Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1

Edale to Kinder Scout: The Peak District and the First Modern Rambling Battle

Chapter 2

Rannoch to Corrour Shooting Lodge in a Howling storm: An investigation of the Lure of Wilderness, and the Earliest Days of Organised Rambling

Chapter 3

Dorking to Box Hill: Introducing Jane Austen, and the Subsequent Rise of the Victorian Walking Club

Chapter 4

A Swift Detour: To Briefly Examine Walkers as Deviants, Outcasts and Fugitives – and as Doomed, Wandering Souls

Chapter 5

A Day Out Among The Tors and Mires of Dartmoor: The Prototype National Park

Chapter 6

Seatoller to Haystacks, Underskiddaw to Dodd Point: The Lake District and the Cults of Wordsworth, Wainwright and Withnail

Chapter 7

Rhossili to Llanrhidian: In the Gower Peninsula to Consider the Surprisingly Long History of Walking Gear – While Wearing Quite Unsuitable Clothes

Chapter 8

Higham to Cooling: The Hoo Peninsula, North Kent, in Search of Beauty in Ugliness

Chapter 9

A Brief Detour into the Lures and Attractions of Walking at Night

Chapter 10

Exploring the Preternatural Forest of Dean and Woodland Legends – While Examining the Beguiling History of Youth Hostels and B & Bs

Chapter 11

A Quick Detour Through Regenerated Cities and the Art of Urban Rambling

Chapter 12

In the Steps of Tom Stephenson Along Britain’s Many Ways – and Paying Tribute to Generations of Self-Taught Botanists

Chapter 13

Wendover to Princes Risborough: Chilterns and the History of Trespass, Via Some Very Private Property

Chapter 14

Warminster to Battlebury Fort, Salisbury Plain – an Effort to Reach England’s Inland Atlantis

Chapter 15

A Diversionary Walk on the Weird Side: A Brief Flit from Ley Lines to Stone Circles to Pan

Chapter 16

Exploring the Lures of Solitude and Dodging The Grey Man of Ben Macdhui

Chapter 17

A Day Out in Brontë Country – What Happens When Much-Treasured Walking Landscapes Become Theme Parks

Chapter 18

Recent Furious Countryside Battles: The Patches of Forbidden Land that Remain and an Unsuccessful Attempt on the River Path at Windsor

Chapter 19

From Chilham to Canterbury along the North Downs Way: The Future of Walking and of the Countryside Rolled into one Ancient Pilgrimage

Endnotes

Further Reading

Acknowledgements

Other Books by Sinclair McKay

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