Marsh - A Northern Coast to Coast Walk

Terry Marsh is an award-winning writer and photographer specialising in the outdoors and travel, and has authored or co-authored more than 60 travel or walking guidebooks. He lives in Chorley, Lancashire, on the western edge of the West Pennine Moors, which he has explored and written about extensively. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and from 1993 until 2009 was Secretary of the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild. He holds a Master of Arts degree with Distinction in Lake District Studies.

Other Cicerone guides by the author

The Dales Way

The Isle of Man

The Isle of Skye

The Shropshire Way

The West Highland Way

Walking in the Forest of Bowland and Pendle

Walking on the West Pennine Moors

2 POLICE SQUARE, MILNTHORPE, CUMBRIA LA7 7PY
www.cicerone.co.uk

Terry Marsh 1993, 2003, 2006

Third edition 2006

Reprinted 2008, 2010 (with updates)

ISBN-13: 978 1 85284 505 6

ISBN-10: 1 85284 505 8

Second edition 2003

ISBN 1 85284 367 5

Reprinted 2004

First edition 1993

ISBN 1 85284 126 5

Reprinted 1997

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Photos by the author.

This product includes mapping data licensed from Ordnance Survey with the permission of the Controller of Her Majestys Stationery Office. Crown copyright 2010. All rights reserved.

Licence number PU100012932

Front cover: Ascending above Greenup Gill (Rosthwaite to Grasmere section)

Credit where credit is due: when in 1973 Wainwright devised his Coast to Coast Walk across Northern England, it was a masterpiece of inspiration, a touch of genius if not of concept, then of line and it would be difficult if not impossible to link the two chosen ends by a more satisfying route. It is a tantalising and inspiring excursion, to rank with the finest of this countrys long-distance walks. The man himself said it was but one coast to coast walk that walkers could devise their own. Maybe so, but as a tribute to its quality its enthusiasts grow by the year, while alternatives remain pale and few in comparison.

The walk runs as close to ruler-straight as Wainwright could devise, from the Irish Sea lapping the shores of Cumbria at St Bees, to where the waters of the North Sea flow into Robin Hoods Bay on the Yorkshire Coast, a distance of just over 300km (190 miles). Its certainly not a walk on which to cut ones teeth as a backpacker (the Dales Way or even the West Highland Way would be much more fitting for that), but one on which seasoned walkers will experience little difficulty.

Heading up Stonethwaite (Rosthwaite to Grasmere section)

The route was revisited in its entirety during 2005, and where necessary amendments made to the route description and some of the background notes. The whole book has been rewritten, with more than 50 per cent new or revised material, but if my original text is still valid it has been left intact.

This version of Wainwrights walk sticks very closely to the original line, with a few minor tweaks, and accommodating changes that have become possible, sensible or necessary in later years, including many made available by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, and the introduction of Access Land across much of the high ground of the route. However, I have opted for the much safer and significantly more beautiful low-level route through Swaledale, rather than grinding across the moors above, and Ive also ditched all the road walking through the Vale of Mowbray (as I had done in the first edition) theres just no need for it. Even so, where I have dropped parts of the original line, I still provide them in Appendix A for Wainwright devotees (there are cross-references to Appendix A where relevant).

The various high-level alternatives I provided in earlier editions, notably in the Lake District, have also been omitted this book concentrates on the Coast to Coast Walk itself. You can easily work out variations for yourself, but my guess is that most people want to do the basic walk and just that.

Opening with a lofty scamper around the edge of St Bees Head, the first day, usually taken as far as Ennerdale Bridge, samples the delights of coastal walking before heading inland to the western fringe of Lakeland. The leg-buckling slopes of the minor summit, Dent fell, on a warm day especially, come as something of a joke, but beyond that one of Lakelands hidden gems, Uldale and Nannycatch Beck, compensates amply on the run in to Ennerdale.

Ennerdale marks the entry, if you like, to Lakeland proper, and pushes far into the heart of steep-sided mountains, to the great summits of Pillar and Great Gable that lie at Ennerdales head. Then, with a daunting flourish, the walk engages the short-lived wrath of Loft Beck as it hauls itself across the fells to Borrowdale, coming first by a back road into Seatoller, and then by a charming traverse to Rosthwaite, as much on the traditional tourist route as Black Sail Youth Hostel in the deep sanctum of Ennerdale is off it.

By enterprising leaps the walk visits Langstrath, crosses by Greenup Edge to Far Easedale and Grasmere, before crossing to Patterdale by Grisedale Tarn.

Pillar and Ennerdale (Ennerdale Bridge to Black Sail section)

Beyond Patterdale the route clings as long as it can to the high ground, before throwing in its hand and dropping to the shores of Haweswater, preparing, inevitably, to leave the beauties of Lakeland behind.

Understandably, for it was his greatest and first love, Wainwright was inclined to feel that once the Lake District was left, the finest had gone, though he did not concede that the rest of the journey is in the nature of anticlimax. If the truth is known, what lies ahead is every bit as enchanting, captivating, and spiritually reviving as Lakeland, qualities derived, if not from the ruggedness of the landscape, then from its sublime insinuation into our senses, its soft and outstandingly beautiful insistence on playing its part in this drama, with equal rights to top billing.