TrigpointingUK

Being new to his Trig Point bagging malarky, I am amazed at how much damage is done to farmers fences e.g. cutting barbed wire,or prising fences open all to gain access to a tring. Dont get me wrong, I myself am not whiter than white but are these these cases of minor vandalism realy justified?

I am amazed at how much damage is done to farmers fences e.g. cutting barbed wire,or prising fences open all to gain access to a tring.

Is that really the case? Offhand I can't recall a single instance where a trig bagger has caused deliberate damage
such as you describe - it would be interesting to know which logs you've read of such instances.

Exploiting existing gaps in a fence - yes, many of us would admit to that, mainly to visit trig pillars on sites
such as reservoirs.

Trespassing - again, yes. But I think its entirely possible to visit a farmland trig site whilst respecting the
farmer's livelihood, i.e. by keeping to field margins as much as possible, avoiding visits when crops are growing, making sure
that gates are left as found to avoid livestock wandering. In my experience, the occasional encounter with a
farmer has usually been amicable once the reason for being there is explained.

So whilst trig baggers do sometimes venture to places where, technically, they shouldn't be, I don't see anything that
corresponds to the term 'vandalism'.

Best wishes for 2017


Regards
Ted

I can honestly say that in all my years of 'trigging' I don't think I've ever visited a 'trespass' trigpoint where there has been any notable damage to the surrounding area, fence, wall etc and Ted's comments are spot on. Perhaps where such damage has occurred the landowner might be better served by embracing the notion of 'trigpointing' and accept that people will inevitably visit the pillar/FBM or whatever and make access to it more amenable.

I'd also suggest that you don't necessarily have to actually physically 'tig' a 'trespass' trig to log your visit on the website, I personally think that if you can get within a reasonable distance/sight of the trig and the trespass is too dangerous/damaging/invasive it's OK to log it.

The following are examples of 'trespass' pillars local to me that I'd regard as being OK logged without actually touching the pillar.

1. The grounds of a local junior school surrounded with a high security fence, pillar is visible about 12 ft inside the fence, fence is quite dangerous to climb. If you can't get permission from the school and don't want to climb the fence it's OK to log it.

2. Pillar is in a crop field about 50ft from the field edge which is not a RoW. Okay to log the trig as you don't want to destroy the farmers crop.

3. A pillar in someones garden. If unable to gain permission return when someones in. If however the pillar's visible it's OK to log. There was a garden not too far from where I live where the owner got so sick of people accessing the pillar without asking permission that she had the OS remove it. The sad thing about this was that the owners back garden (where the pillar was) backed on to an open field from which the pillar could be viewed from as close as the length of a hiking pole.

A simple bit of common sense needs to be applied really.