Notes from a 364-mile hike around the Peak District

by Tom Chesshyre

WHEN I was walking round the Peak District for my recently published travelogue Wild Peaks: A Journey On Foot Through England’s First National Park, I found myself in Onecote by its parish public information sign.

I had already gone quite a long way that day, having begun in Warslow, where I had been staying at the cosy Greyhound Inn, and I was about to go a lot further via Leek to The Roaches, where I had booked a night in a dorm in the Don Whillans Memorial Hut, near the top. It was to prove to be the second longest day’s hiking of the 364 miles I completed over 32 days for the book – 21 miles, or 47,778 steps.

Anyway, it was at this parish public information sign – learning that I was in the Hamps Valley, that there was a Bronze Age barrow somewhere nearby and that the oldest village buildings were from the 1600s – that I met a man named Matt, who was about to paint the doors of the village hall.

Matt was wearing hiking trousers and was a newcomer (2023) to the village of Onecote. He was also, besides being editor of the Onecote Observer (hence this piece), a charming chap as he volunteered, as I was unsure of the way forward to Leek, to accompany me out of the village, which he said had first attracted him and his wife to settle as the scenery was beautiful and the terrain excellent for their shared hobby of cycling.

This friendliness was typical of the warm welcome I was to receive last April, when I completed my lengthy walk, which was prompted by the 75th anniversary of the national park, which was dedicated as such on April 17th, 1951. The purpose of my hike was to celebrate this hallowed landscape, described by Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, as a ‘howling wilderness’ during his tour of Britain in the early eighteenth century, yet currently attracting around 13 million visitors annually. So, perhaps not quite as ‘wild’ as back then.

Yet there remains, as I found crossing the many remote sweeping moors and following rugged gritstone ridges a feeling of wilderness (sometimes howling) remained. And also a bleak beauty, too. It did not take long – from the village of Onecote, or just about anywhere – to find yourself alone with your thoughts on a trail, tramping forwards along a drystone wall or beside a grough or a clough, quite at peace with the world.

During my long-distance walk, however, it was not just the landscape that won me over, it was – as intimated earlier – the people as well. I met all sorts: farmers, historians, publicans, landowners, mountaineers, fellow hikers, mountain rescue members, clergymen, mystics, dreamers, down-and-outs, police officers, market stall holders, builders, members of the aristocracy (I was to have coffee with the Duke of Devonshire, no less). What I learnt when writing my travelogue – designed to create a ‘profile’ of the park – was that it was every bit as interesting as the perhaps ‘showier’ Lake District, with its more prominent mountains and lovely lakes, and a welcoming place with a vibrant community and a down-to-earth approach to matters. I felt this in Onecote and so many other spots, too.

I bumped into Tom outside the Onecote Village Hall sometime in April 2025. He was setting out on one of his legs across the Park whilst in the process of writing his latest book “Wild Peaks: A Journey on Foot Through England’s First National Park”. I walked with him up to the top of Morridge and we chatted about the beauty of the park and what it meant to me. Tom’s book has now been published and he was kind enough to write an exclusive piece about his journey for the Onecote Observer.

Matt Cope

Tom Chesshyre is the author of fourteen travel books, and counting. He worked on the Times for 21 years and is now a freelance writer. He has also worked for Sporting Life, the Independent, Sky Sports, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Daily Mail and National Geographic. He can be found on X as @tchesshyre and at tomchesshyre.co.uk

Wild Peaks: A Journey on Foot Through England’s First National Park

Is available to purchase…. Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, ISBN: 9780008733469