The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us

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I found the first part of this book to be very informative and discovered quite a bit about life in England before the Norman Conquest which I had hadn't known previously. The information about the Enclosure Act was also very enlightening. However I was less enchanted by the author's constant belittling of a certain national newspaper and its readers who he seems to hold personally responsible for anything that has happened in the UK to which he doesn't agree. I hadn't realised when reading the book of his connection with The Guardian newspaper, otherwise I wouldn't have been quite as surprised at his views. I was so also unsure why a trip to Calais to visit the migrant camps, however laudable, was included in a book about trespass in England. Apparently there are also some beautiful illustrations in the book which unfortunately I couldn't access on my tablet. On childhood rambles I learned that those “Trespassers will be prosecuted” notices were legal fictions. 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. I'll be honest with you, I'm not much of a reader of non-fiction so in a bookstore I would totally have just walked pass the book. As it is, the book became available on Pigeonhole and the title and description of the book intrigued me so I signed up for it. The first thing you should know is that the famous sign ‘Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted’ is an out-and-out lie. Jolowicz [a Professor of Law] calls such signs ‘wooden falsehoods’, a neat phrase he borrowed from the arch-trespasser of the 1920s, G. H. B. Ward. Since 1694, the misdemeanour of trespass has resided in the province of civil, not criminal, law, and can only be brought to court if damages have been incurred. However, if you resist the landowner’s command to leave, if you are impolite, the police can be called and if you resist them, you can be done for a breach of the peace, or for obstructing a police officer.

for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. Rivers and their banks, meadows and woods also do not count as “open access”. In Oxfordshire alone, the public is barred from 90 per cent of woodland. Originally a royal hunting ground listed in the Domesday Book, Cornbury’s 5,000 acres of ancient forest and farmland and its 16th-century manor house are today a green and pleasant land of private profit. Exhilarating . . . A gorgeously written, deeply researched and merrily provocative tour of English landscape, history and culture -- Boyd Tonkin * Arts Desk *To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments. I am so glad I did because it turned out to be a brilliant read. There are so many new things about England and the land around us that I knew nothing about that. It was fascinating reading about how certain aristocrats and other such people came to own their lands (not in a fair way!). Hayes sees truly democratic access to land as key to reducing social inequalities and argues that throughout history the aristocracy have used the arbitrary division of land to sustain their position.

This seems especially pertinent when those individuals are operating on purely commercial instincts. Otto Ecroyd on his Northbound and Down journey: ‘I left a top job in the city to cycle 5,000 miles’ 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 Most cultures in the world have at some point held the notion that land cannot belong exclusively to individuals.’Basildon Park house in west Berkshire is set amid 400 acres of historic parkland – most of which is private territory. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer Scots have the right to buy land as a community interest. This is a law we need in England immediately, Communities have a right to have a say in the land they inhabit. Crucially, and ambitiously, he argues that “Englishness has always been defined by the landed lords of England and fed in columns of hot air to the landless”: our old friend, nationalism as false consciousness. Globally, an imperial machinery of slavery and conquest both bankrolled and legitimised the “cult of exclusion” that kept the English off their own turf. At home, the “magical architecture” and seductive contours of the great estates lent that dogma a patina of beauty and grace. Meanwhile, poachers swung from gibbets, plantation slaves toiled and died, proud commoners became a cowed rural proletariat and, in post-industrial mass society, the heritage industry served up centuries of mass uprooting and intimidation as a glorious aristocratic legacy. Land became a “commodity alone”, “partitioned from the web of social ties” that truly gives it value. An important book and a fascinating insight. Highlighting the links between land, powerful people and political interests, the history of distribution of land is explained thoroughly and in an interesting way. The author shares his countryside adventures alongside the factual history of trespass. This works well, although sometimes can be protracted. So much thought-provoking information to absorb. It ends on an optimistic note, detailing some of the progress that is being made towards giving more people access to this currently inaccessible land. The illustrative prints are just stunning and complement the writing beautifully. There have been victories – such as the vicious Nicholas Van Hoosgstraten. But they are so hard to win, so hard. Every victory against property has been won by dedicated, brave, tireless people and I take my hat off to them. I am not strong enough, and I admire their courage and determination.

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. A powerful new narrative about the vexed issue of land rights . . . Hayes [is] practically a professional trespasser these days, no sign too forbidding to be ignored, no fence too high to be climed . . . The Book of Trespass is [Hayes's] first non-graphic book – though the text is punctuated by his marvellous illustations, linocuts that bring to mind the Erics, Gill and Ravilious – and in it, he weaves several centuries of English history together with the stories of gypsies, witches, ramblers, migrants and campaigners, as well as his own adventures. Its sweep is vast This isn’t the politics of envy. All we’re asking is that the lines between us and the land are made more permeable Withdraw our consent to the tyranny of private property. We don’t agree any more will not participate in our own servitude. A better way is possible, and will make England a better place to live inThe 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/ A right to roam modelled on the many other successful examples, which balance community, environment and landowners’ needs and right The author takes us on a trespassing journey each chapter with a focus on certain aspects of common law and inequalities. At times the flow can be a bit of a ramble (no puns here) but overall the writing is engaging and quite accessible.