The Yorkshire cartographer producing guidebooks covering all of the new England Coast Path

Chris’ first in a series of four books exploring the England Coast Path was published last month, a detailed route description covering 706 miles of the south coast. Hand drawn maps, photographs and accessible alternatives for places where the route is not yet officially open are set alongside information on public transport, accommodation and local history.

The remaining three volumes will follow the same format and Chris is aiming to have them all completed by the end of next year. He’s already working on the South West Coast, which will be followed by the North Coasts and the East Coast and among his other publications is a guide to the Wales Coast Path, which means his maps will be able to be linked to follow the entire coast south of the Scottish border.

He hopes the books encourage people to get outdoors and explore what it has to offer. “Hopefully it will make people more interested in the whole coastline..Whether they use it for short sections or walking the whole thing, hopefully there’s something in it for everybody...There’s a lot of places I wouldn’t otherwise have gone that were really rewarding and interesting. Even in built up urban areas there’s fascinating places.”

Though work is well underway on the creation of the England Coast Path, the Government says progress slowed as a result of the impact of Covid-19 as well as a European court judgement in April 2018 that affected how Natural England could assess the impact of proposals on environmentally protected sites. But it announced in February last year that the path would be fully walkable by the end of this Parliament.

Chris, who lives in Hebden Bridge, says it has been tricky to get a route in place in parts of East Yorkshire. “It’s because of the fragile nature of the cliffs there and constant erosion. [The England Coast Path] will be a great asset though as a lot of footpaths there have fallen into the sea and have not been replaced so there is no path on large sections of the East Yorkshire coast. When this is in place, there will be a path and it will move as the coastline moves. It will be a great resource for that part of the world when this is open, providing links between large parts of the coast that are readily accessible and the gaps, which will be filled in.”

Chris has been drawing maps for as long as he can recall. Growing up in Sheffield, with moorland, woodland and the Peak District right on his doorstep, much of his childhood was spent walking and exploring. His local routes were mapped and remapped many times, more detail added as he honed his youthful craft.

He says: “My mother said I was born a good century too late and should have been out exploring and mapping the world in the age of empire. Yet the exploring I like to do need not be particularly exotic, rather it just has to be somewhere new – and you can discover new things around the corner from your house every day. Exploring is also not linear, but nearly always leads me round in circles as I am desperate not to miss anything. Indeed this is the only way to make a good map.”

After studying geography at university, Chris became a Rights of Way and National Trails surveyor. Around that work, he has squeezed in every opportunity for exploring the minutiae of the world outside his door and has produced several map-based guidebooks about the Yorkshire landscape.

This latest project took him a long way from home to new and unfamiliar landscapes, travelling in his campervan and rambling across the coastline. “We are obviously an island nation and England has a lot of coastline - and I think it’s got to be one of the most spectacular, accessible and varied in the world,” he says. “There’s lots of special places, it’s well worth exploring.”

The book, published by Gritstone Publishing Coop, is available from christophergoddard.net