Giant Strides Walking Booklet
A walking booklet called Giant Strides was produced decades ago and it is still really useful today. It covers the Bramerton group of parishes, which includes ours. The author was Richard Crosskill, who graciously gave us permission to reproduce the booklet on this site when we asked. A couple of generous Parish Councillors lent this website a copy of the physical booklet, and we have scanned it in and created a PDF file, so that the hand drawn maps and collection of notes for each walk can live on.
Click the below button to download the whole booklet in its original form (pdf, 8MB).
(disclaimer: after so many years some of the routes may have overgrown or become less usable than they were, so until they are tested please be prepared for the occasions where you might have to detour or turn back).
Some of the walks in this booklet, including the diagrams, were also serialised over a number of issues in the Eleven Says local newspaper, beginning issue 283 June/July 2020, and one of our circular walks detailed on this website is taken directly from the booklet, it’s still walkable today:
Our Circular WalkRichard Crosskill died in 2022, and you can read an obituary in Eleven Says issue 298 Dec 2022. When we asked Richard in the summer of 2020 if we could reproduce the booklet on this website, his reply, reproduced below, describes some of the motivation and history of producing this set of local walking routes, and shows some of the wit and humour he was well known for:
My main aim over the years is to persuade people to get out and use the public footpaths, so they don’t grow over. I have not been fussed how the material is disseminated.
The short history is that 1,000 copies of Eleven Walks were printed in 1980, after receiving grants, and a slightly larger version entitled “Giant Strides” (produced 750) came out in 1993. The profits were subsequently handed to Eleven Says to produce a walks sheet to be distributed to every doorstep in the Bramerton Group area.
The only mistake occurred funnily enough in Yelverton, where a parish councillor owned up to harbouring in his garage for just over a year an oak finger post to mark an agreed deviation. There’s enthusiasm for you.
Ted Ellis, the naturalist, who contributed Surlingham notes was alive then and cheerfully gave permission for his piece.
I am most flattered that you should seek to gain my approval where you feel it is necessary, but after 36 years you need not bother.
I do firmly feel however that your truly local walk should be tested, just in case there are any footpath signs still under the bed.
Yours sincerely
Richard Crosskill
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