Permission given to waymark Wainwright's Coast to Coast Walk (From The Westmorland Gazette)
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Permission given to waymark Wainwright's Coast to Coast Walk
8:55am Tuesday 25th September 2012 in News
PERMISSION has been granted to waymark the route of Alfred Wainwright’s 192-mile Coast to Coast Walk.
The agreement follows discussions The Wainwright Society has had with all the local authorities that lie along the route of the iconic long-distance walk.
Parts of the walk have been waymarked already, but a new waymarker, featuring Wainwright’s AW signature, will appear on finger posts where the route crosses a public road.
The society hopes that the waymarking will be completed during 2013, which is the 40th anniversary of the legendary Kendal fell walker’s guidebook, published in 1973.
Wainwright devised the walk, which passes through three National Parks, and dedicated the book to, ‘the second person (unidentifiable as yet) to walk from St. Bees Head to Robin Hood’s Bay.’ Since then, the walk has become, arguably, the most popular long-distance walk in Britain and it has been estimated that some 5,000 to 7,000 walkers complete the crossing from coast to coast, annually.
Wainwright’s original route was updated in 1994 to avoid sections where there was no public right of way. In 2010, Kendal’s Chris Jesty completed a major revision of the guidebook, updating the text and maps to take account of the changes in the landscape that had occurred. This revision has now been accepted as the definitive line and it is this route that will be waymarked.
Derek Cockell, Press and Publicity Officer for the The Wainwright Society, said: “Part of the society’s rationale behind the desire to have the Coast to Coast waymarked, is to accord public recognition of the route on the ground.
“It is not intended that the waymarks should mark every step of the way as the essence of the walk is that people should guide themselves across the route using the guidebook, and, more importantly, a map and compass.”
A longer-term objective of the society is to have the route marked on Ordnance Survey maps and there will be further discussions with the relevant authorities once the Coast to Coast Walk has been waymarked.
