The summit of Kinder Scout
To the rambler with a sense of history, it is as important as Bannockburn to a Scots nationalist, or Orgreave to a redundant miner.
Kinder Scout, the icon of upland access battles, is to be fenced off.
So says the Guardian newspaper, with its emotive recollection of Benny Rothman and his fellow Manchester Communists battling at the top of William Clough with the brawny gamekeepers to assert the rambler’s right to walk the Peak District tops.
There are plans, said the story, to erect a sheep-proof barrier – or fence in common parlance – across the gloopy plateau that marks the highest point in the Peak District and the holiest of holies in rambler folklore. The scene of the 1932 Mass Trespass is one area not to be messed with if you don’t want to provoke the ire of the ‘bobble hat brigade’ as the more traditional ramblers have been disparagingly called.
It was even important enough for then Environment Secretary David Miliband – remember him? – to pay a visit to New Mills to mark the 75th anniversary of the event and urge the gathering to continue the fight for access.
But the villains of the piece this time are not the landed gentry but the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, which owns a good part of the upland plateau north of Edale.
The Guardian – which also seems to have discovered a new law, the 2004 Right to Roam Act – said the temporary sheep-proof barrier will be installed after public consultation to allow plants such as heather, cottongrass and bilberry to recover from decades of overgrazing.
Is this just a storm in a teacup, or a ripple on a peaty pool?
The then Environment Secretary David Miliband at the Kinder Mass Trespass 75th anniversay, with Natural England boss, the late Sir Martin Doughty
The Ramblers said: “We are pleased that the National Trust is working to restore such an iconic and historic walking destination as Kinder Scout so that it can be enjoyed for generations to come.
“We will be fully engaging with the consultation process to ensure that the temporary fences do not act as a barrier to access but understand the practicalities of controlling livestock during such an important process.”
A voluntary shepherding scheme seems unlikely to solve the problem, hence the need for the temporary fence, running from Park Hall Moor, near the scene of the 1932 Battle of Kinder, eastwards to Fair Brook, then along the eastern edge of the plateau as far as Blackden Brook, with a possible extension south to Grinds Brook.
The National Trust’s general manager for the Peak District Mike Innerdale told the Guardian: “The western and southern edge of the moor is already stock-proofed by existing fences and walls.”
Work has been carried out by the trust and the Moors for the Future partnership, blocking gullies and reseeding, both on Kinder and on the neighbouring Bleaklow, where a similar fence has been erected.
Much of Kinder Scout is open access land under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. A public consultation Facebook page has been set up by the National Trust.
