It has been an unofficial and mostly unsignposted trail. However on 12 August 2022 it was announced that the Coast to Coast Walk would become an officialNational Trail, following a successful campaign by the Wainwright Society (the official Responsible Organisation for the trail[3]) andRishi Sunak, MP forRichmond and Northallerton.[4] Work will commence to upgrade the route and officially open it in 2026[5] (at 197 miles (317 km) long).[6][7][8]
The Coast to Coast was originally described by Alfred Wainwright in his 1973 bookA Coast to Coast Walk. Wainwright's book has since been revised a number of times in recent years (most recently in 2003) with updates to the recommended route.
Wainwright's book describes the route in 12 stages, each of which ends at a settlement with at least some overnight accommodation nearby. If one stage is walked per day, with one or two rest days, the route makes a two-week holiday, and web logs of coast-to-coasters seem to indicate that this is the most common way of walking the route. However, Wainwright explicitly states that he did not intend people to necessarily stick to these daily stages, or even to his route. For instance, the majority of Wainwright's stages start and end at low level with a single up-down during the day: many walkers split the Borrowdale–Patterdale stage atGrasmere in order to maintain this pattern and avoid having two major uphill sections in one day. Splitting two or three more of the longer stages, and adding a further one or two rest days, reduces the average day-length to 10 or 12 miles and makes the walk a much easier three-week trip with time to "stand and stare", an activity much approved of by Wainwright.
I want to encourage in others the ambition to devise with the aid of maps their own cross-country marathons and not be merely followers of other people's routes: there is no end to the possibilities for originality and initiative.
— A. Wainwright, A Coast to Coast Walk
The Coast to Coast Walk usespublic rights of way (public footpaths, tracks, and minor roads),permissive paths andaccess land; it is one of the most popular of all thelong-distance footpaths in the UK. In 2004 the walk was named as the second-best walk in the world according to a survey of experts.[9] Harvey Maps publishes a dedicated strip map at 1:40,000 scale.
The start of the Coast to Coast Walk at St Bees beach. New sign and banner added 2013 by the Wainwright Society and St Bees Parish Council.
Tradition dictates that walkers should start the route on St Bees beach by getting one's feet wet and collecting a pebble. The walk should end in a similar fashion, by wetting the feet and depositing the pebble on the beach at Robin Hood's Bay.
The description in this article is given from west to east. This is the more popular direction, and the one given in the original and most of the current guides; it is the direction that keeps the prevailing wind and rain at one's back, and the evening sun out of one's eyes. Some walkers do start from the east coast, either because they wish to have the Lake District as the climax of their walk or because they have already walked the route in the conventional direction.
From the small seaside town of St Bees, where there is a "C to C" monument by the lifeboat station, the route follows the cliffs ofSt Bees Head north for a few miles before turning inland to pass through the villages of Sandwith,Moor Row andCleator in the West Cumberland Plain. It then climbs its first hill (Dent), and follows its first valley (Nannycatch) before reachingEnnerdale Bridge.
The path goes up the valley ofEnnerdale along the edge ofEnnerdale Water and past the Black Sail Hut youth hostel. It climbs alongside Loft Beck to thefells north ofGreat Gable, passes the disused slate workings and mountain tramway ofHonister, and descends to Rosthwaite inBorrowdale.
To leave Borrowdale, the route passes Stonethwaite and follows the stream up to Greenup Edge, before travelling along theHelm Crag ridge and down toGrasmere village.
From Grasmere the route ascends to the pass ofGrisedale Hause from where Wainwright offers a choice of three routes: via either of the mountains ofHelvellyn orSt Sunday Crag, or an easier descent along the valley of Grisedale, the three options reuniting atPatterdale village.
From Patterdale, a stiff climb leads toAngle Tarn andKidsty Pike — at 2,560 feet (780 metres) the highest point on the walk. There is then a steep drop toHaweswater from where the route follows the north shore of the lake before leaving the Lake District and visitingShap Abbey and the village ofShap itself.
The route climbs to the main west/east watershed of England (which forms the Yorkshire border) on the ridge ofNine Standards Rigg, from where moorland trails and upland streams lead down intoSwaledale. To help mitigate the effects of erosion, there are alternative routes at different times of the year. At almost exactly its halfway point, the Coast to Coast crosses thePennine Way atKeld.
After Keld, there is a choice of two routes, high (open and breezy), or low (riverside, with teashops and pubs), both of which lead toReeth.
In lower Swaledale, the route passesMarrick Priory, through wooded hillside to the market town ofRichmond.
Signpost for the Coast to Coast winter route (December–April) entering the Yorkshire Dales near Kirkby Stephen. The additional information sign shows the different routes to be taken depending on the time of year: Red Route (May–July); Blue Route (August–November); Green Route (December–April), along with information about managing erosion of the footpaths.
After Richmond, the route runs close to theRiver Wiske (but is more direct than the river) across the flat farming land of theVale of Mowbray (the northern extension of the Vale of York) to the village ofDanby Wiske, and on toIngleby Cross.
The route then climbs up to the western edge of theNorth York Moors to join theCleveland Way[10] andLyke Wake Walk[11][12][13] and is coincident with these routes over the major summits of the Cleveland Hills (known as the 'Cleveland Frontline') as it rises and falls to Clay Bank Top. (Wainwright stated that the Lyke Wake Walk would form an acceptable finish to his 'A Coast to Coast Walk',[1] though the former finishes atRavenscar, 4 miles south of Bay Town, the end point of Wainwright's route.)
The route continues with the Cleveland Way & Lyke Wake Walk, crossingUrra Moor to Bloworth Crossing, where the Cleveland Way turns north and the Coast to Coast continues east on the trackbed of the dismantledRosedale Railway (still coincident with the Lyke Wake Walk) to Blakey Ridge and theLion Inn.
Next, the route continues around the head of Rosedale before parting ways with the Lyke Wake Walk at the Millennium Stone to skirtGreat Fryup Dale before descending Glaisdale Rigg to the village ofGlaisdale. From there, a woodland path leads toEgton Bridge where the route follows an old toll road toGrosmont.
After a climb out of Grosmont, the route crosses Sleights Moor before dropping intoLittlebeck Wood (with ahermitage carved out of a single boulder, and theFalling Foss waterfall). From there the route passes throughLow and High Hawsker to the cliff tops of the east coast, where it rejoins the Cleveland Way. The path then follows the coast southwards to the village ofRobin Hood's Bay.
In May 2021, the route was run in 39 hours 18 minutes and 40 seconds byDamian Hall, setting a new record.[14] The previous record was set in 1991, 39 hours 36 minutes and 52 seconds byMike Hartley.[15] The record before that was set in 1985 by Mike Cudahy, who completed it in 46 hours 49 minutes.[16]
St Bees South Head & beach
St Bees: Start of the C to C in winter (The "Wainwright wall" in foreground)
^"A National Trail". The Wainwright Society. Retrieved25 November 2025.In 2016, a campaign to have the Coast to Coast route designated as the next National Trail was launched by Rishi Sunak, MP for Richmond and supported by The Wainwright Society.
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