UKC

A six-day festival will be held next week to mark the 80th anniversary of the Kinder Mass Trespass, the most significant event in the decades-long fight for public access to our countryside.

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=67058

In reply to UKC News:

I met Benny Rothman a few times when I lived in Glossop. Thoroughly decent bloke he was - we could with more like him these days. I hope the festival is well attended and gets a decent amount of press coverage.

In reply to UKC News:

It never makes sense to me that we are encouraged or told to stay away from crags with access restrictions and yet the Kinder Trespass is thought of as a landmark event.
How is this any different from a few hundred people turning up at a banned crag and climbing anyway?

High Rocks would be a good place to start:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=500119&v=1

In reply to simes303:

I suppose it's the size of the area. Their actions led to access to mountain, moor, heath and down and, thanks to the BMC, cliffs within these areas. Cliffs within small areas of private land are, to most, a different thing. There's no particular rationale for declaring all rock faces public property unless you go down the avenue of declaring all natural features public...and I'm not saying I disagree with that but practically....

In reply to UKC News:

Anyone going by the way? I am for the firm

In reply to UKC News:

"...The day was just ending and I was descending
Down Grinesbrook just by Upper Tor
When a voice cried "Hey you" in the way keepers do
He'd the worst face that ever I saw
The things that he said were unpleasant
In the teeth of his fury I said
"Sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead"

He called me a louse and said "Think of the grouse"
Well i thought, but I still couldn't see
Why all Kinder Scout and the moors roundabout
Couldn't take both the poor grouse and me
He said "All this land is my master's"
At that I stood shaking my head
No man has the right to own mountains
Any more than the deep ocean bed..."

In reply to Southern Man:
Lovely. The balancing act between owning land (reasonable) and owning and restricting access to an excess of land (not reasonable).
Although the other key element was inheritance tax which made it impossible for almost all individuals to continue to own vast swathes of the country for generations.

In reply to UKC News:
Any paddlers here thinking we should do the same thing?

In reply to mattdebenham: Yes!!!

In reply to pneame:

Actually inheritance tax has made very little difference. There is something called agricultural property relief.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/inheritancetax/pass-money-property/agricultural-reli...

In reply to Tom Row:
Thanks Tom - I stand corrected!

IHT has historically been very sinificant breaking up big estates because farmland is often sold to pay for the inheritance tax on estate houses