S is for stepping stones

Can anyone resist?

CAN THERE BE a more alluring sight on a summer walk than a line of foot-worn stones beckoning you across water? Maybe it brings out the child in all of us as we get ready to hip and hop our way across – in fact, stepping stones are known as hippings in the north of England.

A trail of boulders is one of the oldest solutions for crossing rivers and some stones have been carrying travellers since the 12th century, smoothed into hollows by countless feet on all sorts of journeys. The most famous set – and we’d wager the busiest – is the one in Dove Dale in the Peak District, on a bend in the river below Thorpe Cloud. Other gems include the crossing of the River Mole below Box Hill in Surrey; over the Derwent at Rosthwaite in the depths of Cumbria’s Borrowdale; across the Wharfe to the ruins of Bolton Abbey in the Yorkshire Dales; and along the Wye in Derbyshire’s Chee Dale, where cliff-like river banks force the path to hop into the water.

The Drukken – or Drunken – Steps across the Red Burn in Ayrshire were a favourite of Scottish bard Robert Burns, named for the unsteady gait of the person crossing. And stepping-stones do come with a frisson of jeopardy: the rocky surface can be slick after rain, or submerged entirely after heavy downpours, and they can have a wobble you don’t know about until you land on them. So spare a thought for our ancestors on the Lych Way on Dartmoor. They had to manoeuvre coffins across stepping stones as they carried their dead across moor and river to burial in consecrated ground at Lydford Church.

WALK HERE: Download Dove Dale, Box Hill, Cat Bells & Borrowdale, Bolton Abbey, Chee Dale and Coffin Wood (Dartmoor) at www.lfto.com/bonusroutes