It was the start of the year 2000 and we decided on our own millennium project. We would walk the Thames Path. Not, I hasten to add, all in one go. Rather we would do it in stages. Nine years later we have made it to Reading, reached in 16 stages. God willing, I plan to offer VISA in circa 2020 an article about the second half of the project, on from Reading to the source near Cirencester.
With the dawn of the new millennium such an important moment in time, it seemed appropriate to start our walk on the Meridian Line in Greenwich. Greenwich, with its various attractions, Park, and fine architecture is an agreeable place. At the time it still boasted as its main attraction the Cutty Sark, now under repair following a disastrous fire. But it is an enclave in the midst of the unlovely South London sprawl.
Heading west we were soon in neighbouring, and determinedly ungentrified, Deptford. But there is an interesting stretch along the Thames known as Deptford Strand. This was once the site of a dockyard, visited incognito by Peter the Great as part of his quest to modernize Russia and thus learn from western countries. The name of a nearby street, Czar Street, commemorates this visit.
We next entered the former Borough of Bermondsey, which might once have been characterized as almost 100% working class. Nowadays its riverbank is lined with executive flats and housing, and Surrey Docks, formerly the site of the only London docks south of the Thames, has been rebranded as Surrey Quays: a completely different kind of place, therefore. But if one goes a few blocks inland, the old Bermondsey soon reasserts itself.
At one point on the river there is a moving commemoration of Arthur Salter, the area’s MP between the World Wars. He was resolved to live among his mostly very poor constituents though he could easily have afforded to live elsewhere. He paid a heavy price as his nine-year-old daughter, Joyce, contracted scarlet fever and died. The statue is poignant: it shows his daughter waving to him. The tragedy did not diminish his devotion to his constituents.
If the south bank of the Thames in these parts has been transformed, the transformation on the north side is greater still. For the first couple of miles or so we were looking across to the Isle of Dogs. This once rather slummy area is now dominated by the towers of Canary Wharf and there is much upmarket housing. Further along the river, areas like Limehouse and Wapping are also considered to be rather desirable, though that certainly wasn’t always the case. But again, if one goes a few blocks inland, one will soon find oneself in the old East End. Some might call this Two Nation Britain.
We finished this first leg of the walk at Tower Bridge, taking the opportunity to walk across inside the Bridge, something that has only been possible for the past 20 years or so. The next leg was fairly short, taking us through Southwark. This was once the City’s poor relation but here, too, the riverbank has been undergoing transformation, and there are a number of attractions, above all the recreated Shakespearean theatre, the Globe. This is a fine achievement, but it is strange that it took an American to think of the idea. We finished at Waterloo, handy for our train home to Epsom.
We continued on our third leg out of the centre of London. At first we stayed south of the river, passing Lambeth Place and continuing through Vauxhall. This has not, at least until recently when it became MI5’s location, been regarded as a glamorous part of the capital. But for nearly two centuries up to 1859 it housed the legendary pleasure gardens, ‘London’s Tivoli’. In Russia and Ukraine, railway stations are to this day voksals, named from the station that served the gardens. Further on, a deviation inland was necessary to take us round Battersea Power Station, a rather sorry spectacle. There have been various projects over the years to restore this building and give it a purpose. So far all have come to nothing, but there is talk once again of redevelopment and it remains to be seen whether, this time, anything actually happens. We paused in Battersea Park for lunch, then crossed to the north bank for the first time, continuing through Chelsea and the rather soulless Chelsea Harbour development, before reaching gentrified Fulham, where we finished at Putney Bridge Underground.
The fourth leg more or less followed the route of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. I have no connection with either city, yet feel I must take sides and have always passionately supported Cambridge. A pleasant stretch through Fulham followed, past its Palace and Football Ground. I am not greatly into football, but again I feel I must have a side and that has to be Fulham, since it is the closest to where we live without being Chelsea.
Hammersmith, with its traffic, flyover and unprepossessing shopping centre, is not generally regarded as one of the capital’s loveliest corners but, as so often on Thames-side, one can be in a different world as soon as one reaches the river. Here one finds oneself in a pleasant and tranquil environment. We had a good pub lunch and continued into upmarket Chiswick. Approaching the eponymous Bridge we were rather surprised to see a taxi and hailed it. I think the driver was just as surprised to be picking up a fare in this rather quiet spot. He took us back to Putney Bridge.
Stage 5 of our walk took us through more of Chiswick, including stylish Strand-on-the-Green. Then we crossed Kew Bridge, thereby returning to the south bank. We were also starting to come into home territory. This part of the walk skirts Kew Gardens. We have had many days out in these beautiful botanical gardens.
I am old enough to remember when the entry charge was just one old penny; unfortunately it is now a lot more than that and a visit can be rather expensive, though they have now rejoined London’s ‘2 for 1 when you go by train’ scheme. On New Year’s Day we got in for free, a one-off to commemorate the start of the year in which Kew celebrates its 250th anniversary.
Like other visitors we enjoy the main attractions, including the huge glass houses and lately the innovative tree walk, but there is a hidden gem which is our favourite. This is the Marianne North Gallery, which remains undiscovered by many visitors as it is on the edge of the Gardens, flanked by the main road outside. Miss North was a Victorian lady who, rather unusually for a woman in that era, travelled to many far-off and exotic places where she created wonderful paintings, usually of plant life. She was well-to-do and rather well connected; for example when in Washington she found herself, as one does, taking tea with the President of the USA. Establishing a gallery in Kew to display her work was her greatest project and it is a magical place, its walls covered from top to bottom with her colourful and beautiful paintings. At time of writing it is closed for refurbishment and is due to reopen later this year. The authorities assure us that will be as it was and are keen to attract more visitors. That has to be good, but a side of me wants to keep this hidden treasure to ourselves.
We finished this leg of the walk in Richmond, a green and pleasant place which, despite being in Greater London, has something of the feel of a provincial town. It is the home of such luminaries as the Dimblebys, the Attenboroughs and Bamber Gascoigne and so (maybe) has the highest collective IQ of any place in Britain. The next stage brought us right into the heart of home territory i.e. to Kingston, the closest point on the Thames to our own abode. It took us past Teddington Lock, where the river changes from tidal to fresh water.
Stage 7 was fairly short, a familiar walk along through parkland on the north side of the Thames from Kingston to Hampton Court. No time to visit the Palace - we have done so on other occasions – but we did have lunch there. Epsom once had a Henrician Palace which was at least as grand, Nonsuch. Sadly this lasted for less than 150 years, otherwise tourists would doubtless be these days flocking to Epsom in droves. The name lives on in Nonsuch Park, a green lung amidst suburbia, and the outline of the Palace is marked, but there is little else to commemorate it. I’m surprised that our local authority doesn’t make more of this asset. The Palace can’t feasibly be recreated but there could surely be some sort of centre or museum which would provide as it were a ‘Nonsuch experience’. Epsom might then attract tourists who don’t really bother with our Borough, Derby day excepted.
Stage nine took us out of Greater London and into Surrey. I’d better add that areas like Kingston and Richmond, though in Greater London, tend still to regard themselves as being in Surrey and this is indeed their postal address; their residents will not for the most part take kindly to being described as Londoners. Surrey is my home county and I am a great advocate. It offers some of the finest scenery in the South. I have to say, though, that the Thames-side scenery here is not great. We completed this section in three stages, successively finishing at Walton-on-Thames, Shepperton and Staines.
Staines is not the most fascinating of towns, but we were stuck there for some while, waiting ages for a bus. We were starting to find, as we moved away from London, that public transport can be a problem if one is doing the Thames Path. One might travel to the starting point by car but, since one wants to walk from A to B rather than do a circle, one will be dependent on public transport to get back. Rather unusually Staines, along with nearby Sunbury and Shepperton, was in Middlesex but successfully resisted incorporation into Greater London, which swallowed up that historic county. Administratively it is now in Surrey, which thus acquired a foothold north of the Thames, but, as in Kingston and Richmond, old allegiances die hard and locals consider themselves to be still living in Middlesex.
From now on the scenery has, nearly always, been great. For Stage 13 we quickly left Staines behind and carried on through Runnymede, an historic as well as a beautiful corner of England. It is not entirely English anymore since a small patch of land is now, in perpetuity, American territory. This is the memorial that was established after President Kennedy’s assassination. The inscription reads:
‘This acre of English ground was given to the United States of America by the people of Britain in memory of John F. Kennedy, born 19th May, 1917: President of the United States 1961-63: died by an assassin’s hand 22nd November,1963. "Let every Nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty": from the inaugural address of President Kennedy, January 1961.'
After refreshments at the Magna Carta Tea Room, we crossed into Berkshire. This is the Royal County, no less, but administratively it no longer exists, the powers that be in their wisdom having broken it up into unitary authorities. Berkshire has been messed around with quite a bit by those who insist on seemingly never-ending “reforms” of local government. The county at one time reached the outskirts of Oxford but, in the seventies, a swathe of territory, including its symbol the White Horse, was moved into Oxfordshire. Berkshire was compensated with Eton and Slough, leaving it with pretty much the same population but much smaller in size. Ah well, at least they’ve brought back Rutland.
We were heading for Windsor but for security reasons the path on the south bank, which is in the grounds of the Castle, is closed to the public, necessitating deviation north of the Thames, through the town of Datchet, before re-crossing the River and continuing through Home Park into the town.
Stage 14 started and finished on the south bank, but was otherwise on the north. Crossing from Windsor, one finds oneself in Eton, a charming town noted of course for its School. I went there. I’d better add that I did so as a tourist. During the summer vacation, it opens its gates to visitors and it’s well worth going and having a look. The walk was through a very pleasant stretch of river, but the final stretch was less than idyllic. We had to get into the centre of Maidenhead, which is not near the river so requires something of a traipse. It is an affluent town and one might expect it to be nice, but it isn’t particularly. In my book it’s the dreariest of the freshwater Thames-side towns.
We grew no fonder of Maidenhead when we discovered that there were no buses back to Windsor. The lesson learnt was not to do the Thames Path on a Sunday, as so much of the public transport packs up. The general comment might be made that whilst Sunday (sadly in my view) is no longer special so shops open just as on any other day, providers of public transport are still in the era when it was special. One might have assumed that, as Maidenhead and Windsor are sizeable towns, a few miles apart and actually within the same unitary authority, there would be a bus linking them even on a Sunday. Not so. We returned to Windsor by train, changing at Slough.
If Maidenhead is the dreariest town on the fresh water Thames, Marlow has to be one of the nicest. This was our next destination. Generally the Thames Path is what it says, a path along the Thames, but from time to time there are diversions inland and there was one of them on this stretch, which was quite pleasant and took us through the village of Cookham. It was Easter Sunday and we attended a service in its church. Then it was back to the River then over to the north side, continuing through Bourne End to Marlow. Here I had a welcome pint of cider in the historic Compleat Angler hotel, where we celebrated (all too many years ago) my 40th birthday. This is across the river from the town and one gets there via the Suspension Bridge, which is a smaller version of Budapest’s celebrated Chain Bridge, having been built by the same architect. The bridges - not the towns – are twinned. Marlow has its own branch line, so getting back to Maidenhead wasn’t a problem.
There was then a gap of four years – we just didn’t seem to find the time - before we resumed, in 2008, our project. This was a fairly short stretch, from Marlow only as far as the next village, Hurley. Conditions weren’t ideal for, though it was dry, it had been raining a lot and the path was very muddy. We logged that there was – rare find! – a free car park in Hurley, and a bus into Henley, our next target. This time we did do a circle, returning to Marlow via an inland, and less muddy, route which took us past the National Sports Centre at Bisham Abbey.
Having re-started our walk, we decided not to wait another four years before continuing it. Having duly parked our car for free, we commenced Stage 16 in Hurley. This was on the south side of the river except at the very end when we crossed into Henley. This was not a Sunday, but even so public transport was once more to be a bugbear. Bus stops were poorly signed and locating the bus to Hurley was an initiative test that we failed. After more time than we would have wished in this admittedly attractive town, we opted for the bus to Marlow – routes 800 and 850 between Reading and High Wycombe can come in very handy for Thames Path walkers. For the first time we made use of our new bus passes, enabling us to travel on buses the length and breadth of England rather than just in Surrey. So we had to repeat the walk from Marlow to Hurley but it is fairly short and, as the path was no longer muddy, we enjoyed it all the more this second time.
So far we had always gone by car or public transport to the starting points of our walk, but for Stage 16 we treated ourselves to a two-night stay in a hotel. My wife, Cathy, is good at finding deals which enable us to stay in five-star hotels for three-star prices and just such a deal enabled us to stay at the Crowne Plaza in Marlow. It is not actually in or even near the centre, being located, somewhat incongruously, in an industrial estate on the outskirts. We wondered if we were in fact going to find it as we made our way through the unpromising looking area but it was there at the very end of the road and we were very pleased with our stay.
For Stage 16, the next day, we had glorious weather, a bright and sunny winter day. It was very cold but we didn’t mind for we had our layers. It was a very pleasant stretch of river, our path crossing from north to south at Sonning, a pleasant Thames-side village. We finished in Reading, something of a milestone on our journey as it is, give or take, about halfway along.
I have something of a soft spot for Reading. I am a trolleybus enthusiast! I grew up with trolleybuses and, as an 11-year-old boy, was greatly upset when they were replaced in 1959, as part of the first stage of the conversion of London’s trolleybus system, the largest in the world, to buses. I made it my business to explore what remained of the London system, which was constantly shrinking as successive phases of conversion were implemented, and finally came to an end in 1962.
I then started exploring provincial systems and effectively adopted the one in Reading which was still going strong in the early sixties and was even expanding. So I have happy memories of rides out to Tilehurst and Wokingham Road and other trolleybus destinations. Even in Reading the tide turned against trolleybuses and the system came to an end in 1968. Four years later the very last trolleybus system of all ended, in Bradford. I can’t always claim great foresight but it occurred to me even at the time that it was foolish, and not environmentally friendly, to get rid of these quiet, pollution-free vehicles and replace them with petrol-guzzling buses. Many overseas cities still have trolleybuses and there is now a chance that they will return to our streets, specifically in Leeds.
Located in the M4 corridor, Reading nowadays has something of a modern ‘hi-tech’ image; a fast road slashes through the centre and the up-to-the-minute Oracle Centre has helped make it one of the busiest shopping centres in the country. Yet I’d found not long before, when I’d ended up in Reading having gone exploring with my new pass and indulged in a bit of trolley nostalgia by riding on the old routes, that much of the city, including its centre, has hardly changed at all since the trolleybus era. I did see a Winslet House, presumably named after the city’s famous daughter. Perhaps somewhere else in Reading there’s a Gervais House.
The 800/850 again came in handy, getting us back to Henley, where Cathy took time out to look round the shops while I explored the town. Henley is the town which gave us Michael Heseltine, Boris Johnson – and Dusty Springfield. It oozes affluence yet Cathy reported that there was scarcely any shop that was of interest and reportedly Henley is not being spared from the recession. We drove back to Marlow for a second night at the Crowne Plaza, really pleased to have the halfway point of our project under our belts.
First published in VISA 86 & 88 (Aug & Dec 2009)
