IN South Stoke near Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire you will find a foopath known locally as The Postman’s Path. It heads from South Stoke in a determined straight line to the village of Ipsden.
It is one of probably hundreds of paths throughout Britain known as ‘postman’s paths’. They are a memory of a golden age when rural postmen and postwomen strode out on foot (and sometimes bike) to deliver mail to even the most remote farms and homes.
My journey to find out about these paths and the people who walked them began in 2019 when a farmer advised I take the postman’s path back to the village of Caldbeck in Cumbria.
I am a lover of footpaths, particularly those with a tale to tell. I have written in the past about corpse roads, lonnings, smugglers’ paths, vicar’s walks, beggars’ trods and many other examples of Britain’s wonderful walking heritage. But until 2019, I had never come across postman’s paths.
The farmer explained it was a path that the rural postman used to shortcut between farms. The delivery routes are now all covered by van but the farmer said the path and its name had remained – along with the postman’s steps installed into the drystone wall to help the postman clamber over.
I was intrigued and a quick Google showed they were indeed ‘a thing’. Many villages had their ‘postman’s path’, including South Stoke, although sadly most locals could not recall precisely why they had that name or who was the postman or woman who had walked it.
My five-year search for their history has resulted in a new book, The Postal Paths, published by Monoray – and it will hopefully inspire ramblers and historians to research further their local examples.
I discovered the village short-cuts were just small stretches of the longer daily routes walked by rural postmen. These routes were 10 or 12 miles long but I came across many which stretched to 20 miles or more.
That is 20 miles walked each day, six days a week in all weathers for a postman often in service for much of his or her working life. I have even found a couple of paths nudging 30 miles a day. Most, of course, traverse some of Britain’s most beautiful countryside.
Many were circular – starting and ending at the village post office but others were linear, the postie resting at the end of the route in a simple corrugated shed known as a postman’s hut, which contained a wooden bench and pot-bellied stove. Fewer than a dozen of these huts are still standing.
Why not just head back straight away? Well, it was custom for the postman to deliver letters in the morning, then for people to write a reply and catch the postman on his return in the afternoon to give him their letters containing the replies. The postman sold them stamps, weighted parcels and even blew a whistle or rang a bell to let villagers know he was available to take their mail.
Postmen walked the existing footpaths and roads where possible but created – officially or unofficially – the shortcuts that became known as postman’s paths in order to shave a mile or two off their route.
Vans took over in the late 1960s and early 1970s and the paths ceased to have any purpose, although in one or two places – notably Scotland – they have been turned into tourist trails commemorating the public servants who walked hundreds of miles each year ensuring we received our mail.
Most of the rural posties are sadly now dead but a few survive and they kindly shared their routes and tales with me. Sadly, official records of the routes are as rare as hen’s teeth.
It would be wonderful if other paths were rescued before they vanish through the floorboards of history. So, if you’re looking for a good excuse to go walking or a chance to preserve some valuable social history, seek out your local postal paths and I’ll add them to my growing database.
Alan Cleaver is a journalist and author living in Whitehaven, Cumbria. He spends his spare time walking the footpaths of Britain, particularly those that have a good story or legend associated with them. Postal Paths was published in April 2025
