A footpath used by King Charles I as he fled during the Civil War has become embroiled in a fresh battle - after villagers were banned from walking on it.

The medieval trackway was used by the King's troops to flee Oxford when Oliver Cromwell's army surrounded it in June 1644.

It runs through a field in Wolvercote village, north Oxford, towards Eynsham.

Now a row has broken out between the field's tenant, Sophie Laforet, 33, of Cherwell Avenue, Kidlington, and the village's Commoners' Committee, which has demanded the right to walk on it. Mrs Laforet has padlocked the field and begun legal proceedings.

The battle started when she spotted the Commoners' chairman David Humphrey using the path. She said: "I asked him politely to leave and he said 'I shall come and go where I please'."

The mother-of-three rents the field from Oxford University Press for £550 a year to ride her horses and added: "I do not want people in there with dogs, scaring my animals."

Mr Humphrey said: "In the view of residents of Wolvercote that is a medieval right of way. We have historical references to it going back hundreds of years. As late as Victorian and Edwardian times hay was brought down that track by meadsmen." Mr Humphrey said the path was open until the owners of the land, Oxford University Press, inserted a clause into the lease which gave Mrs Laforet the opportunity to seal it off

Mrs Laforet's mother, Jill Goff, 55, of South Avenue, Kidlington, said: "When I was a child a notice was on the gate saying 'No Trespassing Private Land'.

"We never walked across there, but these days people think they can walk anywhere they like.

"The notice is a bit faded now but it is still there."

A spokesman for Oxford University Press said the issue was being examined by its land agents.

Story date: Wednesday 14 April

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