UK Trailwalker’s Handbook - directory of long-distance paths

• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps
• Updates
• Reviews
• Further Reading

The history of UK trails

In the UK we are fortunate, perhaps uniquely fortunate, to have such an extensive network of public rights of way that can be connected to make longer routes through our diverse landscape. This book is about these longer routes – Long Distance Paths (LDPs) – that now span the length and breadth of the nation. Walking is a valuable recreation from a purely physical point of view, but many of us find that a long journey along a trail is also an opportunity for mental and spiritual renewal as well.

This Handbook covers about 720 main trails and about 170 shorter routes, offering the walker a very wide range of experiences, but LDPs are in historical terms a comparatively recent introduction in the UK. In 1935 Tom Stephenson, a ramblers’ campaigner, had the vision of ‘a Long Green Trail, a Pennine Way from the Peak to the Cheviots’. Thirty years passed before his dream was realised in 1965 with the opening of the Pennine Way as the first UK National Trail. In 1969 the Cleveland Way followed and in 1970 Wales saw its first, the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. More national routes followed in the 1970s, and in 1980 Scotland’s first, the West Highland Way, was designated as an official ‘Scottish Long Distance Route’. Although still awaiting a ‘national trail’ of comparable pedigree, Northern Ireland has a small, growing and valuable collection of shorter walking routes, the Waymarked Ways, being designated as quality routes. At the moment, we list about ten totalling some 290 miles (460km).

These national trails soon grew in popularity with walkers, who appreciated their combination of some of the best countryside and high standards of trail maintenance and waymarking (where appropriate). They liked the interesting guidebooks, covering the trails’ themes and the varied sites to be seen along the way. As trail usage grew, supporting services developed in parallel, with accommodation easily linked, complete guided holidays on offer, and baggage services opening the trails to those not wanting to backpack or ‘rough it’. These trails now offer a reliable, easy-to-use ‘package’ to walkers who do not have the time or the skills, or perhaps the inclination, to work out their own routes in unfamiliar areas far from home. On these well-used trails you will meet other walkers, making them less intimidating than less well-used trails and allowing the inexperienced to practise map reading and navigational skills. Britain now has some 3200 miles (5200km) of national trails in its 19 routes and they still have a vital role in setting benchmarks for subsequent route developers to follow. Coupled with their strong ‘brand image’ and wide public recognition, this has laid the essential foundations for the wider LDP network described in this book.

Inspired by the success of the national trails, keen walkers and ramblers, individually and through their clubs, soon started to develop their own informal trails and to write guidebooks, sometimes self-published, while in parallel, local authorities, seeing the benefits of providing their own networks, developed area routes, sometimes collaborating with their neighbouring areas to offer regional trails at standards sometimes not far short of those on the national routes.

It is a remarkable network. The LDWA has been documenting these trails since 1980 and since then the number of trails has increased from about 150 to the 720 main routes in this book. Tom Stephenson might be amazed to discover that we now cover some 60,000 miles of routes, right across the UK – a huge range of options. (The path network as a whole is close to 150,000 miles or 240,000km).

So what benefits do trails bring and how can their use best be fostered in the future?

The benefits of, and barriers to, trailwalking

As we have seen, the number of UK trails has been steadily growing. New trails are being developed all the time – since 2002, when the LDWA last published a similar Handbook, some 200 new routes have been added. Every new issue of the LDWA’s Strider magazine includes many new routes.

However, only the successful routes continue long term – since 2002 over 100 routes have been lost. Only those offering a quality combination of a good theme, scenery, guidebook, mapping, funding, promotion, support and accessibility endure. Many routes established in a wave of enthusiasm last only a few years and some millennium routes (established with funding to mark the year 2000) have already been lost. Funding bodies need to consider these factors carefully when allocating initial capital.

It is evident from the number of commercial publishers involved in supporting LDPs (we list about 400 in our Directory of Suppliers), and the growing number of support services companies (currently over 60), that people walking trails generate substantial economic value. Local authorities developing new routes will first make an economic impact assessment and most have seen a positive value in having a route network in their area. Trail usage on the National Trails (NTs) is monitored and some 12 million people in England used at least one NT in 2005. Around half were out for a full day while a third aimed to complete the full trail, often over several trips.

With no central management of the rest of the promoted routes network, until recently there has been little hard evidence of its use. In 2008, Natural England surveyed the adult public about use of the major promoted trails to produce a strategic review covering both the National Trails and the wider network. (Natural England’s definition of a trail is broadly similar to this book’s – a combination of rights of way, more than a day’s walk in length – except that it excludes enthusiasts’ routes.) The survey showed a wide appreciation that trails exist, and a very substantial level of use.

However, people said they found it hard to find information about routes – there are many more trails than people think there are. While people recognised the National Trails as an iconic ‘brand’ that they could trust to provide a ‘high quality’ route and a satisfying experience, they found it much harder to assess the experience they would get walking the other ‘second rank’ trails. Natural England concluded that there was a case for improved information provision, and also for an accreditation or recognition system to provide a form of ‘quality mark’ for ‘the best trails’. At the time of researching this book they were reviewing detailed approaches to implementing these and various other changes to trail management.

Natural England’s survey suggested that over the previous year (2007) almost two-thirds of the adult population (26 million) took part in leisure walking. Walking is the most popular outdoor activity. In the past year, some 16 million (38 per cent) had used a named LDP. Some 6.5 million (15 per cent) used a trail at least weekly, and a further 9 million (23 per cent) used them less often. These groups said they could be encouraged to use trails more, locally or on holiday. The survey identified a very substantial opportunity for even more people to become regular trailwalkers. Some 15 million more (36 per cent) could be encouraged to be more active generally to improve their health, and were interested in using trails, but had little awareness of them. The most commonly cited barrier to greater use of trails was lack of information (49 per cent), followed by path quality (35 per cent). Lack of promoted paths and need for better services were also perceived as significant barriers, but this may more often conceal a lack of information, rather than of actual trails or facilities – two thirds of local authorities believe there are now enough routes in England.

The survey also showed that the 15 million potential new users come from all age groups, income bands and cultural backgrounds, so trail walking is potentially a highly inclusive activity. Trails once established are a relatively cheap resource: while National Trails cost annually around £1000 a mile (about 20 pence per user per mile) – reflecting the often difficult or fragile terrain they cover (such as cliffs or peat areas) and their high and defined standards, typical rights of way cost about £300 a mile. Promoted routes lie somewhere above the lower figure, depending on the needs for promotion, updated leaflets and fresh waymarking. In comparison just a single walker staying in the area may easily bring in £50 or more to the local economy daily (some flowing into taxes and duties) while leaving almost no trace on the ground and costing almost nothing at the margin.
For policy makers, the simple message from this evidence is that where there is already a good path network, a cheap and easy strategy is to promote, and to provide better information about, the established trails.

The way ahead for trails

Arguably there has never been a better time for trails and their future seems assured. They combine a potentially ‘green’ activity that should leave almost no trace and that, once the walker is on foot, has little or no carbon footprint, with a low cost and significant health benefits, both physical and mental. These benefits apply particularly to an ageing population often with fixed incomes and time to spare, that wants to remain fit and active while meeting new companions. In addition there is a substantial net benefit from ‘trail tourism’ to the rural economies often in poorer areas, where most paths run.

New trails will no doubt continue to be developed – with less than 60,000 miles of rights of way so far covered by trails out of about 144,000 miles. There is still much scope, while less successful routes will fall out of use.

A number of other trends are evident already or appear likely, with an overall policy shift towards providing an ‘integrated access network’ rather than a ‘rights of way network’. The recent fresh approaches to managing rights of way and access, involving the rights of way improvement plans (ROWIPs) completed in 2007 by local authorities in England and Wales, have led to changes that emphasise making the best use of the whole network to benefit the public, through an integrated approach that looks at the health, sustainable transport, climate change and disabled access agendas together. For trails, this is likely to have most impact in urban areas with more linear and linking routes, making for a better-connected network. In rural areas major trail corridors will see developments around the mature core trails, such as shorter circular options, sometimes with the added benefit of reducing pressure on an over-used existing trail in a fragile landscape, and possibly calling on some agri-environment funding. However, the pressure for more short routes should not be to the detriment of the longer core route they rely on. Another issue is that, while walking itself is comparatively green, getting to and from a walk may not be, and efforts continue by local authorities to integrate public transport and trail access points better, and by walking groups to car share or use public transport more effectively.

There will also be developments in establishing new paths and local access, perhaps with permissive agreements, using green spaces such as canals, where they can augment or better link existing routes. Our network developed historically over the millennia for reasons of utility, driven by the needs of an ancient transport system that underpinned commerce. There is no reason why it should not now meet all the needs of recreational walkers, or even of those wishing to use it to get to their modern workplace. Some targeted trading of existing rights of way for new ones may provide benefits overall.

The recent wider changes in access legislation in Britain have opened up much new access land and some trails are already taking advantage, for example to access the source of a river previously ‘out of bounds’. But in the main the trails we cover use rights of way and need to be marked, so this may not lead to much change, except in the case of enthusiasts’ routes on access land. Of more significance is the enacting in England of new legal rights to secure a continuous long-distance walking trail around the English coast. This will open up some new sections and complete the ‘English Coastal Path’, as a new National Trail incorporating the South West Coast Path, coastal sections of the Cleveland Way and many other existing promoted coastal routes.

While trails do have a positive future, great vigilance is still needed from walkers’ campaigning organisations such as the Ramblers, to ensure that paths are not lost or the network eroded, and trailwalkers need to continue to support this work.

Routes in this Handbook

In this Handbook (and on the corresponding LDWA online database) we aim to include UK routes that have a name, that are mainly off-road and on public rights of way suitable for walkers, and that offer more than one day’s walking for most users. In practice this means that most routes we list are over 15 miles and we aim to cover all those of 20 miles or more. Some shorter routes are included, where, for example, they provide useful links between longer routes, or have a particular significance for walkers: most of these we cover in summary only within the entry for the major route that they link to (their ‘parent’ route), but some warrant a full entry in their own right. Also included are many ‘challenges’ for which the detailed route is self-devised and for which navigational skills are required. All routes, major and minor, are included in the Index of Trails at the back of this Handbook.

The routes included all have some form of publication providing at least a basic route description or definition, and one that is readily available to the public, either free or at a reasonable cost. So we term all of these routes ‘promoted routes’, although they vary vastly in standard and in the experiences they provide. Walkers can chose anything from one of the easier national trails, walked as a tailored holiday package with full support, to an extreme unsupported challenge across moor and mountain between prescribed locations demanding endurance and navigational skills, rewarded perhaps by a certificate and a badge to mark the achievement.

We use the term ‘trail’ in this book as a catch-all shorthand. In the US the ‘trail’ may often be the only route in the landscape; in the UK trails are routes, combinations of the very many individual but linking ‘rights of way’, each often quite short. As you follow a trail, there will always be many paths on the ground to choose from, making it essential either to follow the waymarks, use a guidebook, or at least follow the line shown on Ordnance Survey maps (if your particular route is marked).

We also include some 200 ‘enthusiasts’ routes’ in this book, some suitable only for experienced and fit walkers. Of these, Anytime Challenges are normally unwaymarked routes, mostly devised by an individual or club, with a simple route description and often a certificate or a badge for successful completers available from a ‘recorder’ who may maintain a register. These challenges can be completed at any time. Some form the basis of annual challenge events, when there will be support, although the route may vary from the standard version. These challenges are mostly in the northern counties of England, where they are very popular. Kanters are a variant – a simple series of grid references to be linked by a self-devised route.