Trail Tales: Along the Thames with Julie Royce
This is our second Trail Tales contribution from Julie Royce, one of our Thames Path National Trail volunteers, who keeps herself busy with a variety of inspiring voluntary roles. Alongside supporting the Thames Path, Julie is a volunteer presenter at Kingston Hospital Radio and a regular contributor to Thames Ditton Today Magazine. Over the years, she has written several articles about the River Thames, capturing its history, character and enduring appeal. We thought we'd share some of Julie's writing with you as part of our 30th anniversary celebrations, as her stories are perfect examples of this month's Trail Tales theme, highlighting the people, places and experiences that make the Thames Path so special.
Today’s feature is: The Thames Path and the People Who Look After it
The article can be read below, or found on page 20 of the Thames Ditton Today Magazine via his link here: autumn2019.pdf
The Thames Path and the People Who Look After it, Julie Royce
The Thames Path is a long-distance walking trail, following England's best-known river for 184 miles (294 km) as it meanders from its source in the Cotswolds through several rural counties and on into the heart of London. On its way the Trail passes peaceful water meadows rich in wildlife, historic towns and cities and many lovely villages, finishing at the Thames Barrier in Woolwich just a few miles from the sea.
The Thames Path is unique as it is the only long-distance path to follow a river for most of its length. And, of course, it's the river that gives the Thames Path its character and fashions its countryside and local activities.
It’s one of our good fortunes to have local access to the Thames Path so easily where we can join it from Hampton Court or Kingston, and this includes walkers, cyclists and those who need to use a wheelchair. It’s a gentle trail and can be enjoyed in many ways, whether for an afternoon stroll, a weekend's break or a full scale, but relatively gentle, trek of its whole length.
Local volunteers registered with the National Trails office help look after the Thames path and they perform a vital role in helping maintain it. Practical volunteers are people who book on to the weekly rights of way maintenance tasks run by the National Trails Volunteer Coordinator, Andy Mawer. The work is varied, but involves lots of vegetation management (grass cutting in summer, woody vegetation/tree clearance in winter), along with installing gates and signs, small surfacing works etc. Practical volunteers need to be physically fit, comfortable working outdoors and happy to work with machinery, such as mowers, and power tools, hedge cutters and strimmers. Andy said, ‘All tools and training are provided and the tasks are a good way to get outdoors, meet people and work with them as part of a team’.
Alternatively, volunteers can become ‘Monitors’ by adopting a 2-3 mile section of a Trail, walking it once a month and reporting back any problems. The National 20. Trails team relies on its Monitors to report on problems which inform its work programme and it’s a job which can be shared if you have limited time.
Local residents Julie Royce and Paul Gossage share the monitoring of the local section of the Thames path between Hampton Court and Sunbury Lock. They enjoy sharing the role as it makes it easy to fit in with other commitments and they both take pride in their bit of the path. Paul said, ‘We work together to report on or deal with any problems affecting the use of the path such as vegetation overgrowth which may get in someone’s way, or a fallen tree obstructing the path, significant litter, or graffiti and so on’. Julie added, ‘I like to cycle along the Thames Path and enjoy its scenery, so it feels very natural to want to look after it and the National Trails staff provide you with any support you need to sort out problems. Even if you’re not a volunteer, the Trails Office encourages users of the path to report any problems that need dealing with via their website’.
If you are interested in volunteering to help protect this local natural asset you can find out more here: Thames Path - Volunteers - National Trails
Picture: Thames Path Volunteers
