Thanks to all those who commented on my post - much food for thought! I would like to make a few more comments;
1) My post contained an error, when I said that we walked anticlockwise around the hill, I should have said the reverse! We went Clockwise. 2) The path we actually used to go up was this one https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=18/53.055675/-1.773855 3) I was not aware of the document linked by Ed Loach - thanks ED. 4) Thanks to Olivia Ragone for update and action and to Andy Townsend for vast amount of info. 5) Andy mentioned that the paths which NT does not want used should be marked at both ends - so far as I could see they were only marked at the bottom - hence our mistake on our descent 6) The oddest Edit here is that the actual Dovedale Stepping stones are marked as no access to anyone. I know they were closed last year, but appear to have been reopened some time ago and certainly were in use last week when I visited. https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=20/53.0592856/-1.7756672 7) If there has been no large scale tidying up done, then it seems odd that, in such a busy area, no one has added the many unofficial trails, now marked as closed. The NT document is clear that paths added by other users should not be deleted. 8) I have refrained from stepping into the minefield and doing any edits in this area! Thanks again for all comments. Chris On Sun, 16 Nov 2025 at 22:47, Andy Townsend <[email protected]> wrote: > (quotes in here are from Chris Smith's 15/11/2025 20:29 talk-gb message) > > First, a couple of disclaimers - I'm a member of OSM's DWG, who handle > disputes like this, and I've dealt with a few of UK access issues in > that capacity before, including some that I have local knowledge of and > some that I don't. I've also been mapping lots of similar areas > _without_ a DWG hat on and in at least one example > (https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/678188487 ) I've "managed" a path > from "being a path closed for erosion control" to "not being a path at > all". I'm also somewhat familiar with the area around Thorpe Cloud. > > Here's a map of the area that might be helpful (disclaimer, the map is > mine): > https://map.atownsend.org.uk/maps/map/map.html#16/53.0555/-1.7761/H/P/N > > The thick green lines are from Richard's "rights of way" tiles and show > where the public footpaths are _supposed_ to be. The red dotted lines > are OSM's public footpaths, grey dotted lines are other paths that > aren't public footpaths, and the purple splodges are for NT's "Walk > Round Thorpe Cloud" https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/19283684 , > added by https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/NTTrailsMEE . > > As an aside, at a presentation at SOTMEU a couple of days ago the NT's > GIS Data Officer gave a presentation ("Equal Access at the National > Trust" - alas that does not seem to be deep linkable yet at > https://2025.stateofthemap.eu/#schedule ) where she explained that they > were adding these sorts of paths across the country. > > The final relevant bit of info about Thorpe Cloud is that it's CRoW Act > access land > > https://naturalengland-defra.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/Defra::crow-act-2000-access-layer/explore?location=53.059510%2C-1.776814%2C15.38 > . For background, see > > https://www.gov.uk/guidance/open-access-land-management-rights-and-responsibilities > - broadly speaking for those unaware it's "right to roam with caveats", > and in addition, just because the whole area is "foot=yes" (in OSM > terms) doesn't mean that it's criss-crossed with actual paths. > > Chris said: > > > Eventually we came to one that was not marked like that and used it > to go to the summit. The going was quite difficult - steep and slippery > rock and the path not always clear. The result was that we accidentally > came back down by path slightly further around the hill. When I got home > and looked at the area on OSM I was surprised to find that the path we > used to go up was the only one shown. > > Based on that description and after looking at the underlying OSM data I > suspect that this is https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1087364182 . > That was set to "highway=no" a couple of years ago, and also "foot=no". > Personally I'd have gone for a lifecycle tag "disused:highway" rather > than "highway=no", and strictly speaking "foot=no" is wrong because it's > CRoW Act land, but I can absolutely understand why the NT person who > made that change (a different one to the one that you mentioned) did > so. If you look at the history of > https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/47072604/history you can see that OSM > thought the whole area was a work in progress 5 years ago, and "Signs > erected both ends saying path closed because of erosion and risk of > rockfall" 4 years ago. > > Looking back in time with overpass, https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/2fzq , I > can't see anything large that was in OSM that has been deleted, so I > presume that way that is now > https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1087364182 is "your path". > > To answer the subject directly: > > > Do we map what exists or what the landowner wants to exist? > > We map what exists, but have to consider "whether it is in any sense a > path". Here signs were put up to say that a path was closed both to > prevent erosion and to prevent someone getting killed by a rockfall. > Based on that, I'd suggest that "disused:highway=footway" would make > sense. A pedant could state that it should still have a "foot=yes" tag > because it's still all CRoW Act land, but I can't get too excited about > that. > > A similar one in the Lake District was > https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1086252957/history (multiple usernames > in there belong to one person who was referred to the DWG; the tidying > was done by people like gurglypipe , Cebderby and I > (SomeoneElse_Revert). That one also is set to foot=no which > _technically_ isn't correct but again I'm really not fussed about. > > Going back to my recollection of Thorpe Cloud - I seem to remember that > one access (I'm guessing the north) was dodgy much more than 5 years > ago, but that it had been OK to go right across much longer ago - early > 90s or so. > > Best Regards, > > Andy > > PS: One thing that I think also has to be said is that sometimes > "alleged path closures" _aren't_ legitimate. For example, since the > introduction of "universal access" in Scotland a couple of decades ago, > there have been more than a few examples of private landowners trying to > close paths, including "for safety". One NT user got a bit carried away > in England deleting paths that they did not think should be public, and > there I tried to "fix forward" their changes to something that matched > (a) reality and (b) what they were trying to achieve. That was on > behalf of the DWG, and was very much an exception to other edits. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-GB mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb >
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