The public footpath network of the UK deserves World Heritage status; it is a national treasure, arguably our most priceless recreational resource, with nothing else like it anywhere in the world. That it exists at all is thanks to our forefathers, from the children of the mist who roamed in search of food to the hardy packhorsemen and drovers who pressed trails across the countryside, leaving them for posterity, wraith-like traces embedded in the land. But their discovery by recreational man had to await the 19th century, when working people, desperate to escape the the arduous and polluted urban
scene, formed botanical societies and embryonic walking clubs to walk on the moors of northern Britain.

Today, ever-increasing numbers of people are seeking ways to appreciate our landscape legacy, recognising the benefits to health, body, mind and spiritual well-being that leisure walking brings. We have an amazing heritage of inspirational landscapes in the UK, fashioned by nature and tinkered with by man, and all of them laced with ancient trails, long and short, many imbued with the echoes of times past and of famous people from pilgrims to poets, freebooters to musicians, outlaws and royalty.

There is no better aid to health and happiness than walking for pleasure, fitness and fun. Fundamentally, it is a cost-free pursuit, although a modicum of expenditure on decent boots will go a long way, and it is eco-friendly, especially if you walk, as many do, directly from your home.

But, for others, the call of something more than an hour or a day brings them in search of greater challenges, such as the 700-plus established trails, and 200 lesser routes that offer the walker a lifetime of experiences, sights, sounds and sensations. Some 15 of these routes have been designated as National Trails, the first of which was the Pennine Way. Yet these alone offer over 3,100 miles of walking opportunity. Throw in the rest, and the distances involved become staggering.

These are some of the UK’s most popular routes:

pennine way
For many walkers, the Pennine Way remains the best of the major trails, rising to greater heights and traversing far more remote country than any other. Inspiration of ramblers’ champion Tom Stevenson in 1935, who imagined “a faint line on the Ordnance Maps which the feet of grateful pilgrims would, with the passing years, engrave on the face of the land”, the route opened in 1965. It provides a challenging trek from the bleak peatlands of the Dark Peak in Derbyshire, northwards to tussle with industrial Lancashire (now much brighter and greener than it was) and on into the delectable Yorkshire Dales before pressing on to the highest of the Pennines, a stretch of Hadrian’s Wall, and into the peaty uplands of Northumberland and the Cheviot Hills.

Tens of thousands now set themselves the challenge of this pioneering route, but it is worth bearing in mind that, admittedly in the days of less sophisticated equipment, many of those who started failed to complete even the first day. Get beyond this, and it’s plain sailing....well, sort of.

coast to coast walk

Credit for the original idea for a northern cross-England route, starting at St Bees on the Cumbrian coast and finishing at Robin Hood’s Bay looking out into the North Sea, must go to the late, legendary hill walker and guidebook author, Alfred Wainwright, who first
described it in 1973.

Since then the original line has changed little, but has been improved on here and there, and today offers a challenging but do-able enterprise that for popularity rivals all the other trails. Wainwright never intended this to be a definitive route across England, but simply one of many possibilities, an outline to be modified by whim and weather.

Usually undertaken from west to east, the walk deals first with the Lake District, visiting in the process areas that are often away from the tourist honeypots, but no less pleasurable. Beyond the Lakes, you enter a relaxing interlude of limestone landscapes and prehistory before rising from the market town of Kirkby Stephen to cross into the Yorkshire Dales and Swaledale. The Vale of Mowbray is an agreeable break from rugged landscapes, as you tease a way through farmlands before heading for the Cleveland Hills and a mighty romp down to the coast.

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