Sometimes you want more than just a weekend walk. You want a week - or more. Fortunately, England is full of long distance footpaths; from highland scrambles to gentle lowland routes, all offer different landscapes and experiences.
The Mother of all Footpaths
The best known of all England’s long distance hiking paths is the 267-mile Pennine Way, which snakes up the central watershed of the country from Edale, near Sheffield, to Kirk Yetholm, just across the border in Scotland. Even though it contours major conurbations like Manchester for part of its length, the Pennine Way’s main attraction is the wild landscapes through which it runs. It’s sometimes bleak – peat bogs and grouse moor – but there are some superb sights, such as the sharp edge of Pen-y-Ghent hill, and the view down the Eden Valley from High Cup Nick, a huge V-shaped notch worn in the basalt bedrock.
However, the Way’s popularity has led to widespread erosion. As a response, authorities have installed duckboards and pavement in some areas, which rather spoils its wilderness feel.
Hiking From One Coast to the Other
The Coast-to-Coast Path, from St Bess on the Atlantic coast to Robin Hood’s Bay on the North Sea, is a bit shorter at only 192 miles. It offers spectacular scenery: the mountains of the Lake District, including an optional detour to the very scary Striding Ridge; the Yorkshire Dales, where it crosses the Pennine Way; and the North York Moors. The scenery is perhaps more spectacular than the Pennine Way, and less bleak, and the path visits a couple of lovely country towns, Kirkby Stephen and Richmond.
Offa’s Dyke path, tracing the border between Wales and England, comes is a little shorter at 177 miles, but offers similar riches of landscape. As with most of England’s long distance paths, accommodation is hardly ever a problem, with most days finishing in a village or small town. The ups and downs of the Shropshire switchback in the centre are truly challenging.
The Longest of Long Walks
The longest of England’s long distance hikes is the South-West Coast Path, at 630 miles. Many walkers choose a single section for a holiday; some walk the whole route. This is a challenging walk, since the path goes down to sea level and back up again every time a river has to be crossed, and high winds can make the cliff top path quite frightening. In return, hikers will find charming fishing villages, remote prehistoric landscapes, sandy beaches, and even surfable waves!
The South Downs Way also has fine coastal sections, running along the Seven Sisters – a line of fine white chalk cliffs – before heading inland up the Cuckmere valley with its meandering, sluggish river. This is a fine path for anyone who loves the openness of chalk landscape, with big skies and wonderful rolling hills.
Prehistoric mysteries
Chalk landscape is also a feature of the Ridgeway, which follows a prehistoric trackway along a chalk ridge. But this trail has another attraction; from the chalk cut White Horse at Uffington to Avebury stone circle, it’s surrounded by prehistoric sites. Nowhere else in England will you feel as close to the distant past as here; the whole landscape seems suffused with sacred mystery.
Not every walker is into mountains, and a gentler alternative is provided by the Peddars Way and North Norfolk Coast path. The Peddars way runs through gentle East Anglian countryside, a landscape of green lanes guarded by ancient oak trees and flourishing hedgerows. For part of its way, walkers follow a Roman road, dead straight, towards a now vanished Roman fort.
Once the Peddars Way reaches the sea, it turns east to follow the coast, at first along salt marshes and shingle beaches, then along the top of crumbling cliffs above the sea. It ends in Cromer, which has the highest church tower in Norfolk – and some good fish and chip shops.
And if you want a real challenge, add together the Peddars Way, the Ridgeway, with the Icknield Way and Wessex Ridgeway, and you can walk all the way from the North Sea to the English Channel.
