Kinder Trespass

This years Spirit of Kinder Day saw the launch of our Friends of Kinder Trespass Scheme. The initial response has been great but we could always do with more Friends

A programme of the 60th anniversary event, donated by Terry Howard, signed by trespass leader Benny Rothman, will be auctioned to raise funds for the Kinder Friends Scheme. Details coming soon....

In April 1932 over 400 people participated in a mass trespass onto Kinder Scout, a bleak moorland plateau, the highest terrain in the Peak District.

The event was organised by the Manchester branch of the British Workers Sports Federation. They chose to notify the local press in advance, and as a result, Derbyshire Constabulary turned out in force. A smaller group of ramblers from Sheffield set off from Edale and met up with the main party on the Kinder edge path.

Five men from Manchester, including the leader, Benny Rothman, were subsequently jailed.

75 years later the trespass was described as:

"the most successful direct action in British history"
Lord Roy Hattersley, 2007.

April 2012 saw the 80th Anniversary of the mass trespass of Kinder Scout celebrated by a week of walks, talks, and exhibitions, with a launch ceremony featuring Mike Harding, Stuart Maconie, and the leaders of major agencies involved in access to countryside. A new book was published, and commemorative posters are on sale.

This website sets out to explain why this event had such a far reaching impact that it is still so enthusiastically remembered and celebrated today. The trespass is widely credited with leading to: legislation in 1949 to establish the National Parks. contributing to the development of the Pennine Way and many other long distance footpath. securing walkers' rights over open country and common land in the C.R.O.W. Act of 2000. The trespass was controversial at the time, being seen as a working class struggle for the right to roam versus the rights of the wealthy to have exclusive use of moorlands for grouse shooting. It remains controversial today, both for those reasons and because some think its importance has been overstated. Our aim is to tell the story of the mass trespass, but to put it in the context of all the other contributions made to securing access rights to the moorlands, mountains and countryside of the UK.

We hope to go on to set up a permanent Kinder Visitor Centre in Hayfield (where the 400 Manchester trespassers set off from) dedicated to telling this story, and to serve as a focal point for visitors and for current moorland access issues.