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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To camp in random fields without permission in England

236 replies

feellikeahugefailure · 02/08/2016 14:09

I'm thinking about doing a solo trip around Devon and Cornwall in a car. Campsites seem expensive, you have to book and often there aren't any where I need them

I've got a pop up tent.

Would it really be so bad to just pitch it at 9pm in some quiet field out of sight (and without animals) spend the night, then come 6am pack it up and move on?

Obviously I wouldn't litter or leave any sign that I was ever there.

OP posts:
Willow2016 · 03/08/2016 10:33

THeonlyliving: PML at this. Puts all sorts of pictures in my mind of op legging it in her pjs as the bullets fly Smile

Willow2016 · 03/08/2016 10:50

Loving the idea that the land belongs to everyone, but especially OP.

Best post you addy so we can all come and camp in your garden for a free holiday before summer ends Smile Of course as you dont 'own' your house either we could use the facilities in there too.

Well anyway when your family have spent generations caring for and improving the land you own, by the same family for generations and are making a livelihood out of it (or barely scraping by as many farmers are these days) you dont want some entitled person rocking up and camping on it without even having the manners to come asking permission.

Some people have no idea just how dangerous farm animals can be, if you are in a large field that may look empty in the evening may have beasts in at the far end you cant see or they may arrive before you are awake. Cows with calves are very unpredicatable and downright dangerous, there are cases where people have been killed, you could be in for a rude awakening!

Its a long time since fuedal days and most people (except the landed gentry) have bought or are tennants on the farm land they work damm hard to maintain.

Yokohamajojo · 03/08/2016 10:51

Regarding camping on a beach, we were camping in Folkestone (on a proper campsite) and were quite surprised to see someone had set up a proper bell tent with chimney and all on the beach! Some others that looked possibly homeless had also set up camp in some bushes.

There were public toilets nearby and fresh water supply so it looked like even if it's not permitted not particularly policed

I would be terrified...

SlimCheesy2 · 03/08/2016 10:56

OP, this thread has been massively useful. I have looked at some of the links other people have posted. I have also looked into children-friendly camping places. And now I have just bought 'The poor had no lawyers' mention upthread on Amazon. Grin

It's triggered an interest in me I would otherwise not have had!!

Egosumquisum · 03/08/2016 11:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NettleTea · 03/08/2016 11:26

You see, I do have some sympathy with the whole land ownership thing. And I do like wild camping.
What I didnt like was the OPs insistance that she didnt want to ask permission and that all land was theft so she shouldnt HAVE to ask.

florascotianew · 03/08/2016 11:41

Life was not all free and easy here before William the Conquerer.
The Celts had slaves, and if that's not 'property' and 'ownership', I don't know what is. So did the Vikings, who settled in parts of the British Isles... Early Celtic laws describe family land-ownership. They also describe customary rights to make use of 'wild' resourses (fish, deer etc) but only so long as the interests of others were not damaged

In England, Anglo-Saxon lawcodes make frequent references to land ownership and theft (especially of livestock), which shows that they had a concept of property avalon.law.yale.edu/medieval/saxlaw.asp They also had a very strong concept of obligation to community/society. There was considerable pressure to behave according to the law.

The New Statemen article mentioned above makes very valid points about grossly unequal 19th century conditions, but, even before industrialisation and Inclosure Acts there was no golden age further back in which everyone had a fair share of the land. There was actual famine in Scotland in the 17th century among people living with access (and rights) to make reasonable use of wild land. And, sad to say, quite a lot of the people who moved into cities in the 18th/19th cent did so because they were pitifully poor in the countryside. I'm not saying that was fair - clearly it wasn't - but it's how it was.

Scottish law is different from English, as previous posters have said, but a lot of it is surprisingly recent, not harking back to some misty Celtic twilight. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Scots_law Land law, in particular, was overhauled in 2004 - if you want to know in detail how: www.ejcl.org/83/art83-5.PDF

Yes, some very, very bad things happened during the Clearances in Scotland, but the principle of ownership or tenancy of land existed long before then. Of course, it was not applied justly or fairly - as the book mentioned above says, 'the poor had no lawyers'. But even before the Clearances, common land was not open for anyone to grab and take over and use as they liked; it was managed by a network of local customs. Today, common grazing land attached to crofting communities is still managed by communal agreement. Modern community buy-out schemes also carefully manage their communal land.

Some Scottish Common Good lands (different from common grazings) are still under threat www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/12/scottish-people-losing-common-land
The law of common land in Scotland is about to be reviewed: news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Common-Land-to-be-reviewed-21de.aspx

LurkingHusband · 03/08/2016 12:14

The Celts had slaves

Slavery is still endemic in certain cultures today Sad - it's one of the grimmer constants of humankind.

Remember the Bible condones slavery - totally OK. Although there are some very suspect references to male and female slaves.

And whilst there may not have been a golden age of Anglo-Saxon Eden, it's certainly fair to point out that the Norman conquest is still preserved almost intact in current English land ownership.

No wonder other countries were so desperate to ape the English political system - through nigh-on 1000 years of wars, famine, plague, civil war, foreign invasion and social revolution, it has ensured that those that got given land in 1066 still hand on to it today. It really is an all-Norman success story. I'm surprised the French don't crow about it more ! Oh, hang on. If there's one thing the Normans weren't, it's French.

We still carry the divide between servant (Anglo Saxon) and master (Norman) in our language.

florascotianew · 03/08/2016 13:36

Random Husband A lot of that may be true - especially the language - but it doesn't really address the point I was making. Great Anglo-Saxon noble families owned vast estates before the Norman Conquest, and had tenants with small bits of land and landless people living on them.

William took over these pre-existing estates, kept a lot for himself and and redistributed the rest to his followers, in return for their political and military backing. He did not originate the idea of unequal land ownership in England.

It is not really accurate to say that those who were given land in 1066 still hang on to it today, except for a few cases. There's been a lot of turnover. Families rise and fell from royal favour - and got and lost wealth - from Norman times onwards. That did not increase equality, of course. One-third of British land is still owned by rich families .But most of the biggest estates are in Scotland, not England - and were not acquired as a result of the Norman Conquest.

However, in the 20th cent there has been a big change from the 19th century and earlier times. Even before the 1980s and the 'right to buy' etc, almost half (47%) of British land was in the hands of owner-occupiers. (Data is from a left-wing organisation: www.caledonia.org.uk/land/documents/Who%20Does%20Own%20Britain%20Today.pdf)

Leaving small-scale owner-occpiers aside, the most rapid rise in ownership of big estates in the 20th cent has been not by old aristos but by coporate bodies - from the Forestry Commission and the Ministry of Defence to pension funds and even big retail companies and charities. By 2010, according to 'Country Life' magazine, the National Trust had become the second-largest landowner in England.

CreepingDogFart · 03/08/2016 20:27

The debate is futile. You will be trespassing and it's unethical.

TuppencePenny · 03/08/2016 20:32

I think it's very entitled of you (never mind illegal) to just assume a landowner won't mind you pitching up and "not doing any damage" stay on their land. It is the same as camping in someone's garden. Exactly the same feelings of violation. Ask in advance and do the right thing. I'm a landowner and I'd stop anyone camping on my land for the reasons:

A. Livestock
B. Leaving litter
C. It's a violation- just piss off and pay for a campsite like everyone else! I don't want human faeces there.

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