Subscribe now for full access and no adverts
REVIEW BY JIM LEARY
Jack Cornish is Head of Paths at the British walking charity Ramblers and, like me, an advocate of old and lost paths, the overgrown and the abandoned.
The Lost Paths charts some of Cornish’s journeys along English and Welsh roads, ways, and lanes, reflecting as he goes on their history and the people who used them. Through this, we are able to follow droveways, turnpikes, and railways, and we can walk on religious paths, rebellious paths, highways, and byways with workers, soldiers, leisure walkers, and the destitute.
This is a history of routes – prised from books and records – rather than a fresh-from-the-ground archaeology of them. Still, it is told in a cheery storytelling style, with Cornish’s engaging, personal rambles mixed with fascinating histories.
The Lost Paths is both a call and a warning to use or lose our footpaths, and it is a book that will get your feet flapping.
The Lost Paths
Jack Cornish
Penguin, £20
ISBN 978-1405951289
