The absurdity of owning moors and mountains

Kinder Scout is the highest point of the Peak District. Today it’s quite easy to walk to the top but it hasn’t always been that way. David Barnett tells the story of the famous mass trespass protest

24 April 1932: the trespassers approach Kinder (Courtesy of Willow Press)

If the weather is fine this weekend, you might decide to go for a walk in the countryside. That you can even do this is mostly thanks to the actions of a scrappy mob of young, working class communists who carried out one of the most important acts of civil disobedience in British history and helped open up the countryside for all of us.

It happened 90 years ago at Kinder Scout, the highest point of the Peak District and a popular destination for walkers. Sitting between Manchester and Sheffield and above the Midlands, it is a vantage point from which you can see – on the clearest days – as far as the peaks of Snowdonia in Wales.

Those who make their way up Kinder Scout for a walk, ramble or hike this summer might well take for granted their right to do so. But it is quite literally a hard-fought one, and something that is as precarious now as it has ever been.