It is difficult to see how any of those who devised this plan have laced up boots let alone walked along any one of the thirteen English National Trails.

Ramblers has launched its ‘Campaign for National Trails’ in response to new government proposals for the management of National Trails in England – which the charity fears would cause a dramatic decline in their quality…

The Ramblers played a key role in establishing National Trails. Tom Stephenson, the first Ramblers Secretary, envisioned “a long green trail from the Peak to the Cheviots…which the feet of grateful pilgrims would, with the passing years, engrave on the face of the land.”

Speaking personally I know this leg of the Green Chain Walk very well – I’ve led walks along it, have been angered by the obstructions but literally found ways around them, and am now outraged by the increasingly selfish actions of the landowner who is depriving members of the public of an excellent walk in south east London

It goes without saying that for me this is one of the real joys of walking – it puts you in touch in a very real way with the past.

‘Roads, lanes, paths,’ wrote another twentieth-century poet, Geoffrey Grigson, ‘we use them without reflecting how they are some of man’s oldest inscriptions upon the landscape’. It’s time we reflected

Befitting a journey to a land of myths and legend, the dreamy aspects of still water features heavily. The Somerset Levels sees land transformed into a clear sheet of water, with stranded gates and trees rising upwards, mirrored below. Then, at Exeter St David’s, the train slips alongside the sea, where swans glide out to meet sailing boats and yachts…

A round-up of our latest successes…

MPs joined Ramblers for a celebratory walk to Parliament to mark the 80th anniversary of the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass…

In April, the Ramblers’ newly elected president, Kate Ashbrook (left), joined 50 other countryside lovers for a walk to celebrate the first birthday of the South Downs National Park…