Swayne Johnson Solicitors Conquer the Llangollen Canal

Posted on 16 Mar 2017

Swayne Johnson Solicitors enjoy the Llangollen Hope House/Ty Gobaith charity walk from The Trevor Basin in Pontcysyllte to Chirk Bank. Pictured: The Swayne Johnson Team Sara Evans, Mared Williams, Shaun Hughes, Cath Jones , Anna Whittingham, , Bethan Taylor-Lloyd, and Ty Gobaith’s Eluned Yaxley, (front right) Chris Bolton and Tim Martin back left

Swayne Johnson Solicitors North Wales were pleased to take part in the annual Tŷ Gobaith Canal Walk along the Llangollen Canal, and we even crossed the famous Pontcysyllte Aqueduct as part of the experience. The 10-mile walk took us along Chirk Bank, over two aqueducts, through two tunnels and near the Poacher’s Pocket, a total of 10 miles by the time we arrived back in Trevor Bank. The Llangollen Canal Walk provided excellent scenery and a real challenge – especially for those of the team which may have been uncomfortable at height! 

Mared Williams, a property solicitor at our offices in Ruthin mentioned that: “The weather stayed fine so it was really good and very enjoyable, apart from the tunnels. One of them was about half a mile long and pitch black but the views from the aqueduct were fantastic even though it was a bit windy up there on the way back.”

No matter how dark and how windy, the 10-mile walk was certainly worthwhile.

Hope House Tŷ Gobaith provides care and support to life-limited children, young people, and also their families. Tŷ Gobaith offers a range of services – from respite and end of life care either at their hospices or within the family home, and they also offer much-needed support throughout what is understandably, very difficult periods.

Tŷ Gobaith have multiple means of supporting those that need it, either by counselling or advocacy, and they also promote children’s, young peoples, and carer’s rights. Furthermore, Tŷ Gobaith provides this essential support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Additionally, we chose to raise funds for our designated charity Headway, which works tirelessly to improve life after brain injury. With 125 groups and branches across the UK, Headway provides support, services and information to brain injury survivors, families, carers, as well as professionals. Headway’s services include rehabilitation programmes, carer support, social re-integration, community outreach and also respite care.

Sara Lloyd Evans, our family law specialist solicitor based within our branch at Llandudno, said: “The idea came about because we wanted to do something for charity and a number of us had received Fitbit activity trackers for Christmas. We are aiming to do a big walking challenge in North Wales later this year and obviously, Snowdon is on our list but we thought we had better get some other walks under our belt first so we decided on the Llangollen Canal Walk.”

Sara went on to say: “Supporting Hope House is also important for us – many of the firm’s employees are parents themselves and supporting a children and family charity is only natural and Swayne Johnson wants to support the wonderful work that is being carried out by Hope House-Tŷ Gobaith right across North Wales, and the borders.”

We bolstered the amount we raised during the walk by getting all of our staff across our North Wales and Chester Branches involved too – with a series of bake sales in our Bangor, Llandudno, St Asaph, Denbigh, Ruthin and Chester branches.

The area fund-raiser of Tŷ Gobaith, Eluned Yaxley, had this to say about the sixth annual Canal Walk and our participation in it:  “We’re delighted the team from Swayne Johnson took part in what was a great day and are very grateful to them.”

She stressed the importance of donations toward Tŷ Gobaith, in addition.

“This was a really important event for us because we depend entirely on donations for the £100,000 a week we need to maintain the range of services we provide which range from specialist nursing to counselling and support and we’ve been going for 21 years now and we want to be here for another 21 and beyond.”