Andy Devaney
The National Forest Walking Festival returns this spring with the sort of timing that makes even the most committed sofa loyalist think twice. Running from Friday 15 to Friday 29 May 2026, the 17th edition offers two weeks of guided walks, fresh air, creative discovery and the quiet sort of joy that only arrives when blossom is out, bluebells are showing off and the countryside is finally awake again.
This is no ordinary patch of green, either. The National Forest stretches across 200 square miles of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and over the last three decades it has been transformed from post-industrial ground into one of Britain’s most ambitious environmental regeneration projects. Ten million trees later, what was once scarred and tired now breathes, rustles and sings.
That transformation sits at the heart of the festival. More than 85 guided walks are on the 2026 programme, inviting people to explore woodlands, villages, heritage routes and open spaces through a theme of arts and creativity. It is walking, yes, but not in the grim, boot-polishing sense of the word. This is walking with texture, story and a bit of imagination.
A spring festival with a sharper edge
May is National Walking Month, and there are worse times to be outside than when ancient woodland floors are carpeted with bluebells and the air smells as though nature has finally remembered what it is good at.
The National Forest Walking Festival makes full use of that seasonal theatre. This year’s creative theme encourages walkers to look again at the landscape rather than simply stride through it. Sound, storytelling, local history and community all weave through the programme, giving the event more shape than a standard list of routes and start times.
There is something rather refreshing about that. Too many outdoor events treat nature as a backdrop. Here, it is the main character.
A forest still rewriting its own story
The National Forest remains one of the country’s boldest examples of landscape reinvention. It is not just a woodland destination, but a long-running act of recovery. Old industrial land has been replanted, reimagined and returned to people in a form they can walk through, learn from and enjoy.
That gives the festival a little more depth than your average weekend ramble. Each route sits inside a bigger narrative about place, memory and change. In some corners you will find church spires, village greens and lowland views stretching across the Mease Valley. In others, you pass through sites that still carry the fingerprints of industry, now softened by trees, wildlife and time.
It is a reminder that landscape is never really finished. It evolves, often in silence.
Creativity takes the lead in 2026
This year, the Youth Landscapers Collective joins the festival as artists in residence to mark its tenth anniversary. Their role is to gather the sights and sounds of the forest on selected walks, turning what people experience on the ground into material for an exhibition later in the year.
It is an inspired addition. Walking already sharpens the senses if you let it. Add artists into the mix and suddenly a route becomes more than mileage. It becomes sound, detail, conversation and memory.
Zoe Sewter, volunteer and wellbeing officer at the National Forest, said: “Walking has always been a wonderful way to connect with the landscape, but this year’s festival adds a creative twist.
“By blending art, sound, storytelling and exploration, we are encouraging people to experience the Forest with fresh curiosity and to see how creativity can deepen our relationship with nature.
“We hope everyone will find something that inspires them, whether that is a new route, a new idea or simply a new way of seeing the Forest.”
Those words land because they do not oversell it. The point is not spectacle. It is attention. The festival asks people to notice more, and that feels increasingly rare.
Three walks that capture the spirit of the festival
Among the highlights in The National Forest Walking Festival are walks that show off the range of the programme rather nicely.
Best Kept Villages
Starting on Friday, 15 May at 10 am from Coton Wood, this strenuous eight-mile route links ancient woodland with newer National Forest planting. Along the way come pretty villages, historic houses, church spires and broad views across the Mease Valley. It sounds like the kind of walk that earns you your lunch.
Terrain includes unsurfaced paths, tracks, farmland and short tarmacked sections, with 12 or more stiles, so nobody can accuse it of being lazy.
Walk organiser: Get Active in the Forest Contact: get.active@southderbyshire.gov.uk
Black to Green
Beginning on Friday 29 May at 10am from Moira Furnace playground car park, this nine-mile moderate walk traces one of the festival’s most compelling themes: transformation. The route runs from Moira Furnace through Conkers, Hicks Lodge and into Willesley Woods, pausing at interpretation panels that tell the story of the area’s industrial past and its shift into today’s thriving green landscape.
That title alone tells you plenty. It is a walk about change, and a fitting one for a forest built on exactly that idea.
Walk organiser: Get Active in the Forest Contact: get.active@southderbyshire.gov.uk / 01283 595906
The Magic of Plants
On Saturday 23 May, Coalville Urban Nature Park hosts a gentler, family-friendly two-mile walk led by expert forager Joanna Richart of Charnwood Foraging. This one leans into folklore, medicinal plants and traditional remedies, which gives it a different flavour entirely.
It is easy, interpretive and full of stops, making it ideal for families, curious minds and anyone whose idea of a perfect morning involves learning something new without having to scale a hill to do it.
Walk leader: Joanna Richart, Charnwood Foraging Booking essential: £5 per adult (children free, no ticket required)
More than a walking festival
What lifts The National Forest Walking Festival above a standard events calendar is the way it brings together community, wellbeing, creativity and local identity without making a song and dance about it.
The festival is coordinated and funded by South Derbyshire District Council and the National Forest, with support from East Staffordshire Borough Council and North West Leicestershire District Council. That backing matters, but so does the work of volunteers, whose efforts continue to give the event its warmth and reach.
And that is really the point. This is not just about routes. It is about what walking can do when it is stitched into place properly. It can connect people to landscape, to one another and to stories they might otherwise pass by without a glance.
Why this festival stands out
Plenty of outdoor events promise escape. The National Forest Walking Festival offers something slightly better: perspective.
It gives people a chance to see how a landscape can recover, how communities can shape that recovery, and how simple acts like walking, listening and looking more closely can turn a day out into something more memorable than expected.
There is also an honesty to the setting. The National Forest is not some polished fantasy built to flatter postcards. It is a real place, made richer by history, effort and reinvention. That gives it character, and character is always more interesting than perfection.
A festival that leaves a mark
In an age when too much leisure is packaged, hurried and loudly sold, The National Forest Walking Festival feels pleasantly unbothered by all that. It offers woods, stories, spring light, birdsong, history and a chance to walk through a landscape that has fought its way back to life.
That is a fine thing in itself.
And for anyone looking to spend May a little better, there are certainly worse ideas than putting on a decent pair of shoes and heading into a forest that still has something to say.
Event dates: Friday 15 to Friday 29 May 2026
Location: The National Forest, across Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire
More information on the Walking Festival, including a downloadable guide https://www.nationalforest.org/explore/events/national-forest-walking-festival