How to recognise footpaths on Ordnance Survey maps
Ordnance Survey shows public footpaths on all of its mapping in order to educate people about their right to access any given area of land. If you are planning to explore the countryside on foot then you should be aware of where you can and cannot venture legally.
Although many people think that access is determined by us at Ordnance Survey, footpaths are established by the owner who in turn informs us. Local authorities are required to maintain a ‘definitive map’ showing all public footpaths. However, if a footpath doesn’t appear on that map it doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t a public path.
Normally, the right to access a footpath only extends to walkers, however, it is not illegal to cycle or ride a horse on such a path. It is only unlawful if there is a traffic order or a bylaw in place which states that it is illegal to cycle or horse ride. Landowners can take action against people misusing public footpaths on their land.
Most of the land in Great Britain is owned by someone, be it the local authorities or private landowners but most of the countryside can be accessed safely and legally our help. Public footpaths are easy to identify when you know what to look for.
The diagram below is a map legend taken from Ordnance Survey 1: 25 000 scale mapping (OS Explorer). It shows how we represent a footpath on our popular walking map.
Ordnance Survey public footpaths on OS getamap
OS getamap gives you access to maps of the whole of England, Scotland and Wales. The site allows you to plot routes directly onto maps, print them out, email them to your friends, download them to your Garmin GPS, and much more. Another great advantage to OS getamap is that you can locate all the rights of way defined by us. Footpath maps, such as the 1: 25 000 scale OS Explorer display public footpaths and other public rights of way. You can also see an aerial view of the same location. This will help you to find out exactly where a footpath begins and ends.
The image below shows a public footpath marked with an X.
To obtain this information the user simply has to:
- enter a search location in the search box
- select the correct location from the list provided
- expand the map screen (only available to subscribers), and;
- use the zoom facility to get to the right scale (this will be apparent when public footpaths appear on the map).
To find out where public footpaths exist throughout England, Scotland* and Wales, visit OS getamap and enter a place name or postcode in the search box. You do not need to register or subscribe to search for Ordnance Survey public footpaths; however you will need to subscribe to see the full screen and get full A4 map prints for free.
* The law in Scotland differs to England and Wales. Here, The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 gives the public the right to be on any land for recreational, educational and certain other purposes and to cross the land if exercised responsibly.
Themocracy
Great stuff! The dissemination of rights of way information though OS products has always been very useful.
When will you step up a level and include access land, tracks, paths and PRoW in the opendata products such as VectorMap District?
It would be really helpful if you could show stiles and kissing gates which block wheelchair and cross country disability buggies. Any chance of that in the future?
Thanks for this……I always wonder whether tracks marked by dashed,undashed parallel(ish!) black lines are public rights of way, are public and private tracks distinguished in any way on OS Explorer maps?
Hi Sian – any paths marked as a black dashed line are not necessarily rights of way (and it states this on the map legend on our OS Explorer Maps). As we said above, most of the land in Great Britain is owned by someone, whether it is local authorities or private landowners and paths can run across land owned by a mixture of people during their course, so paths are shown with the same marking whether they are on private or public land.
Paul and Nell – I’ve passed your comments along to colleagues and will come back to you as soon as I can.
Hi Nell – thanks for this, a great idea. Public Rights of Ways are maintained by local authorities who provide information to us. Unfortunately there is no current, maintained and nationally consistent source of accessibility information that we could reliably incorporate into our products. We are always looking at ways in which we could extend the usability of our existing track and path information in future and we will certainly take this feedback into account as our product plans evolve.
Hi Paul – just been checking with our Products team, sorry for the delay. OS VectorMap District has been designed to fulfil a range of users needs, specifically to allow the overlay, display and publish their own information on a simplified and generalised content. We have a number of outdoor leisure and recreation products available which do contain tracks, paths, PRoW and access land information – the main source of this information are our paper OS Explorer Map series and 1:25 000 Scale Colour Raster digital data product. We haven’t designed OS VectorMap District to include this level of recreational/leisure content and there are no current plans to publish such information in the product in future. Thanks, Gemma
Working with students on their Duke of Edinburgh expeditions, this is the first and most fundamental thing I teach them about the Ordnance Survey maps that they’re holding. Good article.
Your example map is so close to me. I have just started using Getamap to show the routes I take on my blog. Much prefer to plan a route with a marked path. Sometimes our delightful sheep can make their own routes which can be very deceptive when actually on the ground.