Major work on Wainwright's Coast to Coast trail

National Park Rangers have begun laying a nearly two-mile long flagstone path across peatland in Birkdale, as part of works to make Alfred Wainwright’s ‘Coast to Coast’ route a National Trail.

It is the biggest single project ever undertaken by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s ranger service and is expected to take until early next year to complete.

The reclaimed flagstones have come fresh from a mill demolition site in Preston.  Having been hauled by tractor and trailer to remote Birkdale, between Kirkby Stephen and Upper Swaledale, they were airlifted the final few hundred metres from the road to the fellside path. A helicopter pilot dropped pallet loads of flagstones every few metres (see picture 1).

Now a small team of three rangers are laying the flagstones (picture 2).

People are still able to walk the route during the path construction. One couple from the Netherlands, Karlyn and Rorik, volunteered to have their picture taken as Area Ranger Michael Briggs laid out markers on White Mossy Hill (pictures 3 & 4).

“We are loving it, every step,” said Karlyn.  “It’s nice to go coast to coast; we put our left feet in the Irish Sea and will put our right feet in the North Sea.”

Rorik said he had walked the trail with his parents in 1996, when his father had spent months in advance writing letters to accommodation providers, and was now thrilled to be doing it again, remarking that the Internet had made it much easier to book places to stay. 

The 197-mile Coast to Coast designated route – stretching across northern England from St Bees Head on the west coast to Robin Hood’s Bay on the east - is thought to be the most popular long-distance walking trail in England. In 2022 the government decided to make it a National Trail.  

The trail first enters the Yorkshire Dales National Park north of Orton, ducking out a mile or so west of Kirkby Stephen before entering again on moorland between Nine Standards Rigg and White Mossy Hill. It exits the National Park more than 20 miles to the east, near the town of Richmond.

Member Champion for Recreation Management, Lizzy Bushby, said: “This is a massive project for us.  All our rangers across the National Park are being timetabled to work on this job. The surface from White Mossy Hill is already quite badly eroded and, typically, you see people having to jump over boggy bits and wind about looking for decent footing (picture 5). The flagstone path will help to protect the surrounding sensitive peatland habitat, designated as a Special Area for Conservation, and also give people a really enjoyable experience.”

The designated Coast to Coast Path National Trail will closely follow the path publicised by Alfred Wainwright in his 1973 book, ‘A Coast to Coast Walk’. 

Natural England has been given £5.6 million of Government funding to improve the route.  The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority is one of several partners it is working with to ensure the path meets National Trail quality standards and is fully open and available for public use. The National Park Authority is undertaking the legal and practical work for the trail in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.