Lake District 24-Hour Fell Record
This page is a summary page about England's Everest, a book on the comprehensive history of the Lake District 24-Hour Fell Record. ​It is now available for sale, including at Bookends (Keswick and Carlisle) and Fred's Bookshop (Ambleside)
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Richard Askwith reviewed the book for The Critic here. In Askwith's words, "England’s Everest is a short, gripping history of a vanishingly narrow sporting niche... a strangely compelling book."
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England's Everest
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The Lake District 24-Hour Fell Record is a test of peak bagging in the space of a day. The record-holder is the man or woman who can scale more peaks than any other.
This book charts the development of the record over the past 200 years. It began when intrepid walkers first sought to link Cumbrian fells over the course of one long outing. It is now one of the highest pinnacles in Lake District endurance fell running – involving 78 summits and over 30,000 feet of ascent in under 24 hours.
The Fell Record has a distinct and deep history, involving Victorian controversies, the Great War, the quest for Everest, and the emergence of fell running as a sport. Along the way, it has drawn in Victorian Alpinists, war heroes, Bob Graham himself, and some of the finest Cumbrian fell runners.
For the first time, England’s Everest tells its fascinating story – a definitive tribute to one of Lakeland’s greatest but least told endurance stories. The book is fully illustrated with over 50 rare and full-colour images, and draws on newspapers, archives, journals, club records and oral history. It is both a tribute and a reference.
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About the book​
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The book was published in summer 2025 with all profits going to Keswick Mountain Rescue Team. It is now available for sale (at £15), including at Bookends (Keswick and Carlisle), Fred's Bookshop (Ambleside), Sam Read (Grasmere), and Booths (Keswick).
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A preview of the book is available here.
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If you would like to purchase a copy but cannot find one at a bookshop, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
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Main details:
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England’s Everest: The 200-year Story of the Lake District 24-Hour Fell Record
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ISBN: 978-1-83654-822-5
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204pp, hardback, full colour
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Cover price: £15
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What is the Fell Record?
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The Lake District 24-Hour Fell Record challenges contenders to summit as many Lakeland peaks as possible in 24 hours. It is the first and most long-standing of the Lake District endurance records – older and more demanding than the Bob Graham Round.
It began in the early 1800s when the first record was ‘just’ 3 peaks in a day. It was successively improved by early adventurers over the Victorian period before being formally codified in 1906. The last walkers took it to nearly 30 peaks, but then Bob Graham – the first fell runner to claim the record – famously took it to 42 peaks. Over the last fifty years, the record developed in parallel to Bob Graham’s Round, pushed ever farther by names such as Joss Naylor and modern-day fell runners. In the 1970s, the first woman set a record, which has since developed alongside the men’s record and is no less contested. The men’s and women’s records now stand at 78 and 68 peaks, respectively.
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