Latest news with #PennineWay
BBC News
25-04-2025
- BBC News
Pennine Way ramblers honour 'visionary' on 60th anniversary
Walkers have completed a 40-mile (64km) trek in honour of the man widely regarded as the father of the Pennine Stephenson, from Whalley in Lancashire, dreamt in 1935 of creating a 268-mile (431km) trail from the Peak District, across the Yorkshire Dales, and into the Scottish was 30 years before his vision turned into a reality on 24 April the 60th anniversary, volunteers from Pendle Radicals and the Friends of Clarion House at Roughlee set off on Monday from Mr Stephenson's former home in Whalley before joining the Pennine Way at Earby and making their way to Malham in the Yorkshire Dales on Thursday. Another "Pennine Way at 60" event will take place from 11:30 BST on Sunday at Clarion will highlight the new Two Toms Trail and Pendle Hill's significance as the source of inspiration for Mr event will include a short walk as well as a special Pennine Way display, readings and a short film. Ramblers' Association Nick Burton, who led the three-day trek to Yorkshire, told BBC Radio Lancashire how Mr Stephenson got the idea of creating a Pennine Way as a 13-year-old mill worker near said: "After his first week he walked up Pendle Hill and got that view northwards of the Pennines and it sort of inspired him and started his love of rambling."As early as 1935 he wrote an article suggesting the idea of a Pennine Way." Mr Stephenson went on to become secretary of the Ramblers' he was in his 70s, he attended the official opening of the Pennine Way at Malham Moor on 24 April died in 1987. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Lancashire on Sounds and follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- The Guardian
Hiking the Pennine Way 60 years after its creation
High on the ridges of the Pennines, somewhere between the waters of Malham Tarn in the Yorkshire Dales and Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish Borders, a 31-year-old woman stands amid a group of mainly male walkers. She's wearing bell-bottom jeans, a fitted long-sleeve top and an Alice band to keep her hair out of her face in the prevailing westerly wind. Her name is Joyce Neville and the year is 1952. She's in the middle of a walk along a proposed national trail – the Pennine Way Joyce had seen an advert for this self-described 'Pioneer Walk' in the Sunday newspapers a few months earlier. It was placed by the writer and campaigner Tom Stephenson who was requesting 'accomplished walkers, fit and over 18' to take part in a 15-day hike on the 'long green trail' he was suggesting be created in Britain (inspired by the US's 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail). Few women wore jeans back then, according to Joyce's notes (which were passed on to me by Paddy Dillon, author of Cicerone's Walking the Pennine Way guidebook), and the whole trip cost just £25. More than 70 years later, my friend Cerys and I are standing in the Pennines, at the lip of a feature known as High Cup Nick. This glacially scoured U-shaped valley, known as England's Grand Canyon, sits above the village of Dufton in Cumbria. We are on the first day of a three-day walk on the Pennine Way (which officially opened in 1965) to celebrate its diamond anniversary. We'd begun on a cold but sunny day in February at the waterfall-rich town of Middleton-in-Teesdale, and already scrambled alongside the torrent of Cauldron Snout, listened to the call of corncrakes in the farmland of the Eden Valley, bog-hopped along the path beside MOD Warcop training ground (out of bounds to hikers without prior permission), and arrived at this – one of the geological highlights of the entire 268-mile trail. The landscape would have been the same when Joyce trod it in the 1950s, though some things have definitely changed. 'Back then it was a damn tough walk because all the blanket bog would be trodden into a filthy morass that got to waist-deep at times,' said Paddy when I called him pre-trip to ask advice about the section we had decided to walk, between Middleton-in-Teesdale and Greenhead, inspired by the same three-day trip Stephenson made in 1948 to publicise his cause. He was accompanied by five MPs, among them Barbara Castle (one of the longest serving female MPs in British history) and Arthur Blenkinsop (a Labour MP for South Shields who went on to become vice-president of the Ramblers). 'You could have worn waders and it might have kept you clean. Now, thanks to the flagstones, you can do it in carpet slippers.' We weren't quite so bold as to ditch our hiking boots, but our gear was definitely changed from Joyce's day. At the time, she notes, when women were expected to wear long tweed skirts for walking, her outfit was regarded as quite scandalous. In a way, we have Joyce and other women like her to thank for the fact that we can now wear warm, dry fleece-lined trousers without offending anyone. We also had our lightweight waterproof jackets, and didn't have to carry heavy canvas bell tents like they did. When Joyce was walking this route, hikers had to negotiate with farmers to camp in their fields; later, after the path's official opening, there were about 20 YHA hostels along the route. There are only a handful left, so guesthouses, pubs with rooms, the occasional campsite and Airbnbs are the way most people do things. As we stand gawping at the crumbling buttresses and pinnacles that line the edges of High Cup, we meet a hiker called Mike, 73, with his dog Ringo, who says he lived along the trail at Earby when the Pennine Way opened. 'I remember we'd hear the banging of frying pans before we ever saw the walkers,' he laughs. 'They were hanging off the backpacks of the factory workers from Manchester who would clock off on Saturday and start walking and see how far they could get before they had to head back to work on Monday.' Similar to those early walkers, we were squashing our walk in between work. In contrast, we would be staying in warm 'hobbit huts' at Dufton Caravan Park, having walked from Brunswick House B&B, run by Andrew Milnes, who told us that trail walkers account for a third of his annual business. Despite good accommodation, the distance is no shorter, and when we arrive into Dufton at dusk we head immediately for a hearty meal at The Stag Inn – thankful we don't need to cook our own dinner. We chat to Amanda behind the bar who raves about the section of the trail we were walking. 'Do you think it will last another 60 years?' I ask her. '60?' she says. 'It will last another 6,000 – it's not going anywhere.' We were, however, and after a cosy night, we begin our walk on the hardest and highest section of the trail – over Cross Fell, home to the notoriously bitter Helm Wind (the only named wind in the UK). There is frost on the ground, the temperature is -4C (25F). By the time we reach the slopes of the 893-metre (2,930ft) peak, we hit the snowline. It is cold, but the ground is made solid by the frost, and we hike easily to the summit plateau, marked by a great stone cross (reportedly – we later find out from the woman who runs the Post Office at Garrigill – constructed on the trail's opening by a reverend from Scotland who had received a message 'from above' to build it to protect walkers). And as we reach it and see the Lakeland peaks spread out in front of us without even a breath of wind, I muse how perhaps it is working. Sign up to The Traveller Get travel inspiration, featured trips and local tips for your next break, as well as the latest deals from Guardian Holidays after newsletter promotion We stop to eat lunch at Greg's Hut, a former miners' lodgings now looked after by the volunteer-run Mountain Bothies Association and, judging by the entries in the visitor's book, frequented by many a Pennine Way walker. From there the trail heads to Garrigill and on to Alston, cleaving its way between a mass of land used for grouse shooting, a place where hikers would have once had run-ins with gamekeepers eager to protect their money-making birds – a practice that still causes heated debates between landowners, conservationists and access campaigners. Walking a trail may seem like an act of pure recreation, but the origins of the Pennine Way are firmly rooted in politics. The trail's creator, Tom Stephenson, never actually walked the entirety of his creation, the idea for which came in 1935, three years after the mass trespass of Kinder Scout, a protest in the Peak District for walkers' rights. 'He wasn't interested in walking it, but he made damn sure other people did,' says Paddy. 'His idea was if he could get people en masse into the countryside to areas previously forbidden to walk on, like Kinder Scout and Bleaklow [also in the Peak District], he could use that as a lever to get more rights in general for people to access previously private land.' After a night at the Cumberland Inn in Alston, we set our compass for Greenhead and Hadrian's Wall, where we will grab a taxi, then the train at Haltwhistle to head home. We plough through the 17 miles easily, listening to the song of curlews, spying wild deer at the former Lambley station (now a private house), and admiring the snowdrops that have burst through the ground. Since Stephenson's pioneered the concept of a walk that allowed everyone to traverse the backbone of England, more routes have been established, such as the South Tyne Trail. For 23 miles, it follows the route of the defunct Haltwhistle railway line (closed in 1976; opened as a footpath in 2004) parallel to the Pennine Way and is so much easier and more commonly walked that Paddy has included it in his updated guidebook. The Pennine Way was the UK's first national trail – there are now 17 in England and Wales, and four equivalent long-distance 'great trails' in Scotland. The newest and longest yet, the 2,700-mile King Charles III England Coast Path is due to be fully walkable by the end of 2025; many parts of it are open now. Yet there is still much to fight for. According to the campaigning group Right to Roam, only 8% of England is accessible to hikers – nearly 49,000 miles of historic paths have been removed from official maps and 32,000 rights of way are blocked. Access is even more limited to those wishing to swim, cycle or camp (with one exception – wild camping is legal on Dartmoor, but this is being contested in the supreme court by a wealthy landowner). Sixty years feels like a long time, but walking can still be a political act. And, perhaps, much like Joyce Neville in 1952, we should all hit the trails to exercise our right to roam. Jeans are optional.
The Guardian
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Walking the Pennine Way put everything into perspective for me, including my right to be here
Dear Pennine Way: I'd like to wish you a happy 60th birthday. Many thousands have trodden along you, and so have I. You've brought us blisters but also beautiful views, buoyed spirits and a renewed sense of belonging. I got the idea to walk the Pennine Way – which on 24 April turns 60 – after being racially abused on a TransPennine train journey. A man asked me if I had a British passport, threatened to set me on fire and told me to go back to where I'm from. The latter hit a nerve: I am from the North of England and proud of it. One day I was looking at a map of that journey and saw the Pennine mountains rising up. I zoomed closer and saw a place called Hope, and I determined that I'd walk through the glorious place I'm from and try to channel hope throughout. Walking was transformative to my physical and mental health. I'd been suffering from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder – racism and inequality affect mental health. Walking was ameliorative as I focused my attention on the wonders of wildlife, burned away stress by the River Ribble and felt my heart beat louder as I hiked on up through the Yorkshire Dales, stopping to marvel at the view from Pen-y-ghent as the clouds began to clear. I walked along the 'backbone' of the country – as the Pennines are known due to their astonishing limestone cliff formations – as a way of showing backbone myself: I won't let racial abuse stop me adventuring in a country where I belong. My journey was inspired by the Manchester Ramblers from my home town, who walked against exclusion in the Kinder Scout mass trespass – which celebrates its 93rd anniversary also on 24 April. Their walk helped improve access to the countryside, paving the way for the formation of the Peak District (the country's first national park), the Pennine Way, and the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. The Manchester Ramblers – immortalised in Ewan MacColl's song – showed that they could help walk the world to a better future. It's important to ensure that their hard-won freedoms aren't eroded: England's national parks are imperilled due to budget cuts. It's vital we speak up for their existence, for their belonging here. There were moments when I thought I couldn't go on – not least after almost toppling off Malham Cove – but what fuelled my footsteps, alongside the extraordinary landscape, was a burning sense of defiance. In Settle in the Yorkshire Dales, I saw a plaque commemorating the journey of Alfred Wainwright, who walked the Way in 1938 and wrote A Pennine Journey, published in 1986. Reading it was enraging on account of the misogynistic stereotypes – Wainwright writes about 'the wild joys of boyhood' and comments: 'I've wondered many a time: have the ladies the same capacity for enthusiasm? … I have not yet witnessed genuine enthusiasm in one of them; often I have seen a pretence of it, but the divine spark was missing.' I may be missing the 'divine spark', but my enthusiasm powered me on over mountains, valleys and considerable obstacles, all the way to the sadly now felled Sycamore Gap tree at Hadrian's Wall. Toxic prejudices still persist about who belongs here and who is capable. My book, titled I Belong Here, is a chronicle of my Pennine journey and also a clarion call for rightful belonging in the face of hostile and persistent exclusion of minorities from societal power structures, and media, and publishing and literary landscapes. Ironically one agent advised me to take out the word 'Pennines', because 'the book won't sell as no one cares about the north'. I was also told that someone like me couldn't be a travel and nature writer – the subtext being that I was not white and/or male so I did not fit with the 'lone enraptured male' profile prevalent in this genre (Wainwright might be turning in his grave to know I was shortlisted for a nature-writing prize named after him. My PE teacher would be surprised too. As we celebrate this great walking path, it's worth remembering how far there still is to go for all to be safe and free and welcome while walking through the world. In England, 92% of the land is not covered by the right to roam, contrasting with Scotland, where the public has access to walk through most of it as long as they do so responsibly. England's land is still entrenched in centuries-old feudal inequality. And as women walking, we face greater levels of harassment outdoors, the vulnerabilities heightened for a woman of colour with risk of racist harassment. Long-distance hiking is a lesson in stoicism in the face of obstacles. It's an apt metaphor for the journey through life – little wonder that the walk has been a literary trope for centuries. But rather than approaching the Way as a competitive sport, I did it my way, as it were; I didn't care about finishing fastest but wanted to savour each step instead. So happy birthday, dear Pennine Way. Five years on from my epic journey, I'm trying to keep walking a hopeful path. I hope if anyone who's reading this today (or in 60 years), feels stuck or lost in life, or crushed by discrimination, that you don't give up, that you keep on going; that you believe you belong here, because you do. I hope you'll keep going for the view along the way as well as from the top of the mountain. Anita Sethi is the author of I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain and is featured in the new exhibition A Trail of Inspiration: the Pennine Way at 60
The Guardian
10-04-2025
- The Guardian
The food of the gods of cheese and bread
I know that welsh rarebit isn't a cheese toastie, but if Lauren O'Neill (Grate expectations: cheese toasties are having a moment, and I'm all for it, 7 April) wants to try the ultimate in cheese-and-bread-based meals, she really should visit the International Welsh Rarebit Centre in Defynnog, near Brecon. Rarebits with chorizo, rarebits with kimchi – and, of course, the unbeatable classic AdamsGrosmont, Monmouthshire I was reminded by Margaret Squires' letter (8 April) of being asked by the doctor who was present at the delivery of my son, in a Bristol hospital, if he could take the placenta home to put on his roses. I said that he could. I hope his roses did AdamsCaerleon, Gwent Amazing to see an editorial on the Pennine Way (9 April) that doesn't mention Alfred Wainwright, who first walked it in 1938 (trespassing along the way), who funded pints at the terminus for those completing the trek, and who published the best guide to the ConstableDarlington Your editorial mentions a number of authors who have written about walking. One book on the Pennine Way that I really found helpful was I Belong Here by Anita Sethi, in which she explores how walking the route has therapeutic value for mental BulutogluLondon While Andrew Vincent provided a cogent argument that the mining of authors' work is nothing new (Letters, 6 April), I'm pretty sure I've read it somewhere BibbySheffield Do you have a photograph you'd like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers' best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Unseen' Alfred Wainwright items go on show
Never-before-seen items belonging to walker and writer Alfred Wainwright are going on show in the Lake District ahead of the 70th anniversary of his first book. A previously unpublished photograph of Wainwright and two copper printing plates will be displayed at The Armitt museum in Ambleside as part of an exhibition opening later. The event will also showcase artwork, book printing negatives and a manuscript, as well as objects he owned and used. Wainwright wrote and illustrated seven guides to the Lakeland fells, which have gone on to sell more than two million copies. Wainwright archivist and exhibition co-curator Chris Butterfield said it "celebrates the extraordinary contribution to Cumbrian literary and cultural history" made by the famously taciturn writer. The Armitt's manager and curator Faye Morrissey said Ambleside held "special significance in Wainwright's story" as the writer began the fieldwork for his first book in the area in 1952 as he detailed a route to Dove Crag. She described Wainwright as "such an important individual for the Lakes", adding "the timing of the exhibition makes it even more appropriate to acknowledge his legacy here in Ambleside". The exhibition will run until December. Having been raised in poverty amid Blackburn's cotton mills in the early 20th Century, the lakes and their wide-open vistas captured Wainwright's heart. He spent several years making weekend bus journeys from his then-home in Kendal, making pen-line drawings of more than 200 hills and mountains, as well as handwriting descriptions for each one. His first book, which focused on the Eastern fells, was published in May 1955. The guidebook writer fuelled by fish and chips He combined his exploring with his day job as borough treasurer of Kendal, obsessively spending his evenings writing up notes gleaned from his Saturday and Sunday trips. It was, he told Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 1988, something he took on "more for my amusement than anything else". "It ended finally," he went on to say, "with my [first] wife walking out and taking the dog, and I never saw her again". Upon completion of his pictorial guides to the fells, Wainwright wrote other books including titles on the Pennine Way. He also devised a west-east coast-to-coast route and found new generations of fans in the 1980s when he starred in three BBC series focusing on his walks. He died in January 1991 with his ashes scattered in the Lake District at his favourite spot, Innominate Tarn, near the summit of Haystacks. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. Send your story ideas here. Man, 91, climbs fell for friend Alfred Wainwright The guidebook writer fuelled by fish and chips The Armitt
