By: Blonde One
Recently we met with a very knowledgeable lady who introduced us to the term ‘path furniture’. We had never heard it before and weren’t sure if it was a real term or a type of Blondeism. Either way, we decided we quite liked it and it reminded us that we had met the man in charge of path furniture on the Isle of Man. He was in charge of all of the lovely signs that led our Gold DofE group safely over the hills. The signage on the island was definitely more in abundance than anywhere we had ever been before.
Not only did the island do signs well, but they also did well at duckboarding. Unlike Dartmoor, the Isle of Man helpfully put a walkway over their bogs to allow safe passage. These walkways were even enjoyed by the sheep.
The Brecon Beacons also produce some fine examples of path furniture as seen here … a handy style, fingerpost and information post to aid navigation.
However, the title of ‘master of path furniture’ has to go to Dartmoor with its giant chair!
When I was 11 (how many years ago was that!) I went to Switzerland with the Guides and I remember one area with beautifully carved wooden footpath signs with sculpted figures of walkers and wildlife. Each sign pointed to a named place and gave the amount of time it would take to walk there. We are distinctly backward in this respect in England – most of our footpath signs don’t even give a path destination. I know many paths that are obstructed by dung heaps and other nasties. The way to keep folk on the path and off the crops is proper signage. I seem to remember a giant chair in the Forest of Dean too – do you think there is a race of secretive giants striding over the national parks and forests by night?