Ramblings

Almost 80 years since the Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout, Clare Balding joins ramblers from Manchester and Sheffield to mark this inspirational moment in walking history. On April 24th 1932, around 400 ramblers from Lancashire set off from Bowden Bridge quarry near Hayfield to walk up onto the plateau of Kinder Scout, the highest point in the Derbyshire Peak District, in protest at the lack of the right to roam on open land. As they scrambled upwards towards the moorland plateau of Kinder, the trespassers were met and confronted by the Duke of Devonshire's gamekeepers. A group of ramblers from Sheffield, who had also set off that morning from Edale, did eventually reach the plateau and the two groups met up before turning and retracing their steps. The following day six of the Manchester ramblers were arrested and imprisoned, a move which was to outrage many people and serve only to highlight and sympathise with the ramblers cause, resulting finally in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act in 2000Today Clare j