Next walk is Saturday 14 June 2025
Days to go:
Supporting Wandsworth Community
It’s hard to believe that local people from in and around the Nightingale Lane area in Wandsworth have been pounding the path in aid of good causes since October 1979, raising a staggering £500,000 so far.
Sadly due to difficulties in organising the Walk this year, we are unable to offer a normal supported walk, featuring checkpoints, refreshments and return transport. However, in the spirit of continuing the walk, there will be a number of regulars pounding the path to keep the tradition going.
Walkers will have to make their own way, without checkpoints or refreshments, and THERE WILL BE NO TRANSPORT ARRANGED TO TAKE PEOPLE BACK FROM PUTNEY TO THE NIGHTINGALE PUB. People will have to make their own transport arrangements.
Also if you would like to raise money for charity, you will need to collect directly for them (through the usual ways like JustGiving) rather than through the Nightingale Walk charity.
Fitness & Fun
The longest walk is from Walton-on-Thames and is a twenty mile route.
There is an intermediate starting point at Kingston which kicks off a thirteen mile route
There is also a micro-route which starts at Richmond and is a mere seven and a half miles.
History
Set up by a determined trio of regulars from The Nightingale pub in response to the Oxfam Cambodia Famine Appeal five whole years before Bob Geldof set up Band Aid – could themselves be forgiven for staggering by the end of what was once a gruelling 46 mile trek from Croydon to Brighton,often alongside a busy road.
Today the Nightingale Walk is much more of a family affair, mostly tracing the mostly pastoral and picturesque route of the River Thames tow-path in south-west London.
Walkers these days have a choice of three starting points from which they can stride forward to a heroic reception as they cross the finishing line at Putney. We realise that not everybody – including dogs and small children – can manage a full twenty mile course so we have three staggered starts from which to begin the journey.