Maps and Guidebooks
Overall route
The Land's End to John O'Groats Walk by Andrew
McCloy (Cordee, 2002): the only end-to-end guidebook out there when I
walked.
The End to End Trail by Andy
Robinson (Cicerone, 2007): lots of helpful guidance, with detailed maps
to show routes between long distance paths. There are a few updates and
corrections here.
Land's End to John O'Groats by
Mike Salter (Folly Publications, 2006): lighter (76 pages) and more
reasonably priced than the other guides, with some interesting
variations on the usual routes.
Land's End to John O' Groats: A Choice of
Footpaths for Walking the Length of Britain, by Andrew
McCloy (Coronet Books, 1995) - sadly now out of print, but gives more
detail on alternative routes than McCloy's later book.
Walking e2e,
by Linda Brackenbury (privately published, 2015): detailed description
of an off-road route avoiding national trails, with sketch maps - so a
shorter route than most, 1,035 miles in 71 days.
The
UK Trailwalker's Handbook (Cicerone,
2009, a revision of the Long Distance Walkers' Handbook): brief
descriptions of named paths, with
details of further information available. Updated information is
available on the LDWA website.
Long
Distance Path Chart (Harvey Maps)
(2002): now a little out of date, but useful for overall
planning.
For a comparison between the routes taken by the
four guidebooks currently in print, see my page on planning your route.
If you are interested in walking end to end by
road, in the quickest possible time, this book will help you: John O' Groats to Lands End, by
Brian Smailes (Challenge Publications, 2004)
Detailed
Guidebooks
The South West Coast Path Guide
(South West Coast Path Association, annually): up to date and includes
details of accommodation.
SWCP
Reverse Guide (South West
Coast Path Association, 2015): the only guide written from Land's End
to Minehead.
Cornwall
Coast Path - Bude to Plymouth by Edith
Schofield and others (Trailblazer, 2012): I found the detailed sketch
maps very
useful, even though I was walking in the "wrong" direction. (I used an
earlier edition, which only covered Padstow to Falmouth.)
There is now also a Trailblazer guide to the North Devon
section from Minehead to Bude: Exmoor
& North Devon Coast Path, South West Coast Path Part 1
by Henry
Stedman (2012).
Macmillan Way West
(Macmillan Way Association, 2001) and
supplements: field by field guide, but written for those walking from
east to west. Obtainable from http://www.macmillanway.org.
Heart
of England Way (Sigma
Leisure, 2011). I used an older guide, Heart of England Way (Recreational
Path
Guides) by Richard
Sale (Aurum Press, 1998), which includes OS strip maps, now hard to
track down.
The
Pennine Way by Paddy
Dillon (Cicerone, 2010), earlier edition by Martin Collins: includes OS
strip maps. I heard some moans about the previous 2 volume National
Trail Guide, its main and
less compact competitor, now replaced by the single volume Pennine
Way (Aurum Press,
2012). The Trailblazer guide (Pennine
Way by Keith
Carter, new edition 2014) came out too late for me to use, but seems
better than
both.
Pennine
Way Companion by A
Wainwright (Frances Lincoln, 2012): updated by Chris Jesty.
Scottish
Hill Tracks (Scottish
Rights of Way Society, 2012): indispensable for long distance walking
in Scotland.
Maps
On grounds of cost and weight, I mostly used
Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 maps, except where I already owned the
relevant 1:25,000 map. For the Heart of England Way, I relied on the
maps in the guidebook, because of the number of sheets needed for the
full maps, but that was a nuisance when I had to leave the route to
find accommodation.
For the Pennine Way, it would not be wise to rely
solely on the maps in the guidebooks, particularly on the higher peaks
where the route is not obvious (e.g. Bleaklow, Cross Fell).
I used these maps:
OS 1:50,000 (Landranger): 203, 200,
190, 193, 183, 173, 164, 128, 80, 74, 73, 65, 58, 52, 43, 36, 35, 26,
21, 17, 12
OS 1:25,000 (Explorer): OL9, 140,
OL45, OL24, OL1, OL21, OL10, OL2, OL30, OL31
I did my walk before the days of OS maps on GPS units or
smartphones. The Ordnance Survey website
describes options for OS maps on smartphones. A dedicated GPS
unit may be more reliable than a smartphone (better battery life and
better GPS signal), and this site discusses the options for OS maps on
GPS units.
Websites
Long
Distance Paths
Accommodation
Other
walkers' websites
Published accounts of End to End
Walks
From John O' Groats to Land's End by John and
Robert Naylor. An account of a walk in 1871, published in 1916
(republished in 2007) and also available online here.
Journey Through Britain by John
Hillaby. A classic from 1966.
Hamish's Groats End Walk by Hamish
Brown. Another classic, from 1979.
A Grandparents' Guide
from Land's End to John O'Groats by Eileen and
Herbert Witherington (1993)
Britain's Winding Road by Roy
Eardley (1994). A road walk.
One Woman's Walk:
from Land's End to John O'Groats by Shirley Rippin (1998)
Follow the Spring North by Christine
Roche. A diary of a backpacking LEJOG walk in 2003 and 2004.
When I Walk, I Bounce: Walking from Land's
End to John O'Groats by Mark Moxon (2007)
End to End by Steve Blease (2008).
You can read a review here.
LE-JOG-ed:
A Mid-lifer's Trek from Land's End to John O'Groats by Robin
Richards (2013). A sectional walk over 3 years.
Before
I grow too old: A journey from John O'Groats to Lands End by Pat Jilks
(2014). An account of a walk in the 1990s.
Walking
With Plato: A Philosophical Hike Through the British Isles by Gary
Hayden (2016), A JOGLE walk with added philosophical musings.
Cape to Cape by John Sutcliffe (2018). A backpacking walk from Cape Cornwall to Cape Wrath.
There is a fuller bibliography
here.
A film
First and Last: a 1989 TV film of
a fictional LEJOG walk, written by Michael Frayn and starring Joss
Ackland. Sadly not available commercially.
|