Stiles to Kissing Gates

Phase 1 - Footpaths 17, 18, 19

The project to install thirteen kissing gates was completed by Uffington Parish Council in August 2021. The project replaced stiles on Uffington Footpaths (FP) 387 / 17, 18, 19 and 27 as shown on the map below.

Description

These footpaths are used by many local people and visiting walkers to get from the village of Uffington to the Uffington White Horse, Uffington Castle, The Ridgeway and Waylands Smithy, and for circular walks on public rights of way via Woolstone, Fawler and Kingston Lisle. FP18 is a short spur from FP19 leading to the Fox and Hounds pub in Uffington. FP27 is a short natural extension from FP19 eastwards to join FP16 and the Fawler Road.

Villagers and visitors can now much more easily walk to and from these world-famous sites, to which Uffington is very fortunate to be so close. The newly gated section of FP19 links to an Oxfordshire County Council Ridgeway Circular Walk, which means that there are now no stiles on the path between the village and the Ridgeway and White Horse Hill.

These routes are now easy to access and walkable by people of all ages. Starting close to the centre of the village, near the village shop, this is excellent for community involvement and therefore beneficial for the health and well-being of our residents.

The project was funded by a number of donors, to all of whom Uffington Parish Council is very grateful; they are (with the amounts):

Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment (TOE) with funds from Grundon Waste Management Ltd, from their own funds and through the Landfill Communities Fund	£,4000.00
White Horse Show Trust	£2,000.00
Oxfordshire County Council – Countryside Access Team	£1,000.00
Uffington Parish Council (S106 funds, from the Jacksmeadow estate)	£5,000.00
Uffington Parish Council (Reserves)	£1,000.00

Uffington Parish Council is also extremely grateful to all the landowners upon whose land the kissing gates have been installed and who supported the project from the start. They are: Mr and Mrs D Coxhead, Mr and Mrs T Parrott, Mr J Mildenhall and Mrs J Darling. We are also grateful to Pepler Fine Fencing Ltd (of Goosey) who did a very professional job for us in the installation of all thirteen kissing gates.

Please note that it was necessary to install two kissing gates very close to each other at locations 4/5 and 8/9 for reasons of bio-security; these are both on inter-farm boundaries where stock should not come in direct contact with animals from another farm.

Below is a pictorial record showing ‘before and after’ photos of the stiles which have been replaced by kissing gates using the numbering on the map above.