UKC

Most people have heard of the The Watkin path up Wydffa, even if they have never been up it, but I wonder how many people know about The Watkin behind it.
I went to a Local history group last night, yes it was as you imagine, a sea of grey hair, with Islands of slap head, in a Church Hall, but lets move on. The talk was about Edward Watkin, one of the Railway Kings, and it was fascinating, I am not saying he was as great as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, but boy, he got around.
Trainlines all over the place, an attempt at a channel tunnel, a tower bigger than Eiffels at Wembley and a social reformer voting for womens suffrage 70 years before it happened. But something that really piqued my interest if all these other goodies were not enough was that the speaker said he created the Watkin path and said it was the first created path (not sure if he said up Wydffa, Wales, UK, known universe) as opposed to one that had developed through custom. I wondered how many paths there are (obviously not Urban paths) that have been created as opposed to developing organically by use.
There is a plaque being unveiled to Watkin at the old GMEX centre in Manchester which was the northern end of his line to Marleybone in London and there is a book about him https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55182866-victoria-s-railway-king.

Interesting stuff. I'd never thought too much about the history of the path, though was aware of Gladstone Rock.

This link would support the idea of it being a "first" path in some respects:
"Watkin Path became the first officially designated footpath in Britain, heralding a new era for countryside public access rights."
https://www.climb-snowdon.co.uk/blog/watkin-path-guide/

I really should make a point of going up the Watkins path one day. I've only ever climbed Snowdon from Pen Y Pass as that's the easiest start point for me to reach.

Big fan of Brunel but haven't really paid any attention to Watkin so will do some reading.

Another area that I always come out with more questions than answers. As I understand, before 1918 it was only wealthy land owners that could vote, so the long suffragette struggle before this date was presumable a battle for the wealthy women only. All literature I read fail to mention this, so I'm wondering if I'm fundamentally misunderstanding something.

The common man got the vote in 1918 and then the common women in 1928 so there was a 10 year period of inequality in voting rights between men and women. Wealthy women could vote during this period and before 1918 if they met certain criteria (can't remember what now).

I would love to find a non-biased article on this as I suspect it's more of a class inequality before 1918, and a gender inequality between 1918 and 1928 but because I've only been able to piece this together from different sources I may be missing something important.

All interesting stuff. At the talk, the speaker referenced that 70 MPs tried to get the motion amended from men to persons, to include women, but I assume at this time it also came with a property owning qualification, but its another wormhole to go down, but totally fascinating.

This probably depends on the definition. I'd guess there were many paths created for work access - stalkers' and quarrymen's paths spring to mind. So perhaps the first created specifically for recreation?

Claude Francis Dencourt created public paths in Fontainbleau in the 1850's (lovingy restored using EU monies by French artisans  via the Interreg 3 scheme - I went on a  'work' trip to see them once) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude-Fran%C3%A7ois_Denecourt 

When I was a kid in Northern Ireland in the 1950s, unless you owned a (mortgaged?) property, you didn't have a vote. Conversely, a landlord could have up to six votes if he had his own property and five or more others for rent. 

So you could have fought for Britain in World War II, spilled blood, come home and have had to live without a vote. 

When my parents bought their house (circa 1951), the neighbours raised a petition against us having a house (or a vote). Luckily the builder (same religion as aforesaid neighbours) said, "Their money's as good as yours'." A brave, decent man who will have paid a price for his decency. 

As you say, another wormhole...

Mick 

Dear Godwin 

Interesting fact about the Watkins path, Carry on up the Khyber  was filmed there,great film  have you seen it ? 

Albert 

This didn't sound right to me, and a quick scan of Wikipedia suggests that you might have misremembered. There was apparently a period prior to 1832 when women weren't explicitly legally barred from voting but were still largely ruled out in practice by the required property qualifications. An 1832 act then specifically barred all women from voting legally in national elections and that doesn't seem to have significantly changed until 1918.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_the_United_Kingdom

Even locally that can't be true as the Jubilee Path above Penmaenmawr was specifically created and opened before the Watkin Path was.

I've only been up that path once: on family hike in the 70s. During the hike, my father said that the army had used to buildings mid way along it for training during WW2, and pointed out the bullet impacts. True ? Don't know, but made for an exciting story for a little boy.

It’s true, I recall spotting the ‘splash marks’ on the remains of a building near Gladstone Rock a few years ago.

On Torver moor as you walk into Dow Crag, at the back of Blea Tarn and below the sports routes at Attermire you will see sheets of metal, these are gun targets, from I belive Napoleonic times. It is odd now to think of the army doing live fire exercises in these places.

It is, but not without modern equivalent. Pembroke? The armed forces still enjoy blowing beautiful places to smithereens! 

Quite true. Commando training units shot Plas Cwm Llan to bits during the 2nd World War.

Imbre village on Salisbury plane, the inhabitants were kicked out in 1942/3 with only a few days notice. So that the area could be used for training for the up-coming D-Day Landings. It's still off limits and in use to this day. I think there's a couple of days per year it's open to the public. There are some descendants of the original villagers who would like their old homes back.    

I am led to believe that Army ranges are some of the most biologically diverse places in the UK. 

Imber featured in one of the recent episodes of 'Digging for Britain' (BBC 2) where they were doing an archaeological investigation. I think the inhabitants were given more than a few days to vacate (Wikipedia says 47). Still a wrench but it was wartime and most of the villagers accepted the sacrifice although it would appear they were told it would be temporary. Who'd have thought a government would deceive its own citizens?

Surely stalkers' paths are recreational? We might not approve of deer stalking as recreation, but that's basically what it is. (Or was, when the paths were first created.)

(There was an interesting article in The Scottish Mountaineer, speculating that (at least some) stalkers' paths were just created to make it easier to get up the hill. That would make them definitely recreational.)

I think you have a point. I was thinking from the staff perspective, paths that made their life easier. But they did of course have a recreational function.

Your post set me off on a little search and I found this article based around a study of paths in the Strathfarrar, Cannich and Strathcarron area. Well worth a read if you’re interested in that area as well as the historical aspect. 

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3.spanglefish.com/s/12654/documents/sit...

I've read about 18th Century accounts of tourists climbing hills such as Helvellyn and Skiddaw by pony tracks. Some of them would have existed for some time before this as the natural lines of packhorse trade routes, Sticks Pass being an obvious example. There are others though where trade can't have been the reason for construction. The Keppel Cove zigzags going up to White Side and then onwards to Helvellyn most likely catered to the tourist trade from Patterdale.

An article on the history of the Watkins Path I created recently

https://barryms.wordpress.com/2023/10/14/hiking-through-history-the-tale-of... 

Thanks for writing the interesting article about the Watkin Path and providing the Link.
Question though, what exactly is meant by 'first officially designated footpath'?  I've seen it quoted it many times , but have never seen an explanation of what made this footpath different to others that preceded it. 

Very interesting, thanks for this. Now is it "Watkins Path" or "Watkin Path"? I'd always thought Watkin and the thread title rather jarred but Watkins is used by so many in this thread that I'm starting to wonder if I was wrong or if the two are properly both used.

Hope it's ok to revive an old thread but this is something that really bugs me. It's clearly Watkin, not Watkins. It is named after a man named Watkin and it is and has alway been shown on every map and guidebook as "Watkin". It seems to be a social media thing where "Watkins" has been increasingly taking over (perhaps some influencer types used it and it caught on?). I cringe every time I see it, like whenever I see Stephen Hawking referred to as "Hawkins", but it's now so widespread I suspect it's here to stay. It might be OK if there were an apostrophe ("Watkin's Path") but there never is. Less bad but something similar is happening with Snowdon Ranger Path becoming Snowdon Rangers.

I'm surprised the OP used "Watkins" in the headline, because they clearly know it is Watkin from what they have written in the post. Must have been a slip up, but just shows how ingrained the Watkins name is becoming.

I'm sad enough to have been upset by it too. Have edited the thread title.