Main content

Edale to Top Withens

Episode 1 of 3

Mark Radcliffe travels from Edale to Top Withens near Haworth. He talks to poet Simon Armitage about walking the Pennine Way and meets folk singer Kate Rusby.

In 1965, after 30 years of campaigning led by the rambler Tom Stephenson, the Pennine Way was officially opened on Malham Moor in the Yorkshire Dales. Stretching from Edale in Derbyshire to Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish borders, the 268 mile route has attracted tens of thousands of walkers over the intervening years.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary this year, Mark Radcliffe travels the route and meets up with poets, folk musicians, historians and local people along the way.

In the first of three programmes, Mark travels from Edale to Top Withens near Haworth. He talks to the poet Simon Armitage about his experience of walking the Pennine Way, and finds out why the tiny Yorkshire village of Heptonstall is the burial place of one of the 20th century's most revered authors, Sylvia Plath. Singer Bella Hardy performs her song 'Peak Rhapsody' at the starting point of the Pennine Way, and Mark bumps into Kate Rusby at Top Withens - the supposed inspiration for Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Kate and Damien O'Kane perform 'The Lark' sat in the ruins of the old farmhouse, looking out over Haworth Moor and the Pennine Way.

Available now

30 minutes

Last on

Thu 7 May 2015 11:30
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4

More episodes

Previous

You are at the first episode

Next

Malham to Greenhead

See all episodes from The Folk of the Pennines

Clips

See all clips from Edale to Top Withens (2)

Music Played

  • Music Details

  • Steve Tilston

    Pennine Spring

    • The Reckoning.
    • Hubris Records.
    • HUB006.

  • Ewan MacColl

    THE MANCHESTER RAMBLER

    • BLACK AND WHITE - THE DEFINITIVE EWAN MACCOLL COLLECTION.
    • COOL CD.
    • 038--.

  • Bella Hardy

    Peak Rhapsody

  • Lau

    Unquiet Grave

    • Lightweights & Gentlemen.
    • Reveal.
    • REVEAL-17.

  • Dave Swarbrick

    Carthy's March

    Performer: Dave Swarbrick. Performer: Martin Carthy.
    • IT SUITS ME WELL: THE TRANSATLANTIC ANTHOLOGY.
    • CASTLE MUSIC.
    • CMDDD-933.

  • Damien O’Kane & Kate Rusby

    THE LARK

Broadcast

  • Thu 7 May 2015 11:30
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4

Gallery