To ramblers and countryside lovers across the nation Kinder Scout is a landmark. It was here on this windswept Derbyshire moorland plateau in the Peak District that hundreds of working-class walkers gathered one Sunday morning in April 1932 to commit the celebrated Mass Trespass - a wilfully illegal act that would, ultimately, open up the countryside to the public. So it is, perhaps, inevitable that hundreds of thousands of modern-day ramblers still descend annually on the bleak but beautiful scene of this significant event in the battle for the 'right to roam'.
It is perhaps ironic then that the birthplace of the rambling revolution is falling victim to the ramblers themselves. Millions of footfalls have contributed to such horrific erosion that conservationists are now fighting a desperate battle to save this iconic spot. And unless they do, it could be lost for ever.
Now the National Trust, which owns the land, is launching a nationwide appeal to raise £1m to stop Kinder Scout simply crumbling away. Natural England, the government's environment advisory body, has pledged £500,000. The trust must find the rest.
'It really is very urgent. Time is ticking away,' said Mike Innerdale, the trust's project manager in the Peak District. 'If we don't act now the whole place will be bare rock in 50 years. Kinder Scout holds a very special place in people's hearts. The Mass Trespass is historic. And it really cannot be lost to the nation.'
It is not only the ramblers who are to blame. Like much of the rest of upland Britain, Kinder Scout - the highest point in the Peak District National Park - has been damaged by overgrazing of sheep which has left vegetation patchy, and man-made irrigation channels which have caused water erosion.
Today it is believed to be the worst degraded area of blanket bog in Britain. Part of this is due to its location, sandwiched between the heavy industrialised cities of Sheffield and Manchester, and the legacy of the Industrial Revolution where acid rain has ensured the remaining peat is so acidic it should legally be classed as contaminated soil.
Climate change places it at more risk. Hotter summers dry out the peat, strong winds blow it off, heavier rains wash it away. 'The peat is dead,' said Innerdale. 'It's a moonscape - bare peat interspersed with pockets of vegetation'.
It was Kinder Scout's location, a tract of green inaccessible land between the two urban conurbations, that led to the Mass Trespass in the first place. Back in the Britain of the Twenties and Thirties, rambling was very much a working-class pursuit.
In 1932 it is estimated around 15,000 walkers would head out from Manchester every Sunday. But as ordinary people they were only allowed access to just one per cent of the land that now makes up the Peak District.
Kinder Scout was owned by the Duke of Devonshire. He used it to hold grouse. But it was only worked for 12 days a year, remaining deserted for the rest.
When the Lancashire branch of the socialist British Workers Sports Federation entertained their colleagues from the London branch at an Easter camp, they tried to get access, but failed. Infuriated, they decided to challenge the law.
The Mass Trespass was widely advertised. Under the leadership of Benny Rothman, a politically active socialist, up to 500 ramblers turned out on the day to ascend Kinder Scout from the Manchester side.
Front-page newspaper reports recorded hand-to-hand battles with police and gamekeepers as they fought their way up. At the top, they were joined by other ramblers who had ascended from the Sheffield side. With one third of the Derbyshire police force on duty, there were several arrests.
But what outraged walkers across Britain was the prison sentences meted out. Five unfortunates were jailed for between two and six months. Anger galvanised ramblers into further protests that would eventually change the law and lead to the creation of the Peak District National Park in 1951, the first in England.
'Kinder Scout is a huge totem in the minds of walkers because young men were jailed for simply taking a walk on a Sunday,' said Sir Martin Doughty, chairman of Natural England, whose own father was at the Mass Trespass aged just 14. 'It really is in a bad way. The situation is critical. I really do hope people will respond to the appeal.'
To halt the erosion, the area will need to be resprayed with lime and fertiliser to reduce the acidity and give heather a chance to grow. The artificial water channels built by sheep farmers will be blocked up to prevent water washing away further peat.
Cotton grass will be plug-planted to root the peat and keep it in place. And heather and grass seed will be sprayed over the area from a helicopter.
It is estimated that more than 10 billion tonnes of carbon is stored in UK soils, around half of it in peat, which is the equivalent to a year and a half of global greenhouse gas emissions.
When the peat dries out, that CO2 is either released into the air or washed into streams, leading to the brown coloration of upland water which costs millions each year to rectify in water treatment plants.
Conservationists believe improving the management of our upland peat bogs alone could reduce our carbon emissions by up to 400,000 tonnes a year.
Meanwhile, the walkers will still be welcome - provided they stick to the special stone pathways that are to be built. And the legend of the Mass Trespass will live on.
On its 70th anniversary the 11th Duke of Devonshire issued a formal apology for the actions of his grandfather, calling it 'a great wrong' and a 'shaming event in my family'.
The 76th anniversary will be marked by a 'mass' planting event on the early May bank holiday weekend organised by the National Trust. Walkers and volunteers can go to help plant cotton grass while they are on a walk.