The Mass Trespass by Sue Cartwright

The enclosure of common land on the Kinder Scout Plateau

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On the Kinder Scout plateau;

High up on Saddleworth Moor;

Where contoured cloud-like edges;

Mark where spring water drenches;

The fertile land below.

Moorland lanes, roads, rights;

Blank lacunae, public paths;

Old access claimed, enclosed, lost;

A diminishing domain;

For a diminishing rural folk.

And so it was at Kinder Scout;

Benny Rothman's band of acolytes;

Skirmished with gamekeepers, armed;

To fight for their rights;

To stand for their moors, in plight.

All attempts were made by men;

To block the act forced upon them;

They tried by parliamentary means;

To stop the sale of their common land;

A harmful attack on the comman man, unlawful.

The Mass Tresspass of 1932, passed;

It failed to un-enclose this precious tract;

Without an order, no one could wander;

Near treason during the nesting season;

A shameful act, no rhyme nor reason.

To those who walk the ancient paths;

'Get out!' - a cotton magnate shouts;

In annoyance for the trespassing louts;

Who walk on 'his' ground;

And disturb 'his' grouse.

In the end, these stalwart men;

Failed to reach the plateau, then;

There was no trespass, only the bravest stance;

With some veering from the permitted path;

Leaders rounded up, made an example of;

And taken away to prison.

The Mass Trespass

On 24 April 1932, hundreds of men and women defied the law to walk over hills and moorland to the plateau of Kinder Scout, Derbyshire, in what would become the Peak District National Park.

The protest was led by 20 year old Benny Rothman, Lancashire secretary of the British Workers’ Sports Federation (BWSF), which organised walks and cycling trips for young workers from Manchester and surrounding mill towns.

It followed a confrontation with gamekeepers, three weeks earlier, during a BWSF Easter camp when ramblers attempting to reach another peak, Bleaklow, were turned back.

The plan for the Mass Trespass was for ramblers from Manchester to meet up with groups from other places - including Sheffield - at the Kinder plateau.

At William Clough, trespassers were confronted by gamekeepers and scuffles broke out. A gamekeeper was injured. The trespassers broke through, running through prohibited land to Kinder plateau and meeting up with ramblers from Sheffield from the other side.

Trespassers agreed to walk back to Hayfield with heads held high but police were still there, waiting to make arrests.

The arrest of six young men – and subsequent imprisonment of five – unleashed a wave of sympathy for the ramblers and fuelled the right to roam movement in the British Isles.

Extract from a publication by Peak District National Park