There are paths which are lost by neglect – some are blocked by landowners – some are diverted or scrubbed up lawfully. Then there are those which might not have been official in the first place.
One of the latter is on the Middlesex Greenway. Each time I have been that way, I have seen the path marked clearly on the Ordnance Survey map but I have seen the high fence and passed by – but his time I found a way in and walked the path. It is a footpath marked on an official map, after all.
It was a morning’s walk from Staines to Uxbridge – part of the Middlesex Greenway and of the Middlesex Border Walk. Between Stanwell Moor and Harmondsworth is the huge expanse of Heathrow Airport, and the walk along the dual carriageway A-road beside the airport is not the most pleasant experience, so a cut-off is welcome.
I came upon a heavy gate – high, impassable and meaning business, but the path was visible and tempting through the bars. Then looking around, I saw that there was a way to slip around the gate, and I did so, and I walked the barred path for the first time. It had cleanly not been walked for some time and undergrowth was trying to take over, but it was clear, wide and open – until the end, where it fizzles out just before it can emerge on the pavement. Still, ducking under trees I did emerge where the map showed I can come out; but the shrubs to found a new hedge have been planted: while I could slip through, as spring turns to summer the end of this path will be blocked at last.
I do not like blocked paths. The council have a duty to open them. I therefore did some research, and annoyingly I could find no indication from the history of the site that there was ever a public path there – just an access to industrial / commercial units. (It runs behind some yards, and a side track, not marked as a path, heads off it.) Yet it is is on the Ordnance Survey map. But it is not on Hillingdon Council’s published ‘definitive map’. So I wrote to the council.
The reply came back swiftly. ‘There are no routes recorded on the Definitive Map and Statement which run through this area.’ Further, a search of records finds no evidence to suggest it is a public right of way, and without evidence of use or historical documentation, it will not be. It was worth a try. The Ordnance Survey map was misleading. The Middlesex Greenway must then follow the main road here. It is a pity.