Up Summersgill Fell With and Without Permission

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Saunterings: Walking in North-West England

Saunterings is a set of reflections based upon walks around the counties of Cumbria, Lancashire and North Yorkshire in North-West England (as defined in the Preamble). Here is a list of all Saunterings so far. Guaranteed ad-free, AI-free and free!
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249. Up Summersgill Fell With and Without Permission

There are many permissive paths but nobody knows where they are. There is no publicly-accessible catalogue of permissive paths and they are not usually shown on official maps. The reason for this is that their most important property – at least for walkers – is that permission may be withdrawn at any moment for any reason. Therefore, even if a walker knows of a permissive path they cannot plan a walk that relies on the path’s continued existence.

Nevertheless, I set off from a parking space south of Lowgill, crossed Stairend Bridge over the River Hindburn, passed Botton Mill, which bears a date of 1697, and looked out for a permissive path to the west. It was there twenty years ago – would it still be there?

I nearly missed a little arrowed sign with the words “Concessionary Route”, which I assume is the same as a permissive path. Usually, at the beginning of a permissive path there is a map showing you where you are permitted to walk. In the absence of a map, I anticipated that there would be arrows to follow. I found one arrow over a footbridge but no more. Either there were no more arrows or I was walking where I shouldn’t.

It was quite a pleasant walk, through open woodland by sparkling becks, with a few patches of late bluebells. Many of the trees had nest-boxes. Some time ago there was a project to add nest-boxes here specifically to help pied flycatchers, a migratory bird whose numbers had dropped significantly. Perhaps these are the same nest-boxes. I don’t know if the flycatchers have indeed been helped. I didn’t spot any.

Left: Botton Mill; Right: Emerging from the woodland.

After a while I found myself on what must have been the wrong side of a fence, because I was within the fringes of the Higher Thrushgill Plantation, which was no pleasure to walk through. So I clambered over the fence, a beck and a wall to reach an open field that was not marked as ‘open access’ but was, I could only hope, on the permissive path (if it continued this far).

How does a permissive path come into being? I assume that it is at the landowner’s initiative (I doubt that there is any body or anybody that goes around trying to persuade landowners to allow a permissive path). Why would a landowner want a permissive path? Perhaps it is a public-spirited gesture or an attempt to maintain goodwill with locals. I suspect that it is usually because a landowner becomes fed up with walkers wandering willy-nilly about their land and decides to corral them into a specified path, usually around the periphery of their land.

How is a permissive path ‘registered’? I don’t know but I guess that the landowner informs the local authority (who would usually have no reason to object) and perhaps that authority then takes on the responsibility of signage and path maintenance (and may even pay the landowner for allowing the permissive path).

What are the legal implications of establishing a permissive path? None at all, as far as I can see. Permissive paths are not public rights of way, that is, with a legally protected right of the public to pass. Landowners are generally determined that a permissive path does not become a right of way. To that end, they may close the path, at whim, for, say, a day a year so that nobody can claim that they have walked the path every day for twenty years and thereby argue that it should be deemed a right of way. Landowners are also able to impose conditions on their permissive paths, such as no dogs or no bikes (but I don’t know who enforces these conditions). Obviously, if the conditions are ignored – by, for example, letting a dog loose to harass sheep – then the landowner can simply withdraw permission.

Why are some (but only a few) permissive paths shown (in red-dotted lines) on OS maps? I have no idea. Presumably the OS feels that the indicated paths have some degree of permanence but even so there is no guarantee that they will exist when a walker comes to walk them.

In North-West England most of the permissive paths that I come across have a similar purpose. Much of our open access land lies on the high fells and below that land there is generally pasture that is not open access. Therefore, it is often the case that there is no way to walk to the open access land without a long detour around to the sides of the fells. To prevent this some permissive paths provide a direct way up a fell through pastures – and very welcome they are.

The permissive path that I was on (and then off) is of this kind. It enables access to the open moorland of Summersgill Fell, otherwise only reachable after a long trek over surrounding moorland. As I climbed, views opened out of distant hills, although it was a hot, hazy day. The bird-sound changed, from woodland twittering to that of the moorland – some skylarks, a few curlew, a distant buzzard and a single cuckoo. There weren’t, however, as many birds as I expected. On that previous occasion here I was harangued by many nesting birds but this time the few birds ignored me.

On Summersgill Fell, looking back to distant views of the Three Peaks

I had to climb another wall (another indication that I was in the wrong place) to reach the real, rough moorland. It was slow going. The hummocky grass, with some surrounding squelchiness, prevented any rhythm in the walking. I pressed slowly on, looking for the wall that the map shows crossing the moor. I couldn’t find it. Perhaps it had been removed? And then, after I’d given up looking for a wall, I spotted some posts. They turned out to be part of a fence not easy to see from a distance in this terrain, not the wall I expected.

Now I could relax (relatively) and follow, as best I could, the fence north. There was nothing marked on the map and indeed there was nothing of interest (to me, anyway) on the ground. The solitary silence induced some introspection. The only thought on my mind was: Why? Why was I walking here where hardly anybody ever walks? Why was I walking where I would never recommend anyone else to walk? Why was I flogging myself to exhaustion across a dreary, pathless, wild emptiness?

Of course, Summersgill Fell is only dreary to those, like me, who can’t fully appreciate what they see. I’ve just been reading The Book of Bogs (Chilvers and Shaw, 2025) in which one writer is ecstatic to identify fifteen species of sphagnum moss on one walk. However, I am not the only one uninspired by Summersgill Fell – for every walker here there are thousands on Ingleborough. Perhaps this will change with the increasing realisation that these peatlands are a vital but endangered ecosystem, said to hold more carbon than all the world’s forests combined.

My visit to Summersgill Fell was perhaps a subconscious legacy of my original intention, expressed in the Preamble in 2018, to not focus on the ‘best bits’ but to sample areas in the North-West, somewhat at random, to give a balanced impression of the region. It is perhaps worthwhile to remind ourselves occasionally that although we complain than in peak periods it is standing room only in the Lake District it is still possible to find places of solitude. If you stand at Grey Stone (a suitably unimaginative name) on Summersgill Fell you can be sure that there will be nobody within a mile of you. Moreover, you will see little to suggest that other people exist – no buildings, no roads, nothing but moorland in all directions.

I needed to get off the moor. I turned east at (what it says on the map is) Jack’s Nook. I’ve no idea who Jack is or was, or what’s Nooky about this spot. I walked across more moor and then sheep fields, where the sheep indicated that I shouldn’t but I was past caring. Perhaps the majestic sound of the curlew in its element made it all worthwhile.

The fence to Jack's Nook, which is off to the left

     Date: May 22nd 2026
     Start: SD655640, corner above Stairend Bridge (Map: OL41)
     Route: W, S – Botton Mill – S (for 200 yards), SW, W – Grey Stone – N – Jack’s Nook – E – cattle grid – S, SE, N, E – parking place
     Distance: 6 miles;    Ascent: 210 metres

The two preceding items:
      248.   Whernside in the Wind
      247.   In the Footsteps of Romans on Crosby Ravensworth Fell
Two nearby items:
      108.   Westward Home! (from Lowgill with Thoreau)
      126.   Return to Roeburndale
A list of all items so far:
               Saunterings

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Top photo: Rainbow over Kisdon in Swaledale; Bottom photo: Ullswater