England’s Rivers Are Apparently Private Clubs Now
There are few things more English than a river. A river winding past an old stone bridge, sliding behind a village pub, passing beneath willows that look as though they have spent several centuries discussing the weather. Rivers appear in paintings, poems, tourism adverts and television dramas whenever someone needs to establish that England is ancient, beautiful and just damp enough to be emotionally complicated. They are presented as part of the national inheritance. Then you try to walk beside one. That is when the countryside stops being a shared inheritance and becomes an outdoor version of a private members’ club. Suddenly there is a fence. Then another fence. Then a locked gate. Then a sign informing you that the landscape you have been admiring belongs to someone else and that your continued admiration may constitute trespassing. The river keeps flowing, of course. Water has never been particularly respectful of property boundaries. It passes through estates, farms, towns and c...
