On 4th March 1938, the following letter was published in the Express & Echo newspaper:
Sir,
Now that the spring is mostly with us, I am sure there are quite a number of young men and women in Exeter who are at a loss to know how to spend their Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Why not take up rambling and explore the beauties of the surrounding neighbourhood? The writer feels sure that there must be many like herself who would like to appreciate more the district in which they are residing.
It could easily be arranged for some of us to get together in order to form an Exeter Rambling Club, which in due course could be properly affiliated to the Ramblers Association. Would interested parties write me and I will fix a convenient date on which to hold a meeting and elect a chairman and other officers and exchange ideas.
Voluntary leaders on the different rambles would be needed.
I think a subscription of 2/6 should meet the annual cost of running a club, the chief item being the production of a programme of rambles.
Miss B. Enright
An inaugural meeting was duly held on the 15th March 1938 at Messrs Hammett’s Dairies Ltd, St Sidwell Street, Exeter. The earliest Minutes book records that there were thirty-three members present, together with an Express & Echo Staff Reporter.
Mr A. O. Rowden, “a rambler of 40 years’ experience,” presided, opening the meeting with a talk on rambling, in which he observed “that walking was the best possible exercise, not only because it was a natural exercise which could not cause overstrain, but also because, like swimming, it employed all the muscles in the body. Moreover, the cost of equipment was negligible, light loose clothes and strong boots being the sole necessities.”
It was decided to hold rambles on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, Mr Rowden himself offering to lead the first walk, which was fixed for Sunday 20th March 1938 at 2.30 pm. A written record notes that:
“nearly 50 pilgrims met at the Burnthouse Lane bus terminus, the men being outnumbered by the fair sex by five to one. Under the leadership of Mr A. O. Rowden the party walked by way of Northbrook to Countess Wear and Topsham, thence to Clyst St George and by way of the fields to Sowton and back into Exeter, the distance covered being in the region of twelve miles.”
The writer goes on to comment on the pleasure the group took in Devon’s “meadowland scenery” and notes that “walking through the peaceful countryside it was difficult to realise that Exeter lay only a few minutes near by car.”
Today this route would be virtually impossible, progress on foot into Exeter from Clyst St George and Sowton being blocked by the M5, and it is equally difficult to imagine it being regarded as peaceful countryside. We now have to venture much further afield to find tranquil meadowland.
On 20th March 1988, fifty years to the day since that very first walk, 34 members of the Exeter Rambling Club met to celebrate the club’s golden jubilee by recreating it “as far as possible,” according to a brief report in the Express & Echo.
We have an extensive collection of old record books, including registers of members and minutes of meetings, going right back to the beginning, many of the entries hand-written in pen and ink and in exquisite copper-plate script. Browsing through them makes us very aware of what we owe to those long-forgotten folk, now just so many empty names, who kept the club alive through the Second World War and the decades following it.
So much has changed since those early days of tweed skirts and pipe-smoking, but the pleasure of sharing a walk in the countryside with other like-minded souls remains just the same.
At our AGM in March 2018 the club celebrated its 80th birthday, and we hope it will still be going strong in 2038, one hundred years on from its founding.