GEORGE Macaulay Trevelyan won fame as arguably England’s greatest and best-selling historian during the 20th Century.

But time moves on, and historians themselves become history.

Yet what GM Trevelyan (GMT) championed are issues which are very much to the forefront today.

He was intent on breaking down the barriers between urban and rural areas and aimed to protect the countryside from free-for-all development.

As chairman of the estates committee of the National Trust and the first president of the Youth Hostels Association, he was also keen on improving access to the country for town dwellers.

A prodigious walker, he coined the phrase "the land of the far horizons" to describe the uplands of Northumberland where his father owned the Wallington mansion, now in the care of the National Trust.

One of his legacies is that the phrase has now been adopted by Northumberland National Park.

In what is the first week of a new exhibition at Wallington on GMT, his grandson George says: "The things he supported are still very relevant today."

As walking becomes an increasingly popular pursuit, George recalls how his grandfather set walking records such as Cambridge to London and Oxford to Cambridge.

"I have two doctors, my left foot and my right foot," GMT would say.

"His idea of a day’s walk was 25 miles," says George, who has opened the family albums to provide the exhibition with pictures never seen in public before.

GMT considered that poetry, history and solitary walks were among the most important things in life.

"He was one of the moving spirits of the YHA and his idea was that there should be hostels every 15 miles," says George.