"A fascinating stroll through England’s first national park."
It’s 75 years since the Peak District pipped the Lake District at the post to take the title of England’s first national park. Tom Chesshyre cites the mass Kinder Trespass of 1932 as the key moment in shifting our national consciousness to protect our most beautiful spaces. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course, and three centuries ago this area, a mix of rugged gritstone and smooth limestone, was described by Daniel Defoe as a ‘howling wilderness’.
It was the ‘labouring classes’ - especially those on the Manchester side of the Peak - who were complaining about land access, and even today those arguments persist in many areas of the country. Tom’s journey fittingly begins in Manchester and as he heads eastwards and upwards we get a real sense of the importance of the wild to those living in cities, but also of its underuse by those seemingly uninterested in what is available on their doorstep.
“A delicate symbiosis between city and nature was at play”, he writes in his opening chapter, and as he crosses into the park he passes a series of signs advising visitors how to conduct themselves properly. He talks about urban tendrils reaching inwards, represented by canal tunnels or plane crash wreckage. But once up there all this is forgotten as he marches across bog and rock loving every minute.
Nothing immerses you in the landscape more than walking. The time to look, explore, read, research and meet people. Tom is a filter through which all of these things pass and he is a master at weaving it together. There is also a warm humour in his writing, particularly evident in his descriptions of the people he meets. Whether it’s an environmentalist, a bookshop owner or the Duke of Devonshire, he brings out the best of them with expert journalistic nuance.
Wild Peaks covers 364 miles with an average daily step count (for those who measure such things) of 28,234. So it is a considerable odyssey for anyone wishing to follow in his footsteps. Helpfully, there are many good pubs.
| Primary Genre | Lifestyle, Hobbies and Leisure |
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A journey through Britain’s first National Park on its 75th anniversary.
On a spring day in 1932, 400 disgruntled ramblers embarked on a 'mass trespass' of Kinder Scout, a plateau in the Peak District in northern England. Their aim? To establish a right to roam across the rugged landscape, against the wishes of wealthy landowners.
The hikers were seeking respite from the smoky industrial centres of Manchester and Sheffield – and eventually they got what they wanted. In 1951, the Peak District was established as Britain’s first national park. Home to striking dragon-back ridges of rock, vast expanses of peat, farms and villages, cloughs and caverns, the Peak is much more than the 'howling wilderness' described by Daniel Defoe three centuries ago.
With the 75th anniversary of the park’s creation looming, how has this dramatic landscape fared since? Celebrated travel writer Tom Chesshyre hit the trails on a 363-mile ramble to find out – and to celebrate this symbolic home of hiking.
Wild Peaks follows winding paths, pausing at old inns and mountain huts, and along the way meeting a rich cast of landowners, farmers, historians, mountaineers, publicans, rangers, right-to-roamers, homeless travellers, mountain rescue members, mystics, dreamers and fellow hikers.
Don your cagoule, grab a compass, and join Tom as he explores how the land has changed, and how we have too.
Wild Peaks features in the following genres: Lifestyle, Hobbies and Leisure, Travel, Travel writing, Social and cultural history, Industrialisation and industrial history, Walking, hiking, trekking, The countryside, country life: general interest, National parks and nature reserves: general interest
Wild Peaks is available in Hardback
Wild Peaks was written by Tom Chesshyre and published by HarperNorth an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Wild Peaks has 320 pages
£18.00
