Friday the 3rd of May was a red-letter day for the Vanguard Way, the 66-mile trail for walkers from Croydon to Newhaven.
Not only was it the 43rd anniversary of the day the trail was launched back in 1981, but a new plaque for the trail was installed at its start and finish point outside East Croydon Station, and a significant stretch of the trail called the Graham Butler Mile was launched on Nore Hill near Woldingham in Surrey.
Here’s the plaque being ‘unveiled’ in the morning outside East Croydon Station:
Left to right: Murren (Southern Railway), John Jefkins (Vice Chair, Vanguard Way Association), Kate Ashbrook (General Secretary, Open Spaces Society), Colin Saunders (Chair, Vanguard Way Association).
In the afternoon, after coffee at the Bull Inn on Chelsham Common, 35 ramblers walked to Nore Hill to launch the Graham Butler Mile.  It commemorates a man who died in 2018 and did so much over many years for the Vanguard Way, the Vanguard Rambling Club and ramblers in Croydon and Surrey.  Members of the Vanguard Rambling Club and the Ramblers raised over £4,000 to buy and install seven gates that replaced some wonky wooden stiles along the mile from Limpsfield Road down Nore Hill to Slines Oak Road.
The launch was celebrated with a tot of Drambuie, a significant beverage for the Vanguard Rambling Club, as it cemented the club’s foundation in the guard’s van of a train back in 1965.  Three of the club’s original members who were in that guard’s van (Pat Edwards, Micky Kohn and David Wright) were present at the launch.
The launch tape was cut by Graham’s wife Janet and Kate Ashbrook, General Secretary of the Open Spaces Society and a long-time supporter of the Vanguard Way.