August 24, 2007: Goring to Ewelme

Having completed the London Outer Orbital Path on August 19, Tosh and I today resumed our circular walk on the Chiltern Way. I knew we needed an early start, especially because of our recurrent need for a pub lunch, and I was fortunate enough to get a ride to Paddington Station from Linda as 7:15 – when she arrived to pick up Fritz for the day. As I wanted to take an 8:00 train I had plenty of time to visit the loo, buy my round-trip ticket to Didcot Parkway, and to sit down at the Krispy Kreme counter with an icing-filled chocolate doughnut and a small cup of cappuccino. To my surprise I was told by the clerk at the booking office that I could employ my senior rail pass, though £24 must be the most I have ever paid for transportation on a London-based walk. Perhaps the rail pass was operative, even at this early hour, because the rail network considered today to be part of the Bank Holiday weekend.

At about 7:45 I took my usual trek to the distant platform 13, where the Oxford train took off at 8:00 exactly. Seven minutes later we pulled into Ealing Broadway, where I expected Tosh to join the train – not that you could tell if this had been accomplished, for the train was crowded with commuting workers heading west (some were even standing). I pulled out the mobile phone and dialled her number and, sure enough, she had boarded our train; we agreed to meet after Reading, when I expected the crowd to have thinned a bit. I gave her my location and she did indeed join me for the last fifteen minutes of our journey. It was grey outside but there was a brief period of sunshine and I had hopes that sun would eventually prevail. Our train reached Goring at 9:04. We had been here last on September 28, 2006 – just a month or so before Harold died. Now, as related in the last of the LOOP entries, my wife Dorothy had also died – on July 12 of this year.

I had purchased the new sheet 171 OS Explorer map (after getting so far off route the last time we walked the Chiltern Way) and this, folded to the right square, shared space in my map case with xeroxed pages of Moon’s text. For the third time in my walking career I therefore made my way through the streets of Goring, having visited the place in walking both the Ridgeway and the Thames Path earlier. We edged our way along suburban streets and alleyways, hopped a few stiles, and eventually turned our back on the town with a woodland walk in an easterly direction in Battle Plantation.

Not surprisingly we spent most of the morning talking about Dorothy, my work on her literary estate having been a preoccupation of late. I don’t blame this intense chatter for the first mistake of the day – for after we had reached Battle Road and taken a brief jog to the left we kept going on a private drive, reaching the lawn of a suburban home before its mistress, admitting that the signs were confusing, directed us back to the road, where we could see a thin path making its way north just parallel to the drive.

We soon turned uphill to our right and entered Wroxhills Wood. After turning left onto a crossing track we emerged at an open viewpoint where there were some lovely views of the Oxfordshire plain, still under grey skies, with the smoking towers of the Didcot Power Station dominating the scene. Now we turned to our right on Beech Lane, which we followed for almost half a mile. There were lots of Chiltern Way Extension signs this morning and the next one sent us north across a field and into High Wood. Here we had our second misadventure. The guidebook suggests that we need to fork left once we reach the woodland, and drop down to a valley bottom, and indeed there was a path on our left heading downhill. Someone had added an ambiguous white arrow to a tree here but it offered neither right nor left in its straightforward posture, only forward.

We took the left fork, therefore, soon entering into an area fenced with wire and offering shelter to a large tribe of immature grouse. (These birds were omnipresent today, always darting about.) The path seemed to come to an end and then to circle back and we had to follow it, obviously needing to rethink our earlier choice. After floundering around for several minutes we reached our waymarked tree and this time chose to head down the original path (no left fork). White arrows on trees continued to offer hope that we were indeed on the right route. I have noticed that woodland walking on the Chiltern Way can be very confusing, with so many choices of alternative paths, and it is always on such stretches that signage disappears – as it did today.

The walking was certainly pleasant enough and when we at last reached a stile above South Stoke Road I could be satisfied that we had chosen the right route. We turned right on the road and a few minutes later switched to the north (the dominant direction for the day) to walk on the outside of Dean Wood. Tosh was particularly fascinated by the sere fields on our left here – a medley of dried oilseed rape, poppies and other wildflowers. Dean Farm was next, a very posh establishment, which we circled in order to reach its gravel access track, which we now used to climb gently uphill and thus reach the outskirts of the village of Woodcote.

We came out at the B471 but instead of turning left at the next junction we continued on into the village. It was 11:15 and I was hoping that the Red Lion might be open. It was not and so we had to content ourselves with a drink from Tosh’s red canteen while sitting on a bench at the edge of a recreation ground across the street from the pub.

Then we resumed our walk, retracing our steps to the Tidmore Lane and turning right. After a few more turns we passed a wonderful and large thatched cottage, Massey’s Pightle. Tosh was beginning to snatch at fruit again: plums, sloes, brambles. I told her to stop before she made herself sick. She then ate an apple that she had brought with her.

We crossed the A4074 and shortly thereafter reached Rushmore Lane, where we turned left. Soon we were making our way along the edges of North Grove, which we eventually entered. More distant views opened up as we headed downhill to Bottom Lane. We turned right and headed east for a quarter mile, arriving at the grounds of another posh pile, Bottom House Farm. (Our modern farmers can’t take to the plow without the promise of tennis at the end of the day.) We were dependent on guidebook instructions now for there was no path across the greensward, though we knew to keep the pond on our left and to head for a clump of trees. A friendly Labrador danced out to greet us here and he looked like he was about to pee on my pack as I took off my sweatshirt.

Bottom House Farm had decorated the footpath with carved wooden mushrooms but after climbing above the place and circling around a herd of cows we now faced a very steep pull uphill and into the woods on Green Hill. Tosh was appalled to see that steps lead steeply uphill, but this stretch did not last for long and we were soon able to escape footpaths for a walk along Braziers Lane. When I told Tosh that this would lead up to the top of Garsons Hill there were again objections (“hill” suggesting more ascent) but the route was not all at steep and we had soon reached Garsons Lane.

We undertook a brief jog to the right, turned north again, passed Keeper’s Cottage and followed the edge of a wood called, coyly, Wee Grove. We soon entered this woodland and after emerging into the light again headed downhill. I found the waymarking a bit problematic here, and I’m not certain that we made all the right moves in our descent toward the road at Berins Hill. We could see a blue van parked at the bottom of our field and we headed toward it, soon slipping down to the roadway itself, but when we next encountered a Chiltern Way Extension sign it sent us up to a bank along the field edge we had just left – and I could see no way forward. This meant that the sign must have been intended for southbound walkers and we had to return briefly to the road where our way west was also signalled.

The route, which was overgrown with brambles, was not at all pleasant and I regretted not just following the road instead. Tosh had been agitating for information about our noontime pub and after reaching the Well Place Road I could give her a definitive answer. The pub was in the hamlet of Hailey and we were not that far away, but the bad news was that the village was perched high on a hill above us and we had, after a brief bit of road walking, to use a bridle way to climb to the top of the plateau. “We are really earning our pints,” I told Tosh.

At the top of the hill we turned left on a road that soon lead to the King William pub. There were lots of people on benches out in front and so I knew that this one was open. It was 1:20. Tosh chose this moment to store some snatched elderberries in her pack and I went in to order a pint of Fosters for myself and a pint of bitter shandy for the lady. When she came in we chose a table and studied the elaborate menu (no scampi and chips here). We each had the sage and honey sausages, coleslaw and chips, and these went down a treat a few minutes later. Tosh then had her usual coffee and we both used the loos – while the rest of the crowd filtered away. I used the mobile phone to call cousin Bernard, who had half promised that he might drive over to visit us the next time we walked in Oxfordshire, but he was not in residence ­– he and Doreen having had to abandon their house for six months following terrible flood damage.

I was sitting out in front at about 2:20 when last orders were called. Fortunately we had walked over half the distance required today and that was just as well because, after all that beer, we were not able to reproduce our morning pace at all. At least we could walk in sunshine the rest of the afternoon. From the ubiquitous waitress from Eastern Europe Tosh had received some clear plastic sacks and she now proposed to gather sloes and elderberries in earnest.

We turned north and followed a lane that rose and fell in easy enough stages. We then entered Wicks Woods in order to descend to Woodhouse Farm. Here we turned to the west again and followed a track out to a macadam road at Forest Row – where a chap was sitting by himself in his car, with the radio blaring away with some travel program. I got well ahead of Tosh on the next northerly stage (“Wait for me in the next shady spot”) while that lady stopped for fruit harvesting. I noted with amusement that one of the footpaths here was called Swan’s Way (very Proustian) and that the Ridgeway path soon crossed our route from left to right. Here I waited for Tosh to catch up.

After passing Blenheim Farm we emerged near some heavy crossing traffic but fortunately the Chiltern Way chooses the less travelled Nuffield Road. Again I got well ahead of Tosh here, finally sitting down on a stile at the entry to Oakley Little Wood, where I refolded my OS map. (I never seemed to be able to stay with any one square for long today). Tosh promised, when she at last approached, that fruit picking was “finis” for the day, but, of course, it wasn’t. She was growing tired and at one point said, “I’m not walking, I’m staggering.” She had also told me that Amy Lee (who now worries about her mother’s whereabouts after years of it being the other way around) had said, “If either of you fall down make sure that Anthony is conscious; he’s the only one who will be able to tell emergency services where you are.”

We crossed the A4130 into Oakley Wood but at a three way fork at the western edge we had to pause to figure out which of the local paths was ours. We crossed a number of fields between stretches of woodland but Tosh objected to a car breaker’s yard on our right as we emerged onto the Old London Road, which we had used in completing our walk to Ewelme while doing the Chilterns Hundred. We turned right here and then left to pass Potter’s Farm (again as we had done all those years ago), soon joining up with the pre-extension Chiltern Way coming in from our right. Unfortunately this junction was dominated by a bacon factory, i.e, a noisome piggery – and it stank.

The way forward, now heading unerringly northwest toward Ewelme, was overgrown and nasty, muddy underfoot and full of brambles and nettles. For the last time I waited for the fruit lady. We then walked by a quarry and reached a road into our village. Here we left the Chiltern Way, having already used the road along Cow Common below us in 1997. (I reminded Tosh that a cow had actually followed us along this lane.)

Our route lead into the village itself and I now realized, since our original route had touched only the outskirts, that it was a place of great charm. Bernard had warned me that Ewelme is famous for its watercress beds and, indeed, just as we passed a café at streamside (where the vicar was just emerging) we encountered half a mile of this watery crop on our left. Our goal was the Shepherd’s Hut at the west end of town and at 5:30, thirteen and half miles later, we at last arrived.

We ordered our drinks (I had just a pint of lemonade with lots of ice) and began to make inquiries about getting back to the rail line. I always knew this would be the most difficult part of the journey and had even phoned the landlady here about this problem ­– she had said that she usually just drove customers to the train herself but, unfortunately, she was not in evidence now and the gent behind the bar seemed quite dubious about getting a taxi to come fetch us. He tried anyway, reported failure, and left us to ponder our options at a little table in the sunny garden.

Next to us was a rough lot of builders, pounding down the ale and chuckling over a variety of crises involving their own ineptitude. (One had not only driven a nail into a wasps’ nest but walled in a live electrical cable.) Gradually a plan B was developed. We walk across the watercress bridge to reach a corner where there was a bus to Wallingford. The latter Thameside town actually had a taxi rank and thus we would be able to get a ride to Didcot Parkway.

When we got to the corner in question there was no sign of a bus stop – so we asked a man in an orange boiler suit who was throwing rubbish into a skip in his front yard where we should stand. He told us that he had seen people standing next to a layby on his side of the street and so we crossed over and stood in front of a line of suburban cottages. There was no bus stop sign here either and 6:15, the time they had suggested in the pub, came and went with no sign of any bus. I sat down disconsolately and fished out some taxi numbers in Didcot that I had copied off the Internet.

I didn’t use any of them because Tosh had spotted a bus heading the other way and I suggested that it might soon turn around and head back in our direction. So we sat for another fifteen minutes. “We could always try Janet’s solution,” I proposed. “What’s that?” “You approach the first person you see and ask, ‘How much would you charge to drive me to Wallingford?’” A meter man came by and suggested we walk to Wallingford. Though my feet were in better shape this time than last, there was no way either of us could do any more walking. We waited.

After a few more minutes, however, the bus  (bearing the cheering legend “Wallingford” on its destination window) did pull in and the Asian driver welcomed us aboard and told us that the famous taxi rank was his final destination. It took only ten minutes or so for us to reach our destination; we passed the Town Arms, where Janet and I had lunch in 1991 while doing a stretch of the Thames Path.

There were lots of cab drivers in parley and one loaded us aboard his vehicle for the ten-minute ride to Didcot Parkway. This cost £14 and it was now 7:00. We had our tickets of course (though we were never asked to produce them at any point today) and I noted that there would be a Paddington train at 7:07. It was warm sitting on a bench in the sun but we weren’t there for long and soon found train seats with a table between us for the long return journey. I could have waited for a fast train but I wanted to stay with Tosh, who kept worrying that she would sleep through her stop at Ealing Broadway.  I again used the mobile to call Linda and report on my arrival time. The train became ever more crowded as we neared London, not with workers so much this time, but with young women on their way to town for a night on the tiles. One bimbo serenaded us with two loud numbers from her music machine.

I said goodbye to Tosh (who is soon off to the States to follow in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark) and a few minutes later, at about 8:20, I reached Paddington, limping along to the Bakerloo Line and then home to Morshead Mansions. Fritz arrived a few minutes later and I sat in the kitchen eating the sandwiches I had bought in case our noontide pub was not serving food. Tosh had asked me which tipple I would have when I got home and I had nominated either beer, Scotch or Bourbon. In the event I just drank a Diet Coke and went to bed at 10:00. But I couldn’t sleep and this was just as well because at 11:00 Janet called from Michigan (the sixth time today) to find out just where I had been and what I had been up to.

To continue with our next stage you need:

Day 8: Ewelme to Stokenchurch

Day walks from London:

If you are looking for additional London-based walking opportunities you may want to have a look at our experiences on the following routes:

A Chilterns Hundred

The Chiltern Way

The Green London Way

The Greensand Way

The London Countryway

The London Outer Orbital Path

The North Downs Way

The Ridgeway Path

The Saxon Shore Way

The South Downs Way

The Thames Path

The Vanguard Way

The Wealdway