Wainright Plaque

The Wainwright Society

Press Release

Unveiling of a Wainwright Blue Plaque at Settle Station

 

On Saturday 24 September 2011, a blue plaque was unveiled at Settle Station in the Yorkshire Dales, to commemorate Alfred Wainwright’s walk from Settle to Hadrian’s Wall and back, undertaken in 1938 just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

 

Wainwright began his long walk at Settle Station after travelling by rail from Blackburn and, on his return, wrote a book entitled A Pennine Journey, but it was not published until 1986, long after he had become famous as the author of the Pictorial Guides to the Lake District fells.

 

In 2010, a new guide to the original walk was published, but this time the route was entirely on public footpaths and not along the roads that Wainwright used at the time of his 1938 holiday.

 

Following discussions between David Pitt, a Wainwright Society member, who devised the new route, and Marion Armstrong of The Settle-Carlisle Railway Development Company on behalf of The Settle-Carlisle Partnership, it was agreed that a blue plaque and information board should be installed in the waiting room at Settle Station.

 

The plaque was unveiled on Saturday 24 September at a ceremony attended by about 60 people including representatives from Northern Rail, The Settle-Carlisle Railway Development Company, the Friends of the Settle-Carlisle Line and The Wainwright Society.

 

The plaque was unveiled by Helen Holden, who is the daughter of Lawrence Wolstenholme, one of Wainwright’s work colleagues in Blackburn, to whom he sent a series of illustrated postcards from various locations along the route in 1938.

 

Among the aims of The Wainwright Society in promoting this new long-distance walk are to bring economic benefit to the communities that lie along the route as well as showcasing the beautiful varied landscape of the Dales and northern Pennines.  Alfred Wainwright’s interest in this area of northern England is not as well-known as his Lake District guides and the Society is keen to highlight this aspect of his work.

 

It is also hoped that the Pennine Journey route will be waymarked on the ground as a precursor to its marking on future Ordnance Survey maps.  Discussions about waymarking the route are continuing with the relevant local authorities.

 

Derek Cockell

Press & Publicity Officer

The Wainwright Society

 

Pphotographs show the blue plaque at Settle Station and the unveiling of the plaque.

Photographs taken by Derek Cockell

 

L – R Peter Linney (Secretary of The Wainwright Society), Helen Holden, Marion Armstrong (The Settle-Carlisle Railway Development Company), David & Heather Pitt and Richard Morris (Chairman of The Friends of the Carlisle-Settle Line)