Sheffield Peak District pioneer Ethel Haythornthwaite to be honoured with blue plaque after campaign success

A woman who fought to make Sheffield the green city we love will be honoured – after a campaign by organisations including The Star.

By David Kessen

Published 22nd Apr 2022, 09:19 BST

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Campaign To Protect Rural England Peak District and South Yorkshire (CPRE PDSY) has confirmed it has now ordered a blue plaque to honour Ethel Haythornthwaite, the woman who helped start the first National Park (the Peak District), creating and protecting the green belt around Sheffield, and campaigned to save the Longshaw Estate.

Campaign to honour Ethel Haythornthwaite - the woman who fought to make Sheffiel...

She also set up the CPRE PDSY.

Campaign To Protect Rural England Peak District and South Yorkshire has ordered a blue plaque to honour Ethel Haythornthwaite, pictured, the woman who helped start the first National Park (the Peak District), creating and protecting the green belt around Sheffield, and campaigned to save the Longshaw Estate.

Campaign To Protect Rural England Peak District and South Yorkshire has ordered a blue plaque to honour Ethel Haythornthwaite, pictured, the woman who helped start the first National Park (the Peak District), creating and protecting the green belt around Sheffield, and campaigned to save the Longshaw Estate.

A plaque to honour her will be placed on a piece of Peak District stone near the site where she was born and brought up, now occupied by The Endcliffe Village student halls on Endcliffe Vale Road, overlooking a publicly accessible green space within the grounds.

It will carry the words: “Ethel Haythornethwaite: 1894 – 1986. Countryside champion and Peak District Pioneer was born at Endcliffe Vale House on this site, where CPRE was founded.”

CPRE created a crowdfunding appeal, https://gofund.me/9554fe8c, to finance the plaque.

CPRE PDSY chief executive Tomo Thompson said: “We’ve been campaigning for a very long time to try and get some sort of commemoration to the work of Ethel Haythornthwaite.”

Campaign To Protect Rural England Peak District and South Yorkshire has ordered a blue plaque to honour Ethel Haythornthwaite, the woman who helped start the first National Park (the Peak District), creating and protecting the green belt around Sheffield, and campaigned to save the Longshaw Estate. The CPRE's David Holmes and Tomo Thompson are pictured at the site where the plaque will be placed

Campaign To Protect Rural England Peak District and South Yorkshire has ordered a blue plaque to honour Ethel Haythornthwaite, the woman who helped start the first National Park (the Peak District), creating and protecting the green belt around Sheffield, and campaigned to save the Longshaw Estate. The CPRE's David Holmes and Tomo Thompson are pictured at the site where the plaque will be placed

Endcliffe Village student halls

He said the house where she was born, later demolished, was on the site. And just across the green on Endcliffe Crescent was the house where she and her husband, Gerald, later lived.

Mr Thompson said: "The area is really deeply rooted into the history of the charity, but also it's really important… to pick a spot that’s a thoroughfare for students. The general public can access this site, and be able to come and see the stone, but we were really keen that it’s next to a thoroughfare where students might stop and look at the plaque and ask who was Ethel Haythornthwaite and what did she do?”

He hopes it will inspire people.

Campaign To Protect Rural England Peak District and South Yorkshire has ordered a blue plaque to honour Ethel Haythornthwaite, the woman who helped start the first National Park (the Peak District), creating and protecting the green belt around Sheffield, and campaigned to save the Longshaw Estate. The CPRE's Tomo Thompson and David Holmes are pictured at the site where the plaque will be placed

Campaign To Protect Rural England Peak District and South Yorkshire has ordered a blue plaque to honour Ethel Haythornthwaite, the woman who helped start the first National Park (the Peak District), creating and protecting the green belt around Sheffield, and campaigned to save the Longshaw Estate. The CPRE's Tomo Thompson and David Holmes are pictured at the site where the plaque will be placed

The plaque is expected to be unveiled in the next couple of months.

The plaque comes in the same year as the 90th anniversary of the famous Kinder Trespass.

CPRE PDSY trustee David Holmes said it was a happy coincidence, and although the trespass captured the public imagination, it should not detract from the work done laying the foundations for national parks over many years earlier by people including Ethel.

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Sheffield South Yorkshire Peak District