RINGWOOD & FORDINGBRIDGE FOOTPATH SOCIETY
For Health, Friends,
Volunteering ...
Keep Walking
What we do
We walk.
We encourage everyone, including visitors, to use the paths, particularly the Rights of Way.
We enjoy free guided walks each week. Guests are welcome to 3 free trial walks, then join as a member - see the application form.
In the Forest at Fritham
We work
We cover the 13 Avon Valley parishes from Breamore, Martin and Whitsbury in the north down to Ringwood and Bisterne
Our volunteer work groups, in co-operation with Hampshire County Council and local parish councils, help with path clearance and special projects
We survey the Rights of Way in "our" parishes on a rolling annual rota, checking the paths for obstructions and access problems, including signposts and waymarks
We talk to local councils and authorities, and landowners about co-operation on developers plans, improvements, and maintenance
We meet friends
Social events for walking and non-walking members incude:
Monthly evening meetings at Greyfriars in Ringwood (from October to March)
The Christmas Party
The Mid-Summer picnic
The Trig Point summer evening party
The Society "adopted" the Trig Point near Whitefield Plantation on Ibsley Common and celebrates that with a backpack picnic every July.
We keep in touch
Our quarterly members' magazine, “Waymark”, is published on-line in March, June, September and December; download the latest issue now
This website keeps you up to date with Society news and events:-
The email Alert system lets you know about any urgent news
Summer Solstice Dawn Walk from Abbots Well
Our Facebook page is updated daily with the walks for the week ahead and great photos.
Please feel free to post photos or comments on our FACEBOOK PAGE.
It is good to stay connected and exchange news about how much exercise and good fun we all have. Facebook is, after all, a way of keeping in touch with one another.
News
The Open Spaces Society
The Open Spaces Society published the following article in the recent edition of their Newsletter
We congratulate the Ringwood and Fordingbridge Footpath Society (RFFS) in Hampshire on its fiftieth anniversary. Our general secretary Kate Ashbrook, spoke at its celebration lunch.
The RFFS has long been a member of the society, and we have valued the symbiotic relationship, with the RFFS providing intelligence and local knowledge about paths and access, and the society giving national insight and support.
Kate paid tribute to RFFS founder and president Rowan Brockhurst, who served as our local correspondent for New Forest district from 1986 to 2003 and remains active. Among much else Rowan rescued the seat placed in memory of our founder, Lord Eversley, on Hightown Common in Hampshire.
When Eversley died in 1928 we bought the common in his memory, to save it from development, and gave it to the National Trust with a memorial seat designed by architect Elisabeth Scott.
After the A31 was widened in the 1960s the seat, which was close to the road, fell into disrepair and in the 1990s Rowan led the campaign to move it away from the road and renovate it, and in 2010 he again arranged for its refurbishment.
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