William Clough, site of the confrontation. Photo: Bob Smith/grough
Outdoors luminaries will gather at a Peak District village this month to mark the 90th anniversary of the Kinder Trespass.
The event was crucial in the fight for better public access to Britain’s uplands.
Organisers of the Forgive Us Our Trespassers celebration said: “On a sunny Sunday afternoon 90 years ago, about 400 ramblers set out for a walk on the Peak District’s ‘forbidden mountain’ of Kinder Scout.
“By the end of the day, six had been arrested and five were later convicted and imprisoned for affray, for merely exercising their right to roam.”
The arrests followed a confrontation on the flanks of the hill with agents of the Duke of Devonshire, intent on thwarting the group walking on the Peak District’s highest hill.
Benny Rothman, a Manchester Communist, was the impromptu leader of the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass in April 1932 that led to his jailing along with four fellow trespassers.
This year’s commemoration will take place on Saturday 23 April from 2pm to 4pm at the Royal Hotel, Hayfield.
Among those invited to speak are Kate Ashbrook of the Open Spaces Society and the Ramblers; and Stuart Maconie, broadcaster, author and president of the Ramblers. There will be a guest appearance by Caroline Lucas, former leader of the Green Party and the first British Green MP.
Other speakers will include Craig Best, general manager of the Peak District for the National Trust, which has owned and managed Kinder Scout for 40 years, and Yvonne Witter, leader of Mosaic, the collective representing black and minority ethnic communities and a member of the Peak District National Park Authority.
Keith Warrender of Willow Publishing will also be launching a comprehensive new book about the Trespass entitled Forbidden Kinder at the event. He will also be selling and signing copies at the event in a marquee next to the Royal.
About 15 other outdoor and conservation bodies will also have stands in the marquee. In addition, the Loughborough University School of Architecture will have an exhibition of prospective designs for a new Trespass Centre in the Village Hall, and in the primary school pupils will be staging their own displays.
Because space is very restricted in the Royal, it is hoped that speeches will be live streamed to the other venues. Parking is extremely limited in Hayfield, so visitors are being encouraged to either walk in or use public transport. There is a twice-hourly bus service to Hayfield from New Mills station, and an hourly service from Glossop.
In addition to the Royal, Hayfield has several pubs, a pop-up Walkers Welcome licensed bar on the Village Hall green, and shops and cafes will also be serving drinks and hot and cold food.
Dave Whalley
11 April 2022You always hear about the Kinder Scout mass trespass but never much about the Winter Hill mass trespass in 1896 when 10000 walkers took part in the protest, way more than the 400 or so people at Kinder Scout that seems to attract all the attention
Hugh Westacott
13 April 2022It’s worth noting that the Federation of Rambling Clubs, the forerunner of the Ramblers, strongly advised its members not to participate in the trespass. Even Tom Stephenson, the first salaried Secretary of the Ramblers and an ardent advocate for rights of way, remained for the rest of his life, critical of Benny Rothman. It should be remembered that the House of Lords was dominated by large landowners and Tom feared that they would be able to use the trespass as an example of what would happen if the hoi polloi were allowed access to the moors.
Incidentally, the ‘trespassers’ were actually on what even the landowners accepted was a right of way and only left the route when they saw gamekeepers standing in a line parallel to but some yards from the path. It was the walkers who attacked the gamekeepers and not the other way round. Incidentally, the so-called trespassers never got near the summit of Kinder Scout.
Roger
13 April 2022So people are setting off to trespass on Kinder Scout this month and they've advertised what they're doing. How daft is that, they should have kept quiet about it and told us all afterwards.
Serves them right if the authorities are waiting for them.
Access4AllPlease
21 April 2022This is excellent. Hopefully it will prompt some further discussion and future action with regards to a right right to roam (as per Norway or Scotland). I'm pleased the NT will be represented, I look forwards to them explaining their hatred of cyclists on land that we all pay for. A mass bike trespass might be in order perhaps. Certainly we need to scrap the idea of footpaths and bridalways altogether and agree on public access routes (non motorised of course) similar to the rest of the world. We are so far behind the times it's remarkable.