Across England on Wainwright’s Walk in One Week

This walk is the hillier half of the classic Wainwright route for people who have less time or inclination for the full Coast to Coast walk. The week’s walk starts on the Irish Sea coast of Cumbria near the huge red sandstone cliffs at St. Bees Head, ending in Kirkby Stephen, an important Pennine market town. Much of the week is spent in the Lake District National Park with the walk finishing in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. You spend the week walking through two of the most glorious areas of English countryside and as well as coming across some beautiful landscapes you will see some most attractive towns and villages.

During the first few days, you walk over some of the most rugged, beautiful terrain of the Lake District, through the stunning lakeland valleys of Ennerdale, Borrowdale, Patterdale, close to Ullswater Lake, and Grasmere where Wordsworth lived. You pass Helvellyn (with the option of going over the peak), England’s most popular mountain and the mountain oddly named High Street, along which the Roman Legions marched on their way to Hadrian’s Wall.

On leaving the Lake District, you cross less rugged landscape with its limestone dry-walled fields around Shap and its attractive crumbling monastery, and Orton. You then pass limestone pavements, scars and edges into the pretty town of Kirkby Stephen for a final evening on the edge of the Pennines and underneath mysterious Nine Standards Rigg. You can visit the church which is built on the site of an old Saxon church and which is known locally as the Cathedral of the Dales. This church is the home of the famous 8th century Loki Stone.

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