Go-ahead Salisbury care home residents are following in the footsteps of Shakespeare to help raise funds for city homelessness charity Alabaré.
An eager group of walkers and wheelchair users at Colten Care’s Braemar Lodge in Stratford Road hope to complete enough laps of their garden to cover the equivalent distance from the home to the Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and back.
The total distance is 169.6 miles, or 84.8 miles each way.
Residents, family members and other well-wishers have begun stepping out and logging their progress in what is expected to be a month-long initiative.
Joining them at a launch event to help complete the first few laps were Alabaré trustee and city MP John Glen and board chairman Sir Andrew Gregory KBE CB DL.
Sir Andrew, a former army officer, told the audience that funds raised from the walk will go directly to helping people at risk of or experiencing homelessness, including military veterans.
Braemar Lodge resident Sheila Nell said: “It was great to be at the launch and we are all enjoying the opportunity to go out into the garden and help raise money for such a worthwhile cause.”
Graham Ballard, Companionship Team Leader, said helping ex-service personnel through Alabaré reflects and complements the home’s wider ‘veteran-friendly’ status.
This was achieved after the home met standards under the national Veteran Friendly Framework, a scheme designed to support the armed forces community.
Graham said: “We’ve timed our walk to be in line with May’s National Walking Month and began setting out the routes around the garden on Shakespeare’s birthday in April. With Hamnet doing the rounds in the cinema, the Bard remains ever popular. If we complete the distance to and from Stratford-upon-Avon ahead of schedule, we’ll do an ‘Act II’ and keep going. We don’t know yet if that is ‘to be or not to be’ but we’ve certainly made a great start.”
The Stratford-to-Stratford project is the latest community walking initiative at the home since residents and staff helped to raise nearly £3,500 last year for the Salisbury Hospice Charity.
Over 168 days, they completed enough routes around the garden and nearby Victoria Park to match the entire distance from Salisbury to their namesake village of Braemar, 500 miles to the north in Aberdeenshire.
The 2025 walk echoed a similar 500-mile charity initiative residents completed five years ago in aid of Salisbury-based social enterprise The Pantry Partnership.
