The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us

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Most cultures in the world have at some point held the notion that land cannot belong exclusively to individuals.’ 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. If it isn't clear already, Hayes is a strong advocate for increasing public access to land and a fierce critic of those in power who have found ways to take possession of public land and then fence it off to deny access. Generally it is a mild mannered approach he uses, seeking the elusive meeting with a wealthy landowner, but he does bare his teeth at the Daily Mail, so much so that it is hard not to see things from his way.The birds now are loud, and the trees either side of me are a chaos of song, a wild, dissonant ringing chorus which reflects off the surface of the river with the first light of the day. I feel the touch of the sun as it rises over the tops of the leaves…And I feel, in more ways than one: the land is awakening’ 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: 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 * 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.” 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.

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 Otto Ecroyd on his Northbound and Down journey: ‘I left a top job in the city to cycle 5,000 miles’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. For me, this book is a bit too long for the amount of substance it contains. Nevertheless the author makes lots of good points in discussions on a series of topics such as the ending of slavery and the financial bonus to former slave owners, the enclosure of common land, the anti nuclear protest at Greenham Common, and the restrictions on access to rivers in England. However there is a lot of padding around these discussions in the form of descriptions of the author’s trespasses. His intention is of course to open our eyes to the amount of England that is closed to the public. However, I found some of that a bit tedious, and skipped quite a lot of it. However, I was stimulated to make a donation to the latest Ramblers appeal! We can’t do much about the injustices that have led to the enclosure of so much of England, but at least we can support those who are defending what we have.

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. A right to roam modelled on the many other successful examples, which balance community, environment and landowners’ needs and right 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. Please bear in mind we all work part time and have limited capacity to respond to enquiries outside our core areas of work. Before we reached Newell Plain, a keeper wearing the green and yellow Cornbury branding leapt out of a nearby tractor. “You’re trespassing! It’s not your place, what gives you the right?” Hayes questioned the law of trespass with his adversary. “This place is over 5,000 acres – how many do you own?” he asked. “F**k all!” came the reply. “But it’s just the natural law.”Exhilarating . . . A gorgeously written, deeply researched and merrily provocative tour of English landscape, history and culture To wander and to roam are implicitly connected with moral failings and the word ‘vagrancy’ has as much sense in morality as it does in legal cases concerning homeless people. A deviant is someone who has turned off the right way. To stray from the path suggests a clearly marked line of righteousness, signposted by societal or religious doctrines. And the most fundamental link between the physical world of trespassing and its moral parallel, is the origin of the word itself. Trespasser is the French verb meaning to cross over, which came from the Latin word transgredior, from whose past participle we get the English word: transgression. Transgression, which carries with it that pungent whiff of candle smoke and incense, that sense of religious damnation, is the reason Christians pray for the Lord to Forgive us our trespasses. 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 Well this started off well with a subject that's close to my heart, the ultra-wealthy hell bent on keeping us peasants out of their precious lands. 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: