~~ 2009 is our 25th Anniversary ~~

About Our Group
2009 is the 25th Anniversary of the formation of the Hampstead Ramblers group. See our History section below for an explanation of how the Hampstead Ramblers Group came together to form one of the largest Ramblers groups in the UK.
 

An extract from the South Eastern Rambler, Vol. 4, No. 1, Winter 1985 makes mention of the Hampstead Ramblers Group's Inaugural Annual Meeting and can be viewed here.

We are a friendly and varied group of people who share a love of walking. Most of our members live in the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington, although some come from further afield. We offer a programme of day walks with the occasional weekend break or longer holiday. Full information on our walks can be found by clicking the Walks link on the left.

Hampstead Ramblers Blog - Rambling On
We now have a blog devised by one of our members, Steve Ripley. To find out more, click here.
 

History
The Hampstead and District Group was formed in 1984 and our first walk did took place on 8th July 1984 - a 4 mile walk from Woodside Park to Totteridge. Although the Group only had 50 members at the time of its Inaugural Annual Meeting in October 1984, membership started to take off three years later and by October 1989 the Hampstead and District Group had become the fourth largest group in the Ramblers' Association nationwide, with just over 550 members. Today its membership stands at around 830 and it continues to be the largest of the Inner London Area groups.

The need to establish groups in Inner London north and south of the Thames to which individual members could be allocated first arose in 1982, when moves were initiated to split up the old Southern Area of the Ramblers' Association into eight smaller Areas - Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, London and Surrey - and it became apparent that none of the Southern Area's existing groups would come within the ambit of the new London Area.

The Southern Area, which was dissolved on the 30th September 1984, had originally been established in 1913 as the Southern Federation of Rambling Clubs and by the 3rd November 1923, when it held its first dinner, its affiliated clubs represented a membership of over 20,000. In 1927 the Southern Federation had some 50 affiliated clubs and it had accepted its first individual members.

By this time federations of rambling clubs had also been established in several other regions, threats to rights of way were increasing and there was little prospect of legal access to the moorlands of the north. New legislation was urgently needed and it was obvious that there would be strength in unity. So on the 30th October 1927 the first national conference was held between these regional federations and further conferences took place in 1928 and 1929.

After the third national conference moves were made to form a national federation of rambling clubs with the existing federations functioning as Areas Committees. The new organisation came into effect on 1st January 1935 as "The Ramblers' Association", with over 300 rambling clubs affiliated and nearly 1,200 individual members, and the Southern Federation of Rambling Clubs became the Southern Area.