The Royal Photographic Society’s discussion forum has a lively thread updating on National Trust restrictions:

http://www.rpsforum.org/showthread.php?t=15317

It is interesting to note Fay Godwin’s words quoted; no doubt she helped formed my views on this subject, though I was not consciously quoting her when I referred to painters, writers and artists having rights denied to photographers.

There are many chains of connections. I read old literature more than most people – especially from around 1780-1840, a critical period in the formation of political and social ideas. Sir Walter Scott has been a focus, because he briefly owned my house and I found his signature on the pre-1806 deeds. I ended up reading a great deal about Scott over two decades. He did something exceptional – he bought land, and not only opened it to the public, but cleared overgrown footpaths, built stiles, and erected signs pointing all comers to memorable locations.

Scott liked nothing better than to meet people following his paths and exploring his – totally private – desmaine. He encouraged artists (he was slightly more worried about poets, in case he was buttonholed or hunted down). He died before photography arrived, but it was exactly the sort of invention he would have loved. Many of his contemporaries placed belvederes on their properties, with footpath access, for the benefit of visiting artists.

Oh well – where would William and Robert Adam have been, or any of their contemporaries, without the assiduous detailed sketching and measurements of the Grand Tour? Without the well-paid publication of countless volumes of pictures of private properties throughout Europe, sometimes with the co-operation of the owners, sometimes without a thought for who might be the owner?

‘Sorry, we can’t allow the use of the camera obscura for commercial engraving…’

-DK