Stephenson’s big idea
The next morning I sat in the kitchen of a terraced house in Hebden Bridge. It belonged to a small woman in what I judged to be her late 60s or early 70s, who I had never met until the previous evening, nor was I ever likely to again once I had left. As I sat quietly, she busied herself preparing breakfast, humming gently as she stirred the scrambled egg and checked the toast. I looked round the neat but homely room, at the postcards on the fridge door and a vase of fresh flowers by the window. There was a small pile of ironing on a chair by the door and a few cookery books on a shelf. Outside, some children walked past noisily on their way to school. And as I sat there at the kitchen table, surrounded by all the trappings of everyday life, but an everyday life that belonged to a complete and utter stranger, it struck me that bed and breakfast is a most peculiar arrangement.
Mind you, if bed and breakfast is by definition peculiar, that’s nothing compared to the phenomenon that is the Pennine Way B&B landlady. After I had arrived the previous afternoon, weary and slightly footsore, I went through the customary greetings and then made the grievous mistake of imagining I could simply walk down the tiled corridor towards my room still clad in boots and rucksack. After all, my boots were clean after walking through the town and my pack was completely dry. Short and slight but with a commanding voice that could probably be heard the other side of the valley, Miss B announced that boots (whatever their condition) were to be removed before entering the premises. That’s perfectly fine, I thought, as I sat outside the back door on a bench evidently provided for that purpose. A wide, shallow tray lined with newspaper was produced, on which I was invited to place my boots. I then stood up and shouldered my pack, but was promptly informed that rucksacks were not allowed to be worn when inside the house but instead had to be carried in the arms in a forward position. I stood, slightly stupefied, wondering what on earth I had let myself in for tonight. I had visions of being stood over in the bath by this officious lady instructing me how to scrub my back. Sensing my bewilderment, Miss B relented and explained that she had had too many pictures knocked off the walls of her narrow landing by young men wearing ‘enormous’ rucksacks. I finally made it to my room, clutching my rucksack before me, and opened the door in trepidation, fearing what other house rules I might inadvertently break.
In the end, I must say I warmed to Miss B. I learnt that she had been providing bed and breakfast for Pennine Way walkers on and off for over 30 years (‘but I only open in the summer months – you shouldn’t be walking it at other times’); and despite her stern manner, delivered in the style of a short-tempered maths teacher, I think she may have developed a soft spot for walkers. We chatted over breakfast and she told me she had had a serious operation at the beginning of the year and wasn’t going to do B&B this season. ‘But then Pennine Way walkers began ringing up to book for the summer and I just couldn’t turn them down.’
Half an hour later I said goodbye and, armed with her hand-drawn map showing me the best way to regain the trail above the town, I left the home of a complete stranger to walk 16 miles to that of another.
Miss B is just one of many Pennine Way accommodation providers who have developed a special bond with the walkers who periodically stagger through their doors. The Pennine Way Association’s indispensable accommodation guide first appeared in 1971 and ran for over four decades, edited by the late John Needham. In an article he wrote for the spring 1989 issue of the association’s newsletter, he recalled that in the first edition there were 75 establishments listed and the average price of an overnight B&B stay on the Pennine Way was £1.25 (by 1989 it had hit the heady heights of £8!). John also observed how accommodation provision had shifted to meet demand over the years, so that in 1972 there was only one listing for the Hebden Bridge area but by 1989 there were seven. Pennine Way walkers also made it clear what they thought of the generous hospitality they were shown. ‘It is pleasant to report that we get few complaints; most of the writers have nothing but praise for the ladies who took them in, fed them, and dried them out.’
Some B&Bs were in there more or less from the beginning and became legends among regular trailwalkers. Chris Sainty, former chairman of the Pennine Way Association, is one of many who remembers Ethel Burnop, of Woodhead Farm in Lothersdale, with particular fondness. ‘She was one of the early B&B providers and I remember Tom Stephenson used to drop in if he was in the area,’ he said. ‘It was a working farm in those days and very basic, but you always got a fantastic greeting and a cup of tea with lashings of cake. Her breakfasts were enough to keep you going all day and she never turned anyone away. She loved what she called her “Pennine Highwaymen”. They were her family.’
Teacher and guidebook writer Alan Binns also recalled how the Burnops were always kind and welcoming to his groups of schoolboys on their Pennine Way walks in the 1960s and 70s, never once refusing anyone shelter. The record, he believes, was probably set in July 1968, when on just one night there were 26 walkers inside the farm and 46 tents in the field outside.
David Blowers was another who used the pages of the Pennine Way Association’s newsletter to praise the Burnops’ unfailing hospitality. He recounted the highlights from his walk along the Pennine Way in July 1979 with two fellow sixth-formers:
Woodhead Farm was such a welcome sight and we had been told that a meal from ‘the Burnops of Woodhead Farm’ was something not to be missed, so our first approach to Mr Burnop was tactful: we asked if the pub in the village served meals and to our delight he answered by saying that his wife may cook us a meal. Feeling in a better mood we went to put the tent up.
A paragraph dedicated to Mr and Mrs Burnop:
These are the most amazing people that I have ever come across. They allowed us, and the two French ladies [also walking the Pennine Way], who were having bed and breakfast and evening meal, to use their washing and toilet facilities. Not only that but they were friendly and the meal, well just take a look at this: Soup, roll and butter, roast steak, roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, sprouts, carrots, runner beans, cabbage, cauliflower, biscuits and cheese, strawberries and ice cream, tea … wonderful.
We spent most of the evening in their house, both before and after the meal, talking just as if we were at home. Mrs Burnop even asked us what we would like to watch on the television … such luxury.
The Pennine Way deliberately bypasses Hebden Bridge, because when the route was originally plotted there was little to attract walkers. Early in the last century, it was a prosperous mill town, famous as the centre of the trade in fustian (thickly woven cotton cloth with a short nap or pile, like corduroy and moleskin); but bust followed boom and by the 1960s it seemed to be in terminal decline. Some industry limped on, but shops were empty, houses were being pulled down and the valley was littered with redundant and dirty mill buildings. In his 1967 book A Guide to the Pennine Way, Christopher John Wright describes the scene: ‘This very narrow gorge of the River Calder has cotton manufacturies, clothing mills and dye works crowded into the valley, and the smoke and smell of industrial effluent fills the lungs.’
Then, during the 1970s and 80s, Hebden Bridge began to reinvent itself as an influx of artistic and creative people moved into the valley; and after that a new wave of wealthier, trendy incomers brought in further vitality. There are still the steep cobbled streets and tightly packed rows of traditional ‘double-decker’ housing, but the once grimy old mill town now boasts dozens of small independent shops, as well as cafés, bars and places to stay.
I walked into the town centre to soak up the atmosphere of what The Times described in 2013 as ‘the coolest place to live in Britain’. It’s likely that if the route of the Pennine Way was being plotted today, it would pass through Hebden Bridge, not least because it was also the first official ‘Walkers are Welcome’ town in the UK. This initiative was launched in 2007 and now includes over a hundred towns and villages nationwide where visiting walkers are assured of the best possible service.
The latest development is the Hebden Bridge Loop, a new walking
