Do you want to get your business or brand in front of thousands of walkers?
The South Lincolnshire Walking Festival’s full-colour brochure will be launched at the Lincolnshire Show in June and will be distributed through Tourist Information Centres, libraries, council offices, local attractions etc. It will also be sent to our existing Lincolnshire Wolds Walking Festival mailing list and be featured heavily online.
Many, many thanks to all of those kind, generous and possibly ever-so-slightly crazy people who’ve volunteered to be walk leaders and back markers in our brand new walking festival! We have over 70 walks on offer!
We’re now busy registering all of the walks and checking route maps so keep an eye out for more walks appearing here on the website over the next few days. And don’t forget to sign up to receive our walking festival brochure on the home page!
If you need to get out walking in the meantime, our sister festival the Lincolnshire Wolds Walking Festival’s brochure has just been printed and is about to be posted out to anyone who wants to be involved. Check out www.woldswalkingfestival.co.uk for more details.
In the run-up to our deadline for walk registrations (Monday 23rd February, phew you’ve still got a whole weekend to submit a walk!) I ventured out to recce a walk from Fulbeck, in between Cranwell and Grantham.
The walk starts at the Hare and Hounds pub and descends gently past the church towards Fulbeck low fields. The name Fulbeck is derived from Old English ‘Ful’ and Scandinavian ‘bekkr’ meaning ‘foul stream’.
The route follows a lane and field track for a couple of miles in the direction of Fulbeck’s disused airfield that was involved in the D Day operations and Operation Market Garden (that was planned at Fulbeck Hall). All of a sudden you turn back towards the Lincolnshire Cliff, the limestone ridge that runs down the west side of the county and an unexpected climb lies ahead. During the planning of the South Lincolnshire Walking Festival I’ve been telling people that the county isn’t all flat and this climb proved it! I stopped to take the photo above and catch my breath while looking across the Trent Valley.
After skirting a small wood I was surprised to see another climb ahead, this time to the top of the ridge.
The view from the ridge was fantastic! I could see all the way to Lincoln Cathedral to the north, along with even steeper sections of the cliff around Navenby and Wellingore.
While making my way along the ridge I came across an old, weathered walking boot nestled in a tree. It looked like it had been there a very long time and I wondered how its owner had walked home with only one boot!
On reaching the outskirts of Fulbeck village I was almost fooled into thinking I was in a Yorkshire coastal village, with steep, winding lanes and old stone cottages with bulging stone walls. Another surprise! All in all the walk was about 5 miles long and filled with surprises around every bend. Well worth a visit to Fulbeck!
Don’t forget, if you’re thinking of leading a walk we need your form by Monday evening (23rd February). If you’re having problems drop an email to slwf@lincsheritage.org and we’ll do our best to help!
In my first post I described the landscape that the South Lincolnshire Walking Festival will cover – North and South Kesteven, Boston and South Holland. This time I’m focusing on the Fenland landscape between Spalding and Bourne, where big, open skies are a blank canvas for cloud formations, spires and steeples dot the horizon and huge flocks of birds take flight beside strangely named waterways.
Lapwings and Wigeons at Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust’s Willow Tree Fen – John Oliver
Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting up with Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust’s South East Warden John Oliver and South Lincolnshire Fenlands Partnership’s Amanda Jenkins who gave me a tour of the wild and beautiful Willow Tree Fen. According to Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust the purchase of Willow Tree Fen in 2009 increased Lincolnshire’s wild fenland by 200%.
The Nature Reserve is an evocative place that makes you want to explore as there’s something different to see at every turn. I particularly enjoyed discovering ‘THE’ willow tree from which the Fen takes its name and hearing all about the Trust’s plans for the site. There’s ample parking, great interpretation areas and facilities. John and Amanda are enthusiastic supporters of the South Lincolnshire Walking Festival, planning on leading walks on and from Willow Tree Fen but also running various family activities and registering walks in the local area and involving local landowners and businesses who have a passion for the fenland, its wildlife and its heritage.
As I left the nature reserve I was struck by the unusual names in the surrounding countryside. Pode Hole, Tongue End, Twenty Drain, Guthram Gowt, Cowbit…. Can’t wait to find out about the stories behind those names!
Watch this space for more information on walks on or near to Willow Tree Fen but until then here some links you might find useful if you’re planning on visiting the area:
Contact: Beverley Gormley – Cultural Events Officer
Step forward to lead a walk in the first South Lincolnshire Walking Festival
Heritage Lincolnshire, a charitable trust based in Heckington, is urging organisations and businesses to volunteer to lead walks in the first ever South Lincolnshire Walking Festival.
The brand new walking festival will take place between 25th September and 31st October this year and will feature free guided walks in North & South Kesteven, Boston and South Holland. There are already around 30 different walks lined up so far, led by organisations such as the Ramblers, Walking for Health groups, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, the Forestry Commission and the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology but more are needed to help attract visitors to the south of the county.
Beverley Gormley, Heritage Lincolnshire’s Cultural Events Officer, said “The South Lincolnshire Walking Festival is creating a real buzz in this part of the county! North & South Kesteven, Boston and South Holland are jam packed with heritage and history and we want to help show off those hidden gems to local people and visitors while helping to boost the local economy. This is our chance to put this part of Lincolnshire firmly on the walking festival map.
South Lincolnshire has a varied landscape that has witnessed Bronze Age burials, Iron Age mints, roman forts, the Knights Templar, castles and abbeys but the festival isn’t only for history lovers! Whether you want to roam with Ramblers, have an adventure with your kids, get snapping on a photography foray or get fit on a health trail, there’s something for everyone. The walks will take place on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays so that those who work or want to involve the family don’t miss out. Anyone who’s interested should go to www.southlincswalking.com or our Facebook or Twitter pages to find out more.”
Heritage Lincolnshire also organises the successful Lincolnshire Wolds Walking Festival in partnership with the Wolds Countryside Service and is keen to promote Lincolnshire’s heritage to walkers. If you or your organisation are interested in leading a walk, your business would like a walk to start or finish at their premises, or you would like your organisation to be featured in the brochure please get in touch by email at slwf@lincsheritage.org, phone 01529 461499 before 23 February 2015.
Ends
NOTES FOR EDITORS
The Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire is a charity, established in 1991, whose activities ensure that the special character and significance of Lincolnshire’s heritage is understood, valued, conserved and celebrated for the benefit of local people, visitors and future generations.
The Trust is supported by County and District Councils, national heritage bodies, through commercial activities and sponsorship. We welcome donations [including gift aid] and legacies.
The Trust’s key objectives are to:
Provide high quality learning and volunteering activities which attract a diverse audience and raise awareness of Lincolnshire’s heritage.
Increase participation in heritage activities through community engagement.
Develop and deliver conservation projects that secure investment for Lincolnshire and contribute to economic regeneration.
Undertake archaeological fieldwork and research that advances our understanding of Lincolnshire’s historic environment.
Love walking in south Lincolnshire? Want to shout about it to the rest of the world? Go on, we know you’re tempted…
We’ve been really pleased with the number of walk leaders who’ve already registered to lead walks during the festival but we need more! If you (or someone you know) are interested in leading a walk during the festival please fill in this 2015 walk submission form and return it to us at slwf@lincsheritage.org or by post to the address on the right of this page —>
Organising a walking festival is no easy task. It’s a fascinating, rewarding task, but it definitely doesn’t fall into the ‘easy’ category. We want to ensure that South Lincolnshire Walking Festival appears on every walker’s calendar next year as the region has so much to offer!
There’s a lot to think of, organisations to get on board, funding to find, routes to work out, ideas to develop…the list goes on. But perhaps one of the more challenging misconceptions to overcome is the opinion of many that Lincolnshire (apart from the Wolds) isn’t generally thought of as a ‘walker’s landscape’. Many people think that the whole of Lincolnshire is flat – yes the fens toward Norfolk are pretty flat with big, gorgeous skies that the Cloud Appreciation Society would love and huge cathedral-like churches reflecting the wealth of a bygone era, but south Lincolnshire has a surprisingly varied landscape.
If you ever have the good fortune to be travelling from Newark to Sleaford you’ll see ahead of you a ridge that stretches from north of Lincoln (Lincoln Cathedral towers above it) down to Grantham. This is known as the ‘Lincolnshire Cliff’, formed of jurassic limestone and dotted with pretty little villages. The Viking Way follows its route and there are some fantastic views to be had looking towards Rutland, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and the Lincolnshire Wolds and Fens.
The Cliff gives way to some lovely rolling countryside filled with history and we aim to showcase some of this during the course of the festival. The Knights Templar built one of the wealthiest preceptories in Britain here (yes, there will be a walk from Temple Bruer), the Romans built a fort near Ancaster, Ralph Cromwell who was Lord Treasurer of England built a castle here – south Lincolnshire is bursting at the seams with heritage and culture!
So don’t miss out, come and join us for this free festival between 25 September and 31 October 2015 and let us show you some of Lincolnshire’s hidden historical gems, walkers’ ways and havens for nature. Add it to your diary now!
South Lincolnshire Walking Festival 2019 