Tuesday 3 August 2010
We were delighted to have a guest walker with us for this stretch. Our friend John joined us on the day, fresh from his day job in Hungary. It was another fine day, allowing us to travel light - in John’s case just his sunglasses and credit card! For this stage we started on the Weybridge side of Shepperton Ferry, choosing not to wake up the ferryman at this hour of the morning.
The first part of our journey took us along the Desborough Cut. The Cut is named after Lord Desborough, the longest serving chairman of the Thames Conservancy and was completed in 1935. It bypasses a long loop of the river to the north with a straight navigable channel.
Our first stop was predictably for a coffee at the noisy Walton Bridge. There was a ferry at this point of the river from the 1400’s and the latest bridge (the 5th bridge) was constructed in 1999 as a temporary structure alongside the previous bridge. I guess these days ‘temporary’ is a euphemism for ‘permanent’. It’s a shame its so ugly.
At Sunbury John regaled us with stories of his youth and what he did growing up in this area - none of it repeatable - without money changing hands anyway! This area is dominated by huge reservoirs with banks much higher than the river. These are the ones you can see below when taking off from Heathrow.
We found time to take this photo of us approaching the old Hurst Park racecourse. The racecourse was last used in 1963, despite the suffragettes burning down park of the Royal Box in 1913. I will leave it up to you to decide who is most like, Compo, Clegg or Foggy!
Across the river was the slender tower of Hampton church dating from 1831, and Garrick’s Ait. David Garrick, the actor, had a domed temple built here, opposite his villa and even had the statue modeled on himself. The temple is visible between the river and the Hampton Court to Sunbury main road.
This part of the river is lined with a veritable traffic jam of weird and wonderful houseboats of all shapes and sizes. It must be strange to live so close to the water.
Lunch was beckoning as we reached Hampton Court bridge and after a fruitless trek across the river to The Cardinal Wolsey, which we found to be in the throes of a refurbishment, we finally settled down to a very pleasant meal at Blubeckers. We managed to stretch lunch out much longer than normal, probably down to John’s ‘bon-viveur’ influence, but eventually we staggered on past the wonderful Hampton Court Palace. It is not difficult to imagine that 600 years ago King Henry V would have been dropped off at this very spot by the royal barge to visit his country seat!
There were lots of visitors walking along the river skirting the grounds of Hampton Court and our next destination Kingston - don’t they have jobs to go to? But before we reached Kingston I had arranged for us to call in on my longtime friend Carole, who very kindly gave us tea and biscuits and made us very welcome.
Duly refreshed we crossed Kingston Bridge and walked though the pleasant public gardens towards Teddington. There are some lovely properties here on the Hampton Wick bank with gardens reaching down to the waterside.
But we needed to push on to Teddington Lock and journey’s end. Teddington Lock is the highest tidal point on the Thames. The lock was originally constructed in 1811 and is a vast construction. In 1940 Teddington Lock was an assembly point for an enormous flotilla of small ships to be used in the evacuation of Dunkirk. I am constantly reminded how much history this river has to offer.
So we crossed back to the north bank by the footbridge to the site of the old Thames Television studios, where The Benny Hill Show, Opportunity Knocks and This is Your Life were all regularly recorded. The studios originated at the turn of the last century when a local house owner allowed filmmakers to use his greenhouse as a studio. It still produces tv programmes independently such as My Family and Harry Hill’s TV Burp.
At the end of a long hot day John’s wife kindly collected us on her drive home from work, whilst Steve and I dozed in the back seat.
Next time we walk from Teddington to Putney and hope to meet up with my friends Richard and Susan and a dozen dogs!
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