Mel Gibson bellowed, with blue painted face, the rousing battle cry, ‘They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!’, he may well have been referring to the Scottish Land Reform Act of 2003, instead of the 13th-century war of Scottish independence. This broad piece of legislation, interpreted alongside the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, gives anyone in Scotland the right to walk on nearly any land in the country, as long as you behave responsibly. Not quite as broad as those canny Scots, their neighbours to the south in England and Wales benefit from a network of public rights-of-way across areas
