After a year’s absence because of Covid the Somer Valley Walking Festival celebrated its fifth anniversary with a series of exciting walks attracting in total over a hundred participants.

On Saturday, 11th September fourteen walkers made the eleven mile journey from Paulton Basin to the Dundas Aqueduct , tracing the length of the Somersetshire Coal Canal to its Junction with te Kennet and Avon and examining the surviviving bridges and locks which are undergong restoaration.The walk (which was a sell-out) included transport back to Paulton at the end of the day and was led by Miriam Woolnough, the council’s Discovering North East Somerset project officer. On Saturday afternoon Anne Lyons led twenty walkers on a tour round Paulton and Farrington Gurney, while in the evening Kathy Thomas took another group on a sunset expedition around Peasedown.

On Sunday, 12th September the Beacon Hall was the venue for the start of three walks in the morning – one of seven miles, one of eight and a more strenuous one of more than eleven miles.Two of the walks visited the long barrow at Stony Littleton and all gave superb views of the Cam Valley. A further walk in the afternoon repeated the Saturday evening short walk.

John Bull , Chair of the Steering Committee for the Festival said:After a fallow year in which walking in groups was discouraged it was good to see so many people enjoying rambles through the Somer Valley with its rich natural and industrial heritage.Thanks are due to the volunteers who made the Festival possible, including the walk leaders and organisers, the Somer Valley Ramblers and those who contributed the delicious cakes which footsore walkers enjoyed at the end of the day.