A journey through Britain's first National Park on its 75th anniversary On a spring day in 1932, 400 disgruntled ramblers embarked on a 'mass trespass' of Kinder Scout, a plateau in the Peak District in northern England. Their aim? To establish a right to roam across the rugged landscape, against the wishes of wealthy landowners. The hikers were seeking respite from the smoky industrial centres of Manchester and Sheffield - and eventually they got what they wanted. In 1951, the Peak District was established as Britain's first national park. Home to striking dragon-back ridges of rock, vast expanses of peat, farms and villages, cloughs and caverns, the Peak is much more than the 'howling wilderness' described by Daniel Defoe three centuries ago. With the 75th anniversary of the park's creation looming, how has this dramatic landscape fared since? Celebrated travel writer Tom Chesshyre hit the trails on a 363-mile ramble to find out - and to celebrate this symbolic home of hiking. Wild Peaks follows winding paths, pausing at old inns and mountain huts, and along the way meeting a rich cast of landowners, farmers, historians, mountaineers, publicans, rangers, right-to-roamers, homeless travellers, mountain rescue members, mystics, dreamers and fellow hikers. Don your cagoule, grab a compass, and join Tom as he explores how the land has changed, and how we have too.
The Peak District National Park is 555 square miles (1,438 square kilometres) in size, and covers parts of Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, and Cheshire. Nearly 16 million people live within an hour's drive of the Peak District, including the cities of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Derby, Huddersfield and Stoke-on-Trent. The towns of Glossop, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Buxton, Macclesfield, Leek, Ashbourne, Matlock and Chesterfield are on the national park's fringes. is at the foot of Kinder Scout, the area's highest summit. Other towns and villages fringing the park include Hayfield, Whaley Bridge, Hadfield, Tintwistle, Darley Dale and Wirksworth in Derbyshire, Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire and Marsden and Holmfirth in West Yorkshire. The Park's own population numbers around 40,000 and supports an estimated 18,000 jobs, predominantly through farming, manufacturing and tourism. People have lived here for over 10,000 years, shaping the landscape and leaving a wealth of cultural history. It remains a lived-in landscape where industrial features make up one of the many layers of the landscape.
The book will follow established walking routes and offer an entirely new one. There are Peak District National Park visitor centres in Bakewell, Castleton, Derwent and Edale. Tom Chesshyre is a vastly experienced author and happy to do bookshop events etc. We may try to partner with the National Park authority, National Trust and other organisations for promotion. Competition: The Full English; The Hidden Ways; Walking Home; The Old Ways; The Marches; Landlines; The Debateble Land; Footnotes; Between the Chalk and the Sea; A Line Above the Sky. Bill Bryson; Stuart Maconie; Alistair Moffat; Robert Macfarlane; Simon Armitage; Rory Stewart; Raynor Winn; Helen Mort; Graham Robb; Peter Fiennes.