Dead end bridleways - Dylan's Ride Blog

Ever looked at a map when planning a ride, and had a promising section of bridleway catch your eye? You follow it across the map, thinking of all the riding possibilities this might yield, and then you notice the dashed line suddenly turns to a dotted line in the middle of a field.

If you want ride that path, either you have to accept that you'll have to ride out to the end and back, which isn't usually much fun, or you'll either have to walk the bike on the footpath (and become in the eyes of the law a pedestrian), or just pretend you didn't know and ride it anyway. Annoying isn't it? Downright stupid to, as in the majority of cases, the orginal historical route would either have been used by horses or not. Unless there was something worth actually visiting on a horse at the point where the bridleway abruptly turns into a footpath, the chances are pretty good that this reflects an error in the process of recording  rights of way in the 1950s. Sometimes this amormality will be at a parish boundary, and simply reflects the difference between in how each parish went about recording these rights of way. Some parishes were pretty poor at this, and simply didn't bother recording bridleways. For an example, just look around Hinderwell on the coast between Whitby and Staithes to see a veritiable bridleway desert, compared to the surrounding area.

In some areas, particularly the National Parks, efforts have been made to correct these oddities, by finding historical evidence of the actual right of way, and having the misrecorded foothpath upgraded to bridleway. There even seems to have been some legislative encouragement from central government to sort this sort of thing out. But lots of these still remain as local government tends to move quite slowly. And worse yet, sometimes there have even been attempts to downgrade the bridleway on the ground that nobody uses it on horse or bike anymore.

Fortunately, there are people who try prod the system in our favour. Most notably the CTC, IMBA, and not forgetting the British Horse Society. Sometimes our interests co-incide with the powerful voice of the redsock fraternity, the mighty Ramblers Association. If you really care about your riding, consider joining IMBA or the CTC, and even if you don't go that far, it's certainly worth contacting the local representative of one of these organisations, if there is a right of way issue you know about. You can of course contact the relevant person in the local authority directly as well, as we as tax payers and voters should be able to make our voice heard.

I have been noticing a few of these dead end bridleways during the process of putting together this site. The National Park people are pretty good about sorting these out, so the North York Moors is not a problem area, but once you get outside the national park there are quite a few of these. Here's a few to start with:

Fridaythorpe to Huggate (East Riding). Bridleway turns into FP near Glebe Farm, at SE 857 575. There seems to be a few other illogical BWs around there, as the BW to the south west of Glebe farm turns into a footpath at the road, and the BW which runs from Painsthorpe towards Fridaythorpe, turns into a footpath at the road by Gill Farm.

Between West Heslerton, Staxton and the river Derwent (North Yorks), there seems to be a load of orphaned and disconnected bits of bridleway. This is probably more of interest to horse riders as the flat boggy carrs are not pleasant to ride a bike on away.

If there's any more, please tell me. Then at least the list can be passed onto the right people, in the hope something might get done.