To see the best of rural England, hike the Coast to Coast trail

Engulfed by their changing robes and cradling mugs of hot chocolate, the two swimmers seem admirably oblivious to the gusting wind barrelling off the Irish Sea. The pebble-backed beach on which they stand is still varnished from high tide and so expansive it renders the adjacent hamlet an inconsequential footnote.

This is St Bees, on the unheralded Cumbrian coast, where the Lake District’s fells finally run out of puff and collapse into a supine, soporific coastal band. Offshore is the spiky-backed silhouette of the Isle of Man.

It’s an arresting spot but, for the next six days, a different, distant shoreline is my focus. Leaving the beach, I set off up the steep headland path. In my hand is a small, grey, pleasingly smooth pebble taken from the beach. All being well, as is the custom, I’ll be depositing this in a little under a week’s time in the restless grey waters of the North Sea.

Author Alfred Wainwright was nearing his dotage when he drew on his unrivalled experience of hiking in his native Northern England to publish an illustrated guide entitled A Coast to Coast Walk in 1973. ‘I want to encourage the ambition in others to devise their own cross-country marathons,’ he wrote. So brilliantly conceived and artfully evoked was his trail — from St Bees through the heart of Lakeland, the Yorkshire Dales and on to the North York Moors — it became an instant hit. Three national parks. A little over 190 miles. A cross-section of rural Britain in every sense.

Finally, following decades of lobbying, the Coast to Coast is officially a National Trail. The path has benefited from a three-year, £5.6m upgrade in readiness for the ‘unveiling’, and the designation means it’ll receive long-term funding and maintenance in future.

In the spirit of improvisation espoused by Wainwright, I’m tackling it not in its beautiful, blistered entirety, but in six days of unashamed scenic cherry-picking. Leaning on car, taxi and community-run bus services, I’m focusing on half a dozen of the 16 stages into which Coast-to-Coasters tend to dissect the route. Of the 192 miles, I’ll be ticking off less than a third.

Into the fells

The opening salvo is the gentlest of shakeouts: a five-mile loop, mostly following the trail then diverting back to St Bees. On a map, the Coast to Coast route resembles a length of twine secured at either end of the country by a hook. I trace the westerly of these, past the grey shingle of Fleswick Bay and the smart green-and-white structure of St Bees Lighthouse, set high above the sheer cliffs of St Bees Head.

The path pivots east and the horizon is filled with the commanding silhouette of the Lakeland fells. It was to these that Wainwright headed in 1930 as a 23-year-old after a grimly impoverished upbringing in Blackburn. It was his first holiday and, observing the towering peaks and lakes like slivers of polished silver, he could scarcely believe such beauty existed. It was to be a lifelong love affair that stimulated antithetical impulses in the often cantankerous recluse: to venerate, and to protect from the masses.

I begin my second-day hike a few miles east of Innominate Tarn, the fist-shaped pool of water where Wainwright’s ashes were scattered in 1991. The hamlet of Rosthwaite — just a few robust stone cottages ringed by brawny fells — hunkers in the folds of the Borrowdale valley in the Lake District National Park, south of the mountain town of Keswick. It’s the start of what’s traditionally the third section for Coast-to-Coasters — a rousing nine miles, up and over the saddle of the mountains and down into the village of Grasmere.

Borrowdale is home to what’s statistically the wettest spot in England, but as I cross Rosthwaite’s stone arch bridge and trace the beck upwards, the weather’s in a benign mood. Beyond 520-metre Eagle Crag — praised by Wainwright for its ‘noble proportions’ — I crest the ridge and a magnificent valley view opens up, lit by roaming shafts of sunlight. In the far distance, like breadcrumbs on a plush green carpet, lie the dinky white cottages of Grasmere.

There are plenty of examples of the trail serving as a lifeline to otherwise overlooked settlements. This celebrated Lakeland village isn’t one of them. Synonymous with poet William Wordsworth, who’s buried in St Oswald’s churchyard here, and occupying a pretty riverside spot in the epicentre of the Lakes, it sees a substantial number of visitors.

As I follow the path down the hillside beside a surging gill and enter the village from the north west, it seems most of them have got no further than the queue to the cottage premises of Grasmere Gingerbread.

Inside, bakery manager Richard Street is bustling around. He wears a blue-grey cloth cap and buttoned tunic. A rosy-cheeked colleague in frilly mobcap and matching apron stands alongside, handling orders. A spicy-sweet cross between a biscuit and cake, Grasmere Gingerbread has been produced here since 1854. An estimated three million slices are baked and bought annually.“A pound to a pound and a half,” responds Richard, cheerily, when I ask how many he eats daily. That’s 12 to 18 pieces. “Quality control, obviously,” he adds, with the hint of a smile.

Walkers are among his biggest clientele. “It wasn’t designed this way but our 12-packs fit neatly in the side pockets of rucksacks. The Coast-to-Coasters will often buy a couple of these and still be working their way through them when they reach the North York Moors.”

Mystery cairns

I bed down in the 17th-century Swan, on the fringes of the village, and depart by car early the next morning. My target is the little market town of Kirkby Stephen, lying on the northern rim of the Yorkshire Dales National Park around an hour’s drive east.

I’m tackling the infamous 12-mile stretch of the Coast to Coast from Kirkby to the Upper Swaledale hamlet of Keld. Its notoriety once lay not in the testing climb, but in the peaty, treacly terrain, with its penchant for swallowing hiking boots, sometimes even hikers. Mountain rescue teams have been called out more than once.

In perhaps the most conspicuous example of the recent upgrades, hundreds of flagstones salvaged from the factories on which this part of Northern England once relied have been choppered in and laid contiguously, forming an unbroken, patio-style path to the top.

They speed the ascent to the 662-metre summit of Hartley Fell, the high point of the section. Here, I linger among the Nine Standards: a phalanx of drystone cairns up to three metres high and as disparate in shape and dimensions as a police line-up. Their provenance is an enduring mystery. Some believe they’re boundary markers hailing from medieval times; others, a dummy military encampment to ward off invaders.

Far off to the west, the Lakeland fells are corralled by distance into a manageable cluster. Stretching northwards is the rich-green tapestry of the Eden Valley, edged by the imposing escarpment of the North Pennines.

It’s as I’m taking all this in that a figure appears on the path. He wears a heavy pack and three-quarter-length hiking trousers, and has the slightly tentative demeanour of the novice hiker. He tells me his name is Preston, from Sunderland. He’s attempting the full route, camping as he goes. “Do you know what?” he says, “I turned 51 the other day, and I didn’t even realise. When you’re walking in this way you get into a sort of zone where everything else just falls away.”

I continue, and further flagstone stretches materialise, threaded together by wooden walkways spanning rivers of mud. Hiking purists may sneer, but it’s undeniable that the path upgrades are great for heads-up hiking. They’re great for Karen Skeel’s carpets, too.

The former bank manager and her partner Neil run Frith Lodge, a hilltop farm conversion on the edge of Keld. “We can’t believe how clean guests are these days,” says Karen, when I check into the B&B a couple of hours later. “It used to be… awful.” She recalls one “smartly dressed gentleman” arriving at the door after a series of comedy falls. He was 6ft4in and the peat stains reached to his shoulders.

The couple’s is a classic tale of long-distance-path seduction. They walked the Coast to Coast in 2010 and instantly fell in love with Upper Swaledale. Within a year they’d purchased the property from a 70-something couple no longer willing to endure the remoteness and multiple-week snow-ins.

They’ve not looked back since turning the house’s dilapidated barn into five guest rooms. They love the endless turnover of characters and nationalities. “The stories I could tell you,” says Karen. “The bizarre and wonderful things that people do, and why they’re walking something like the Coast to Coast. Some sad stories, others happier. But all inspiring.”

Echoes of history

I awake to a bright, blustery morning — and a choice. Wainwright devised a high and a low route from Keld to the sister village of Reeth, around 12 miles east. The atmospheric, weather-beaten skeletons of the 19th-century lead-mining industry compensate for the steep inclines of the former, while the latter serves up a serene amble along one of the prettiest stretches of the River Swale.

I opt for a blend of the two, parking my car in Reeth then getting the volunteer-run valley bus service back to Keld to begin my hike. Breeze scuffs the broad torrent of Kisdon Force waterfall on the edge of the village. By the time I emerge, panting, above the treeline and on to a featureless plateau, gusts of wind are clawing at the flaps of my rucksack.

Derelict stone structures come and go. Their roofs have long since succumbed to the typhoon of time, leaving precarious perimeters. Where they’ve collapsed, the walled segments lie enveloped in thick grass, as if slowly being reclaimed by the landscape.

I find a conduit between the high and low paths in the form of Gunnerside Gill, and follow the flanks of the little valley to where its exuberant stream converges with the stately breadth of the Swale. Shafts of sunlight play on the river’s placid surface and probe its sepia depths. Pausing for a paddle, I spot a grey heron a little way upstream. It watches me impassively, before languidly taking flight.

It’s mid-afternoon when I trudge into Reeth — passport in hand. The shopkeeper at the gift shop on the village square digs behind the counter and pulls out a file of stickers bearing the names of many of the spots on the Coast to Coast route. She stamps the empty white circle on the Reeth page and gives me, at my word, stickers for the places I’ve neglected to record.

Offering discounts and a philatelic-like thrill for hikers, and publicity for the small businesses on the trail who sign up as ‘stamping agents’, the newly launched passports are the brainchild of Richmond-based Donald Cline.

I meet Donald the following day at The Station in Richmond, a 20-minute drive further east. The high-roofed Victorian rail hub has been reimagined as a cultural space, with galleries, an indie cinema and a cafe serving — Donald insists with the gravity of a connoisseur — “incredibly good scones”.

The US-born naturalised Briton is a retired bookshop owner and of sufficient vintage to remember the early editions of the Wainwright oeuvre. “The first copies of A Coast to Coast cost either 50p or 75p, I forget which,” he says. “I only wish I had a box of them somewhere.”

Donald likens the trail to a quasi-religious experience. “I think the popularity has a lot to do with the way that we live our lives these days,” he says. “When else, and how else, would you get the time to just be quiet with yourself?”

Windswept moors

The longest drive of the trip (around 90 minutes) brings a sharp scenic gear shift. Gone are the plump hills and photogenic hamlets of the Yorkshire Dales; in their place, the blustery desolation of the North York Moors.

I rejoin the path at the Lion Inn, a stout-stoned hostelry dating from the 16th century high on Blakey Ridge. The moorland is dressed in a thick purple robe of heather and lit by veiled sunlight. An angry clump of storm clouds smudges the sky over the Esk Valley, away to the east. Save for the thread of the Coast to Coast path, the footprint of civilisation is almost indiscernible.

Every yard of the trail that passes through the North York Moors is known to ranger Bernie McLinden, he tells me when we meet in one of his favourite sections, Little Beck Wood Nature Reserve, a dozen miles on. ‘Ranger Bernie’, as he’s known, is tall and affable, with weathered features framed by white hair and whiskers. Aged 66, he’s given more than a quarter of a century of service to the national park.

We walk the newly restored woodland path beneath a canopy of ash and oak. Little Beck flows audibly, just out of sight. “I think there’s a perception that the North York Moors is an anticlimax for Coast-to-Coasters,” he says. “Places like this show it really, really isn’t.”

As we walk, the path and strengthening Little Beck diverge until, abruptly, the latter is almost 30 metres below us. A family with small children, all in lightweight trainers, breeze past us. “Several years ago, you wouldn’t have seen that as they would’ve turned back because of the mud,” says Bernie, with a hint of pride. “People forget but the Coast to Coast trail isn’t just for Coast-to-Coasters.”

We part in the trail-side cafe high above the Falling Foss waterfall. The shrieks of those braving the falls’ icy pool echo up through the moss-coated gully. Before he goes, I ask Bernie what he thinks Wainwright would make of it all: the flagstones and the immaculate signage; the families and the caffè lattes. “Oh, I suspect he’d be appalled,” he says with a chuckle.

Just south of Littlebeck hamlet, the trail takes a sharp northeasterly bearing to the coast, as if suddenly impatient. The last few miles into Robin Hood’s Bay play out to a soundtrack of crashing waves and shrieking gulls. The golden path-side grasses seem to pulse as the breeze sweeps through them.

The village is stacked almost pyramidally: a little waterfall of terracotta-roofed cottages flowing down to the shore. Letting the gradient be my guide, I amble down through the labyrinth of smuggler-friendly lanes and shoulder-width passageways to the glistening foreshore. I walk to the water’s edge, feeling suddenly self-conscious among the beachcombers and paddlers.

My casting of the pebble is awkward and underwhelming, like a bungled ashes scattering. It plonks into the shallows unsatisfactorily close to my feet. So I follow this with another post-trail tradition: a drink at The Bay Hotel, whose seafront terrace is immortalised in the final sketch of Wainwright’s seminal book, the one marked: ‘The end of the road’. I wrestle my way to the bar. Spotting my backpack, the lady serving asks if I’m a Coast-to-Coaster. Not quite, I say. Undeterred, she says: “We had an 87-year-old who finished it last week. He got an ovation from the entire pub.”

I try to picture the man, perhaps with the windswept grey hair and shin-high hiking socks of the trail’s founder. For all his curmudgeonly tendencies, even Wainwright would’ve likely found cheer in such an age-defying endeavour. ‘Always there will be the lonely ridge, the dancing beck, the silent forest; always there will be the exhilaration of the summits,’ he wrote. ‘These are for the seeking, and those who seek and find while there is still time will be blessed both in mind and body.’