England's Coast to Coast to become a National Trail

An oddity of the English walking scene is that one of its most popular long distance walks is not a National Trail. The Coast to Coast walk, devised by the renowned Alfred Wainwright in 1973, attracts 6,000 people each year but, to date, has received little Government support and has no official status.

That is to change, with Natural England announcing on 12 August that the Coast to Coast would become a Government designated National Trail. National Trail designation will bring substantial funding, both to elevate the route to National Trail status and for on-going maintenance.

The Coast to Coast takes its 315 km path across England from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire. That route enables walkers to experience three of England’s most spectacular National Parks - the Lake District National Park, the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the North York Moors National Park. The walk also passes through the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

A quaint tradition honoured by most Coast to Coasters is to wet one’s boots, and collect a pebble, from the Irish Sea at the start of the walk and then to deposit the pebble in the North Sea at the end of the walk.

There are 16 other National Trails in England and Wales, including the Pennine Way, the South West Coast Path, the Cleveland Way, the Cotswold Way and Hadrian’s Wall Path.