Fancy a beer? Take a hike
By Kate Simon
It’s National Walking Month, a great excuse to pull on your walking boots and explore a few pubs along England’s Coast Path, the new National Trail from Northumberland to Cornwall that aims to open more miles of shorefront to hikers.
Although the pace of the path’s progress has slowed recently, not least due to the impact of Covid-19, the new route is said to be back on track to fully open by the end of this Parliament. At 2,700 miles, it will be the longest coastal walking route in the world.
The path, which is being mapped by the government agency Natural England, promises both good walking and drinking, an honourable tradition known as a pub walk rather than a pub crawl in rural parts – as explained by Phil this week while sizing up the new Black Horse Beer Mile.
Some stretches of coast in Northumbria, Yorkshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, East Sussex, Dorset and Somerset are already open to walkers. One of the most recent parts to explore is an 11-mile section from Silecroft to Green Road, which completes the Cumbria trail.
It crosses saltmarshes and dune-backed beaches, tracing the Duddon Estuary, with views at each turn to the Irish Sea and the mountains of the Lake District. The Lake District National Park, into which this section forays briefly, usually diverts the attention of visitors to this region. So, it’s good to see Cumbria’s coast, perhaps one of the most unexplored in Britain, getting some attention.
The trail calls by Millom, a town that prospered from its iron deposits in late Victorian times, attracting Cornish miners to come and extract the ore, but later suffered deindustrialisation, a tale told in the poems of its famous son, the writer Norman Nicholson.
He is remembered in a couple of local walking trails. There's also a crumbling castle to see, dating from medieval times, and the Millom Heritage & Arts Centre, inside the railway station, which was revamped last summer. Plus, Millom is close to two nature reserves, one in the old ironworks, the other at Hodbarrow. Terns are among the waterfowl you might spot around here.
According to the trailblazers, this section of England’s Coast Path is also one of the most accessible in the Cumbria region. You’ll find details about the route on the Natural England website National Trails. It is a rich resource for walkers – as well as a way of leveraging their spending power for local businesses. The useful itinerary planner even allows you to customise your route at the touch of its ‘Save To My Rucksack’ button.
Another less joined-up footpath project could provide innumerable links between pubs in England and Wales. Don’t Lose Your Way is an attempt by the walking charity Ramblers to preserve the country’s historic paths – a whopping 49,000 have been identified by the project’s army of volunteers.
These rights of way, some centuries old, could be lost in the undergrowth unless they are legally registered soon, says Ramblers. Any claim for a path based on historical evidence must be made by 2026, according to the government, which the charity is currently challenging as an unachievable deadline.
In the 90th anniversary year of the mass trespass on Kinder Scout, what could be more appropriate than a quest to protect where we can go for a walk.
Phil’s Beer Notes
The 17th Century Manor Arms in Broughton-in-Furness is a Camra award-winner with eight ales on the handpumps and boasting 180 guest ales a year. Splendid views and local seafood, along with a good choice of beers, are available up the coast at the Inn at Ravenglass. It’s well worth heading inland to Coniston, home of one of the most famous of all Champion Beers of Britain, Coniston Bluebird. You can drink it there at Coniston Brewery’s own pub, the Black Bull Inn.
Photo: Duddon Estuary © Natural England/Peter Wakely