A right to roam modelled on the many other successful examples, which balance community, environment and landowners’ needs and right Laced in with his inch-deep dive into breadths of pop culture were his boring accounts of trespass where he intermittently described the tranquility of lying in the grass. How can the reader expect to be immersed in those moments when they’re only given a paragraph at a time, and then their mind is taken to some Anglo-Saxon folklore they’ve never heard of. The range of figures and events on the index says it all, no book should have that many different name drops side-by-side. But there is another dimension to trespass that runs deep beneath the scaffold of the law. ‘Trespass’ is one of the most charged words in the English language. For such a small legal infraction, the notion of crossing a fence line, wall or invisible boundary is wrapped in a moral stigma that runs to the heart of English political and civil life. Many of our liberties and the restrictions on them are expressed in terms of land, parameters and property, so much so that it is hard to tell which is a metaphor for the other.

A meditation on the fraught and complex relationship between land, politics and power, this is England through the eyes of a trespasser. He covers a myriad of topics such as fox hunting, the church, grouse moors, the Roma people and slavery. As befits The Book of Trespass, it starts with the infamous Kinder Scout trespass in the 30s - a good jumping off point for a story about how the common man's right to the use of land has eroded over time to the narrow strip of a right of way. He's not so much angered as deeply saddened by how the land of this beautiful country is owned and managed by the very few for their own personal profit. We are duped into accepting this by the media magnates, politicians and landed gentry whose own vested interests are being protected by the status quo, and yet his argument, eloquently stated, is that this model of land ownership is the very root of social inequality and that greater access to land benefits everyone. His one attempt at trying to enter a dialogue with a seriously rich landowner to try to see another point of view fails - but are we as much to blame for our complicit obedience to sign and fence?Seeks to challenge and expose the mesmerising power that landownership exerts on this country, and to show how we can challenge its presumptions . . . The Book of Trespass is massively researched but lightly delivered, a remarkable and truly radical work, loaded with resonant truths and stunningly illustrated by the author -- George Monbiot * Guardian * The book ends with a call to extend the Countryside and Rights of Way Act in England, expanding our Right to Roam , no matter who owns the land. This is obviously a worthwhile endeavour as long as it is a part of a much wider movement that also looks to challenge the power of the vested landed interests of this country, dismantle the lines that divide us and repair the deep wounds those lines have caused. The Book of Trespass is a beautiful, powerful call to know our many histories, the struggles that have gone before, and offers a powerful awakening from the spell of ‘ownership’. Read it, let it galvanise you. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on What a brilliant, passionate and political book this is, by a young writer-walker-activist who is also a dazzlingly gifted artist. It tells - through story, exploration, evocation - the history of trespass (and therefore of freedom) in Britain and beyond, while also making a powerful case for future change. It is bold and brave, as well as beautiful; Hayes's voice is warm, funny, smart and inspiring. The Book of Trespass will make you see landscapes differently -- Robert Macfarlane So he sits at the apex of the system of private landed property that grants total control to elite proprietors, near-zero rights of access and enjoyment to everyone else, and underpins that “cult of exclusion” that (in Hayes’s eyes) has defined and degraded our national life.

for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology.Fundamentally, Hayes urges us all to consider whether the way we currently treat land – as a purely commercial entity, with its commercial value prioritised above all other potential value – needs to be revised and how this could be done. He notes that: Additional functions – we provide users the option to change cursor color and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions.

The Ramblers Association is a large organisation of 100,000 members, which supports the right to Roam – join up, they offer lots of activities and information. https://www.ramblers.org.uk/

Nationalism suits the landowning classes because it gives people a sense of ownership without their actually owning anything at all.’ But it offers a sharp-eyed, muddy-booted guide to the process that left the English “simultaneously hedged out of their land and hemmed into a new ideology”. Take it along next time you plan to jump any wall. So what happens next? “We want to engage all the people who are already sold on access – the fathers and mothers, the ramblers, climbers and kayakers – and tell them that something is happening, and get them to join us. Then we need to persuade all the people who don’t have much access to land why their lives would be improved if they did. And then, we need to lobby MPs.” His book, he believes, is the beginning of something, not the end. “We will say to people: come trespassing with us!” He grins. “Our hashtag will be #extremelynonviolentdirectaction. There’ll be animal masks and botany, picnics and poetry. But if someone asks us to leave, that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

The central message of his book is that everyone should have access to the joy of nature, and its mental and physical health benefits – a vision restricted by an elite circle of proprietors. “Areas of land we do have access to are basically nowhere near cities, or large conurbations,” he said, calling for public access to the green belt, which is “within easy access to 60 per cent” of the population. “Why do we exoticise nature as a holiday destination, or something you only visit on rare occasions? Why can’t it be part of everyone’s daily existence?” Perhaps the most unarguable part of Hayes’ treatise is his philosophising about the connections between mankind and nature, culminating when he reflects on a particular campaign to protect a natural area, which was informed by a mythology that teaches us that: Hayes also digs into the history of land ownership in England. Crucially, he links subjection overseas to servitude at home. Land became “commodity alone”, “partitioned from the web of social ties” that truly gives it value.

This desire really resonates with me. Our local landowners are United Utilities, and much more so the Lowther family, or Lonsdale Estates as they are known. On a snowy day recently I had a run in with the new Forest Manager. I was 'trespassing', quite intentionally, on a favourite bit of ground doing of course, no harm to anyone or anything.