Over 70 walkers joined local Gritstone member and author, Colin Speakman, at the weekend on a six mile walk on the Dales Way.
The walk celebrated the original public walk organised over fifty years ago to inaugurate the 81 mile long Dales Way. The Dales Way is now one of England’s most popular long distance walks, connecting the towns and cities of West Yorkshire with the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District. The 50 Year Anniversary walk went along the banks of the River Wharfe from the start of the Dales Way in Ilkley to Bolton Abbey in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Colin, a founder member of Gritstone Cooperative and now the Chairman of the Dales Way Association, and Vice President of both the West Riding Ramblers and the Yorkshire Dales Society, said it was “his privilege to have been able to lead the original walk on March 23rd 1969 and now the Golden Jubilee walk just over 50 years later”.
On their return to Ilkley, walkers joined Sir Rodney Brooke, President of the Ilkley Manor House Trust and Ilkley & Keighley MP John Grogan, for the official opening of a special exhibition dedicated to the story of the Dales Way.
Mr Grogan paid tribute to the vision and energy both Colin Speakman and Tom Wilcock of the West Riding Ramblers Association who had conceived and developed the route in 1969 as a way of encouraging access to the spectacular countryside of the Yorkshire Dales so close to the cities such as Leeds and Bradford.
The free Dales Way 50th exhibition is open on weekends at the Ilkley Manor House until September 1st (see www.ilkleymanorhouse.org full for opening times and directions).
Supported by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Sustainable Development, Fund, the Dales Way Association has also published a special illustrated souvenir booklet 50 years of the Dales Way Priced at £4.99 it is available by contacting Colin, at the exhibition or can be obtained post free via the Dales Way Association www.dales way org.
Colin’s most up to date guidebook of the Dales Way, now in it’s 11th Edition, is also available from Gritstone.
