In the hot sunshine, beside cool water, the Thames has many charms all along its length, and none better to my mind than the middle reaches below Oxford. here we wandered on a short family walk, just six or seven miles, from Hambleden Lock along the Berkshire bank up to Henley, then back over the hill.
We started at Mill End, Buckinghamshire, where there is a convenient car park. This is a boaters’ place, once built around a mill, Hambleden Mill (which still stands grandly by the river), but now a village with possibly more boats than people, some in its snug marina. The river is crossed here by an odd-looking crossing system: a long, narrow footbridge crosses slantwise across the river above a long weir, then reaches Hambleden Lock, which seemed constantly busy with pleasure craft, and it was a fine day for it.
Having reached the south bank, all in Berkshire, we met the Thames Path, which runs up beside the river, following a big loop. The houses we could see over the water on the Buckinghamshire bank are quite something, each with a garden running down to the water, some with private boathouses, and all no doubt with eye-watering price tags. The Berkshire bank at first is mainly green fields, though which estate it belongs to I could not say.
In time, the river bends round, and we were fortunate to encounter a cluster of boats moored up for a display which was officially cancelled but they came anyway: for the fortieth anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation, several of the ‘little ships’ were there. It is astounding that such small vessels, designed only for the river, not the towering open sea, could take to the ocean to perform the miracle of Dunkirk, but there they were; small, heroic boats.
Passing on, Henley soon comes into view. Now there were boathouses on both banks, and a couple of private lodes (or that’s what they would be called in Cambridgeshire, about which I will be writing before too long) linking boathouses to the river.
We crossed the river on Henley’s stone bridge, pausing to admire the views up and down. This was our brief encounter with the Oxfordshire bank. This is also incidentally the end of the Oxfordshire Way, so I can say that I have walked the beginning and reached the end of the Oxfordshire Way; it’s just that I have not yet done the 68 miles between.
After a very pleasant lunch, we re-crossed the river and headed away from the Thames for the first time.
The way we took is part of the Chiltern Way Berkshire Loop (the other end of which I had encountered on the Buckinghamshire Way). It is a gentle climb over the hill cutting off the loop of the river, but with the river below always in evidence.
The path drops down to Aston, where there is a beautiful pub, the Flower Pot, seemingly in the midst of leaves, and a lane runs down to a riverside meadow full of revellers with picnics, canoes and paddleboards or just swimming.
The path then leads back upstream to Hambleden Lock again, busier still in the early afternoon, and over the weir-bridge back to the start.
Maps
- Ordnance Survey Explorer 171 (Chiltern Hills West)