One year ago I was pleased to launch Walk Midlands a guide to day walks in the English Midlands accessible without a car, for walkers interested in all aspects of the region’s people, landscape and history. Something which I had been working to get going for some time.
Since then I have shared a freshly created walking route every week. Alongside a monthly newsletter and written content of interest to walkers, including: news, explainers short guides to history, multiday walks and interesting places as well as reviews.
More than 17,000 people have accessed walks on the site in that time and the newsletter has hundreds of subscribers. I earn a small amount of money from the project through generous Ko-Fi subscriptions, affiliate marketing and running Google ads.
I have met some interesting people and heard nuermous fascinating stories through working on Walk Midlands. In this way the project has exceeded my hopes that it would prove and exiting and refreshing way to get to know the region, its history and its people better, and share it with others.
There are many exciting developments and future strands to the Walk Midlands project bubbling away ready to be poured from the cruciable. But it is important to reflect on what has gone already, so here are a dozen highlights from Walk Midlands first twelve months.
March
Willington – Ashby de la Zouch
A substantial and varied 11 mile walk through the rural heart of the National Forest where the north Midlands county of Derbyshire meets the south Midlands county of Leicestershire at the heart of the might River Trent’s watershed. Arguably the true boundary between northern and southern England. Ends at the vibrant – and unlikely – spa town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, a true creation of the industrial age (find out more)
April
Retrace the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass
Walk to the top of third highest peak in the Midlands, the most iconic in the Peak District that squats at the base of the Pennines, right at the hert of the region’s north. It retraces the steps of the heroic and iconic Young Communist League led mass trespass of April 1932. A direct action when hundreds of Mancunian and Sheffield workers and unemployed youths, most under 30, stormed the slopes and asserted their ability to walk slopes and peaks enclosed by the wealthy few for grouse shooting (find out more)
May
Spaghetti Junction
Towapth walk from the heart of Birmingham out to legendary Spaghetti Junction motorway interchange. A stroll through Birmingham’s industrial heart out to where the gigantic Spaghetti Junction interchange squats over the River Tame wending its way from the Black Country to the Trent (find out more)
June
Buxton – Flash
Short but at times streneous walk on the western flank of the Peak District between the spa of Buxton, up over 500 metres above sea level to the highest point in Staffordshire and down to Flash the highest village in Britain (find out more)
July
Earlswood Lakes
Very short, circular walk from The Lakes Railway Station on the Birmingham to Stratford-upon-Avon Railway Line, down and along the shore of Earlswood Lakes. A canal reservoir sitting right on the boundary line between West Midlands county and Warwickshire. Long a popular dayout for people from Birmingham and beyond (find out more)
August
Long Mynd
Circular walk starting and ending at Church Stretton Railway Station. Takes you up on to the windswept and beautiful Long Mynd Plateau in the centre of the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Beauty and the heart of the county’s “Little Switzerland” (find out more)
September
Bennerley Viaduct
Walk out of Nottingham’s suburban fringe into the Erewash Valley following the course of the long abandoned Nottingham Canal now regenerated into a linear park. At its end just outside Ilkeston the walk crosses Bennerley Viaduct, a vast, hulking nearly 500 metre long Victorian cast iron viaduct. An amazing survivial from the 19th Century railway boom, now open as a piece of sustianable transport infastructure (find out more)
October
Grindleford – Millthorpe
Route from Grindleford Station to Millthorpe, one time home of the writer Edward Carpenter, christened “the gay godfather of the British left”. Via the spectacular Froggat, Curbar and Baslow Edges, where dark peak gritstone meets white peak limestone (find out more)
November
Coughton Court
How to get from Henley-in-Arden Railway Station on the Birmingham – Stratford-upon-Avon Railway line to Coughton Court a National Trust property in Warwickshire by foot. Coughton Court is famous in British history for its connections to Guy Fawkes, the Catesby family and the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament and start a pro-Roman Catholic rebellion in 1605 (find out more)
December
Rainsborough Camp
Circular walk in the southwestern most corner of Northamptonshire above the River Cherwell Valley, starting at Kings Sutton Railway Station and visting Rainsborough Camp a vast Iron Age bank and enclosure up in the hills (find out more)
January
West Bromwich – Walsall
Walk from the edge of West Bromwich using the Black Country’s canal network to reach Walsall, home of Walsall New Art Gallery one of the Midland region’s best gallery spaces (find out more)
February
Ross on Wye – Goodrich Castle
Making use of sections of the Wye Valley Walk, this walk leads from the heart of Ross-on-Wye through the Wye Valley to Goodrich Castle, a strikingly well preserved fortress high above the river admired by artists and tourists alike since the 18th Century (find out more)
