Day 10: Henley to Little Marlow – 12 miles

Wednesday 16 June 2010

We started from Henley with the preparations for the Regatta well underway.

The generally quiet town was a hive of activity as marquees were being erected and the grounds prepared. The grass immediately outside the marquees was in excellent condition with no moss and hardly a weed. Very different to our respective lawns at home – it must be the constant watering.

The river at Henley is very straight and ideal for rowing. The course is just over a mile long with an impressive temporary pavilion at the end. There were a few teams practicing on the course and most seemed to comprise identikit females –American students, late teens and blonde ponytails. There was no sign of any local teams; they were probably practicing in the pub. Near the start of the course is Temple Island. This was built as a fishing lodge and the cupola contains the statue of a naked woman. Quite how this helps with the fishing is not known, but she certainly has a good view of the rowing.

A little further downstream is the large mansion built in the 1850s for W H Smith the bookseller.

Insert photos of Temple Island and White House

This stretch of the river is classic Thames valley – open meadows and interesting buildings. A particularly interesting building is Medmenham Abbey. Founded as a monastery in 1200, it fell into ruin following the Dissolution of the Monastries and in the late 18th century was bought by Sir Francis Dashwood. Sir Francis incorporated the ruins into a new building used by the infamous Hell Fire Club. Apparently, the activities at Medmenham gained some notoriety so the Hell Fire club eventually moved to a more secluded site at West Wycombe caves.

Putting thoughts of the Hell Fire Club behind us we headed for lunch at Ye Olde Bell in Hurley. Hurley is a very picturesque village with many old building. Probably very few are older that the Bell, which claims to date from 1135. Inside things had been updated somewhat, but there are still old oak settles and stone floors. Lunch was very good and the Rebellion IPA even better.

Suitably fortified we were back on the path and soon across the river from Bisham Abbey, now the international sports centre. Just down river from the sports centre is Bisham church which, unusually, sits right on the riverbank. The tower is Norman and dates from around 1175. The rest of the building is mainly Victorian. Sadly, there was no way to get across the river, so we were unable to explore further this lovely spot.

Not long after Bisham we came into Marlow. We knew we were getting near to civilisation with the increasing numbers of ‘strollers’ enjoying the sunshine. The view of the river coming into Marlow is another classic with the suspension bridge designed by Tierney Clark, the engineer who designed Hammersmith Bridge in London.

We approached Marlow through the riverside park and looked a little out of place with Nordic poles and a purposeful stride. Despite some strange looks we ventured into the town for tea and scones – it being over an hour since lunch.

From Marlow to the next lock there is no towpath and originally barges had to be hauled on a long towline while horses were led through the town. The Thames Path follows the same rather tortuous route known locally as Seven Corner Alley. We didn't count the corners, but there were certainly lots of them before we were back onto the towpath and the final couple of miles to Little Marlow and the end of our walk for the day.

Day 9: Tilehurst to Henley - 12 miles

Monday 7 June 2010

The day started brightly as we parked in the station car park at Tilehurst. We felt a bit like commuters again! We had decided to use nordic poles once more as it definitely makes the walking easier, plus during the week my friend Joanna gave me a copy of Metro newspaper with a double page spread extolling the virtues of nordic pole walking and promoting it as the next trendy outdoor activity. Once again we find ourselves ahead of the curve!

Anyway it was a very pleasant early morning walk along the river. There are lots of flotillas of ducklings, goslings and cygnets on the river at the moment, all bobbing along following mum or dad and trying not to get left behind.

The first landmark we came to was Caversham bridge, which looked very impressive. We don’t use the poles once we hit a town as we are expecting some bright spark to shout “Oi mate, where’s your skis?” Caversham was an opportunity for a caffeine stop to give us the drive to get on towards lunch.

Sonning is a lovely, typically English riverside village, where Sir Terence Rattigan, the dramatist, lived for a period.

Lunch today was a very pleasant rest sitting in the sunny outdoor courtyard of the historic Bull Inn at Sonning.

It’s always a bit of a struggle to get going again after lunch, so we had a quick look around St Andrews church which originally dates back to Saxon times, but the current building was largely rebuilt in 1852. Adjoining the church is Deanery Garden, one of Sir Edwin Lutyen's best-known country houses built at the turn of the century.

There are some fabulous properties along this stretch of the Thames and you can get quite close to one which has a sit on and ride type model steam railway in the grounds and this amazing scaled recreation of St Moritz railway station!

So from Shiplake it was a fairly easy stroll into Henley and back to the hustle and bustle of boats and people and then home for a shower and a doze!

Day 8 Cholsey to Tilehurst – 12 miles

Tuesday 1 June

Unfortunately, the first day of ‘Flaming June’ turned out to be very wet. Not to be deterred, we put on full waterproof kit and were soon underway on this leg of the Thames path that will take us half way towards the Thames Barrier.

For the first time on this walk we decided to use Nordic Poles. For the uninitiated, Nordic walking is like cross country skiing, but without the skis, (and the snow), and is a great form of exercise. Rather than a long explanation, the photograph below of us in action should give some idea of what we mean. Chris has only just learnt to Nordic walk (he is not too bad a normal walking) so his technique is still developing.

Not long after starting we came across a very strange looking house overlooking the Thames. Chris, being an architect (retired, but still paying his ARB subscription) immediately recognised the house as being designed by John Outram. It was built in 1999 for an Egyptologist as a modern interpretation of an Egyptian house. However, from my perspective (not being an architect) it looked more like a juke box.



One of the advantages of Nordic walking is that it is faster and we had soon reached Goring. The rain had not stopped and we were very pleased to find that Goring is just the place to have an upmarket coffee shop, found by asking a local, as Chris’s iPhone app had no information at all. The owners did not seem to mind two wet travellers with muddy boots and provided good cappuccino and scones.

Not long after Goring the Path moved away from the river and went steeply uphill through woodland. We had not expected this on the Thames Path and were thankful that we were using Nordic poles, which make hill climbing much easier on old knees.

Our lunch stop was planned for The Greyhound at Whitchurch. Unfortunately we found that the pub had just changed owners and they were not offering food as yet. We therefore fell back onto plan B and went to the Ferry Boat Inn just down the road. Here we enjoyed a good lunch accompanied by a pint of London Pride.

Post lunch we came across a sign apparently marking half way between the source of the Thames and the Thames Barrier. We had been alerted to this sign by someone at the pub, but were expecting something a little more fitting of such an important milestone. As you can see from the photo below, Chris does his best to add gravitas to the occasion, but not with much success.

After lunch the rain finally stopped and we could enjoy the scenery of this wooded and very green section of the Thames valley. The boat traffic also increased with the improving weather and with it the activity at the locks.

The post lunch section was quite short and we soon reached Tilehurst. We have now covered 92 miles and are half way on our route to the Thames Barrier. And, as my grandfather used to say “the best is yet to come”