England Coast Path

The England Coast Path was renamed as the King Charles III England Coast Path in 2023 to celebrate the King's coronation. However, with no lack of respect intended, I have retained the earlier and shorter name - at least for now. This is partly because we started walking it a few years earlier when it was just the "England Coast Path", partly because "King Charles III England Coast Path" and partly because it is signposted as "England Coast Path" (and sometimes just "ECP") on the ground. When complete, the England Coast Path will be 2795 miles (4500 kilometres) long, but at the time of writing (September 2023) it is a very slow work in progress; the current estimate is that it will be complete by the end of 2024. Although several long distance paths along the coast existed before the England Coast Path was designed (and, by and large, we have no intention of re-walking sections that we have already walked), the first section of the England Coast Path specifically was opened in 2012. Additional funding in 2014 led to a promise that the route would be open in 2020, but a European court judgement in 2018 regarding environmentally protected sites slowed progress..and then there was Covid...

It's ironic then that it was also the impact of the Covid Pandemic on our plans for Christmas 2020 that led us to the England Coast Path. Norfolk was heading into Tier 4 lockdown on Boxing Day, where it would join Milton Keynes and most of the south and east of the country, so Christmas plans across the nation were in disarray. We were sad not to be able to see our little grandson Bertie, and walking destinations were limited to places within reach of a day trip from home. However, we were very happy to return to what we did on several Christmas Days 30+ years ago when our children were small, namely to head up to the Norfolk coast. In deciding which bit of coast to pick, we'd spotted the section of the England Coast Path to the east of Cromer which would be new! In the end, on the basis that it was too cold to walk far, we decided to go to Hunstanton (from where we will eventually re-walk the section of coast to Cromer), a shorter drive from home so it would matter less if our walk was very short. That first walk on Christmas Day 2020 is described here and to read about our adventures to the east of Cromer, start here.

It is also ironic that our first encounter with a section of the England Coast Path which was signposted as such was also in the midst of a weekend plagued by circumstances beyond our control. Richard's brother Phillip married Anne-Marie in Workington on Sunday 3rd October 2021. We had planned to drive up from Norfolk on the Friday and to get out walking on the Saturday, then to travel back to Norfolk on the Monday at the same time as Phillip and Anne-Marie, who would stay with us there and visit Richard and Phillip's mother Diana. The first complication was a Covid case in the home where Diana is resident, meaning that we didn't get the news until Richard turned on his phone again after the wedding that Phillip and Anne-Marie would be able to visit the following day. The second complication was a petrol crisis, caused by a shortage of HGV drivers following Brexit. Troops were being used to transport fuel from Monday 4th, but it felt like too much of a risk to drive up to Cumbria and back over the weekend, given that it is impossible to get there and back on a single tank of petrol.

Our "Plan B" made use of our flat in MIlton Keynes and to travel from there by train. Of our journey up the West Coast Mainline, the least said the better (many of our fellow passengers seemed to take the attitude "Pandemic, what Pandemic") but once we got to Workington we had a lovely time, and the wedding was wonderful.  Fortunately, we'd booked into the new Travelodge, only a few minutes walk from the station and just across the road from Tesco - for supplies.  Anne-Marie and Phillip kindly invited us for a meal on the Friday evening and took us to a get together of the wider family at Anne-Marie's daughter's house on the Saturday afternoon/evening. In between, we worked, read, and walked. Workington has an industrial past and Phillip had been rather derogatory about the town - and the weather forecast was dire. However, we spent two hours walking on both the Saturday and Sunday mornings. On Saturday we headed to the mouth of the River Derwent and then south, before returning to the Travelodge via the centre of Workington. On Sunday we headed north, eventually reaching the coast again then returning via Siddock Pond nature reserve and back over the pedestrian "Navvies Bridge" to Workington. We wore full waterproofs and it was windy with occasional showers, but it was most enjoyable walking. We enjoyed it so much that we returned to the Cumbria section of the England Coast Path in May 2022, staying in a holiday cottage in Allonby at the current northern extremity of this section.

Since May 2022, we have also completed sections in Dorset, Hampshire, Lincolneshire,  Durham, Tyne and Wear and Northumberland. On this website, the sections are organised by county, in an anti-clockwise direction round the English coast, starting with Cumbria.  The county entries for the England Coast Path in Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Norfolk, North Yorkshire and Northumberland  all include legs walked on the ECP before it was named as such, and I have added brief summaries of these sections, for completeness.