Open Spaces Society, Britain’s oldest national conservation body, is celebrating new public freedoms as new greens and paths have been opened to the public at Dorchester-on-Thames in South Oxfordshire.

A new landowner Keith Ives has removed fences erected by his predecessor which denied public access to the historic Dyke Hills, a scheduled Iron Age settlement, and Day’s Lock Meadow beside the River Thames.

Residents in the area formed a pressure group and campaigned to get the land registered as village green and the paths recorded on the definitive map.

Read also: Oxford grandad teaches science with household objects

The Henley-based Open Spaces Society offered support and advice.

Mr Ives has agreed voluntarily to register the Dyke Hills and the meadow as village greens, giving local people rights to enjoy them and protect them.

Becky Waller from the Friends of Dorchester and Little Wittenham Open Spaces said: “Keith Ives bought Bishops Court Farm at Dorchester-on-Thames intending to restore it to the heart of the community. We are incredibly grateful for his generosity and absolutely delighted that public access to these precious open spaces is secured and the footpaths widened.”