Day 15 - Marlow to Maidenhead

 Wednesday 5 July 2023

Ah lovely Marlow

"Marlow is one of the pleasantest river centres I know of. It is a bustling, lively little town' Jerome K Jerome

Above is the fantastic view of how we walked into Marlow on our previous walk, over the bridge (the only suspension bridge across the non-tidal Thames) passing the 4* Compleat Angler Hotel, such a gorgeous location towards All Saints Church (built in 1835 on the site of a 12th century church whose foundation were rotting away due to river floods) and the High Street.

Apparently the Compleat Angler was the first public restaurant to be visited outside of  London by the Queen, she was invited to dine there by the President of Hungary in 1999.

Many moons ago I worked in Marlow and that is where I met my husband Graham, we lived in a lovely little terrace cottage at the top of the town.  We just had to nip up and see how it was looking 30 years on!

Susan and I walked round the back of the church towards The Two Brewers pub, which has been serving pints since 1727, passing Thames Lawn a large house which was the home of Captain Morris, of HMS Colossus at the Battle of Trafalgar.  The house was in the Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" as the home of MI6 Chief 'M', Bernard Lee.

It was at The Two Brewers where Jerome K Jerome wrote some of Three Men in a Boat, I have downloaded this book to reread whilst all of the Thames journey is in my head.

Many an author lived in Marlow, and you will see a few blue plaques around the place.  Percy Shelley and his wife Mary Godwin married and moved to Marlow into a gothic style cottage called Albion House, early in 1817.  He spent his time drifting down the river composing The Revolt of Islam, while Mary sat at home writing Frankenstein!

We bumped into a guy who was assisting a loader who was depositing this boat into the water, M. V Fringilla and taking her to Henley for the Festival.

Of course one of our most famous Olympians Steve Redgrave is from Marlow, born here in 1962, he gets a statue in Higginson Park.

We had a gentle walk, underneath the A404, along Shakespeare's Way looking across to Winter Hill, where this lovely big pink house has stood for years and years.

Winter Hill is thick with trees of Quarry Wood which is the 'Wild Wood' of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.  Grahame was sent to live here at The Mount with his Grandma when he was 5 years old after his mother died of scarlet fever.  His childhood was full of memories of playing in the garden by the woods, that went down to the river and after he married he moved back to Cookham Dean with his wife and family.  They lived in a house called Mayfield, (now a school) which is where he started to put together and share his bedtime stories for his son, that would eventually become The Wind in the Willows in 1908.

(There is a touring production of The Wind in the Willows currently showing til mid August, Alex's college friend is Ratty!)

And there is a lovely 5 mile walk put together by The Woodland Trust called The Wind in the Willows trail which starts at Cookham Dean Common's car park.

We spotted some beautiful houses through the trees, the riverside foliage and reeds are really starting to grow high now, so we were at just the right time to get a lovely peek at them!

Look at this one below Quarry Wood Hall, an ornate fake castle known locally as Cardboard Castle, it's divided into apartments. 

Another story I discovered about the woods here is that an opera singer from Australia called Dame Nellie Melba lived in a cottage here, she was the first artiste to broadcast on British radio in 1920 and then the first Australian to appear on the cover of Time Magazine in 1927.  Her voice could often be heard wafting through the trees here as she practiced!

The then Head Chef at The Savoy, August Escoffier named the Peach Melba in her honour!  

The day had threatened rain, in fact it was raining as we arrived in Marlow, but the sun was shining and the cagouls were back in our bags for a while which was nice.

Such a beautiful spot to have your house and boat, so you can pootle along when you feel like it!

Just on from here you see the little Marlow train passing by, it's not a particularly noisy one, it takes 23 minutes to go from Maidenhead to Marlow and Bourne End.

Maidenhead then connects you to London Paddington in 25 minutes.

Susan loved this white and pale blue trimmed house 💙

We were coming into Bourne End, you don't see the village here, just the marina, sailing club and some boats, and no you can't use their toilet. 😲 

Not a place to stop unless you happen to be a boat, just keep moving along.  In fact, move swiftly over the railway bridge.

The bridge was originally constructed in wood by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as part of the Wycombe Railway, it opened in 1854 and operated til 1870. It was reconstructed in steel in 1895 as the narrow spans on the bridge where unpopular with river traffic. A footbridge, cantilevered out from the railway bridge was added in 1992, to take the Thames Path across the river.

In 2013, the bridge was restored and repainted in green, and a large number of rusty rivets were replaced.

The view looking back taken from the top of the bridge.

Enid Blyton used to live in Bourne End, in a lovely thatched cottage, of course, from 1929 to 1938, in her diary she wrote "perfect, both outside and in, just like a fairy tale house and three minutes from the river'.  This is where she started writing The Faraway Tree and the Wishing Chair, I LOVED the Faraway Tree!

We stopped for a moment, I think to readjust boots or drink water, and my eyes focussed in on the house across the river having a large metal giraffe and a wooden lion in their front garden!

It was quite a busy stretch here with boats, paddle boarders and ducks.  Plus alot of dogs out and about being walked today.

We arrived at The Ferry Inn, which I remembered from 30 years ago was a Harvester Restaurant!  The cushions were still piled up from the rain, but with blue skies still around we opted to sit outside, whilst watching the swan parents bring their cygnets up the slipway, very cute.

There are a few pub options in Cookham, but we wanted to stop by the river and watch the boats go by.

At this point we had walked 10,500 steps which was about 4.7 miles.  Two hours of gentle walking.

The bridge here was built in 1867, by Pease Hutchinson & Co, from Darlington, another iron bridge that replaced a wooden one.  It hasn't had any maintenance work since the 1980s and shortly will be closed for works to ensure it remains 'fit for purpose'.  

Cookham is a pretty little village, made famous by the paintings of Sir Stanley Spencer.  He was born and lived here.  There is a gallery located centrally in an old chapel. One of his famous works was of a scene just near to where we had lunch, "Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta" sold for £6m at Christies!

This one "Swan Upping" shows the bridge in the background, it currently resides in the Tate Collection.

We walked through the gardens of the Holy Trinity Church  

And like Bisham village on our previous walk, the cottages here have very tiny front doors!

We walked through some pathways and hidden houses, somewhere in there is Formosa, an island that covers 50 acres which makes it the largest island in the non tidal Thames.  

We were now back alongside a beautiful peaceful stretch of the river.

Where this HUGE tree called out to be hugged, Susan happily obliged.

It was so pretty and so tranquil over on the other side, and I realised it was the Cliveden Estate.

A spot Jerome K Jerome described as 'perhaps the sweetest stretch of all the river" and I would agree.

Stanley Spencer said "you can't walk by the river at Cliveden Reach and not believe in God'.

 

Run now by the National Trust, I pictured us popping in for a scone and tea whilst planning the walk and then worked out that the Thames Path had us on the opposite side of the river!

It is a very smart 5* hotel these days too, with amazing afternoon teas. 

80 acres of formal gardens, 300+ acres of woodland, stunning views.  Cliveden has been home over the years to an array of dukes, earls, viscounts and a prince.  It was a hospital during the first world war and is now a hotel.  It's been a hub for society gatherings, exclusive and notorious political gatherings!

It was bought in 1666 by the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, George Villiers who had grand plans for it, it was a smaller plot then of just 160 acres, his main reason for buying it was that he wanted a residence close to London where he could entertain his mistress and friends. He instructed his architects to build a grand house.

In 1696 it was bought by Lord Orkney, shortly after he was made Lord Orkney, he thought it was too tall and lopped the top storey off!  This reduced it's height by about 20ft.  He did alot of work on planning the garden and colonnades. 

It stayed within his family for about 3 generations via the female line, during 1737-1751 it was leased to the then Prince of Wales.

And here's a fact; the Prince of Wales became the first person to killed by a cricket ball, when he was struck on the chest by one, causing an abscess which became fatally infected!

In 1795 the central main part of the building caught fire and burnt to the ground.

The Countess at the time continued to live in the wings until it was bought by Sir George Warrender in 1824, who replaced the burnt out central area and it regained it's beautiful glory .....  but in 1849 whilst owned by Harriet the Duchess of Sunderland (close friend of Queen Victoria who lived nearby in Windsor) it burnt down again!  And that was despite the Queen sending her fire engines. 

By 1852 it was rebuilt and Charles Barry was bought in to design it, he was the one that created the three storey Italianate style villa you see today.

In 1893 America's richest man at the time, William Waldorf Astor bought Cliveden for $1.2m, he remodelled alot of the house, the rooms, the staircase etc.  He loved classical sculpture and bought many pieces of his over from Italy where he had worked.

At the beginning of the First World War his oldest son failed his medical assessment to join the army, and offered part of the estate to the Canadian Red Cross to be run as a hospital.  In 1915 it looked after about 110 patients, but by the end of the war this had risen to 600.  In 1915 Winston Churchill and King George V visited the Duchess of Connaught Red Cross Hospital.

In the end of 24,000 troops were treated at the hospital. 

There is a War Memorial Garden standing there today, where the hospital once was.

Waldorf Astor, the son we mentioned above, married Nancy Langhorne in 1906, and it entered a new era of parties, and became one of the centres of European political and literary life.  Nancy became the first woman to take her seat as a Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons in 1919.

In the 1930s the groups became known as the 'Cliveden Set'.  Books have been written about the group and the times around it.

But most people know Cliveden as being the set for 'The Profumo Affair', this is when Cliveden made the headlines due to John Profumo, who was Secretary of State for War, who had been discovered meeting a 19 year old model and dancer called Christine Keeler by the pool 2 year earlier. It became a scandal when it came to light that she was also in a relationship with a soviet naval attache called Yevgeny Ivanov!  Of course this ended Profumo's political career, and contributed to the downfall of the Conservative Government in the General Election of 1964. 

I didn't realise when I took this photo, that it is of Spring Cottage, this is where the scandal started from, the cottage was let out to Dr Stephen Ward, he was a 'society osteopath' who used it as somewhere for his rich and famous friends to meet ladies who weren't their wives, aka Profumo and young Christine Keeler.  It's now available as a holiday let!

Waldorf Astor had given Cliveden to the National Trust in 1942 but after his son Bill died and the scandal surrounding the house and Profumo, they left and by 1966 the Trust had taken over the managing of the estate and opening it up to the public.

Above the trees you can just see The Octagon Temple, it dates from 1735 as a tea room where one could take in the view, but Astor proposed the idea of turning it into a private chapel.  It's 172 steps down to the riverside from the chapel.

Time for a sit down ...

And a now you see us, now

 you don't moment with a swan and their goslings.

Shortly the end of Cliveden estate gives way to Boulter's Lock, the river's longest and deepest lock.  It was originally called Ray Mill Lock, due to the nearby Mill being owned by the Ray family.  Boulter is an old milling term.  One of the son's became the first lock keeper here.  The Mills were demolished in 1910, but it's still a name used around Maidenhead on road names.

Boulters Lock wasdmae famous by a painting by Edward Gregory called Boulter's Lock - Sunday Afternoon 1895 

It was a popular place to watch everything going on in ye olden days, it was a popular day out for Victorian and Edwardian families, as sometimes you could spot the Prince of Wales on his way through to visit The Astors at Cliveden.  There were pageants, carnivals and regattas and people came from far and wide.

It is by far the most popular lock on the river back in the days of 'punts and parasols'.  In June 1912 a new double lock was completed and opened for use.

A large house nearby is Islet Park House where Gerry Anderson who created Thunderbirds first created his puppet shows.

Just before the Lock, a channel cuts away to the left, and is the beginning of Britain's largest ever man-made river project, called The Jubilee River.  It was completed in 2002 and it runs for 7 miles to Black Potts Bridge east of Windsor.  It acts as an overflow for the Thames to alleviate flooding around Maidenhead and Windsor, which affects roughly 3000 homes.  It has a flat path running alongside which makes it great for cycling or walks with buggies.

Hidden high up in the trees is Taplow Court, a large Victorian house of Elizabethan origins. Since 1988 it has been HQ for SGI-UK, a lay Buddhist society.

It will be open on the afternoon (2pm - 5pm) on 6 August, 3 and 10 September 2023 to the public. You can take a picnic and find a spot in the 85 acres of grounds.  Admission and parking are both free.  Only guide & alert dogs are allowed in.  The house and grounds are open with tea & cakes available to purchase.

The name Taplow comes from the saxon chief Taeppa who was buried on the hill here, and this great hill, or 'mai dun' gives it name to Maidenhead, or 'mai dun hythe', meaning wharf.

Maidenhead is very much a commuter town, within 30 minutes of London by train, in the heart of the Thames Valley aka 'Silicon Corridor'.  It had it's first bridge built in 1280 which made it a very popular stop/location.  Then it became a major stop (aka staging post) on the coach route (Great West Road) between London and Bristol, followed by the arrival of the Great Western Railway in the early 19th century.  

There's sadly quite a few dying boats along this stretch ....

We stopped our walk at The Riverside Gardens and fell into Jenners Cafe, for a welcoming drink and snack.  There is also a small park, crazy golf (no energy) and an ideal spot to wait for our lift home.

We had covered 8 miles and 18,000 steps today.

Day 13: Reading to Henley-on-Thames

 Day 13: Wednesday 10 May 2023

Well that was a different start today, no chauffeur, instead we took an easy train from Newbury to Reading on a beautifully sunny morning and retraced our steps across the road to where we finished last time.

Reading is famous for ... me ... Emily I was born here and biscuits! 

Huntley & Palmers started life in 1822, a bit before me, as a small bakery on the London to Bath road. In 1846, the firm opened a large factory on Reading's Kings Road. By 1900, it was the largest biscuit manufacturer in the world, making over 400 types of biscuits and employing over 5,000 people. Biscuit production at Reading finally ended in 1976.

When I was little you could smell the biscuits in town from the factory chimneys!

(Reading Football Club was formed in 1871 and the club would go on to become known as 'The Biscuitmen').

Anyway enough of biscuits and back to the Thames Path ...

We're still in walking boots as we knew there were still some meadows to walk through that may have been boggy from the recent rain.

(Looking back towards Reading and Caversham)

The riverbanks were full of horse chestnut flowers, they stand like candles on the tree branches and are white, they turn to a yellow shade when they open, once pollinated they change colour to pink!

Just around here through the hedge is the wonderful Thames Lido, Reading's outdoor pool, restaurant and treatment rooms, it's amazing, but we will have to return another time.

We came into Thames Valley Park Nature Reserve, which was a lovely big open space, full of ducks and geese, grass and daisies, wildflowers and grasses.

These white ones had so much to say to us!

It is here that the Kennet and Avon Canal crosses into the Thames, the canal is 87 miles long and you can walk alongside it through Newbury, Hungerford and onto Bath/Bristol to the Bristol channel.

"The Kennet swift for silver eels renowned'

Alexander Pope

After the meadow you walk through a lovely wood, known as The Wildwood.

It was a lovely stretch of the river for walking, ever so peaceful and shaded.

We soon arrived into Sonning village, a very well known village, and not just because it's where George Clooney lives (when it's not flooded).

In the 10th and 11th Centuries it was the centre of the Diocese of Berkshire and Wiltshire.

Firstly we went past the Lock, in the 19th Century the lock-keeper James Sadler, a poet, wrote this about his village:

'Is there a spot more lovely than the rest,

By art improved, by nature truly blest?

A noble river at its base is running,

It is a little village known as Sonning'.

Here's The Environment Agency giving us a wave whilst giving the swans a shout to move on out of their way.

This is a beautiful bridge and was once claimed to be considered the most beautiful on the river.  One half of the bridge is in Oxfordshire and the other half in Berkshire!

Sonning is a very pretty village, with rose and honeysuckle fronted houses, thatched houses, it is beautifully kept and very expensive.  There are 2 pubs here The Bull Inn and The Coppa Club, but we stopped at neither as we weren't ready for a break, instead we crossed over the bridge.

On the left hand side of the road, shown below is The Mill at Sonning, an 18th Century converted flour mill, below is the entrance, it is a 215 seated riverside theatre, with dining. And just behind it is the Clooney's house, nicely tucked away.

(photo Vagner Vidal)

We crossed over again for the other side of the Thames Path route, the clouds were starting to form, we were praying for it to stay dry, showers weren't due til about 4pm and we were 3 miles from Shiplake at this point.

Just across from here is Uri Geller's house, currently for sale if you have a spare £7.5million and want a house that looks like the US White House!

It was built in 1970, Geller bought it in 1986, it has 4 acres and 110 metres of river frontage and the house has 15,000sq ft of space. 

And he has cut £7 million from his original price of £15 million in 2015 when it was last on the market.  Bargain. 

We had some boggy and very muddy areas to contend with around this section.

Some interesting houses across the river, this one was being built.

As we walked towards Shiplake with greying skies, we did finally get the showers, the ground was so wet around here as it led us to the lower grounds of Shiplake College and it's Boathouse.

Shiplake College

Shiplake is a private boarding and day school with just over 500 pupils.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, Shiplake Court was part of the property of the Englefield family.  

The land on which the school now stands was bought at auction by Robert Harrison in 1888 as his private family residence.  Sold to Lord Wargrave in 1925, followed by a stint as a small prep school, it then sold to the BBC in 1941.

The BBC had intented to use Shiplake for expanding their overseas services, but appeared to just become storage.  When the BBC Monitoring Service moved to Caversham Park, Shiplake became a hostel for the BBC staff.  The hostel closed in 1953 and the BBC struggled to think of what to do with the building, there were rumours of using it to house the BBC Library.

In 1958 it was bought by the Everetts for educational purposes and it opened in May 1959.

It's a beautiful and peaceful stretch of the river for a school, especially for those who take up rowing!

We didn't get to see the small village of Shiplake. Queen Victoria's poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) married Emily Smallwood in the church of St Peter and St Paul.

Rumour has it he didn't pay the vicar for taking the marriage ceremony and instead composed a poem as a gift to the church:

'Vicar of this pleasant spot,

Where it was my chance to marry,

Happy, happy be your lot,

In the vicarage by the quarry'.

George Orwell had his childhood home in Lower Shiplake.

We came to Shiplake Lock, it is just above the point where the River Loddon joins the Thames.

It was the first lock on the Thames to have hydraulic power installed.

The path takes you away from the River here. 

We found this fascinating back gate .... I would love to know it's story.

Then the heavens opened, and it wasn't a light shower!  We were really pleased to be under a bridge, even if it was the leakiest bridge to be under in a rain storm!

Then we heard thunder getting closer, and were like "whoaaah", before we realised we were under a train bridge, as the train swept overhead!

We braved coming out from under the bridge, after the worst was over.

Up on the hill is Wargrave Manor, owned by the Sultan of Oman, it will certainly have stunning views.  He died in 2020 but it is still owned by the family.

Emma 'Fair Maid of Normandy' (AD990-1052), twice Queen of England, lived in Wargrave as the first holder of a Wargrave Manor.  Her son Edward the Confessor was born here.

You can see some of Wargrave on the other side of the river, St Mary's Church was rebuilt after it was burned to the ground in 1914 by suffragettes, led by Emmeline Pankhurst herself, due to the Vicar refusing to take the word 'obey' out of the marriage vows, so the tale goes!

Below is The George & Dragon pub, where I remember sitting last year outside on it's deck, seeing the Thames Path on the other side thinking I wonder when we'll be walking past, and here we are!

Amazing cloud, looks like someone is blowing in the grey weather for us!

At Lashbrook the Thames Path turns away from the river bank, alongside Ferry Cottage, which is now a private home, a ferry operated here until 1953.

The Lashbrook Ferry started operating in 1770s as a result of property owners not giving towing permission across their land.

The river became a major freight route in the mid 17th century when barges could reach Oxford for the first time, firstly hauled by men, then by horses.  In 1775 there were issues arising due to this and the need for the ferry here at Lashbrook and the Bolney Ferry further along, just for one man, the owner of Bolney Court.

So we had a short walk through incredibly wet flooded meadows and hunger was starting to kick in!

We arrived in the village of Lower Shiplake, which appears that to live there and belong you have to grow wisteria over the front of your house, amazing! And we found a pub!

The Baskerville Arms

As it was post Coronation weekend the bunting was still out, works were going on so there was no food available, but they were very happy for us to eat our picnic in the pub garden with some drinks, next to a wisteria!  We had walked 7.5 miles, 20,000 steps and were feeling a little weary.

Just down from the hotel was Shiplake station and the first rail crossing of our journey.

I had to photograph the occasion!

Down some narrow pathways, and Bolney Road which has incredibly impressive riverside houses behind huge gates and security, tennis courts, swimming pools and even some golf greens and bunkers!

Example of a Bolney Road house for sale

We couldn't see but it's this section where Grand Designs followed a couple building their dream house by the river:

Grand Designs Boathouse

This house below has a narrow-gauge railway going through it's 8 acres of garden!  It's station is modelled on St Moritz station.  The house Thames-Side Court was built in 1914 and is the home of Swiss billionaire financier, art collector, polo enthusiast Urs Schwarzenbach.  

He owns substantial property in the area including Culham Court, which he bought for £35 million, £10 million over the asking price!

(There are some lovely photos of the garden at Culham Court HERE)

Back to the river at last, and the sun was shining.

A beautifully kept and manicured riverside lodge property belonging to Park Place, which is Britain's most expensive house which is set higher back in hundreds of acres, sold for £140 million.  Built in 1870 its later ownership became Hillingdon Council and it was used as a school for children with health or emotional problems for 40 years closing in 1998.  It was then used as the film set for St Trinians movie; afterwards it was sold, overgrown and rundown, for £45 million to a Russian.

As we neared Henley the waterproofs came out again!

We were entering an area known as Marsh Lock, in the book 'Three Men in a Boat', Jerome wrote; 'It is a part of the river in which to dream of bygone days'.

Unfortunately the main section through here was diverted, the lock, weir and bridge were designed by a country parson whose brother was Thomas Gainsborough, the famous artist.  There is a lovely long wooded causeway to walk along, with always plenty of boats to see here.

We just stood under some trees and literally inside a hedge to shelter from the showers.

Marsh Mill was found along this spot of The Thames and my great great Grandad bought it in 1903, there's some history for you!

Percy Owen Payze (1853-1929)

His father was a corn merchant in Leytonstone and Percy was clerk to a corn merchant aged 18, then an Improver Apprentice at Hambledon Mill.  In 1881 he became the Miller at Tidmarsh Mill, followed 10 years later at Whitchurch-on-Thames Mill.

He married Charlotte and had 3 children, Lottie, Percy and Martha.

Charlotte died and he remarried Mary and had 3 more children Arthur, Reg and Fred,  Fred was my Grandad (born in 1898).

They sold Marsh Mill in 1920 and retired to Henley. 

In a sales catalogue of 1895 the Mill was described as a Mill working on a combined system with seven pair stones, two pair 'Meddling Rolls' and two waterwheels of 60 horse power.  It was lit by electricity, and fitted throuhout with Hopkinson's patent machinery.  The Mill also provided stabling, cow houses, a piggery and entrance lodge for a site foreman.

By the 1960s, Marsh Mills had fallen into disrepair, and was later demolished and replaced with flats.

(Thanks to www.new.millsarchives.org for info and being the registered charity dedicated to the preservation and protection of the records of milling history).

Back to the present day, we came out of our diversion into Marsh Meadows, very boggy ..

There is plenty going on in Marsh Meadows, it's a great spot for a playground, picnics, a band stand and boat watching, it's the main green space park in Henley. It has a lovely wide pavement along the riverside, a proper 'promenade'.

Further down you can find the River and Rowing Museum which is definitely worth a visit, but do check it's reopened after some building works (Summer 2023).

It opened in 1998 and won an award when it opened due to it's architecture, it includes a cafe, shop and a wonderful Wind in the Willows exhibition/experience for children.  

We came upon the train station which marked the end of our walk,  a total of 26,500 steps and nearly 11 miles today.  We caught the 16:30 train from Henley, changed at Twyford to Reading and back to Newbury, all in just 45 minutes.

For our next walk, which will be Henley to Marlow, my Dad will be joining us to regale us with stories and history of Henley and the area as we walk through it. 

Stories such as hanging out with Petula Clark in a nearby Henley pub in his youth!? ... we can't wait!

We are slightly worried about his pace, he may leave us in his wake puffing somewhat, he's 86 and an 'official walker' - he completed the South West Coast Path only a few years ago.