STEPHEN Lewis earns our belated admiration for his unpublicised long-distance walk (Feature, The Press, July 30), which for most of us would be a step too far.

Contrariwise, Barbara Moore achieved instant fame in the 20th century with her John o’ Groats to Land’s End saunter of 1960; but the Victorians were at it long before then. Though the eccentric English led the way, inevitably it was an American, Edward P Weston, who outpaced all comers with astonishing feats of speed and endurance. Nevertheless, the supreme accolade must go to the wife of sculptor John Adams-Acton, who in July 1886 chose to walk from London to Glasgow on her way to holiday on the Isle of Arran. With a sprained ankle, a protesting husband, six young children, two maids and a pram, she set off in what turned out be one of the coldest and wettest summers of the century.

History does not record whether Marion Adams-Acton organised replacement footwear, but perhaps Victorian shoes, like Victorian women, were made of sterner stuff.

William Dixon Smith, Welland Rise, Acomb, York.