Thames Path: Culham to Oxford

 

Lock keeper's cottage at Culham Lock

The yellow leaves begin to fade
And flutter from the Temple elms,
And at my feet the pale green Thames
Lies like a rod of rippled jade.

OSCAR WILDE

Unlike our prior mornings, this morning we were returning to the Burlington House Hotel and did not need a parting shot of the place we stayed before. We aren't sure if this is a good idea or not yet, but we decided to use public transport here and in Reading and have a home base for venturing out on the Thames Path. It was nice not to have bags in the lobby by 9 am and a 10am checkout, but public transport isn't always entirely reliable. In fact, our train was cancelled. But we eventually got to Culham by bus. 

Culham is a village  in a bend of the Thames, 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Abingdon. The parish is bounded by the Thames to the north, west and south, and by present and former field boundaries to the east. It is low-lying and fairly flat, rising from the Thames in the south to a north-facing escarpment in the north up to 260 feet (80 m) above sea level. The population as 453, so it is amazing a bus even goes there. We didn't see much to attract us to the village except the Thames Path. 

From here, it was advertised as an 11 mile walk back to Oxford, but it ended up being closer to 14 miles.  

The walk included some meadows and eventually the city of Abingdon, a historic market town.   The area was occupied from the early to middle Iron Age and the remains of a late Iron Age and Roman defensive structures lie below the town center .Abingdon Abbey  was founded around 676, giving its name to the emerging town. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Abingdon was an agricultural center with an extensive trade in wool, alongside weaving and the manufacture of clothing. Charters for the holding of markets and fairs were granted by various monarchs, from Edward I to George II. 

The town survived the dissolution  of the abbey in 1538 by Henry VIII, and by the 18th and 19th centuries, with the building of Abingdon Lock  in 1790 and the Wilts and Berks Canal in 1810, Abingdon was on important routes for goods transport. In 1856 the Abingdon Railway opened, linking the town with the  Great Western Rail. The canal was abandoned in 1906 but a voluntary trust is now working to restore and re-open it. Abingdon rail station was closed to passengers in September 1963. The line remained open for goods until 1984, its role including serving the MG car factory, which operated from 1929 to 1980.

Abingdon's brewery, makers of Old Speckled Hen ale, was taken over and closed in 1999; the site of the brewery has been redeveloped into housing. The rock band RADIOHEAD  formed in 1985. The 2011census recorded the parish's population as 33,130. The population continues to grow. 

A look at Abingdon from the river

Abingdon Lock Keepers cottage. 

Obligatory widenings of the Thames photo just outside Abingdon

From here, it was walking in mostly quiet areas of meadow or riverside between locks and mostly quiet and lightly travelled until Iffley Lock.

Graffiti under the rail bridge

Sandford Lock Keeper's Cottage

Boys being boys and jumping off the bridge into the river

All our ducks in a row (well, technically geese)

Just beyond Iffley Lodge is a the Isis Farmhouse which is a pub only reachable on the Thames Path. No automobiles. You have to come by foot or bicycle or boat. It was a hopping kinda place and on a hot day, like today, a cold beer was welcome! They had jazz at 7pm (we didn't stay for it) and while we were there, a group of fiddlers playing live music. 

Iffley Lock Keeper's Cottage

Fiddlers in the pub

A trumpeter in the Isis Farm Pub

A big crowd enjoying the pub on the lawn

Here forward, we had barn fever and hurried our way back to Oxford and our dinner at Gee's Cafe which is an old greenhouse and conservatory serving theoretically Mediterranean food. It didn't seem too Mediterranean to me, but it was very tasty! 

When in Oxford, check out Gee's Cafe!

It is a mere rivulet compared with the greatest rivers in the world: the Nile in Africa, the Mississippi in North America, the Amazon in South America, the Ganges in India, the Yangtze in China, to name only a few. It is shorter and less impressive than the Danube, the Rhine, the Loire or the Seine in Europe; it is not even the longest river in Britain. Yet who would deny that the Thames is more an avenue of history than any other waterway, that it is a national river in a way that the other rivers are not?

JONATHAN SCHNEER

Paul's Ponderings:   We got a bit of a late start on the actual walking due to transport issues between Oxford and Culham, but it worked out.    Soon (read: London) this will not be an issue anymore.    But GWR had canceled the train to Pangbourne, where we were originally going to start for Wallingford, so we just went to Culham by a combo of bus/taxi.   That said, turned out to be about 14 miles of walking once we did the actual path and dealt with on-foot to the bus and such.    It was mostly overcast in the morning, but once again, turned a bit toasty by the afternoon.     Mostly it was rural walking with a few locks, similar to the last few days.    We finished it up with a very nice dinner at Gee's just down the road from Burlington House.    Tomorrow is a rest day now that we are about 70 miles into this walk!