Foxton Locks

We'd arranged for Stuart and Martin to visit Alton Towers on Saturday as the first part of Stuart's birthday celebrations, and we were joining them in Nottingham for the second part on Sunday. As we were travelling up on Saturday, we found a walk in Leicestershire in a  old walk book.

The walk started and finished at Foxton Locks, a spectacular series of ten locks at a T-junction on the Leicester Arm of the Grand Union canal. It was a lovely sunny day, and it was great to see lots of people enjoying the industrial heritage. The locks were completed in 1814, and take about an hour to ascend or descend. There's also an Inclined Plane, on which counter-balanced boats were hauled in tanks between the two levels and was much quicker. This was built in 1900, but only operated until 1911 because it was not cost-effective.

After a sandwich and a drink  at the Foxton Locks Inn at the bottom of the locks and right on the T-junction, we headed off cross country to Gumley, which looked like a nice village and then to Saddington Reservoir that was built to support the canal. That part of route was on one of several 'gated roads' in the area. We passed a cricket pitch with a game in progress. One of the gated roads passed across the pitch, not far from the square. There was a sign asking drivers to wait for the umpire to signal the end of an over before crossing.

The instructions for the next section of the walk weren't very clear, and we didn't have an OS map, but we eventually found our way between a stream and the raised feeder channel for the canal to the wonderfully named Smeeton Westerby, another pleasant looking village. The route from there  to the Debdale Wharf canal was easy, but not as easy as following towpath back to the locks.

A lovely walk, and well worth the detour.

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Summer at last - Goring to Dorchester on The Thames Path

Having done the Goring to Reading stretch of The Thames Path a couple of weeks ago, we were keen to have the weather to do another stretch. That weather duly arrived this weekend, so we packed a picnic, drove to Dorchester, left the car there and took a pre-arranged taxi to Goring.

There are established paths on both sides of the river North of Goring. We chose the West side because it skirted the river more.  Apart from a short detour onto the A329 around Moulsford, the path between Goring and Wallingford was mostly on typical Thameside meadows, looking out over some lovely properties on the other bank. Even though the schools had broken up, there were fewer boats than South of Goring, and fewer walkers.

We ate our picnic just South of Wallingford. I was pleased that we came across a pub in the town, but less pleased when I tasted the beer. I suggest real ale drinkers avoid The Boathouse.

The path crossed to the East bank at Benson lock for more meadows en route to Shillingford. After another short road stretch, Dorchester Abbey came into view. However, we and decided to walk to Day's Lock' so this meant a loop around the church back to the car.

The weather had been lovely - 25c or so. Having walked around 13 miles, we felt that an ice cream was in order, so we changed out of our boots and headed into the village. Having passed a couple of unpromising looking hotels, we'd almost given up. However, at the other end of the village is a lovely independent coffee shop that served great sundaes and proper coffee. Perfect. It's a shame that I didn't notice the name so I could recommend it properly.

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Under Constable skies

We spent Saturday evening at a party at Fran and Martin's near Bury St Edmunds, and enjoyed the live music from Wytchazle in the marquee on the lawn. We stayed at the nearby Six Bells at Bardwell - this was comfy enough and passed my sausage test at breakfast.

As the forecast was fine, we'd dug out all the 'walking' supplements from the newspaper that we've saved over the years and never used before, and chose a walk in 'Constable Country' around the River Stour. However, we didn't have the relevant Ordnance Survey map, so stopped at two garages and a large Tescos and wandered around Dedham trying and failing to buy it. We therefore started our walk without a proper map and relied on the instructions from the supplement.

The first part of the walk was easy along a lovely stretch of the Stour, under just the type of sky that Constable captured in the famous paintings. We crossed the river at Flatford, visited the Constable exhibition in Bridge Cottage and then were able to buy the elusive map in the National Trust shop.

We'd left the camera at home, and my current phone was out of action, so I had my old Windows phone with me and used that for the compulsory photos of Flatford Mill and Wally Lot's Cottage. There was even a sheep shearing demonstration nearby demanding to be snapped.

The rest of the walk was harder to follow, so it was great to have a map. After a short exploration of the river towards Manningtree, we followed the Stour Valley Way and then  had to scale the great (for Suffolk) height of 100ft. We managed without oxygen. The route back to Dedham had lovely views over the valley.

As this might have been the full extent of the English summer, it seemed appropriate to have an ice cream at the cafe by the river.

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The Thames Path: Goring to Reading

With no commitments this weekend, and a decent weather forecast, it seemed like a good time to decide upon and start our summer walking project. As we'd bought a guide to The Thames Path in around 1985, it was an obvious choice,especially as we were able to do the first stage using the train.

As Sunday had the better forecast, we got our chores done on Saturday (if making two batches of ice cream counts as a chore), and walked on Sunday. Saturday turned out to be a nice day, and I woke to a cloudless sky on Sunday. It was getting cloudier as we drove towards Reading, and that was to set the pattern for the walk.

We parked in the station multi-storey, took the train to Goring and, after an eventually-successful hunt for a ladies loo, set off along the river. The path followed the North bank closely for a few miles before rising slightly into Hartslock Wood and then heading away from the river towards the toll bridge at Whitchurch.


We'd had a few short showers that had caused us to don our cagoules, but it wasn't raining when we reached the benches at Pangbourne Meadows, so we stopped for an excellent, but pork pie free, picnic.

We were now on the South bank, and continued to Mapledurham lock for a tantalising glimpse of the watermill (site of several happy days when the boys were young). The next strecth was not very attractiive - the path turns inland to Purley and along the A329 for a short while before crossing under the railway just north of Tilehurst station to continue between the railway and the river.

Rosie was in need of a rest as we got into the outskirts of Reading, so we stopped at the first bench we came across. We didn't stop long after we noticed that that was 'can of strong cider and dog on a string' territory.

The final stretch was through the old Reading Festival site. There were fewer supermarket trolleys in the river than there would had been in those days.

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