This year marks the centenary of the Finance Act 1910, a landmark law which has proved valuable in claiming routes as public paths for the definitive (official) map of rights of way in England and Wales.

David Lloyd George’s Finance Act 1910 introduced a tax on land, but landowners could apply for a reduction in tax if they admitted the existence of a public right of way across their land. These records are shown on the valuation maps and in the field books (the ‘Domesday Books’) and are held at the National Archives at Kew, and in many local record offices throughout England and Wales.

Kate Ashbrook Open Spaces Society general secretary said:

‘This was an important piece of legislation which is still valuable to us today in claiming public paths for the definitive map. Lloyd George would have been pleased to know that his Finance Act would still be relied upon by path users a century later!’