.png)
Celebrating 20 years of Walking in the Gorge
- lynnironbridgewalk
- Jul 17
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 18
After 9 months of planning, route design, risk assessments, recces during the winter months, updates to our website, leaflet design, organising equipment and briefing for our walk leaders as well as inputting every single walk into Eventbrite and comms to all of our walkers, the Festival seemed to be over in a flash! And what a great festival we had - here is a summary in numbers:
67 walks covering nearly 560 miles in the stunning surroundings of Ironbridge Gorge
924 walks completed by 424 walkers
55% of our walkers were from Telford & Wrekin, 21% from Shropshire County, 21% from surrounding counties and 3% from other English counties, Ireland and Israel.
9,000 miles walked by those attending and our walk leaders and co-leaders - the distance from London to Perth Australia
And of course, you can't have a walking festival without mentioning the weather - how wonderful was that? Perhaps a little cool initially, with the temperature building over the nine days and not a drop of rain! Given that we had to cancel most of our Sunday Socials from October, it couldn't have been any better!
Our walk leaders and co-leaders did a fantastic job of guiding people around the Gorge, walking from 2 miles to 21 miles every day, and our "walk and talks" covered some brilliant topics. They ranged from clay modelling to bell ringing, having a go in a Coracle to understanding the geographical challenges of the Gorge, from forest bathing to beer brewing - we definitely had lots of variation, as well as all the wonderful stories that were told along the way about the innovative people and historical events which shaped and influenced the industrial heritage of Ironbridge. As one of our former Chairs used to say "every day is a school day".
Everyone who contributes to the Festival does so in their own time, and we are enormously grateful for this, as well as their professionalism, dedication and passion. Some of our walk leaders are also part of our Management Committee and we were delighted to invite former members of the Committee to join us at the Medal Ceremony and by getting in touch it was a reminder of how everyone who has been part of the Festival over the years has contributed to its legacy and success
All of our walkers' experiences of the Festival are important to us. We recognise that not everyone is interested in a medal but our medal ceremony is not only about recognition for miles achieved for those who want one, but also a celebration for all who walked with us at the end of the Festival. Over the years, we have increased the range of medals we give out. We started with medals for only 50 and 100 miles, and have added other medals to recognise a wider range of miles walked and celebrate walkers achievements, no matter what the mileage covered. And of course, in recognition of Neil Cartman, our former Chair who was instrumental in developing the longer walks, we have the Cartman Challenge, recognising over 150 of miles walked. But, whether you are walking 2 miles or 20 miles, we want to inspire a love of walking that continues after the festival. We have people walking with us, who couldn't imagine doing 5 miles when they started and have now got medals for walking 50 and 75 miles. Celebrating achievements at all levels is important to us, because all personal goals are important to our walkers. So now, we have medals for 25, 50, 75, 100 and 150 miles, but whether you desire a medal or not, everyone is welcome at the end of festival ceremony. Here's some photos from the ceremony - and to celebrate our 20th Anniversary, we even had a quiz and a cake!
Jane, our Chair and Walk Leader gave out the medals assisted by Linda, one of our walk leaders and also a member of the management committee.
Congratulations to all who received a medal, we hope your achievements inspire you and others to keep walking! Unlike our 10th anniversary, when we did a 100 mile individual challenge over 10 days, we couldn't manage a 200 mile individual challenge, even over 10 days, but we did give it a lot of thought! But we still wanted to do something to celebrate our 20th Anniversary and Linda came up with the idea of a 200 mile Team Challenge. We had 3 teams enter, who between them walked over 1,100 miles! Here are the teams who were successful in the challenge and smashed the 200 mile mark!
The Festival Friends Team - John, Jan, Janice, Aiden and Carla (pictured separately as they couldn't make the ceremony, so we added a photo from last year, when Aiden became the youngest recipient of a 100 mile medal) Together, this year, Festival Friends walked 439 miles!
We hope that you have enjoyed our blog and photos from our 20th Anniversary Festival and we look forward to welcoming new and familiar faces next year. Thank you to everyone who either by walking with us, leading or co-leading made this year's festival so special. See you in 2026!
Comments