Big Green Hike 2024

The Big Green Walk – Christ church, Billericay  to All Saints' Church, Stock.

On Sunday the 7^th April, a small group of intrepid explorers and I walked from Christ Church to All Saint’s Stock as part of the Big Green Walk, a walk totalling 8 KM. The Big Green Hike is a nationwide sponsored walk that anyone can take part in, no matter where they live, and this year the team from Christ Church decided to raise funds for Rewilding Britain

We choose to support and raise funds for Rewilding Britain as it links with our work towards the Eco Church Gold Award in supporting environmental charities.

“Rewilding is a term that describes the large-scale restoration of nature until it can take care of itself – and us – again. It’s about restoring nature’s remarkable web of life, including habitats, natural processes and, where appropriate, missing species.” Taken from https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/why-rewild/what-is-rewilding

Before we set off for All Saint’s Church, we had the obligatory selfie and then I gave the group the task of recording some environmental data – any excuse to get some geography fieldwork done!
The route itself was on the pavements as we were a little concerned that we would be recreating a Vicar of Dibley moment with Rev Margaret disappearing in a puddle while on a footpath with all the rain we have had! Thankfully we avoided any puddles and managed to grab another selfie walking up the hill towards Stock. When you are not in the car, it is surprising how hilly Essex is!

The sun was shining, and it was lovely to be outdoors and enjoying each other’s company and the amazing wildlife we spotted along the way. It was pleasing that there was little evidence of litter or graffiti on our walk, and that the plants were starting to spring back into life, as it tends to do at this time of year.

When we reached All Saints’ we were able to go inside and take a few quite moments to be in God’s presence, to enjoy the peace within the Church and we all took time to admire the stained glass windows. There has been a church on the site of All Saints’ since 1232, and the tour of the church via their website makes fascinating reading and is well worth a read https://stockallsaints.co.uk/tour.php

The results of our environmental survey along our walk

As I have mentioned, we undertook some geography fieldwork while on our walk, and here are the results. In terms of graffiti, we did not come across many examples at all, which was pleasing to report, perhaps reflecting where we were walking, mainly along main roads and footpaths in residential areas. The condition of the pavements were generally good, although some on the way up the hill to Stock as we passed the Stock Brook Nursery were narrow, perhaps because of overgrown weeds and soil creep. It was really interesting to record what we could hear when we stopped and recorded our data, as the pie chart below shows. Traffic dominated, but again not a surprise considering were we walked

The view from All Saints’ reminded us all of Gods creation and how wonderful it is, and what a responsibility it is to look after it.
Our donation page is still open, if you would like to donate to a good cause, if so, please do follow the link below.
https://shorturl.at/dnQWX

Next year we shall be planning a route around  Willingdale

Paul Hunt
ALP – Christ Church Billericay