Story · Land & heritage map · about 3 min
Where can I roam? Access, parks and heritage
Land ownership isn't open data, but rights of access and public-benefit land are. This story is a walk through them, from the moors to Stonehenge.
Open access land
Under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 you can walk freely on mapped mountain, moor, heath and down, and on registered common land, the legal end point of a right-to-roam campaign that began with mass trespasses in the 1930s. Added up, the mapped areas cover roughly 10,000 km² of England. Green is open country, purple common land.
The Peak District
The Peak District, designated in 1951, was Britain's first national park, and it is ringed by the towns of the north and Midlands. Much of its high moorland shows up as mapped open access land. Add the National Trust layer: those are places with public access on foot, and they are not ownership boundaries.
Green space near cities
Country parks are places to enjoy the countryside near where people live. Around Manchester and Sheffield they knit together with the moorland edge.
Heritage: Stonehenge
Historic England's data holds about 20,000 scheduled monument areas. Around Stonehenge they crowd together in and around the World Heritage Site. Each area opens with its name and list entry when you press it. For anything legal or to do with planning, check the official list.
For classrooms and curious minds
Questions to talk about, alone or in a group.
- Why is land ownership not on this map, and how does "access" differ from "ownership"?
- Who benefits when land is held for public access, and who might have to give something up?
Try it on the map: Find the nearest piece of open access land to where you live. How far would you have to travel to reach it?
The figures above are calculated from the datasets listed on Data & sources and are approximate: many map layers are modelled or interpolated. Read each layer’s caveats on the map.