HIKERS took strong winds and heavy rain in their stride to brave the fifth edition of the Bradford on Avon Walking Festival last Friday-Sunday.

In excess of 260 walkers attended the three-day event, across 16 varied routes, ranging from one to 12 miles in length in and around the town.

In addition to the countryside walks, specialists led walkers on themed walks, including bat walks, herb walks, history walks and ghost walks among others.

Tony Giles, part of the group that organised the festival, Bradford on Avon Walkers are Welcome, said: "It went really well. To have so many of the walks sell out was brilliant - we are already looking forward to next year's event.

"The feedback from people has been very positive, with a lot of praise for the varied mix of walks on offer.

"The idea was to make it suit everybody's needs and going by the comments it seems that we delivered which is great."