The Coast to Coast Walk
St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay
The Coast to Coast Walk
St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay
Guidebook to the Coast to Coast long-distance walking route from St Bees Head in Cumbria to Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire. At 190 miles (300km), this popular long-distance route can be walked in 2 weeks. With clear route description, maps, trek planner and accommodation guide. A separate 1:25,000 map booklet is included with the guidebook.Embark on a classic adventure across Northern England with the Cicerone guidebook to the Coast to Coast Walk, the iconic long-distance trail devised by Alfred Wainwright. Traversing 188 miles (302km) from the Irish Sea at St Bees to the North Sea at Robin Hood’s Bay, this celebrated route links the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, and North York Moors National Parks, showcasing some of the most diverse and beautiful landscapes in England. From the sweeping fells of Lakeland, across limestone country, through the rolling Dales, and over the wild North York Moors, this journey offers walkers an ever-changing panorama of England’s finest scenery.
Officially launching as a National Trail in 2025, the Coast to Coast can be walked in around two weeks, with flexible itineraries to suit both seasoned trekkers and well-prepared novices. This comprehensive Cicerone Coast to Coast Walk guidebook provides detailed, stage-by-stage instructions for the 13-day route, along with suggestions for shorter or longer itineraries (including 15- and 19-day options), so walkers of all abilities can plan the perfect trip.
- Features detailed daily stage descriptions, clear 1:100,000 OS route maps, and an OS 1:25,000 route map booklet for accurate, stress-free navigation. Each stage begins with a summary of key facts and includes height profiles, accommodation options, and practical advice for planning your journey.
- The Coast to Coast Walk passes through a series of charming villages and key locations, including Ennerdale Bridge, Rosthwaite, Patterdale, Shap, Kirkby Stephen, Keld, Reeth, Richmond, Danby Wiske, Osmotherley, Blakey Ridge, and Grosmont, before reaching the dramatic cliffs of Robin Hood’s Bay.
- Also outlines low- and high-level options for traversing the Yorkshire Dales section of the Coast to Coast trail, allowing you to tailor your adventure to your experience and fitness level, along with practical tips on transport, accommodation, and local highlights.
- Each stage of the Coast to Coast Walk features clear navigation guidance, daily distances, elevation profiles, and up-to-date accommodation, transport, and local services information for key towns and villages such as Ennerdale Bridge, Patterdale, Shap, Kirkby Stephen, Keld, Reeth, Richmond, Osmotherley, and Grosmont, helping you shape a journey that matches your ambitions.
- Downloadable GPX files provide a convenient digital navigation option, making it easy to follow the Coast to Coast Walk with your smartphone or GPS device.
- The best time to walk the Coast to Coast is from late spring to early autumn, when daylight is long, and facilities along the route are open to welcome walkers.
Plan your Coast to Coast adventure with confidence and experience one of Britain’s most inspiring long-distance walks with this definitive Cicerone guidebook.
The Coast to Coast Walk - Quick Facts
Location: Northern England – west to east (Cumbria, Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors)
Distance: ~300 km / ~190 miles
Typical duration: ~2 weeks
Start: St Bees Head, Cumbria
End: Robin Hood’s Bay, Yorkshire
Route format: Linear long‑distance walk (National Trail)
Stages: 13 stages (~17–33 km each)
Difficulty: Moderate to challenging – varied terrain with significant ascent/remote stretches
Best season: Spring or autumn (summer busy; winter may be difficult)
Author Top Tip
“Walkers with other long-distance walks under their belts will find that the Coast to Coast Walk differs very little in terms of physical effort and organisation, but, as always, good forward planning and attention to detail can ensure a happy and rewarding endeavour. For one thing, with so much of interest along the way, it is vital to allow time to explore and potter about, to paddle in the streams and rivers, to visit churches (and pubs) – to get something of a feel for the lifestyle that permeates the course of the walk and the history that has fashioned the land it traverses. The first prerequisite is to be sure you are fit enough. Setting off to do around two weeks’ worth of long walks back-to-back takes its toll, usually starting around Day 3. It is also important to plan days that you can realistically complete, and even then be prepared to abbreviate your intentions. Don’t be drawn into joining other walkers you meet and inadvertently pressing on to do more than you feel comfortable with."
- Terry Marsh, author of The Coast to Coast Walk
Printed book
A guidebook with detailed route descriptions, stage breakdowns, accommodation listings, profiles and maps - everything you need on the trail.
ISBN
9781852847593
Availability
Published
Published
13 Jan 2017
Reprinted
29 Oct 2025
Edition
Fourth
Pages
256
Size
17.20 x 11.60 x 1.40cm
Weight
430g
eBook
The complete digital edition of the guidebook, with full route descriptions, accommodation listings, profiles and maps, ready to use on any device.
Map key
Overview map
Trek planner
Route summary table
Preface to the fourth edition
Introduction
An unmissable experience
Planning your walk
Suggested itineraries
When to go
Getting there and back
Public transport along the route
First and last nights
Accommodation
Facilities en route
Baggage transfer
Cash management
What to take
Planning day by day
Using this guide
Maps
Weather
Waymarking and paths
Emergencies
Phones and Wi-Fi
Language
All about the region
Geography and geology
Wildlife and plants
History and pre-history
The Coast to Coast Walk
Across Lakeland
Stage 1 St Bees to Ennerdale Bridge
Stage 2 Ennerdale Bridge to Borrowdale
Stage 3 Borrowdale to Patterdale
Stage 4 Patterdale to Shap
Into the Dales
Stage 5 Shap to Kirkby Stephen
Stage 6 Kirkby Stephen to Keld
Stage 7A Keld to Reeth (high-level route)
Stage 7B Keld to Reeth (low-level route)
Stage 8 Reeth to Richmond
Stage 9 Richmond to Danby Wiske
Stage 10 Danby Wiske to Osmotherley
The North York Moors
Stage 11 Osmotherley to Blakey Ridge
Stage 12 Blakey Ridge to Grosmont
Stage 13 Grosmont to Robin Hood’s Bay
Appendix A Useful contacts
Appendix B Accommodation along the route
Appendix C Further reading
Seasons
Accommodation along the Coast to Coast walk may be busy in summer and higher, more remote, parts difficult in winter. Spring or autumn is ideal.
Centres
St Bees, Grasmere, Shap, Kirkby Stephen, Richmond, Ingleby Arncliffe, Grosmont, Whitby, Robin Hood's Bay
Difficulty
The C2C is a two-week route with total ascent of 6995m (22,825ft). Some remote stretches, especially walking on the North York Moors.
Must See
The Lakeland fells, Swaledale, Vale of Mowbray, North York Moors, cliff-top walks at Robin Hood's Bay
March 2024
Stage 1
The short stretch of the C2C, west of Dent, where it passes through Black How Farm, is closed (March 2024) because of the condition of some of the farm buildings. The way around this is to take the public footpath via Row Farm to join the minor road. There, turn left to rejoin the original line opposite Black How Farm. The closure should not be permanent, but will remain in place for some time.
March 2023
Swaledale low-level alternative
Between Gunnerside and Reeth, the low-level alternative that ran alongside the River Swale has been modified by moving it to a new line that keeps to higher ground on the north side of the Swale, re-joining the original riverside route at Healaugh.
The new variant avoids a short stretch of road walking, along with issues of flooding or muddy progress after prolonged wet weather that occasionally affected the riverside route.
The new variant will become part of the Coast-to-Coast Path National Trail and will be detailed in the next edition of the Cicerone guide.
November 2019
Route updates included in 2020 reprint
759 Reprint 2020 (4.009 MB)
August 2019
Route Corrections and Additions
Keld accommodation:
Mark and Jude Waterton
Greenlands B&B Keld
Angram Lane, Keld, Richmond, North Yorkshire, DL11 6DY
Tel: 01748 886532
Email:greenlandskeld@swale.life
Web site: www.greenlandskeld.co.uk
O.S. Map Ref: 54.395348, -2.173482
July 2019
p95 and 96
DELETE from ‘Do not cross Rosgill Bridge…’ to the info panel about Shap Abbey.
SUBSTITUTE with the following:
Do not cross Rosgill Bridge, but turn right onto a broad farm track, with the River Lowther off to the left. A short way on, turn onto the track leading up to farm buildings, but immediately go left (do not climb the farm track) on a narrow path beside a wall to a stepped and gated stile in a wall corner. Moving on, roughly parallel to a continuing wall and then a fence across a pasture to pass an area of low crags known as Fairy Crags. Keeping ahead, a few more minutes brings the route to a gate and a delectable corner where Parish Crag Bridge spans Swindale Beck, a tributary of the River Lowther.
Climb steps above the bridge, and then strike directly across the ensuing field to a group of ruined farm buildings on the skyline. Pass through the enclosure there, and after a gate bear right to meet a minor road at a bend.
Head up the road for about 200m, and turn left through a gate at a signpost. Cross boggy ground to a gate, and through this cross an ancient earthwork in the form of a water-filled ditch and mound. Now take to an indistinct green path towards a wall. As the wall bears right, follow it briefly, but then pull half-left, crossing the shoulder of a sloping pasture dotted with several small granite erratic boulders. On the brow of the pasture, Shap Abbey appears to the right, not immediately obvious among its ring of trees. Drop to cross a stream and keep on to reach and pass through a wall gap high above the River Lowther.
Through the gap, bear right and soon strike across a sloping pasture, aiming for the abbey. On approaching the abbey, take to a narrow path (not easily located) that crosses a slight hollow above the river, and climb to a gate in a wall. Through the gate, the route bears left, away from the abbey, to cross Abbey Bridge into a small car park, and then goes forward along an access road to climb out of the river valley.
p174
DELETE para beginning ‘As the lane bends right…’, and SUBSTITUTE:
As the lane bends right, go forward on the village lane, and continue to a signpost (on the right) indicating a turning (left) at The Barn. Keep ahead to a field gate. Go along the edge of a pasture but leave it before a fence at the end of the second pasture by bearing left and shortly right towards St Giles Farm.
Penultimate para. DELETE from ‘On reaching the farm…’ to the bottom of the page.
SUBSTITUTE:
On reaching the farm, pass through a gate and go forward past the farm buildings onto a gravel track. As this swings to the right, leave it and descend very steeply, left, beside a fence to the banks of the Swale. Pass beneath the A1(M), and from a kissing-gate on the other side go forward towards a defunct railway bridge. Pass beneath this too, and on the other side circle right at the edge of the racecourse overflow parking area and use steps to climb up to the railway trackbed. Cross the bridge, and then descend steeps to gain a surfaced track that leads forward to the A6055, joining it at Catterick Bridge.
p175
DELETE last two paras.
SUBSTITUTE:
Cross the road with care to a gated squeeze stile giving access to a meadow. Follow the Swale until after passing through an elongated pasture the route is diverted up to meet the B6271. Turn right beside it, walking for about 40m, and then entering a car park for the Scorton Walk. Immediately, turn left through a gate onto a permissive path that parallels the B-road until it joins a right-of-way path at a pair of gates. Now keep forward to arrive at a surfaced track. Follow this southward and take the first turning on the left (Flat Lane), which leads you out to the B6271 at Bolton-on-Swale.
p226
DELETE from para beginning ‘On reaching May Beck Bridge…to (2 paras later) 700m to a stile on the left (signposted ‘C-to-C’).
SUBSTITUTE
On reaching May Beck Bridge, go immediately left on the road, doubling back and following the rising road to, and beyond, a bend at New May Beck farm. As the road straightens, leave it, right, at a broad footpath that heads out onto Sneaton Low Moor. Ignore the prominent path bearing left onto the moor. Instead, from a signpost, head initially half-right through rushes onto a path that leads to a mid-moor signpost, and then on farther to a gate in a wall, close by a scattered stand of pine. Through the gate, turn left for Hawsker (note the interesting milestone nearby, right), and parallel the wall on a path at times board-walked.
At a field corner near the B1416, turn right to a gate access onto the B-road. Cross the road to a stile opposite.
July 2017
Page 66
Stage 2
'The ongoing route from Black Sail hostel to the foot of Loft Beck can be confusing in mist. Avoid the more pronounced path that descends to the bridge spanning Liza Beck, and, instead, look for a higher path striking east that leads to the foot of Loft Beck.' Correct Map route see Map booklet 926 for detailed route.
Page 155
Stage 7b
Keld route, the text is correct, but the map on page 156 is incorrect until you reach Rampsholme Bridge. see map booklet 926 for detailed route in blue.
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