A Pennine Journey

A fascinating story of a solitary walk through the Pennines taken by A. Wainwright in September 1938.

The Pennine Way is Britain's oldest, toughest long-distance footpath - and arguably its most iconic. Now a National Trail, the 427km (2651⁄2 mile) route from Edale in Derbyshire to Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish Borders offers wayfarers the opportunity to immerse themselves in wild beauty of the North. The Pennines boast rolling hills, sweeping moorland and wide glacial valleys, and the Pennine Way has come to embody personal challenge and adventure. This guidebook presents the route in 20 daily stages of 10.5-31.5km (61⁄2-191⁄2 miles). Step-by-step route description is accompanied by 1:100,000 mapping and information about points of interest along the way, as well as advice on facilities and planning your trip, tips for walking the route and an alternative 15-day itinerary. Useful contacts and full accommodation listings can be found in the appendices. In addition, the guide includes a pocket-sized map booklet containing all the OS 1:25,000 mapping needed to complete the trail, saving the need to carry numerous map sheets. The Pennine Way crosses three National Parks - the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland National Park - and other highlights include Cross Fell, the highest point in England outside of the Lake District; the Cheviot Hills; Kinder Scout; the limestone cliffs of Malham Cove; the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the awe-inspiring UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hadrian's Wall. Overnight options range from camping to a mixture of hostels and B&Bs and there is great camaraderie amongst wayfarers. With a wealth of information to help you get the most from your trip, Paddy Dillon's guide is an ideal companion to discovering this classic trail.

David & Heather Pitt, who re-created Alfred Wainwright’s famous 1938 ‘Pennine Journey’, with maps by Ron Scholes and illustrations by Colin Bywater, here describe a new 76-mile long-distance walk from Kirkby Stephen to Settle. This pictorial guide follows a route through this picturesque and, in parts, demanding area of Cumbria and North Yorkshire – with a short diversion into Lancashire. It can be used in conjunction with Wainwright’s Walks in Limestone Country and Walks in the Howgill Fells. The route has strong associations with railways. It passes over the spectacular Smardale Gill viaduct, and close to the Stainmore Railway, the disused Ingleton and Tebay Railway, and the Settle–Carlisle railway.

In September 1938, A. Wainwright made a solitary walk through the Pennines. The following year he wrote up an account of this walk, which was eventually published in 1986. This illustrated guide, written by members of the Wainwright Society, is a recreation of this walk adapted for today’s roads and rights-of-way, taking a route that Wainwright might have chosen if he was planning it today. The route is 247 miles long and divided into 18 stages. With maps and illustrations inspired by the work of the great AW, this labour of love is essential for all those who wish to follow in Wainwright’s footsteps.

This book presents a portrait of the Pennine Way, Britain's oldest and best known long-distance footpath, tracing its remarkable history through the experiences of walkers past and present. As Andrew McCloy walks the 268-mile route from the Derbyshire Peak District to the Scottish borders, he discovers how the Pennine Way set a benchmark for personal challenge and adventure and how reconnecting with wild places and the unhurried rhythm of the long walk continue to provide a much-needed antidote to our busy modern age. The resilience of the long distance walker is mirrored in the path's fascinating history: the initial struggle for access, battles to tame the bogs, later challenges of path erosion and the fluctuating circumstances of the rural hostel. Above all else however this is a book about Pennine Way people - from crusading ramblers to resourceful B&B landladies, hard working rangers to fanatical trail walkers. Their conversations and memories are woven into the narrative to give an account of the changing fortunes of the path and its special significance. Personal, thoughtful and often humorous, The Pennine Way - the Path, the People, the Journey is an exploration of our desire for challenge and adventure, the stimulation of wild places and how a long journey on foot through our own country still resonates today. It will appeal to people who have walked or are preparing to walk the Pennine Way, as well as to those with an interest in the history and legacy of this iconic path.

In summer 2010 Simon Armitage decided to walk the Pennine Way. The challenging 256-mile route is usually approached from south to north, from Edale in the Peak District to Kirk Yetholm, the other side of the Scottish border. He resolved to tackle it the other way round: through beautiful and bleak terrain, across lonely fells and into the howling wind, he would be walking home, towards theYorkshire village where he was born. Travelling as a 'modern troubadour' without a penny in his pocket, he stopped along the way to give poetry readings in village halls, churches, pubs and living rooms. His audiences varied from the passionate to the indifferent, and his readings were accompanied by the clacking of pool balls, the drumming of rain and the bleating of sheep. WALKING HOME describes this extraordinary, yet ordinary, journey. It's a story about Britain's remote and overlooked interior - the wildness of its landscape and the generosity of the locals who sustained him on his journey. It's about facing emotional and physical challenges, and sometimes overcoming them. It's nature writing, but with people at its heart. Contemplative, moving and droll, it is a unique narrative from one of our most beloved writers.

On 24 April 2015, it will have been exactly fifty years since a ceremony was held at Malham to mark the official opening of the Pennine Way Long Distance Footpath (now designated a National Trail), a trek of some 270 miles from Edale in Derbyshire’s Peak District to Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish Borders. There are now 15 National Trails of varying length but despite competition from younger upstarts, the pioneering Pennine Way retains its cachet of being the most challenging (and consequently most rewarding) expedition across vast tracts of Britain's untamed countryside. The legendary fell-walker, writer and illustrator Alfred Wainwright published his own inimitable step-by-step pocket guide to the Pennine Way in 1966 and in 1985 used that material as the basis for a collaboration with photographer Derry Brabbs: Wainwright on the Pennine Way, an illustrated overview of the trail, which topped the Sunday Times best-seller list for several weeks. For this edition, published in a handsome new large format, Wainwright's text has been revised and annotated to account for the changes in the route that have occurred in recent years, as well as the improvements to the terrain underfoot, in areas where flagstone paths now cover the boggy peat moors. In addition, Derry Brabbs has reshot the entire book specially with stunning year-round photography, to bring this classic fully up to date. Wainwright on the Pennine Way brings together a writer and a photographer who have each been acclaimed for their artistry in recording the high places of Britain. This is a ‘must have’ memento or gift for anyone who has done the route or an aspirational reference work for armchair walkers content to let others do the legwork.