KATE MARTIN: Welcome to the National Trust podcast.

I'm Kate Martin area ranger at Formby on the beautiful Sefton

Coast and a full on nature lover.

I'll be taking you on some amazing walks in the next three

episodes of the series, we'll be exploring the trust's amazing

spaces, delving into the stories and characters that make each

place so special.

We'll be traveling all around the country from hilltop to

seaside. We'll tread sandy paths and the polished wooden floors

of country homes. Delight in birdsong, sublime views and

exceptionally good cream teas.

So come and join me on this journey and immerse yourself in

the wonders of the National Trust

Today I'm on my way to the Peak District on a bit of a walker's

pilgrimage.

Now, the Peak District is an enormous national park that

covers 550 square miles. And Kinder Scout is the highest peak

standing over 600m above sea level.

It's the perfect antidote to the hubbub and smog of the city.

So what better place to begin this collection of walking

podcasts than Kinder Scout in the Peak District?

A place that has come to symbolize walking freedoms in

the UK.

I'm walking towards the Bowden Bridge car park, which is about

a mile outside the village of Hayfield. This is where we'll

start our walk.

But first I've arranged to meet local author, Roly Smith, who's

going to give us some background on why Kinder holds such a

special place in the hearts of many outdoor enthusiasts In this

part of the world.

Hi, Roly it's Really nice to meet you.

So you brought me to a car park. Doesn't look like the most

auspicious beginning, but I'm sure it was a- there's a lot of

history here I believe!

ROLY SMITH: There is in 1932 this wasn't a car park, it was a

quarry.

KATE MARTIN: We're standing beneath this absolutely

beautiful plaque just on the rock behind me which says "The

mass trespass onto Kinder Scout started from this quarry 24th of

April 1932."

And I believe you're the person who can tell us all about this.

ROLY SMITH: Well, we have to go back really to, you know, 100

more years ago when the enclosure acts came in all over

Britain.

And large areas of open country. It used to be common land where

anybody could walk, graze their sheep, get wood for fires, peat

for fires. This sort of thing was freely available.

The enclosure acts came in and all the land including Kinder

Scout behind us was parcelled off to local landowners and they

were policed by gamekeepers who kept everybody else off.

And in 1932- Easter 1932, a group of, Manchester Ramblers

mainly decided, you know, if there was enough of us, they

couldn't turn us back. So they organized and publicized a mass

trespass.

Benny Rothman climbed up one of these rocks up here and

addressed the crowd and told them about the theft of the land

and that sort of thing and how they just wanted to walk on the

moors. They weren't going to do any harm. They weren't

interested in any confrontations or anything like that.

They just wanted to walk on the moors.

Benny wasn't supposed to be the leader, really someone else was

supposed to give the talk- in this quarry and he backed out at

the last minute because he said I might lose my job if my boss

hears about this. So Benny was pushed into the forefront as it

were.

So they, they all set off singing, they were all singing

The Internationale and songs like that all waiting for one

another to get across styles so that nobody was left behind. The

police couldn't keep up with them. So they waited to come

back down.

They made this deliberate trespass. They used the whistle

to tell everybody when to step off the path. And at an

appointed time, they, they blew the whistle, stepped off the

path up the slope where they met this group of Gamekeepers. And

there were a few little scuffles, that sort of thing.

And they, but they went on and met another group who'd come all

the way over from Sheffield from the Edale side of the mountain

and had a victory meeting.

And then all came back down here to Hayfield where six of them

were arrested and eventually five of them were actually

imprisoned for walking on the moors.

Now, that's always struck a chord with me how, how that

could happen. And those guys actually became martyrs to the

cause I suppose. And, that's why we celebrate them and that's why

we don't want people to forget the sacrifice those young lads

made.

KATE MARTIN: So now we've spoken so much about this walk. I am

really excited to go and do it. So I'm gonna meet a group.

Of National Trust rangers and managers who are going to join

me on this journey.

I said I'd meet them in the woods. So let's head off and

meet them.

So I'm joined by Tom Harmon.

TOM HARMON: I'm project officer for the Dark Peak.

KATE MARTIN: Shane Bates

SHANE BATES: And I'm the area ranger for Kinder Scout and

Edale.

KATE MARTIN: And John Stewart.

JOHN STEWART: I'm the general manager for the Peak District.

KATE MARTIN: Nice to meet you guys. So Tom, tell me what kind

of walk is this going to be today?

TOM HARMON: We're gonna do the trespass walk, which goes up

Kinder Scout, which is the highest point in the Peak

District. It's quite a strenuous walk. It's about five or six

miles and it'll take us between five and six hours.

KATE MARTIN: Right then!

TOM HARMON: Let's go.

KATE MARTIN: So, coming out of a beautiful woodland to the

reservoir.

TOM HARMON: Yes. And then as we, we climb the cobbled track,

which is a little bit steep, we'll eventually get to the

level with the water. And, we'll get a nice view of, Kinder.

KATE MARTIN: Really is beautiful and some spectacular heather

just on our left hand side here in full bloom. It's beautiful.

TOM HARMON: Yeah, we've picked the perfect time for you to

come. Really. It's really vibrant and- in near the end of

August.

KATE MARTIN: I could just see, even though I'm somewhat short

in stature, over this nice high wall next to us and just looking

down over sort of the buildings by the reservoir and just

starting to see some of the peaks over to the right in the

distance. It's absolutely beautiful day.

TOM HARMON: Notice to change of habitat. So we've walked through

some quite, you know, well established woodlands. And then

we've, we've come to this point now and if you look around as in

the Bracken, you'll actually see some, some young freshly planted

trees which have been here for the last two or three years.

KATE MARTIN: So what's the benefit of tree planting in this

location?

TOM HARMON: Diversify the habitat. A lot of these areas

are very dominated by Bracken and grasses and they don't have

much environmental value. So getting these trees here,

encouraging the birds to come and other wildlife.

You just look back at the woodland that we've just walked

through. You can just see above the reservoir there's a Kestrel

hovering?

KATE MARTIN: Yeah, just there.

So here we are next to a sign saying William Clough. So for

those people that aren't northern like us and don't know

what a Clough is. Can you explain what a Clough is?

TOM HARMON: Well, I think Shane our ranger is probably the best

place to answer that question.

SHANE BATES: A clough is technically a wooded valley.

Although the trees at William Clough have, have largely been

lost now. And that's why we've been involved in trying to

reinstate the woodland planting that we've been doing since the

trust acquired the land in 1982.

KATE MARTIN: Well, one of the famous cloughs of, of this sort

of area with this gorgeous stream running down side with

the sun glinting off it and plenty of Gnats as well by the

look of it flying over the top.

You can completely see why people want to walk here and why

they wanted to walk here back in the 1930s.

TOM HARMON: Yeah, you can, I mean, you know, it's such a

fantastic landscape and it's been quite rugged as well

walking and it makes you really feel like you've, you've escaped

the cities and a lot of these people that came out in the

trespass, you know, the workers from Manchester and Sheffield

and this was their park really, you know and they weren't

allowed access.

I always like to think of the issues, the People's Park

because it's the people that opened it up and freed it.

KATE MARTIN: It took quite a long time. It didn't it in 1932

from the mass trespass, it was 68 years before the Countryside

Rights Of Way Act happened in 2000. So what happened in the

meantime?

JOHN STEWART: So national Parks were created and the Peak

District was the very first one in 1951.

Ranger service started to get established then. So we've got

National Park Authority ranger services and we've got National

Trust ranger services, helping people enjoy the countryside.

But it was quite a few more years actually, until the, you

know, the real aspiration of the trespassers was realized because

in 2000, the government passed the Countryside And Rights Of

Way Act.

And that enshrined the rights of people to go to open areas,

mountain, moore, heath and down these sort of places.

And it was now your- rather than having to get permission or

agreement, it was about your rights.

So we, we also have to say that with rights come

responsibilities and we have a lot of people visiting the Peak

District.

It's a very accessible part of the country for the most

accessible upland in the world in many ways. And so there's a

lot of people come here. So big job for us to, to manage and

facilitate that access and make sure people have a, you know, a

really good time.

KATE MARTIN: Up until now. We've had this walk pretty much to

ourselves, but we've just met some lovely ramblers who

followed us. So, what is it about the Peak District that

appeals to you?

GENERIC: It's the second time I've been up here in the last 10

years or so. It's just the open spaces really. I think more and

more people are starting to get into like what you call it

rambling. We just call it walking.

KATE MARTIN: Continue on to this beautiful heather clad clough

and enjoy the rest of your walk.

GENERIC: You have a nice day. Bye.

KATE MARTIN: Finally got to the top of William Clough finally

onto a slightly flat bit before we take on the next real steep

challenge and just turned around and the view is absolutely

stunning. So Tom, what can we see here?

TOM HARMON: Yeah. Well, I think, you know, this is a great place

to stop because, sometimes when you're walking up these hills

and you're looking down at your feet trying to think of the top.

You, you miss the view and you know, some of the times the best

view is behind you. You can see you can see for miles, you know,

it's looking towards the Manchester direction and it's

just a fantastic view.

KATE MARTIN: So you've got these lovely sort of flat plateaus and

others that are slightly more pointy just over to our right

hand side. You can just see some of the, the towers of

Manchester.

Amazing. I mean, how different this looks now than it would.

A few 100 years ago when it would have been really

industrialized.

SHANE BATES: When I first started coming up here in the

1960s. It was not long after the Clean Air Act.

Basically used to climb up out of the smog and the fog and it's

not long ago that if you walked across the moorlands, your legs

would be get black because of all the soot on the vegetation.

So like Tom said, the air quality now is just unbelievable

and that's got implications for the amount of vegetation, the

types of vegetation we've got now and we're now finding plants

that are coming back that have not been recorded for over 100

years.

KATE MARTIN: So, looking straight ahead, I can see a

very, very steep climb up to Scout End or Sandy Hay is the

other name for it. We've been told. So just gonna tackle that.

That was a heck of a climb. But finally we're here.

TOM HARMON: It's, well- we are at the highest point in the Peak

District. Kinder Scout is 636m above sea level. And so, you

know, with it being the highest point, you've got some of the

best views.

And as you can see now, if you look to our right, you can look

over towards the Manchester side of Kinder and, literally see for

miles.

Yeah. And if you look to the left, you can see we're starting

to get towards the area now where we've done a lot of

conservation work over the last sort of five or six years.

KATE MARTIN: This area we're in at the moment is really

spectacular with all these sort of funny shaped rocks sort of

cascading down into a clough where I can just about hear

running water, I think.

TOM HARMON: Yeah, it's just below us. You can't quite see

it, but that's a Kinder Downfall. It's the, the highest

waterfall in England. And as we go a bit further around and

across the river and we keep on walking, we're about to see a

great view, of the downfall which sometimes blows and flows

upwards on windy days.

It's all very magical and mystical up here. It's quite

unique in that sense and it has been known to be ice climbed in

winter. We've got some pictures of people back in, back in the

fifties and sixties climbing with ice axe and an old ropes.

And, it's quite impressive. I wouldn't recommend it looks

quite dangerous. But people used to come up where in their

wearing their tweed and with ropes that I probably wouldn't

hang my washing on and, come and attempt to climb these

spectacular frozen waterfalls.

KATE MARTIN: Walking over the stones here heading over to

obviously the stream that feeds the waterfall, it looks like it

would be good whiskey making water.

TOM HARMON: Yeah, this is, this is Kinder River which feeds the,

the waterfall. Just to the right of us, it's very unique colour.

It's very brown and a lot of that is to do with the peat up

which has been washing into the water when it rains and it goes

down into the reservoir down at the bottom.

And this is the source of our drinking water. And a lot of the

restoration work we do up here complements the quality of this

water and it will help to reduce the particles of peat that are

within this water and help to make it a lot clearer.

KATE MARTIN: So, ideally, you know, the ideal for this stream

would- it wouldn't have this brown sort of dark tea colour,

it would be clearer because there'd be less peat particles

in it?

TOM HARMON: You'll never get it 100% clear. But yes the- you

know, if- when the restoration works take full grip, the water

will be a lot lighter.

KATE MARTIN: Well, this is definitely a first for me when

on a walk anywhere, there's a group walking towards us, two

ladies and gentlemen and a guitar singing along. So let's

go and see what they're doing up here.

GENERIC: And then the reason we're here.

So we are walking and singing along a bit of the Pennine Way.

42 miles up to Hebden Bridge to raise money for a singing for

Lung health group in London. The idea is it's, really beneficial

for people with Lung disease. [ Singing]

TOM HARMON: So, I think what we're, we're doing now we're on

the Pennine Way here, so we'll go a bit further. And I'll show

you a little site and a little bit more history about Kinder

and where there's been a plane crash and various other things

Across the Dark Peak really we've got quite a few sites

where we had, plane crashes in the Second World War.

This particular one, has a plaque that someone's put up

here.

It's 1942 when this happened. I believe it is a, Australian

plane that came in and we, because we had a lot of aircraft

bases in and around the area. Some of them were flying just

doing routine flight.

Some of them were coming back from, you know, missions they

completed abroad and unfortunately, if they had their

reading slightly off-

And they couldn't see they, they came into contact with the

ground. And, so that's, that's why there's quite a lot of plane

wrecks around here.

KATE MARTIN: It's such a beautiful place. But I imagine,

you know, it can be quite bleak and it even more bleak sometimes

if you think about stories and people who've lost their lives

up here.

TOM HARMON: Yeah. As you can see there's, there's still a bit of

wreckage around here. Bits of aluminum bits of steel from the

plane. When it crashed into the hill and a lot of these crashes,

they'd already done the worst part.

They'd done their mission. They were coming home, they'd

survived and, just came to an unfortunate end so close to, to

family and friends.

KATE MARTIN: Now we're getting to the end of our walk. I have

to say my legs feel like lead. So I think it's time for a well

earned rest and maybe a pint and some pork scratchings.

That sounds a good idea. It's been a, been a long walk, but

we've had great weather for it.

It's been absolutely glorious and absolutely fascinating.

SHANE BATES: Well, it's nice to have you all and it's been a

really enjoyable day.

TOM HARMON: Thanks for coming. It's been great.

KATE MARTIN: It's been an absolutely spectacular walk

today.

The variety of landscapes and habitats they've seen. There's

just something really special about it, both sort of wild.

It's also a very human landscape.

There's a lot there, you know, from the industrialization

through to the wrecks on the top, through to the people that

work on it today and still love and care for it. So, a really

special walk.

Thank you for listening to this week's National Trust podcast.

For more information about Kinder Scout and to download

maps and information on today's walk, you can visit their

website at nationaltrust.org.uk/kinderscout

for our next full episode. I'll be walking in Beddgelert in

Wales.

That episode will be available in a couple of weeks, but don't

worry, there'll be a mini episode available next week.

To make sure you never miss another episode, subscribe on

itunes or your chosen podcast app and please do let us know

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You can also email us at podcasts@nationaltrust.org.uk

Until next time from me, Kate Martin. Goodbye.