ACORN update

News from ACORN

Remember when Showaddywaddy sang in 1976 “Let’s go for a little walk” . Well everyone did during lockdown and footpaths became important once again.

Well the drought finally finished and the countryside is greening up. However, despite the drought the weeds certainly didn’t stop growing as we learned to our dismay when a couple sent us a picture of footpath 6 when they tried walking it during the summer. This leads from the roundabout at Howberry Green to the Green Lagoon and beyond. Unfortunately, for the first time in many years, since ACORN was formed, we didn’t have anyone to go out and keep the paths trimmed, due to our ageing volunteer base. Fortunately, one of our younger members came to the rescue and after a short training session on the safe use of sharp hand tools Kelli was let loose under the eye of Colin and did an impressive job.

FP6 was a significant path for the group as it was the first one that we tackled during the winter of 1995 under the Parish Paths Partnership scheme (P3), set up by the government to identify and make walk-able all the footpaths in the UK. The path could only be accessed by climbing over a steel girder fence and followed the field edge to the ditch coming from Fairfield which had to be jumped across. The group set to, helped by a Rights of Way officer to cut through the girders, fortunately her brother had cutting gear, and installed a kissing gate. A local contractor, assisted by members, then put in a bridge over the ditch and cut a route through the boundary trees, which had now become a spinney. A squeeze gate was installed where it joined the track to the Green and Blue Lagoons. For those that can remember, it was a hard fought battle. Although only a short path the group celebrated the opening in 1996 by organising a sponsored walk just for children to raise funds for Great Ormond Street Hospital. A GOSH nurse, replete in uniform, who lived in Arlesey opened the It was nice that a contingent of children, some with severe mobility issues who had been treated at the hospital, took part and £1,000 was raised for their funds.

The group eventually improved all the paths around the village and installed way-markers. In 2003 the footpath along the river Hiz from Mill Lane (FP2A) also eventually came under special consideration due to the high use and river erosion problems. The group raised funds to have a special mix concrete and stone path with piles constructed by contractors. The narrow concrete bridge over the river and ditch was replaced with the timber bridge that is there to this day. It was decided to make this a disabled friendly path with RADAR key operated kissing gates installed at each end for wheelchair access. To celebrate they held a party with marquee, brass band, toilets, food and folk band at the Glebe Meadows, not forgetting the scarecrow competition entries. They made this a joint celebration by arranging the opening of the new railway bridge on the A507 for the County Council. Much of the ACORN activities are all partnership activities working with professionals and other volunteer groups.

With all the footpaths now accessible it seemed a good idea in 2004 to create some guides to local walks. Many of us already had favourite circuits we walked so the next thing was to put it all down in print. “Take the path on the right of the winter barley and follow it up to the parked Landrover and turn left” just wouldn’t do. I bet there are a lot of newcomers looking for the Three Tunns and the road opposite when asking for directions from older locals for Cricketers Road. Mind you a lot of the old timers probably don’t know where Little Field Close is. With funds raised to meet the cost of producing a pack of 8 circular walks of various lengths we could say ACORN had put Arlesey on the map, well the footpath map. To further promote the paths and get people walking Katie & Brian Juffs, who recently celebrated their Diamond Wedding, started up a local branch of the countrywide Walking for Health programme, which is still running today under the leadership of Beth & Peter Overfield, now the Wellbeing Walks. With two of the regular walkers meeting during sessions and eventually marrying we can certainly say it is a great success.

Volunteer Kelli doing a grand job of the footpath

The newly cleared footpath FP6