Back before helicopter parenting was a thing, my brother and I and two pals took a train to the Peak District one summer to hike the Pennine Way. I was 14, the others 15. Two and a half weeks and 268 miles of giddy autonomy stretched ahead as we assembled at the start outside the Old Nags Head in Edale, Derbyshire, for an early-1990s precursor to the selfie.
We camped or slept out the whole way, living off noodles and, in one notable instance, a rabbit felled and roasted by a shotgun-wielding farmer whose hospitality we weren’t about to spurn. We supped our first bitter. We had a Withnailian run-in with a bull. And somehow we made it to the finish in Kirk Yetholm, in the Scottish Borders, unscathed.
We left as boys and returned as . . . boys with a mountain of washing. But it was a formative experience that instilled in me a life-long appreciation of both the great outdoors and the windswept, weather-beaten magnificence of the British countryside. Exactly, in fact, as the “father” of the trail intended.
This month, Britain’s oldest and most revered long-distance path marks its 60th anniversary with a smattering of characteristically low-key events, including group walks and exhibitions at local museums along the way. But it was 30 years prior to the 1965 unveiling that the first step towards the Pennine Way was taken — when Daily Herald countryside correspondent Tom Stephenson, later secretary of the Ramblers Association, was contacted by two young American women planning a walking holiday in England.
Did the country, they wondered, have an expansive, point-to-point walking route akin to America’s newly established Appalachian Trail? It didn’t, of course. But, with the mood shifting from grudging acceptance of the private ownership of great swaths of the countryside to open defiance, Stephenson was convinced it could — and most certainly should.
He channelled his frustration into three decades of lobbying, spearheaded by a now renowned editorial entitled “Wanted — A Long Green Trail”. This mapped out a hypothetical upland route from the Peak District to the Cheviots on the Anglo-Scottish border, allowing the user to “make acquaintance with some of the finest scenery in the land”.
“None could walk [it],” read the article’s rousing peroration, “without being improved in mind and body, inspired and invigorated and filled with the desire to explore every corner of this lovely island.”
“Can’t we just walk in silence, dad?” sighs my eldest, as I pompously recite this during our ascent of Malham Cove. It’s early spring, and the first day of my return to the Pennine Way, this time en famille and for a more modest five-day “taster” rather than attempting the whole thing. Her sister is more enthused, galloping up the steep, stepped path towards the Yorkshire Dales’ famous arc of flat-topped limestone, oblivious to the dense blanket of mizzle.
It was close by, on Malham Moor, that the Pennine Way was formally opened on April 24 1965. Stephenson’s article had galvanised an enthusiastic band of volunteers from groups such as the newly formed Ramblers Association to recce and refine a specific route worthy of his grand vision.
It largely followed existing, often centuries-old footpaths and drovers’ routes, some already enjoying public right of way. But over a fifth of the proposed trail crossed private land. It took the passing of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act in 1949, which included legislative backing for long-distance footpaths, and a further decade and a half of wrangling with recalcitrant landowners and local authorities, for it to reach fruition. The National Parks Commission, formed in 1949, took the lead, with myriad outdoor groups and even the army assisting with signage and route testing.
The response to the hard-won trail was everything Stephenson could have hoped for. The Pennine Way served as a catalyst for similar long-distance footpaths across Britain (nearly a dozen were inaugurated over the next two decades), and by the 1970s there were estimated to be as many as 15,000 people a year tackling its full length. Hiking the trail was — as much as anything that requires elasticated overtrousers ever can be — cool.
This popularity had consequences. “With minimal maintenance, some of the boggier sections ended up in a terrible state,” says Andrew McCloy, author of The Pennine Way: the Path, the People, the Journey. Tales abounded of peat bogs in which hapless hikers might sink neck-deep. Six-lane pedestrian highways were trodden into the landscape as hikers sought to avoid the treacly terrain, from which celebrated guidebook author Alfred Wainwright once had to be physically extracted. “You won’t come across me anywhere along the Pennine Way,” he later wrote, in a huff. “I’ve had enough of it.”
By the time my young friends and I hiked the full length, upkeep was being duly prioritised; recycled stone paving was bridging the boggier segments and stiles and signage were robust and well maintained. Several decades on, the signs of peripheral erosion have been largely erased. “The route has arguably never looked better,” says McCloy.
That’s certainly our impression as we press on, leaving behind the day-hikers tottering around on the cove’s crazy paving of artfully eroded rock. At length, a sheltered spot appears in a little cleft off the path and we hunker around our stove to brew up and eat our sandwiches. The mist-shrouded expanse of Malham Tarn proves the limit of our opening-day exertions, and we double back to the boutique, ivy-clad Lister Arms in the village of Malham. Inside, there’s sirloin on the menu and multiple roaring fires.
On my previous Pennine Way adventure, a draughty bunk room rattled by the violent snoring of a stranger represented the pinnacle of refinement. This time around, I’m doing it in middle-aged comfort: five days, driving between favoured stretches; bite-sized circular or there-and-back walks; and bedding down in a few of the trail-adjacent inns, hotels and self-catering cabins that have flourished in the intervening years.
“The beauty of the Pennine Way is in its scalability,” says McCloy. Some push on to do it in one hit — contestants in the twice-yearly Spine Race, in an exhaustingly literal sense. Others will piece together the route like a jigsaw, taking years, even decades to complete it. Last summer, a hiker arrived at Kirk Yetholm’s Border Hotel, the trail’s de facto finish, euphoric at having ticked off the final half-day stretch of an enterprise she’d first embarked on 52 years previously. She was a day short of her 90th birthday.
The Border Hotel, for all its relief-tinged conviviality, is only the second most famous hostelry on the Pennine Way. Top, in every sense, is the fabled Tan Hill Inn, to which we take a brief detour the following evening. The drive up to Britain’s highest pub, along a snaking, cattle-gridded lane that crests the snowline at the northern edge of the Yorkshire Dales, proves every bit as dramatic as our approach on foot back in the day.
Then, there’d been a mirage quality to the inviting little rectangle of light on the plateau in the far distance, so isolated and longed-for was it. Inside, I find it gratifyingly unchanged, save for the addition of a cosy barn out back where it hosts gigs, comedy nights and — when the wind blows those snowdrifts in — stranded guests.
“We had 32 stuck here for a couple of days a few weeks back,” bar manager David Rowell tells me. “When that happens, the accommodation and food is free. You just pay for your drinks.” And presumably there are a fair few of those? “For sure, yeah,” he says, with a chuckle. “It’s a great atmosphere — hikers are such a good crowd.”
Pennine Way guidebooks will tell you that the 21-mile stretch between Middleton-in-Teesdale, in the Durham Dales, and Dufton, in the Eden Valley — day 10 for those doing the whole route — is a cast-iron beauty. We nibble away at both ends over the subsequent two days, taking in High and Low Force waterfalls on a stretch of the river Tees that even the cantankerous Wainwright conceded was “a walk of near perfection”.
Then we loop round by car to the village of Dufton, at the foot of the muscular North Pennine scarp, and set off on foot for High Cup Gill. This vast, ice-cream scoop of a valley is blessed with improbable symmetry, ringed by a regal collar of vertical whinstone, and cradles a meandering beck whose path we trace higher and higher, until we’re scrambling on all-fours. Popping out at the lip, the sheltered green of the glacier-sculpted valley is immediately replaced by an icy wilderness. Snow coats the plateau, raked by a flaying wind.
We turn to admire a remarkable view that I’d last observed reclining against a rucksack beneath cloudless summer skies. I begin to understand why hikers return time after time to this enigmatic trail, often alternating directions. For all the monolithic unchangeability of Britain’s uplands, there’s a thrilling dynamism to the light and ambience of the landscape.
As we loop around the chasm-edge path and head back down to Dufton, we encounter our first “wayfarers”, as long-distance hikers are known. Not the “knotty, knobbly, knuckled, pain-retardant” sort that poet Simon Armitage described so vividly in his 2012 account of hiking the Pennine Way. Rather, a bubbly young couple, their faces fixed in broad grins (endorphins or the frigid wind, it’s hard to tell). They greet us warmly, offer some navigational reassurance and press on for Edale, their corpulent packs jangling rhythmically. I feel a pang of envy.
Three more pocket-sized treks, and three impeccable lodgings, follow over the subsequent days as we zigzag towards the Scottish border. Augill Castle, a few kilometres south of High Cup Gill, is a mix of turreted splendour and soothing informality. This 19th-century folly is overseen by co-owner and chef Wendy Bennett, who does a lingering lap of the castle’s fire-dappled music room post-dinner, greeting guests individually and batting away compliments about her garlic gnocchi, pan-seared breast of pigeon and eight-hour beef cheek. Many in the room have the whiff of contented returnees.
The Kirkstyle Inn and Sportsman’s Rest, just across the county border in Northumberland, raises the culinary bar still further. The Michelin-listed (though not yet starred) gastropub is a reinvention of a local’s haunt, with four sumptuous, South Tyne-view bedrooms installed overhead. That Roz and Nick Parkinson — owner Nick is the son of the late chat show luminary Michael — are bringing the locals of the village of Slaggyford with them is evidenced by the neighbouring farmer who can be found propping up the bar in his slippers.
From here, the Pennine Way shadows the South Tyne as it flows first northwards then dog-legs towards Newcastle. This swing to the east sees the path converge with the Hadrian’s Wall Path for eight miles of rousing natural and historical drama. We walk this breathlessly undulating stretch in its entirety, imagining the “barbarians” massing to the north and staging furious, futile raids on this northernmost symbol of the Roman empire.
Northumberland bills itself as England’s last great wilderness and I’m struck by just how apt a description this is. There’s a rugged desolation that beneath a towering, dusky pink winter sky, with a bitter easterly repelling the crowds, is irresistible. Even the forlorn stump of the Sycamore Gap tree, felled senselessly in 2023, can’t detract from the beauty.
Our final night is spent in the village of Hesleyside, on the fringes of Northumberland National Park. Members of the Charlton family have owned the 4,000-acre Hesleyside Estate since the 14th century, but few have embraced diversification with as much panache as the current occupants, Anna and William. Seven self-catering “huts” are dotted around the grounds, including a £500,000 fairytale treehouse, and — our digs — Raven, a modernist watchtower, clad in black timber and hidden in the woods.
The final few steps of our hiking trip are spent tackling the three flights of stairs to the top-floor where we stretch out on beanbags with hot drinks, blankets and binoculars and — through a retractable roof — gaze up at the darkest skies in England. Once again, I’m lying under the stars on the Pennine Way.
As we’re driving home I put in a call to the Border Hotel. I’m curious to hear whether they’re still serving free half-pints to successful wayfarers, even those with suspiciously squeaky voices. “Oh yes,” says owner James Borin. “I’m full of admiration for those who hike the Pennine Way.” He pauses, then laughs. “That said, I have no comprehension of why anybody would want to do it.”
I have. Perhaps even more so now. McCloy, whose affinity with the trail is deepened by their sharing a 60th birthday this year, certainly has. “I think what makes the Pennine Way so special is what it symbolises,” he says. “It was the pace setter, it was the pioneer, and wrapped up in its story was the fight for public access to the hills and moors.
“But it also embodies adventure. The trail pushes people to discover Britain, and through that they discover themselves.”
Duncan Craig was a guest of Augill Castle (stayinacastle.com; doubles from £160 including breakfast), The Kirkstyle Inn & Sportsman’s Rest (theksi.co.uk; doubles from £200 including breakfast) and Hesleyside Huts (hesleysidehuts.co.uk; self-catering huts for two from £140 per night, Raven from £295, with a two-night minimum). The Lister Arms in Malham has doubles from £135 per night, including breakfast (listerarms.co.uk).
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