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INTRODUCTION

      The North Pennines has been called ‘England’s last wilderness’, and there is nowhere else in the country where the land is so consistently high, wild, bleak and remote. In fact, this is a region of superlatives – once the world’s greatest producer of lead, location of England’s most powerful waterfalls, holding several records for extreme weather conditions, home to an assortment of wild flowers, and refuge for most of England’s black grouse population. The region is protected as an ‘area of outstanding natural beauty’, and renowned for its wild and wide-open spaces.

      There is plenty of room for everyone to enjoy exploring the North Pennines, with walking routes to suit all abilities, from old, level railway trackbeds to extensive, pathless, tussocky moorland. For many years the region was relatively unknown, being surrounded on all sides by more popular national parks. Since 1965, the Pennine Way has introduced more and more walkers to the region, many of them being surprised at how wild this part of the Pennines is, especially when compared to the gentler, greener Yorkshire Dales.

      When national parks were being established in England and Wales, the North Pennines was overlooked. John Dower described a national park as ‘an extensive area of beautiful and relatively wild country’. The North Pennines features an extensive area of supremely wild country that isn’t matched on the same scale in any of the national parks. The Hobhouse Committee recommended that 12 national parks should be created, and also identified other areas with great landscape value, many of which were subsequently designated as ‘areas of outstanding natural beauty’, or AONBs. The North Pennines was notably absent from all these listings.

      When a document recommending AONB status for the North Pennines was presented to the Secretary of State for the Environment, it was promptly filed and forgotten. A concerted lobby brought it back to the fore and a public enquiry was launched. The North Pennines became a minor battleground, with ‘No to AONB’ signs appearing in some places, while some landowners declared that their property had no beauty. In June of 1988 the North Pennines was at last declared an area of outstanding natural beauty, becoming the 38th such designation and, at 2000km2 (772 square miles), also the largest at that time. This was almost immediately followed by a renewed call for national park status to be granted.

      The AONB boundary is roughly enclosed, in a clockwise direction,

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