Tuesday 11 May 2010
Once again we had very kind weather for our day’s walk, although not warm enough to dispense with our fleeces. Sadly my wardrobe is taking on the appearance of a Cotswold Outdoor store.
The walk was pretty uneventful until we reached the beautiful village of Shillingfold. Being metrophiles we were desperate for a cappuccino by about 11.30am but even my trusty iPhone app couldn’t find a handy Starbucks or Costa.
Luckily as we walked up a lane from the river we came across a sign advertising teas and at that moment a very nice lady appeared and offered to provide us with refreshment even though she wasn’t really open. So we spent a very pleasant 30 mins at a table in her front garden throwing a slimy rubber bone for her dog with a very welcome pot of coffee.
She told us stories of Edward VII and his mistress Lillie Langtree staying at the beautiful house on the river bank, Shillingford Court, which I clearly cannot repeat here, as I am still expecting my knighthood. On the corner of the house is a cast iron plaque which records the flood level of 1809. This was so high that even on tiptoes we would both have been completely submerged
Anyway we pushed on to Benson where we managed to track down The Three Horse Shoes which provided us with a very welcome lunch and a pint of local bitter. Steve seemed to slow down a bit after lunch but I’ve found a sharp stick encourages him!
The unusual church steeple of Wallingford appeared in due course across the meadows as we approached the town and this also led us to the remains of the castle. Unfortunately Wallingford declared for the King in the Civil War and Cromwell took his revenge on the castle. Still the stone was probably put to good use by the local inhabitants. We did manage to find an excellent cappuccino in town which gave us the afternoon kick to complete the the final 3 miles.
So that’s another 11 miles which means we’ve done about 80 miles and now only 104 miles to go to reach London. Stay tuned!!
Chris, you're now well into the territory that we covered on our walk (Oxford to Thames Barrier) and we can sympathise with the 'diversion' comments. Jo and Andy
ReplyDeletePS Can you please tell us your secret for encroaching cows - we've had a couple of frights, but are only solution so far is to ruuuuuuuun ....