Lengthsmen are highly skilled volunteers who walk the upland paths helping to keep them clear and safe for everyone to enjoy. Come rain or shine they help repair footpaths, gates and stiles.
© National Trust / David Ward
Three teams look after the central Lake District areas of Coniston, Langdale and Borrowdale walking miles every year. New Lengsthmen are trained by National Trust Wardens in mountain safety and navigation. They are also trained to undertake repair work on the upland footpaths. All the different aspects of training must be undertaken by the volunteers and a level of competency proven to the trainers before the volunteers can start volunteering.
The Lengthsmen Volunteering Scheme in the Lake District
The Lake District is now an all-year-round destination, with over 12 million visitors coming to enjoy its stunning landscapes across the seasons. Over a million of those visitors use footpaths to climb the region’s popular landmarks each year.
Key conservation partners in the region commit huge amounts of time and money on regular path maintenance – the National Trust alone spends half a million pounds per year to combat the effects of erosion caused by a combination of footfall and the region’s infamous weather. It’s an on-going, never-ending process and there are always the extra challenges caused by particularly heavy rainfall or freak storms. The most popular paths receive 50-60,000 visitors a year; ScaFell can get that in a month in the high season…
Mountains may look solid, but high level paths are fragile. The grass gets compacted by feet and worn away by wind, rain and ice. Water gets channelled by the compaction of the ground by the many thousand pairs of feet that pass over it and once it builds up sufficient force, it scours out the soil, leaving gulleys deep enough to hide a man!
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Fix the Fells
‘Fix the Fells’ is a joint initiative by the National Trust, the Lake District National Park Authority, Natural England, the Tourism and Conservation Partnership and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The purpose of the project is to address the increasing threat from erosion – both natural and human – to the upland footpaths of the Lake District and its aim is to repair £5 million worth of erosion damage in the Lake District Fells over ten years.
Equally important, it is encouraging everyone to take a more informed and responsible approach to their enjoyment of the fells and involve visitors in the process.
Getting involved
How the Lengthsmen scheme works:
- Being a Lengthsman means a minimum of 12 days a year’s commitment.
- You can come when you want to, as there are huts set up on the various properties, providing safety gear and other equipment. You need to register and indicate which path you’re going to work on.
- Lengthsmen work in pairs, monitoring current levels of erosion, checking paths that have been repaired, and most importantly, talking to the public, explaining why they’re doing the work – live interpretation on the fells…
- Once a month, they work with the Trust’s own Footpath Teams.
About one third of them are women, but they still like to be called by the traditional name, ‘Lengthsmen’. Volunteers come from all over the UK, including London and Birmingham.
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And the motivation?
Meeting other young people (35-45), doing a useful job, gaining new skills, keeping fit, working outside, putting something back into the environment. After an initial training package covering navigation, first aid and mountain skills, each year, Lengthsmen receive refresher training to ensure their skills are kept up to date.
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