WOMEN’S institute members from Radnorshire have joined forces with counterparts in Herefordshire to walk the length of the River Lugg as part of River Action Week.

Last week, members of Llangunllo, Whitton and Chatterbrook (Presteigne) WIs walked a 9-mile stretch of the Lugg, to raise awareness of the state of rivers in their communities. 

Collaborating with seven WIs from across the border in Herefordshire, the ambition was to walk the entire 63-mile length the Lugg traverses, from Llangunllo, near Knighton, to Mordiford, east of Hereford.

Last September, as part of its own Clean Rivers campaign, WI members arranged stunts, river cleans, protests and yarn bombing.

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This year, the 10 WI groups combined to each cover a stretch, with the Powys members starting at the Lugg’s source, 5 miles west of Llangunllo, and handing over the baton to their Herefordshire colleagues in Presteigne on Tuesday, September 17.

“While out walking near the source of the River Lugg we came up with the idea of perhaps walking along the river to the Welsh-English border,” said Karen Edgar, president of Llangunllo WI.

“This idea quickly morphed into thinking that with the help of other WIs maybe we could cover the whole length of the river. And now it is happening.”

The WI was one of the first organisations to sound the alarm about pollution of rivers – as far back as the 1930s.

In 1936 the WI began campaigning on river pollution from dairies and WIs wrote to their local authorities urging them to take responsibility for this issue.

Later, the WI spent almost 20 years in the late 1950s and early 1970s sounding the alarm about the scandal of untreated sewage flowing into our seas and rivers. WI members were outraged and pushed the government to act. WI representative Lady Anglesey even served as vice chair on a government working group looking at sewage disposal.

In 2023, members again expressed their outrage at the state of our rivers and launched the Clean Rivers campaign, which seeks to tackle river pollution from key sources such as sewage run-off and industrial agriculture, in particular through promoting bathing water designation.

The river Lugg near Sutton St Nicholas, Herefordshire. Drone picture by Michael Peet.The river Lugg near Sutton St Nicholas, Herefordshire. Drone picture by Michael Peet.

Speaking ahead of their walk, Karen said: “We plan to take a sample of the source and use it as a baton to hand over to the next WI so it will reach the River Wye, a symbol of our walk.

“We will be meeting citizen scientist water monitors along the way, and also have 20 WaterBlitz testing kits to give us a snapshot of water quality during the week of our walk.

“We will keep our eyes peeled for wildlife, especially species indicative of river health.

“What being able to access the river means to people will also be on our minds and we are interested to find out what proportion of the time we will be in sight of the water.

“We hope that our cross-border collaboration will be an inspiration to those organisations charged with protecting our rivers.

“We are tracing the river to get a watershed-wide perspective on the issue of clean rivers for people and wildlife, raising our awareness and then sharing our insight with others after the walk.

“We already know what one outcome will be – new connections and friendships with inspiring women both sides of the border.”