Westmorland Way

The Westmorland Way

What is the Westmorland Way?

I am not entirely sure.

It does not seem to be a long distance path recognised by the authorities in the way the Dales Way, the Cumbrian Way and the Cumbrian Coastal Path are.

It does have its own website but the route description is vague and does not correspond with the virtual map, which implies it is a road slog other than where it takes an impossible straight line from Patterdale to Grasmere.

There are other websites that mention the Wway but none that I found gave detailed route guidance- they seemed to be selling walking tours and no doubt they instruct those who sign up where they should go. But others have to remain ignorant.

Not that this mattered to us. We had heard good things about the route and if we had to make up the detail as we went along, that was no great problem especially as we would be doing it in bite sized chunks with quite a lot of off-route additions.

So time will tell how much further than the stated 95 miles will be our tour through the old county of Westmorland, starting at its ancient capital, wandering across the Eden valley, limestone pavements, Lakeland fells before heading down to Westmorland's only bit of coastline at Arnside.