Celebrating 60 years of the Pennine Way

Settle, a bustling market town in one of the most scenic areas of the Yorkshire Dales — The Way takes in three national parks, including the Yorkshire Dales

(Image credit: Pete Stuart / Shutterstock)

The UK's oldest and "most revered" long-distance path, the Pennine Way traces Great Britain's upland spine from Derbyshire to the Scottish Borders. It offers a wonderful introduction to the "windswept, weather-beaten magnificence" of the British countryside – and this year is its 60th anniversary, said Duncan Craig in the Financial Times.

The festivities have been low-key, but there's much to celebrate – including the path's role in the historic fight for public access to our hills and moors. It was in 1935 that the Daily Herald's countryside correspondent, Tom Stephenson, penned a "now renowned" editorial proposing a British answer to America's Appalachian Trail. Thirty years of campaigning later, in the spring of 1965, his dream was realised with the formal opening of the Pennine Way, in a ceremony on North Yorkshire's Malham Moor. The public mood had shifted from "grudging acceptance" of the private ownership of the countryside, to "open defiance", and the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949 included legislative backing for long-distance footpaths. Still, it took another 15 years of "wrangling" for the Way to reach fruition. In the meantime, "myriad" outdoor groups, including the recently formed Ramblers' Association, had helped to refine the route. It served as a "catalyst" for the creation of more national trails, of which there are now 16 in England and Wales alone. Passing through three national parks (the Peak District, the Yorkshire Dales, and Northumberland), the path is 268 miles long, and many people walk it in 16-19 days.

Anyone looking for a shorter sample might try the 21-mile stretch between Middleton-in-Teesdale, in the Durham Dales, and Dufton, in the Eden Valley – which takes in the High and Low Force waterfalls, and High Cup Gill, a "vast, ice-cream scoop of a valley" ringed by cliffs.