Footpath Maps and Signs
The question of footpaths has long since been dealt with in admirable fashion by Essex, where footpaths and bridle-paths are marked by signposts. Here the walker knows his short cuts are safe, can feel himself in friendly countryside. He can ignore the most forbidding word in the language : Private. The Kent Council of Social Service, a body existing to promote and assist the provision of all kinds of social service for town, village and hamlet, now puts forward its own idea. It suggests a record of footpaths ; further, and more important, a map. Such a map, exhibited in a public place, already exists at the village of Eynsford. Both schemes, signpost and map, are admirable. Why not combine them ?—maps at pub. and church, signposts to punctuate the land itself. What a saving of truculence and temper, anger and apology, threat and counter-threat, wagging of irate deer-stalkers. Much invalu- able material for walkers has, by the way, been issued by an organisation whose first concern is to try to induce people not to walk but to ride. London Transport issues, either free or at absurd prices, maps and guides of almost all the immediate countryside about London : guides marking out not only pub. and church and wood and castle, but also stiles, five- barred gates, poultry farms, watercress 'beds, paths and hedges.
H. E. BATES.
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