Park rangers start laying flagstones in Yorkshire Dales to turn Alfred Wainwright's popular Coast to Coast walk into National Trail

The nearly two-mile long flagstone path across peatland in Birkdale is part of a project to make Alfred Wainwright’s ‘Coast to Coast’ route a National Trail.

It is the biggest single project ever undertaken by the National Park Authority’s ranger service and is expected to take until early next year to complete.

The regenerated flagstones have come fresh from a mill demolition site in Preston. They were hauled by tractor and trailer to the remote Birkdale, between Kirkby Stephen and Upper Swaledale and were airlifted the final few hundred metres from the road to the fellside path.

A helicopter pilot dropped pallet loads of flagstones every few metres. Now a small team of three rangers are laying the flagstones.

The government has funded £5.6 million to Natural England to improve the route and the National Park Authority is one of several partners it is working with to make sure the path meets National Trail quality standards and is fully open and available for public use.

The 197-mile Coast to Coast designated path, which stretches across northern England from St Bees Head on the west coast to Robin Hood’s Bay on the east - is thought to be the most popular long distance walking trail in England. In 2022 the government decided to make it a National Trail.

The trail, which attracts around 6,000 visitors a year, first enters the Yorkshire Dales National Park north of Orton, ducking out a mile or so west of Kirkby Stephen before entering again on moorland between Nine Standards Rigg and White Mossy Hill. It exits the National Park more than 20 miles to the east, near the town of Richmond.

Head of park management at Yorkshire Dales National Park, Alan Hulme, told The Yorkshire Post: “Hopefully this should improve the route for walkers.

“The designation of the route has put it on one line, so this is creating a sustainable surface for the future.

“The Coast to Coast is a well known route anyway but it should be able to support more businesses along the route in the future and now that it’s got a National Trail designation, it should raise its profile.

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“This has always been a very difficult section to walk for visitors, especially in low cloud or mist. There’s no divide route for people to follow, it’s quite a boggy area, so it will give them a firm surface and once on the line they shouldn’t get lost.”

The major work being carried out will not stop people from walking the route during the path construction, as one couple from the Netherlands, Karlyn and Rorik, embarked on the route while area ranger Michael Briggs laid out markers on White Mossy Hill.

“We are loving it, every step,” said Karlyn.

“It’s nice to go coast to coast; we put our left feet in the Irish Sea and will put our right feet in the North Sea.”

Rorik said he had walked the trail with his parents in 1996, when his father had spent months in advance writing letters to accommodation providers, and was now thrilled to be doing it again. He said that the internet had made it much easier to book places to stay.

Member champion for recreation management, Lizzy Bushby, said: “This is a massive project for us.

“All our rangers across the National Park are being timetabled to work on this job. The surface from White Mossy Hill is already quite badly eroded and, typically, you see people having to jump over boggy bits and wind about looking for decent footing.

“The flagstone path will help to protect the surrounding sensitive peatland habitat, designated as a Special Area for Conservation, and also give people a really enjoyable experience.”

The designated Coast to Coast Path National Trail will closely follow the path published by Alfred Wainwright in his 1973 book ‘A Coast to Coast Walk’.