‘PRIVATE ROAD, NO TRESPASSING’: Some Thoughts on Trespass in England
by Hazel Anna Rogers for this Carl Kruse Blog
We walked down the meanders of the River Arun, away from the towering Cathedral and looming castle of Arundel. The murky turquoise of the water stretched like a snake over the land. Blades of rush and grass barricaded our path, gently brushing our ankles as we walked. Like pilgrims were we, with aching shoulders and reddening knees.
We arrived at a crossroads, with the path we were on extending forth along the riverside, and a path to the left rising up over a small mound and down to a wired fence, with a metal door at its base closing off the closed housing estate behind it. The door had this statement written on it in block red:
PRIVATE ROAD
NO TRESPASSING
We had come through this door when we made our original journey to Arundel, so, naturally, we decided to return this way.
A train trundled over the tracks on the bridge above us. We began clambering up the mound, heaving at the strain of our bags pulling us down. A loosely wound chain was the only barrier to our entry into the closed community, and we gently unwound it, then rewound it once we had closed the door behind us.
We walked a mere ten yards before a whining elderly voice began shrieking:
‘Did you read what it said on the sign?’
‘Erm…yes..?’
‘Well what does it say?’
‘Um…private road…’
‘Well then, off you go. Go on, back where you came!’
The lady speaking had her head poked out of the door of her white mobile home. Her lips were puckered in a self-satisfied grimace, and a small terrier had wriggled its way between her legs and was stood barking vehemently at us.
Suddenly, from behind us, a gruff male voice piped up:
‘Yeah, you go back where you came. Can’t you read?’
My partner and I looked at each other sheepishly, then we both turned on our heels and wandered slowly back to the door. As we walked, the two neighbours conversed with each other:
‘There’ve been loads this week.’
‘At least we caught them this time.’
We made our way back to the road we had been trying to get to by following a long loop that crossed beneath the railway bridge and through another field. We conversed as we walked, bitterly frustrated at ourselves for not continuing to walk through the estate. We wondered how dull someone’s life must be to be so very preoccupied with the banal trespass rules of the land. We had stood before them, laden with large bags, visibly sweating and exhausted, and they had forgone sympathy in favour of pettiness.
I continued to think on this event long after we got back to Brighton. I thought on how many driveways, fields, private gardens, historical monuments, buildings, building sites, waterways, and more forbid us from passing through them. I thought on the time when my friend and I had followed the directions on my phone to visit a 12th century church near Chichester, and had found ourselves in the middle of the motorway, forced to cross over roads carved only for the purpose of the raging metal that crossed it day and night. It was no place for the human, except the human encased in a shield of steel and glass.
Purportedly, UK laws prohibits regular people from 92% of English land. This seems an almost implausible percentage, considering how many streets and hills and coast that I have walked over during my time here in Brighton. Trespass is one of those bizarre concepts that has much in it akin to the notion of borders. Both exclude us from entering certain places without formal processes, yet both are, in essence, psychological fabrications that stand apart from the pastoral spaces they often ban us from. But it is not only the rolling fields of rapeseed, grain, and grass that we are not allowed to touch; our own history is frequently barred from access. I visited the castle at Arundel while I was there – a steep £20 was to be paid upon entry to the castle and gardens – and once I was within its walls, there were countless thick red ropes that prevented me from stepping on various stone staircases, from taking a proper look at rooms and halls, and from touching anything within the carefully organised space.
I understand this vigilance, to some extent. In order to preserve such an ancient structure, along with the numerous fragile objects within it, one has to bar visitors from touching and walking on parts of it. But while walking round the castle, I couldn’t help but feel utterly disconnected from everything I saw. It felt sterile and holier-than-thou, and I left the great stone walls wanting more, more interaction with a history that I was a part of. I longed for more communication between the past and the present. I wondered who was allowed to tread the narrow hallways that were siphoned off from me, and for whom the vegetables in the garden were grown: ‘Do not pick these vegetables. They are for use by the castle’. Do members of the elite come and enjoy great feasts within these walls? I wondered. I should have liked to have seen the kitchens. I’m sure they were magnificent.
It is strange how much shame the old woman of the closed community made me feel. She made me feel small, and I’m sure that made her feel most powerful. Why should a mere hundred yards of road be shut off to me? Did the lady pay a premium sum in order to live on a private road? Why should I have to walk longer to get to the same place, when I could have simply walked down her road without disturbing her at all?
I am not saying that property or land ownership is inherently wrong, not at all. I was not offended when, during my time in West Wittering, some of the dunes I walked beside were cordoned off to protect the wildlife therein. I understand the necessity of the role of the National Trust and other such organisations who work tirelessly to preserve parts of our landscape and wildlife that might otherwise have been destroyed by people wandering through them too often. But, as Nick Hayes puts it in his novel The Book of Trespass, ‘[a]ll we’re asking is that the lines between us and the land are made more permeable.’ I remember a scene in Notting Hill, whereupon Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts are walking along a road and happen to pass by one of the walled gardens only accessible to the residents surrounding them. They of course decide to climb in and find that the garden is wonderful, doused in moonlight and free of persons except themselves. Especially in a place such as London, to cordon off green spaces is to shut off the benefits of exposure to nature for its poorer residents. The World Resources Institute comments on this topic that ‘infrastructure decisions made decades ago, including tree canopy, unfairly benefit rich neighborhoods’ (https://www.wri.org/insights/green-space-underestimated-tool-create-more-equal-cities). This statement is palpable when one walks by the high-walled gardens that exist in many cities around the UK. There is a walled garden very near to where I live, and I long to experience the mystery and intrigue that it perpetuates as a result of its exalted status.
Half of England is owned by 25,000 landowners, who count for less than 1% of its population (Guy Shrubsole, Who Owns England?). Even my own garden that I can see through my window now does not freely belong to me, but to my landlord. And, once I leave this house next year, I will be barred from entering it, and it will become one more private space that I can only dream of and never experience.
It is difficult to think of how we can counter such things as land ownership, except by walking through spaces with signs telling us not to. It is a humble rebellion, to tread on land that is apparently ripe only for the feet of the aristocracy. Arguably more important than anything else during this pandemic was the need for people to have access to green spaces to escape from their cage-like home existence that inevitably had to embody all areas of life: work, play, sleep, food, family, exercise, and more. Yet children’s playparks were closed by the government, skateparks were shut off with yellow and black tape, and people were told they weren’t allowed to sit down in parks, they could only exercise alone or with members of their households. Whilst I recognise the urgency of the messages from the government of the necessity to shield ourselves from others in order to stop the surge of covid, the rules around being in nature seemed to me quite absurd, and served merely to heighten the grim reality of green-space poverty in England. For many, the parks in cities were the only access to the pastoral that they had during the pandemic, and to have these regulated and closed to them must have caused much suffering. I am lucky to live near the countryside, and to be able to wander down to the seafront whenever I please. But I know that I am part of a minority of people who have a quiet private garden to go into when they need some air and peace. Sometimes, when I walk through Brighton, I look up at the towering apartment blocks that obstruct the skyline, and think on the people who live in them, trapped in tiny spaces with only one door for all to leave and return by. I am lucky to have grown up in a green neighbourhood, with both a large garden and easy access to the riverside and the fields and hills beyond Shrewsbury, my hometown. Not many have that luxury.
So, what can you do? The government has recently announced that the laws of trespass could change to make trespassing a criminal, rather than civil, offence. This means that it could hold up in a court of law if you happened to be trespassing on private land. Lots of groups are trying to counter the implementation of this law, including the BMC, The Ramblers, Friends of the Earth, and The Open Spaces Society, but it seems likely that the law will probably come in pretty soon. If you have the time, read up on the law, and get involved in local efforts who are trying to highlight the problems that will arise from these changes, including the continued marginalisation of Roma and Gypsy communities. Most of all, get out into the green around you, the parks, fields, hills, mountains, seascapes; these spaces are so very precious and so essential to our life on earth, so get out and touch them, breathe them in, experience them, for who knows how long we’ll freely be able to do so.
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This Carl Kruse Blog homepage is at https:/carlkruse.at
Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com
Other articles by Hazel include: On Friendships, The Letters That Made Me, and Socrates and Weightlifting.
Also find Carl Kruse at BOINC’s Asteroids project.
