A CAMPAIGN is due to be launched on Friday to have the long distance walk ‘A Pennine Journey’ which starts in Settle and was created by Alfred Wainwright designated as a national trail.

The 247 mile circular trail starts and finishes in Settle, and takes in Durham, Hadrian’s Wall, Appleby, Sedbergh, Ingleton and Horton in Ribblesdale.

David Pitt, chairman of the Pennine Journey Supporters Club, said: “ In 1938 Alfred Wainwright took a train to Settle and walked along the eastern flanks of the Pennines to Hadrian’s Wall, his primary objective, and returned to Settle by way of the western flanks of the Pennines.

“The following year he wrote a narrative about his walk, showed it to friends in his office and then put it away in a drawer before producing it to show the editor of the ‘coffee table’ books he was writing to raise funds for his animal charity centre.

“The book was printed exactly as written and taken by a group of members from the newly formed Wainwright Society who walked and test walked a route based on the narrative, but on public footpaths not the roads that Wainwright mainly walked on in 1938, and in 2010 a guide book to the route was published.” The club hopes to have the route designated as a national trail as a tribute to Alfred Wainwright by September 25, 2028, the 90th anniversary of him leaving Settle on his Pennine journey.