By: Blonde One
Path furniture is a much commented on aspect of the Two Blondes walks. We have noticed that although Dartmoor is almost perfect in every way the signage and path furniture in general is rather lacking. A finger post will often just say ‘path’ without giving any clue as to where the path is leading. We once met the man in charge of path furniture on the Isle of Man and complimented him on how very useful and informative the furniture was there.
The recent trip to the Peak District, however, has found the winner to the path furniture competition (if there was such a thing)! The path furniture that we discovered on our trip was exceptional. There were a whole range of styles of signs: from traditional finger posts with information about destination and direction, to signs warning of steep drops. The paths underfoot were well marked with either pavements across fields to keep you in the right place or tracks so well defined that they were impossible to miss.
Where there were no signs there was an abundance of cairns to reassure you that you were on the right track.
The gates were all very well maintained and had springs on them to make sure they were closed even if you forgot to put the latch on. Some springs were quite strong and we decided that the National Park thought we should have a quick arm muscle work out as well as a leg one. In fact, the springs seemed to get stronger as we neared the end of our walks!
A Peak District Local Access Forum that is available to view online (http://www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/766467/LAFbg160623-Item7.pdf) has earmarked £20,000 to improve the quality of path furniture, but we definitely feel that it doesn’t really need much improving! Well done Peak District National Park.
Well done indeed! It is high time every footpath sign had the path’s destination and the time needed to walk there written up in clear letters – Switzerland was doing it 60 years ago. We are very backward in this country. It is no wonder people get lost, walk in the wrong direction and annoy farmers!
Do you think that some people might argue that they like the wild open spaces to stay unsigned? Across farmland though I definitely agree.
Signage in detail where paths leave the roads would be okay, I think – I don’t want to see signs all over the mountains (or tors). Not so happy about stone trackways all over the place either unless they are essential to prevent erosion; but my really huge pet hate is staircases. They are always intrusive and badly built. The human foot wasn’t designed to push upwards from a horizontal position. Making steps horizontal is a design fault!
Just realised what DFS stands for! On the whole I hate acronyms but I suppose you meant Discount Furniture Store but it could have been ‘Deserves Further Study’, ‘Defective From Stock’, ‘Denver Film Society’ or another 70 or so plus those you can make up yourself… ‘Dartmoor Fantasy Society’.
Is it weird that I have never wondered what it stood for?