Kent Ramblers: Supporting Walkers in Kent

What do you know about Kent Ramblers?  Many people know something about us but few appreciate the full range of our activities.

Probably most people know that we organise led walks.  We have thirteen local groups in Kent, most of them offering at least a walk every Sunday and many offering a variety of mid-week walks too.  Any Ramblers’ member can walk with any group so there are always plenty of walks to choose from each week.  Newcomers can try three walks before deciding whether or not to join.  Groups often organise social events too.

Only around a third of our members go on our led walks.  Many of the rest prefer to walk alone or with family and friends but want to support the other work we do.

Perhaps the most important of our other activities is scrutinising all proposals to divert or extinguish paths, especially in the course of developments such as house-building or construction of solar farms.  Our local volunteers will check that walkers’ interests are adequately protected by such proposals and if not will suggest changes or in extreme cases pursue objections as far as public inquiries.  We also have volunteers checking the paths for obstructions such as overgrown vegetation and broken stiles and reporting them to the relevant local authority (we cover Medway, Bexley and Bromley as well as the Kent County Council area).

Another important area of work is identifying paths that were omitted from the definitive maps when they were created in the 1950s and 1960s.  Such paths will cease to be rights of way on 1 January 2031 unless we have submitted applications to have them added to the definitive maps along with persuasive evidence that they are rights of way.

Several of our groups have path maintenance teams that clear vegetation and in some cases install gates too.

One of our objectives is to promote walking and in recent years one way of achieving this has been by producing guides to some of Kent’s named and long-distance walks.  Previous guides to most of these walks have long been out of print and so far we have produced guides to part of the Coast Path in Kent, the Wealdway, the Darent Valley Path, the Eden Valley Walk, the Medway Valley Walk, the Tunbridge Wells Circular Walk and six Walks Through Time in the Cranbrook area.  All profits are used for projects to benefit walkers in Kent and neighbouring counties through which these walks pass.

To find out more about what we do and how you can get involved:

• Read our latest Annual Review – there are links on the Kent Ramber’s News page.
• Visit the Rambler’s publications page if you would like to buy one of their guides.
• View a map and list of our local groups on their web site’s Home page.
• Find out about volunteering opportunities on their Volunteering page.