RobHeskin

Yes, I perhaps didn't phrase it too well. There is a bridleway leading up onto a moor with about 3-5m of wooded verge either side. This is enclosed by a fence on one side and a dry stone wall on the other. Beyond those are a farmyard one way and a smallholding the other with pasture land further up. The bridleway then opens out into some wider woodland further up the moor. The private land beyond the fence/wall is all farmed or well managed or just left to be acceptably wild. The bridleway itself gets frequent daily foot-traffic as one of the main ways onto the moor. The eroding path surface (in winter it either becomes a stream or a sheet of ice) and the trees are the main points of neglect. there are some with very exposed root systems and structural issues as well as a few potentially dangerous branches overhanging the bridleway. As it happens, I actually identified the oak branch a couple of years ago thinking that it looked unsafe. I perhaps should have done a bit more than just talking to the farmers either side, like notifying the council, but I never got around to it. One of them said that I was welcomed to chop it down myself if I was concerned. To answer the other thing you said, yes, it was probably a contractor who dealt with the fallen branches on behalf of the council. There is a local volunteer group who take care of local bridleways and public footpaths but I doubt they would organise/sort out this kind of thing.

By reaction wood, do you mean that it will warp a lot while drying? If so you're probably right. It's probably not worth all the hassle. It wouldn't do for me to go to all the trouble of acquiring this timber only to have it warp and become useless before or even after I've made anything with it. I'm very new to milling and only just discovering how things work.

That's a fair point. Yes, the litter isn't their fault. People who litter disgust me. Perhaps that's just me coming from a background in ecology and estate maintenance. The main issue is more the state of the pathways and the trees but I didn't think mentioning those would go down too well on here either... But that's not too relevant to this discussion. Thanks for the suggestion about magic maps.

Yeah, that's what my wife said. Looking at the Land Registry, even before I send off for the documents, I try to select the piece of land on the map it automatically takes me to the property of one of the farmers I spoke with. Both the farmers are quite old and probably limited in the amount they can do so, if the land does belong to one of them, I wouldn't blame them for not wanting to claim ownership as it would be quite a large area of public-access woodland for them to manage all on their own. (That's manage with a small 'm'. As someone has said, wildness is great but when it is an area open to the public, it should perhaps at least be kept reasonably free of litter and such. But then perhaps you can't expect too much of some land owners)

Thanks for the input everyone. The body of the limb is about 5-6ft long and 1.5ft wide, and much heavier than I could deal with on my own without first slicing it up. There are a few other smaller branches too but if I do manage to find out who the owner is and get their permission, I think I would be happy with the main stem. It just seems like such a waste of prime oak timber if it's left to rot and no-one claims it or builds something from it. And yes, I do realise that nature prefers things a bit more wild. So do I. Re-wilding is great. It was more a comment on how, speaking to the farmers whose stock graze the land either side, neither seemed to know who owns the land in-between with the bridleway, saying that the local council also appears to ignore it.

A big limb split off an oak tree lately over a bridleway near where I live. According to locals and going by the complete lack of responsibility taken for the land either side of the actual bridleway itself, nobody claims ownership of the land and perhaps never has done for the last 70 years. The bridleways people sent someone to clear the tree as it was blocking the pathway but they didn't take much if any of it away. The body of the limb has just been left covered in chippings in the rough land beside the path. How legal would it be for me to take my chainsaw and mill frame and harvest some slabs of timber from it?