Thames Path Ramble 9: Saturday 16th May 2015 Abingdon to Clifton Hampden

Thames Path Ramble 9: Saturday 16th May 2015

Abingdon to Clifton Hampden, which is about 5½ miles.

Sue and Jem, Ann, John, Julie, Ian and I set off walking from Abingdon at about 11am (after visiting the Throwing Buns café) and the weather was fresh. Later on, the weather became much warmer and with the wealth of green foliage both sides of the river, this was certainly a lovely walk.

We admired the tall spire of St Helen’s Church, (dates from 1100 and apparently it is very wide) and the old buildings around (according to the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, "No other churchyard anywhere has anything like it”) including some almshouses (built in 1446) with a picture of the old Market Cross by Sampson Strong on the gable end.

The River Ock joins the River Thames here,  and also the Berks and Wilts Canal did once upon a time, and hopefully will again when the restoration is complete.

 Then, on past Abingdon School Boathouse (from where I believe the rowers, with their pink paddles, that we saw later had come) and the entrance to Abingdon Marina.

Continuing, we followed the curving loop of the river around low lying water meadows (the A415 road that crosses here has an old ‘causeway’ foot path).  We came upon a lovely house (and boat moored in front) beside the lovely stone Culham Old Bridge. This was hidden behind greenery.  The bridge spans Back Water, once called Swift Ditch and the main navigation channel, now just a cut. It was the site of a battle in the English Civil War and had 2 pillboxes built on it during WW2.

 

Again the course of the Thames River forms another large loop but this time the Thames Path takes us the shorter route, along Culham Cut. At various points we could see Didcot Power Station to the south. Three of the six iconic cooling towers of the redundant Didcot A power station were demolished last year (the other cooling towers and turbine hall are due the same fate this year).  Also, last year some parts of the still operating Didcot B power station were seriously damaged by fire.

We stopped by Culham Lock (a cold and deep one according to J. K. Jerome) to have Eccles Cakes, (kindly made by Ian S.). Here, we met another Thames Path walker, taking it more leisurely second-time time round. Nearby are two more fine stone bridges:  Sutton Bridge over the main Thames channel and Culham Bridge over the cut.

The path continued to be really green with lush growth either side. It was easy walking and not jungle-like, as a mower had been along recently. We saw many butterflies and other insects, birds including a heron and a nature- loving photographer.

 

The imposing string and bow Appleford railway bridge made of iron with all its rivets carries trains between Didcot and Oxford.

Next in the distance looking northwards we could see pillboxes (still part of the main defence line along the Thames but in a line across some of the larger loops) and Culham Science Park (with a large white building).

On the opposite bank the unusual low, ‘squashed’ spire of Long Wittenham Church stood out, with the more modern tower of Didcot Power Station behind.

As we passed Clifton Lock we saw a couple motoring upstream in a lovely slipper launch, (a traditional long and low River Thames boat that has a stern that curves elegantly down to the waterline).
 

At the end of our walk the river curves gently around and slowly, through the undergrowth, appeared the striking red brick Clifton Hampden Bridge, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott (of Midland Hotel, St Pancras and Albert Memorial fame) in 1864.

The village of Clifton Hampden and The Barley Mow were featured in Jerome K. Jerome's 1889 classic book ‘Three Men in a Boat’.  Jerome says -
‘Round Clifton Hampden, itself a wonderfully pretty village, old-fashioned, peaceful, and dainty with flowers, the river scenery is rich and beautiful. If you stay the night on land at Clifton, you cannot do better than put up at the “Barley Mow.” It is, without exception, I should say, the quaintest, most old-world inn up the river. It stands on the right of the bridge, quite away from the village. Its low-pitched gables and thatched roof and latticed windows give it quite a story-book appearance, while inside it is even still more once-upon-a-timeyfied’.
It would not be a good place for the heroine of a modern novel to stay at. The heroine of a modern novel is always “divinely tall,” and she is ever “drawing herself up to her full height.” At the “Barley Mow” she would bump her head against the ceiling each time she did this.
It would also be a bad house for a drunken man to put up at. There are too many surprises in the way of unexpected steps down into this room and up into that; and as for getting upstairs to his bedroom, or ever finding his bed when he got up, either operation would be an utter impossibility to him.’

Charles Dickens was full of praise when he wrote about the pub too. So, at the end of our walk we followed, as many before us, to the Barley Mow for a meal and saw the low beams for ourselves.