One of Britain's most historic rambling clubs is to be resurrected in a moorland pub this week, 50 years after creating the country's first official long-distance path.

Enthusiasts for the Lyke Wake walk, an ancient coffin-bearing trek across the wild North York Moors, will elect their first Cheerless Chaplain, Melancholy Macebearer and similar officials after a long virtually moribund period.

The group will also revive the club's traditional practice of issuing coffin-shaped badges and the title of "dirger" to anyone who manages the 42-mile hike across the moors from Osmotherly to Ravenscar Point within 24 hours. The walk takes its name from the local medieval wyke, or watch, kept on a lyke, or corpse, before it was carried for burial at Whitby or Robin Hood's Bay.