north Shropshire. Our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook, will speak at a rally at Weston village hall, with Keith Ridland, vice-chairman of the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s Shropshire branch. All are welcome…
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Stepping stones across the River Thame
Our local correspondent Chris Hall writes of the society’s efforts to record a route across the River Thame in Oxfordshire as a public footpath. Three miles east of industrial Cowley, deep and peacefully remote in the meadows of the Oxford green belt, is a legal battleground at grid reference SP 601 005. As recently as…
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A generous bequest from Leslie Menzler
Our former local correspondent for Warwickshire, Leslie Menzler, died in 2014 aged 93 with no surviving family. He has left us a generous legacy. John Hall, our Coventry local correspondent writes of Leslie: Little is known about his early life but old family photos show Les living in Surrey with siblings and servants. His father,…
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Thwaite common fencing plan rejected
We are delighted that the Planning Inspectorate has rejected an application for fencing of Thwaite Common, near Erpingham, six miles south of Cromer. A year ago the Thwaite Common Management Committee, supported by North Norfolk District Council and Norfolk Wildlife Trust, applied to erect temporary fencing on three parts of the common, to enable the…
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Multi-million pound Firle Footpath ploughed up for the third time
For the third time, the Firle Estate has ploughed up a path that it gets a huge subsidy to keep open, despite promises to the Open Spaces Society given three months ago that it would be opened. The path, which runs south from the Barley Mow Pub at Selmeston, is one of the reasons that…
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Kington’s pioneer path-scheme comes to an end
After 25 years the pioneering Kington Footpath Scheme in Herefordshire has come to an end. The scheme was invented and run by Peter Newman, our trustee and north-west Herefordshire local correspondent, with Herefordshire Council and the Hereford Probation Service. Offenders on Community Payback worked with Peter and the council to install about 800 stiles and…
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Getting the buzz
The society has long opposed fencing on commons, and we are pleased that an alternative is being developed. Last November we joined a group of commons practitioners on a visit to Epping Forest, to learn about the use of invisible fencing to contain stock. Epping Forest is a 12-mile-long stretch of ancient woodland straddling the…
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