Mark Richards and Gill Haigh on the Fellranger series and sustainable walking

In this Cicerone Live event, join Mark Richards, author of Cicerone's Fellranger series, and Gill Haigh, Managing Director of Cumbria Tourism, to celebrate the completion of the fully revised Fellranger guidebooks and to discuss sustainable walking and tourism in the Lake District.

About our guests

Mark Richards

Mark Richards' transition from full-time farmer to full-time outdoor writer has been a gradual one. In 1973, with the direct encouragement of Alfred Wainwright, he wrote his first walking guide to the Cotswold Way. Since then he has indulged his pleasure in exploring rural Britain by creating a range of walking guides. The Lake District always figured large in Mark's aspirations, and after 14 years of dedicated research, living and working in Cumbria, the original Fellranger series was born.

Mark published his first series of Fellranger guidebooks to the Lake District in 2013, sharing the best walking landscapes held within and around Cumbria. Between 2019 and 2021, Mark and Cicerone have worked to update and publish new editions of the Fellranger series, allowing walkers to rediscover the Lakeland Fells.

Always busy writing and promoting the landscape of Cumbria on many fronts, Mark has written guides for Cicerone on Hadrian's Wall Path and Great Mountain Days in the Lake District, and now presents a regular podcast with a uniquely Cumbrian flavour, Countrystride.

Gill Haigh

Gill Haigh is Managing Director at Cumbria Tourism, the county’s official Tourism Destination Management Organisation. Cumbria’s tourism sector is worth more than £3 billion to the local economy - supporting more than 65,000 jobs - and Cumbria Tourism is the county’s largest membership organisation representing circa 2,500 tourism businesses.

Gill Haigh joined Cumbria Tourism in 2017 following her previous role as Director of Marketing and Recruitment at the University of Cumbria. During a 25 year career in marketing and communications, she has gained substantial leadership experience across both the private and public sectors, specifically travel and tourism.

The job is a dream come true. For Gill, childhood family holidays caravanning throughout the county, climbing the hills and sailing the lakes with her parents and brothers, sowed the seed for a lifelong love affair with the county she is now proud to share with others.