Trespass Trail (New Mills)

History

The Trespass Trail is a 14-mile circular walk from the New Mills Heritage and Information Centre, made for the 75th anniversary of the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass. On 24 April 1932 ramblers from Manchester walked onto Kinder Scout, which was owned by the Duke of Devonshire and closed to walkers. The anniversary was celebrated at New Mills in April 2007, and Martin Doughty, then chair of Natural England, came up with a walking route based on the town; the Environment Secretary, David Miliband, opened the trail at the Heritage Centre. A leaflet by Doughty and Roly Smith, paid for by the Peak District National Park Authority's Sustainable Development Fund and supported by the Ramblers' Association and Natural England, describes the walk.

The trail visits places from the build-up to the trespass and its aftermath. It passes the Children's Inn at Rowarth, near where the British Workers' Sports Federation held an Easter camp in 1932 and the Manchester ramblers resolved on a mass trespass, and it follows part of the way the trespassers went to Kinder by Kinder Reservoir and William Clough. It reaches Bowden Bridge quarry, where Benny Rothman rallied the ramblers, and Hayfield, then returns along the Sett Valley Trail to New Mills. Six ramblers were arrested on the day; they were held overnight at New Mills police station and charged at the police court the next day, and five were jailed for between two and six months at Derby Assizes in July 1932.