An informal town partnership has grown up between Ada’s towns. Raunds was Ada’s home in Northamptonshire, the pleasant country town where she lived until she was 30. Bermondsey was the inner-city area in south London where she settled and committed her life to helping the people.

In 2016 Raunds came to Bermondsey. We celebrated Ada’s 150th birthday with our Mayors, history societies, residents and representatives from the Quakers, civil rights and trade union movements.

In 2018 Bermondsey went to Raunds. At the invitation of their Town Council, we were hosted to lunch, watched our Mayor open an Ada Salter Spinney in their park, and enjoyed a garden party at Ada’s beautiful home of Thorpe House, with new owners Amanda Mauro and Andy Farrow.

In 2022 the centenary year we met again in Bermondsey. We had invited the Mayor of Raunds, their Brass Band, Local History Society and other residents to join us. Due to the Queen’s death, the mayors sadly had to withdraw and the concert was cancelled. But everything else went ahead as planned and we all had a lovely day!

Programme:
Morning reception at St James’s Church. Canon Gary Jenkins: the Salters’ links with their local parish church and the construction of the children’s Joy Slide.
Walk to Ada’s garden cottage estate: 54 ideal family homes. Visit the Salter statues on the riverfront.
Lunch at Cherry Garden Hall.
Afternoon in Southwark Park
Ada Salter Garden: Gary Magold and Pat Kingwell: history of the park. New information board.
Art Gallery: private view of exhibition ‘The Spirit of the Salters’, in the gallery’s new Salter Space.
Evening Performance of ‘Red Flag Over Bermondsey’ at Sands Films Studios (see separate Event).