tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55402666917292058562024-03-07T23:49:01.888+00:00Superfluous BearReflections on the journey...Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.comBlogger168125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-29521357218982305772023-01-21T12:43:00.003+00:002023-01-21T12:43:30.595+00:00NEW RELEASE: The Madness of Iorialus Bóro<div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Announcing the
release of a spooky festive satire: <b><i>THE MADNESS OF IORIALUS BÓRO</i></b>,
now available <b>to everyone</b>, <b>free of charge</b> at</span></span></div><u><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></u><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><u><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="DefaultFontHxMailStyle"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.aichaobang.com/works/the-madness-of-iorialus-boro">https://www.aichaobang.com/works/the-madness-of-iorialus-boro</a></span></span></span></u></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAfrQxicXOl46y30G_V3TxoACyQX89YgPNRv05o_SXbJoRCOGLxoAiWPOKIbuti_FJRVedfKwNimkTdjUM5GcI8xlZhRy1r69ZLuf5tv2k5gbT3zKYx58KQVG_ICuy8F863r0uCLTumLakFHqWdk5b8Nk5CAgO5AKACPC1sHPEF9r6vShMgiXM-mMw/s682/Title%20(final).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="682" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAfrQxicXOl46y30G_V3TxoACyQX89YgPNRv05o_SXbJoRCOGLxoAiWPOKIbuti_FJRVedfKwNimkTdjUM5GcI8xlZhRy1r69ZLuf5tv2k5gbT3zKYx58KQVG_ICuy8F863r0uCLTumLakFHqWdk5b8Nk5CAgO5AKACPC1sHPEF9r6vShMgiXM-mMw/w400-h274/Title%20(final).png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In a cabin in the
woods of the Republic of Wisconsin dwells a harmless old man. Listen at his
door and you might hear the odd splash of paint, the chomp of chisel on stone,
and perhaps the occasional grumble about his homeland’s occupation by the
Canadian Army. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Or so the rumours
say. Because who can distinguish fact from popular fantasy in the case of so
legendary an artist as Iorialus Bóro, renowned the world over as the most
remarkable creative genius of his generation?</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">But for all his
brilliance, old Bóro has one peculiar quirk: a insistence that reality and
imagination are totally separate things. And on this he takes no prisoners: the
wrath that rushes down his beard when that line is crossed has left a long
trail of devastated friends and supporters driven remorselessly from his fan
club, the Bórolites.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet what if his
paintings and sculptures turn out so sublime as to trouble that boundary more
than he realises? When his own original characters come calling over those
festivals when the veils between worlds are thinnest – from Halloween, to
Christmas, to the Lunar New Year – will he stand to defend that barrier even if
to do so puts his life, his livelihood, even the entire world in danger?</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdzycl95AtskhqM0n_0aJ0bg-tKHlkgr4lY_ZGwO_5C5TJgzBMuXShO_5V0zkVWiAPpkNk9bS6LOy6JESVouPsP5t0c5EP8v2AqoUZkCIKZcTMdZuTawugcg0CIyQ3zSsR6j6at-8jMPIz7VGlHdftKJCIVMo_CdXp_M5EbDiuMVWD1LpR2iSO_okw/s1350/B%C3%B3ro%20-%20Cover%20image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="1350" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdzycl95AtskhqM0n_0aJ0bg-tKHlkgr4lY_ZGwO_5C5TJgzBMuXShO_5V0zkVWiAPpkNk9bS6LOy6JESVouPsP5t0c5EP8v2AqoUZkCIKZcTMdZuTawugcg0CIyQ3zSsR6j6at-8jMPIz7VGlHdftKJCIVMo_CdXp_M5EbDiuMVWD1LpR2iSO_okw/w400-h184/B%C3%B3ro%20-%20Cover%20image.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">This is a short satirical
novel which emerged in reaction to a deeply destructive experience of <u><a href="https://www.aichaobang.com/works/normalism">Normalist</a></u> violence from
yet another human community. The episode in question was so ruinously absurd as to finally and fundamentally shatter my stake in humankind – which is why this
blog is nowadays far less active.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I shall refrain from
disclosing details for now, given there are relationships concerned whose
future has yet to be resolved. Suffice to say that this story, wherein I
venture the effrontery to participate in that ancient and hallowed tradition of
satire, was the only recourse left to me to challenge an unjust, abusive and heart-shatteringly
cruel set of social circumstances.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Even if it fails in
this, I hope that as a darkly humorous exploration of reality, realit<i>ies</i>,
and the clash of different ways to see and know them, and still more as a
tribute to some genuinely marvellous otherworld friends, <i>The Madness of
Iorialus Bóro</i> manages to grind some small improvement for this world from
the terrible cost I have borne on its account.<br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><i><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Madness of
Iorialus Bóro</span></i></b><span style="line-height: 107%;"> <b>now available here:</b></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><u><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></u></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><u><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="DefaultFontHxMailStyle"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.aichaobang.com/works/the-madness-of-iorialus-boro">https://www.aichaobang.com/works/the-madness-of-iorialus-boro</a></span></span></span></u></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="DefaultFontHxMailStyle"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 游明朝; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTF68x9eUEXSVZxx_anibKGnACg4zMw3zkMaTR5dZE3405O0tcmx9SpofkXZKBjoePfGdQRQHPPWAo0C0j-_PFO38ej4xxlil0HSAVVs49SAQTRTk4J9pSyag9o03lXkEDzJfrZcz4qqqqYfrrPgx4RlngIZgJz13KYpaHpUVvmSnoNL903Ym8ejQT/s446/Creame%20peek.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="171" data-original-width="446" height="77" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTF68x9eUEXSVZxx_anibKGnACg4zMw3zkMaTR5dZE3405O0tcmx9SpofkXZKBjoePfGdQRQHPPWAo0C0j-_PFO38ej4xxlil0HSAVVs49SAQTRTk4J9pSyag9o03lXkEDzJfrZcz4qqqqYfrrPgx4RlngIZgJz13KYpaHpUVvmSnoNL903Ym8ejQT/w200-h77/Creame%20peek.png" width="200" /></a></div></span></span></span> </div>Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0London, UK51.5072178 -0.127586223.196983963821154 -35.2838362 79.817451636178845 35.0286638tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-59172853051979746082022-06-03T15:19:00.000+01:002022-06-03T15:19:44.544+01:00NEW RELEASE: In Search of the English - A Walking History<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Announcing the release of a major work: a
critical walking history along the Capital Ring trail on the outskirts of
London. <b><i><u>In Search of the English – A Walking History</u></i></b> is now
available <b>to everyone</b>, <b>free of charge</b>, at </span><a href="http://www.aichaobang.com"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">http://www.aichaobang.com</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6J0ZtabavcUht5Q1ripySmWGnoH9BIfcr4LdDZ-EtJpETalVy5P7o9rbIea-pt26m6X36XsJKfKy4FWh5c9lb8EzWVG3WS4-E34BysTbxFTSFbnEJRNckqiQqgjK89IN9EtUZbvRemC-RueYRbJmPC3N9b-lO4PktB3O1VSSM_is_48GNRf2xkpFO/s6168/Map%20(FINAL).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4332" data-original-width="6168" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6J0ZtabavcUht5Q1ripySmWGnoH9BIfcr4LdDZ-EtJpETalVy5P7o9rbIea-pt26m6X36XsJKfKy4FWh5c9lb8EzWVG3WS4-E34BysTbxFTSFbnEJRNckqiQqgjK89IN9EtUZbvRemC-RueYRbJmPC3N9b-lO4PktB3O1VSSM_is_48GNRf2xkpFO/w640-h450/Map%20(FINAL).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">This book is based on a journey I undertook in
2018, wandering in dark personal strife while stranded in a country which, for
all the years I’ve spent here, has ever left me an alienated stranger. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">It so happened that this was also a time of
pivotal strife for the English people. Split rancorously at the height of their
Brexit contestations, the seams in their three-hundred-year-old United Kingdom had
started to crack, and soon COVID-19 would appear on the horizon. But perhaps a
different event represented, most powerfully and painfully, the distress to
which English modernity had fallen. The burnt-out husk of Grenfell Tower, consumed
in a disastrous fire the previous year, stood in towering symbolism of the
shameful failures and abusive power relations in which the English national
reality had come to ruin – and in staggering contrast with the ideals of
freedom, democracy, prosperity and rule of law which, in spite of it all, stand
on so insistent in their national storytelling.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvNUeRPrMmX6nIWYHnNdR_KENGL3dFvZar_aM2cPt2ohhpN_oBCsmKNhq8VgRzMQA1muW-T-cCL61Nzq8weH7gmPS94HXBiR7NPk5DSCYgPMbaX6uRbhAQOWaE_MCnwnu6DRHxDC49qveUToiKpEu9kSkjrGCK5beEEPCnuZ9paGBgOmbE9IZHy60m/s1037/Chapter%20images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1006" data-original-width="1037" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvNUeRPrMmX6nIWYHnNdR_KENGL3dFvZar_aM2cPt2ohhpN_oBCsmKNhq8VgRzMQA1muW-T-cCL61Nzq8weH7gmPS94HXBiR7NPk5DSCYgPMbaX6uRbhAQOWaE_MCnwnu6DRHxDC49qveUToiKpEu9kSkjrGCK5beEEPCnuZ9paGBgOmbE9IZHy60m/w400-h388/Chapter%20images.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Somehow, then, my bitter and despondent wander
grew into a thorough immersion in English stories and problems as encountered
on this circuit round their centre of power. The outcome is a reflective blend
of travelogue, history and mythography: a fifteen-chapter exploration of these
strands of Englishness on a quest for who they think they are, who they
actually are, how it all went so wrong for them, and just perhaps, what they
might do for a better future.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><span style="line-height: 107%;">In Search of the English: A Walking History</span></i></b><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"> now available here:</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><a href="http://www.aichaobang.com"><u><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">http://www.aichaobang.com</span></b></span></u></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span></b><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span>Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0London, UK51.5072178 -0.127586223.196983963821154 -35.2838362 79.817451636178845 35.0286638tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-72412634041940594032022-05-03T12:53:00.000+01:002022-05-03T12:53:23.215+01:00THAMES: 20) It Turns Round in a Circle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK9oHAT_9pyupQCtlpfSbWuvuO4nBK1Q-epfawaRNhgQhRZVsH0AvGyXG_I3zfE-yREzWyHUOMrCJ2GQ-1D9s0bmSWfnBcUsn_yk1ckpe9J9aKHgvWzEIWHpK9INei9dG29ZU0IBVRX6g1Xk6PNWt0vlyfcHejGyOx9hAw9cGvkMST6bJuaxywe5n3/s5184/IMG_1353.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK9oHAT_9pyupQCtlpfSbWuvuO4nBK1Q-epfawaRNhgQhRZVsH0AvGyXG_I3zfE-yREzWyHUOMrCJ2GQ-1D9s0bmSWfnBcUsn_yk1ckpe9J9aKHgvWzEIWHpK9INei9dG29ZU0IBVRX6g1Xk6PNWt0vlyfcHejGyOx9hAw9cGvkMST6bJuaxywe5n3/w640-h480/IMG_1353.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Thames Head</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, they’ve called these meadows since
time immemorial. Here, they say, the river is born, in dandelion carpets
beneath a broad Cotswold sky.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Folk reckoning was buttressed over
the centuries by journalists’ and travellers’ articles, scholarly opinion, and
eventually by formal recognition from the Ordnance Survey and Thames Conservancy.
On account of the last a marker stone now stands in these fields,
officially recognising its base as the source of the River Thames.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">But is it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidW4OP5V4BNSFbR4L_-HZ7lRCkN6p4F7_ImIj6oA9DDViZj6PQBUYQfQFmDLswoaRvNCfjQSrc5YFiH-zm75HRe0JSwouoopyRPvAJ_oPVIF1XuuAkS8X-nbKE4KMwjtUjEQwNQ23WFIaJRJampicCBk5FEGn5_7JCLuz5TegpoTMqfG_ruMUAEp3F/s5184/IMG_1246.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidW4OP5V4BNSFbR4L_-HZ7lRCkN6p4F7_ImIj6oA9DDViZj6PQBUYQfQFmDLswoaRvNCfjQSrc5YFiH-zm75HRe0JSwouoopyRPvAJ_oPVIF1XuuAkS8X-nbKE4KMwjtUjEQwNQ23WFIaJRJampicCBk5FEGn5_7JCLuz5TegpoTMqfG_ruMUAEp3F/w400-h300/IMG_1246.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">One of the river’s many
headwater channels runs through the village of Ashton Keynes. It claims this
channel as the <i>true</i> river. But who can say for sure?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGQQgN_mlKsMYUNd_VjoQ7Vej0-04YQQ_foJopcTvGCrpJK7hHHa5rzVD31hH09p4iucHwsspr1hm4PUB8sVVOwGIBrQyPx7faXZSOZlhvxDkDBjTeCQPvAYsh2duaDtxJeu2eGU_FY-NAp9bEwd2xAcxeXjRvZXHR1tPkTwGOJW-Vt4_bSe22bKi/s5184/IMG_1186.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGQQgN_mlKsMYUNd_VjoQ7Vej0-04YQQ_foJopcTvGCrpJK7hHHa5rzVD31hH09p4iucHwsspr1hm4PUB8sVVOwGIBrQyPx7faXZSOZlhvxDkDBjTeCQPvAYsh2duaDtxJeu2eGU_FY-NAp9bEwd2xAcxeXjRvZXHR1tPkTwGOJW-Vt4_bSe22bKi/w400-h300/IMG_1186.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Cricklade’s North Meadow,
putting on its annual display of snake’s head fritillaries.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Above Cricklade the river breaks into
a maze of headwaters and ceases to exist in the singular. These waterways’ differences
in length, depth and flow are trivial now, and they come and go with the
seasons, making any attempt to designate one or another as the <i>true</i> or <i>main</i>
Thames arbitrary. However, if you follow one of these channels –
officially a tributary, the Churn – you will come to a spot further north called <i>Seven Springs</i>, where a different marker stone, backed
up by a notice from the local council, identifies that site, ‘despite the
controversy over the years’, as the ultimate source of the river.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">There’s a problem here. It’s a
sensitive one. This is the English’s principal river. It's fed and watered them, inspired them, flooded them, borne them in and out on their migrations, their trades, their
wars, their nation-building dreams, their industrial and imperial madnesses </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span> <i>but where,
in the first place, does it come from</i>?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Clearly this dispute had all the
ingredients for violent upheaval across these restive western provinces, and in
1937 it made it into parliament. The representative for Stroud, a Mr. Perkins,
whose constituency included Seven Springs, insisted to the Agriculture Minister
that Seven Springs was in fact the ‘correct’ source on the grounds that it was
fourteen miles further from the estuary than Thames Head, as well as twice its
height above sea level. The next Ordnance Survey map, he argued, would do
well to mark it accordingly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This would indeed have reflected
established geographic practice for reckoning a river’s source, while not
incidentally making the Thames longer than the Severn. But the pertinent fact
wasn’t one of distances or elevations. Rather it was that Mr. Morrison, the
Agriculture Minister, just happened to be the MP for Cirencester whose
territory included Thames Head. And so he replied: ‘I understand that it is <i>not
an invariable rule</i>...to regard as the source...the source of the tributary
most distant from its estuary’. Further challenged, to laughter, that Thames Head also periodically dries up (likewise true), he simply shut the matter down: ‘I
am aware of these considerations, but they do not alter my view, as confirmed,
that the River Thames rises in my constituency and not in that of my honourable
friend.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">As so often in this world, it seems the
question of the source is a question not of truth, but of power.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI6b7gfMiByqx0fsdyIqEzPgkZqwhPQEIVv26xdqjUxrbGHdj8wSafoKnuJGldgelHKMPRew-npRFGh6709pySeSi3AqXJZa3hI_TaRLYizO58KAozjr80rQfZeTfe75QtA3evwaC6TP9NjqYikzy8ytIk16DQXMUbbsV2bJF5uLUJpsQVXzw1Loyq/s5184/IMG_1327.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI6b7gfMiByqx0fsdyIqEzPgkZqwhPQEIVv26xdqjUxrbGHdj8wSafoKnuJGldgelHKMPRew-npRFGh6709pySeSi3AqXJZa3hI_TaRLYizO58KAozjr80rQfZeTfe75QtA3evwaC6TP9NjqYikzy8ytIk16DQXMUbbsV2bJF5uLUJpsQVXzw1Loyq/w400-h300/IMG_1327.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">In that connection, let the
statement of this field and sky offer some strength, however small, to whoever
needs it right now.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">What says the river itself? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Well, the reality of rivers is that
they don’t gush from a single point. They accumulate, diverse and
disparate, all the way down their drainage basins. For a few seconds <i>you</i>
are a source too, whenever in the course of a walk like this you spill your
flask or pee in the bushes. Then it flows into the sea, rises as cloud, and
falls as rain to begin the journey all over again. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In which case, perhaps the
nineteenth-century scientist Thomas Huxley, in an 1869 geography lecture, put
it best: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://mathcs.clarku.edu/huxley/comm/SatRev/Geog69.html"><u><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The source of the Thames comes from
nowhere; it turns round in a circle</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">.</span></u></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Perhaps much else does too </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span></span> but not this journey. 250
kilometres and two and a half years from the ‘cold, fog,
tempests, disease, exile and death’ of the estuary, as Marlow in <i>Heart of
Darkness</i> had it – and finding this still quite a fair description all the
way up – we attain the edge-of-the-world sunlit slopes where the water’s trail
is lost. And because this expedition (or perhaps thankfully, this text) has to end
somewhere, let it take as its destination, arbitrarily of course, the place
where centuries’ weight in custom marks, if not the One True Source, then the human
commemoration of those water molecules’ reunion, there and everywhere, into
that party which, in its journey together, has come to be known as the river –
the <i>Dark River</i> – the Thames.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwOwfIXFTEuZARlW8PkCnNE8DZfcJhMPmbNZ1rKh4P173Eu3qWL5LvNeCurEr2FtID2-xD9CRimyJ0ILQfERXeEIsIkUQ5-ScS6MSWcAtFAhoRG1Aq99op9vOkI65UH-mn2Y7-IcONpfBJlMkzhvbmgZO42nhkbVpK7H4RwA-aaJrgUmzmpoCJwnW8/s5184/IMG_1148.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwOwfIXFTEuZARlW8PkCnNE8DZfcJhMPmbNZ1rKh4P173Eu3qWL5LvNeCurEr2FtID2-xD9CRimyJ0ILQfERXeEIsIkUQ5-ScS6MSWcAtFAhoRG1Aq99op9vOkI65UH-mn2Y7-IcONpfBJlMkzhvbmgZO42nhkbVpK7H4RwA-aaJrgUmzmpoCJwnW8/w640-h480/IMG_1148.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The river upstream from
Cricklade’s Town Bridge, which helpfully labels it right where the name starts
to lose stable meaning.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3yiNeDai4y-gttzJzRnHo_eyziWQZU0uCsmvLuFvFlf3E7u7aKnl2vHgj9CTQ9Oe4HB5qKrf4TM8SSMNU6f8A0Lr_Nzfxjv9sqADQGBR0qyXsDOCrw161ZBwDH7nKkmA-9WRT_IT7IXTHSar1sUEj_VAZKjWYsG-pW6ALBaPIzXONsPFc4snKfHnd/s1602/20)%20Cricklade%20to%20the%20Source.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="1602" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3yiNeDai4y-gttzJzRnHo_eyziWQZU0uCsmvLuFvFlf3E7u7aKnl2vHgj9CTQ9Oe4HB5qKrf4TM8SSMNU6f8A0Lr_Nzfxjv9sqADQGBR0qyXsDOCrw161ZBwDH7nKkmA-9WRT_IT7IXTHSar1sUEj_VAZKjWYsG-pW6ALBaPIzXONsPFc4snKfHnd/w640-h274/20)%20Cricklade%20to%20the%20Source.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Start:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Cricklade (<i>no train station; </i></span><a href="https://www.stagecoachbus.com/routes/west/53/cricklade-swindon/xsao053.i"><u><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">buses to Swindon</span></i></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">End:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Thames Head (<i>nearest station:
Kemble</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Length: 19.7km/12.25 miles</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Location: Wiltshire – Wiltshire;
Gloucestershire – Cotswold</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Topics</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">: Cricklade North Meadow, the
Cotswold Water Park, Ashton Keynes, Somerford Keynes, Ewen, Kemble, <b>Thames
Head </b>and<b> </b>the<b> Source</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span><a name='more'></a></span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Cricklade North Meadow</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Above the first (or last) town on the
Thames (as Cricklade </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2022/04/thames-19-passages.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">styles itself</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">), the Thames, the Churn, and a
network of smaller braids have created a patchwork of seasonal flood meadows.
The largest of these is Cricklade’s natural highlight: <b>North Meadow</b>, a
common hay meadow whose traditional management practices have made it an
extraordinarily diverse national nature reserve.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiBn8l5LdREI4JeqTFAuPmyFFD4BwuAUo7a5uSKzSnXv1MxK_pkvLgPy8veDk4DRRSFiz5wx9EX8eJxdYwq1x19XQ4CHEF60ygLlGkg8UPhrA6LvwP661aQo8Sy_1zzkl_i8RHWD2KVK7RNrVM5cqm8RSbrMt0tMfRgLKjy7PJqFnVsrdD_9_P6yjU/s5184/IMG_1152.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiBn8l5LdREI4JeqTFAuPmyFFD4BwuAUo7a5uSKzSnXv1MxK_pkvLgPy8veDk4DRRSFiz5wx9EX8eJxdYwq1x19XQ4CHEF60ygLlGkg8UPhrA6LvwP661aQo8Sy_1zzkl_i8RHWD2KVK7RNrVM5cqm8RSbrMt0tMfRgLKjy7PJqFnVsrdD_9_P6yjU/w400-h300/IMG_1152.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Smaller meadows buffer the
main North Meadow as well as the housing along Cricklade’s northern flank.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip-2IHXeipn_hFthI911FYV3qtxifPWvRVnE-paBCNXIjdLVBwiBUo2SwYfMT9Jf1Kh0boW6tA75VHw5UbKPBdz0jOweQUEw6jsSDN1Aky1ArIThJHnnlR9jVYbAIwGU1ayQgl23fKINL-tGgSaxNPAB1l0ro8kSFtw3qlmtXF8Gs9C3DcQsTA9Fa7/s5184/IMG_1155.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip-2IHXeipn_hFthI911FYV3qtxifPWvRVnE-paBCNXIjdLVBwiBUo2SwYfMT9Jf1Kh0boW6tA75VHw5UbKPBdz0jOweQUEw6jsSDN1Aky1ArIThJHnnlR9jVYbAIwGU1ayQgl23fKINL-tGgSaxNPAB1l0ro8kSFtw3qlmtXF8Gs9C3DcQsTA9Fa7/w400-h300/IMG_1155.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The houses follow what was
originally the north wall of the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2022/04/thames-19-passages.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Cricklade Anglo-Saxon<i> burh</i></span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. Further west you have these, part
of its twentieth-century residential expansion.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">As is in evidence here, Cricklade’s fortified
settlement has long been surrounded by agriculture.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAINMIRbFdXZkybF4Cmu6gavw-mJaWh-C87U0N8M0vAlYMaloHiO-WfvuJj7OtnJMQAj-w_NJKkQOxo-9SKbcbNMrVnETWRZZjZ_MfAkH5vTW9ivou_jhauRYxoYiPV6BHExdCpfcpJrasr_Q9yM1D3Y7zC2N1O9vkvwnXYgxW8ucknXsVcgc90UD/s5184/IMG_1159.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAINMIRbFdXZkybF4Cmu6gavw-mJaWh-C87U0N8M0vAlYMaloHiO-WfvuJj7OtnJMQAj-w_NJKkQOxo-9SKbcbNMrVnETWRZZjZ_MfAkH5vTW9ivou_jhauRYxoYiPV6BHExdCpfcpJrasr_Q9yM1D3Y7zC2N1O9vkvwnXYgxW8ucknXsVcgc90UD/w400-h300/IMG_1159.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Horses are attended to at this
small riverside farm.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBp9ZaJS2XLilANXaI7MJh-LTQZSkaxB_lwqUuujqv1A2tbfdBSzjv6ST5wrNPA9kwhXlNVjnwsxx_N5x4sepr1ZI1j-gxwmHz0AVql_M5X3z23O4oz6SMuD7ngcAZcZV-DqQRT6E7sppPSJ9J-T_kIfdJeOVqbGLgQkSPayjnG2buV9iascfP4YTC/s5184/IMG_1157.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBp9ZaJS2XLilANXaI7MJh-LTQZSkaxB_lwqUuujqv1A2tbfdBSzjv6ST5wrNPA9kwhXlNVjnwsxx_N5x4sepr1ZI1j-gxwmHz0AVql_M5X3z23O4oz6SMuD7ngcAZcZV-DqQRT6E7sppPSJ9J-T_kIfdJeOVqbGLgQkSPayjnG2buV9iascfP4YTC/w640-h480/IMG_1157.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqS8IT7SqDH_DuSXs3OYF4Gz6rzBweB_E74PGqeX0aQbcNzofQmAGMZnyQeom1ns_SUG-fqJhrcJasQGEhbeLsXbveGaEvj6bT2PmcNDv4xTyFX0INvEL2rDWqPrYu8gC2aFxwan8N0FUzEb16O55AQQYy9Xtwl0k3KDp1V33MvgIbsrkc_kj2hC-c/s5184/IMG_1163.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqS8IT7SqDH_DuSXs3OYF4Gz6rzBweB_E74PGqeX0aQbcNzofQmAGMZnyQeom1ns_SUG-fqJhrcJasQGEhbeLsXbveGaEvj6bT2PmcNDv4xTyFX0INvEL2rDWqPrYu8gC2aFxwan8N0FUzEb16O55AQQYy9Xtwl0k3KDp1V33MvgIbsrkc_kj2hC-c/w640-h480/IMG_1163.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The weir on this site
apparently used to belong to Cricklade’s West Mill, till it was demolished in
the 1920s or 30s by the Thames Conservancy. Its replacement appears to be an
Environment Agency gauging weir.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga28GZXlbL_9CWIUWXr6FLoVY29mKEPpEXSo1XJ9SiLwW9iJBYAvkp3uW3Pkg4errurZQrYxjvOGPJDEPAZcY0h6dH2kNE9kWfDST8RANBiTVsZJGsPUNdJI3d9aOSrun6YhudfJ8wDBS1gfCZREIZeA2v5e-9gcY1Y1gzjoANdHy1HcAV_dsFBC9k/s5184/IMG_1165.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga28GZXlbL_9CWIUWXr6FLoVY29mKEPpEXSo1XJ9SiLwW9iJBYAvkp3uW3Pkg4errurZQrYxjvOGPJDEPAZcY0h6dH2kNE9kWfDST8RANBiTVsZJGsPUNdJI3d9aOSrun6YhudfJ8wDBS1gfCZREIZeA2v5e-9gcY1Y1gzjoANdHy1HcAV_dsFBC9k/w640-h480/IMG_1165.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHoM_2dIZsDIyqX1vSjehg1lynWoHHitC8wYkyxKIa0n6dm8BJLB992r4ezqsmbiZZLuslLmoAuCwmJCBonc9owciVCYPIJMrrk9PYoOAvEVhp3vxRCyH6zFtWQweDyClVSIG1bmKMaz35WNKJFItk6jriN4FSknvLOieng5m9Xrwa0XV6ZVCJxT_A/s5184/IMG_1168.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHoM_2dIZsDIyqX1vSjehg1lynWoHHitC8wYkyxKIa0n6dm8BJLB992r4ezqsmbiZZLuslLmoAuCwmJCBonc9owciVCYPIJMrrk9PYoOAvEVhp3vxRCyH6zFtWQweDyClVSIG1bmKMaz35WNKJFItk6jriN4FSknvLOieng5m9Xrwa0XV6ZVCJxT_A/w640-h480/IMG_1168.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">North Meadow.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">North Meadow operates under the <i>Lammas
land</i> system: hay is planted in February and harvested around <i>Lammas Day</i>
(traditionally August 12th), after which the meadow is kept open as a common
flood-pasture for grazing animals through the remaining half of the year. Over eight
centuries this cycle, still administered by Cricklade’s ancestral manorial
court system (the </span><a href="https://crickladecourtleet.org.uk/"><u><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Court Leet</span></i></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">) with more recent support from
Natural England, has turned this meadow into one of the biologically richest
grasslands in the country. Its ecosystem harbours over 250 species of wild
plant, but one in particular stands as Cricklade’s special symbol.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGU-am5aZFzx5vFNIxTW9BwWYmwIsiDF0u264WiFABgl5BdEv0zLtnXx992GD25qCxcpBcEKtHEn9pQLJLXcJMPgZntwZAxQcgsjICfDWEpdT6r3kDERJzGYjfD3n0yCjBfhgB6GCt7QTtEZ494nsNUQfpjQTF59WTdo_fXT3hzf6elH9Ha8GvuM9d/s5184/IMG_1169.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGU-am5aZFzx5vFNIxTW9BwWYmwIsiDF0u264WiFABgl5BdEv0zLtnXx992GD25qCxcpBcEKtHEn9pQLJLXcJMPgZntwZAxQcgsjICfDWEpdT6r3kDERJzGYjfD3n0yCjBfhgB6GCt7QTtEZ494nsNUQfpjQTF59WTdo_fXT3hzf6elH9Ha8GvuM9d/w640-h480/IMG_1169.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">One with whose peak flowering
this walk just happens to coincide, producing a breathtaking final display to see
out this journey.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBC43No40mP8WBv5TVqd3a_QsdGuhQ1Muo-wMtv94U7Jns826wT1VUFg9hE-OsnU4gEsAG7GXjaBTwNzx2ay6sO6XoOv8R3zv-9si3YeFGv5rIMEPIf1A9CdH0mVAO4OtLJNn1GCL36OcwMoxqsZN_NSvMFnzEONyBJWx7l_35_-EglTvxHBfXVmuX/s5184/IMG_1172.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBC43No40mP8WBv5TVqd3a_QsdGuhQ1Muo-wMtv94U7Jns826wT1VUFg9hE-OsnU4gEsAG7GXjaBTwNzx2ay6sO6XoOv8R3zv-9si3YeFGv5rIMEPIf1A9CdH0mVAO4OtLJNn1GCL36OcwMoxqsZN_NSvMFnzEONyBJWx7l_35_-EglTvxHBfXVmuX/w400-h300/IMG_1172.JPG" width="400" /></a></div> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The <b>snake’s head fritillary</b>, <i>Fritillaria
meleagris</i>, used to grow widespread in this country till centuries of meadow
clearances for agriculture and over-collection for markets and flower shows
drove its wild population to the brink. Now protected by law, Cricklade’s North
Meadow happens to be this flower’s main surviving stronghold; the fritillaries
here are thought to make up some 80% of those remaining in England.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZHcjPh3rKXvwurTV-ftmSoZqOpZn4Ts2FpR6oCWBmmiXyNPFW4N5pLAv0FQ1PU5CGmKaQoaHOVH6JtsVUW0C_KnCfWv2hywrWT67KGGHZ3y8UjPfnY1jfuDICcegVB7bUcdcuZ-UDCiJYnVtpIMQ9t2qxss-vROqOn-9TEql_bTG1P_M62NHEsgqo/s5184/IMG_1174.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZHcjPh3rKXvwurTV-ftmSoZqOpZn4Ts2FpR6oCWBmmiXyNPFW4N5pLAv0FQ1PU5CGmKaQoaHOVH6JtsVUW0C_KnCfWv2hywrWT67KGGHZ3y8UjPfnY1jfuDICcegVB7bUcdcuZ-UDCiJYnVtpIMQ9t2qxss-vROqOn-9TEql_bTG1P_M62NHEsgqo/w640-h480/IMG_1174.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Most of the fritillary flowers
are purple, but white ones are on the increase.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqU9KTWgE6ic3kgzM4W_pXsNT7kiVAw70D-2E_Zf3nrE-OcF5YHfNr4K2cp8lGGvhG6iqWAoj1TVme5C52-I_VJSxmEc68xCku3_0dAhGj7PJg2CfDC6HVPaQPmRsyG2-a1YVSkcEZ5LH74KsCYK1-UTN530Tqq6vG8xJvWHk1zHBIWK2rvyibFgZ/s5184/IMG_1176.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqU9KTWgE6ic3kgzM4W_pXsNT7kiVAw70D-2E_Zf3nrE-OcF5YHfNr4K2cp8lGGvhG6iqWAoj1TVme5C52-I_VJSxmEc68xCku3_0dAhGj7PJg2CfDC6HVPaQPmRsyG2-a1YVSkcEZ5LH74KsCYK1-UTN530Tqq6vG8xJvWHk1zHBIWK2rvyibFgZ/w640-h480/IMG_1176.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">People used to pick these
freely, but it’s now prohibited. The meadow has sustained damage from
trampling, as well as from dogs disturbing ground-nesting birds and leaving
deposits which pollute the soil with phosphorus. There are now severe penalties
for even leaving the footpaths.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQQa531CoDd4xm2CxmP4P_0mUXP3GRlLGwW1qqyTOGwKjY3_EAgjYFeC4I7yXyywgVpxXWhGRz4xLP8tgJybyuKLzUU882bOHrDns0hbYAX59Nbm54BPgZvg3oHgRH6wzdJ6TOMK8tG8wLnCmqrkAr_OLpD7v64uuixOkRRIcSrBcmJBqhluJDsGS/s5184/IMG_1178.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQQa531CoDd4xm2CxmP4P_0mUXP3GRlLGwW1qqyTOGwKjY3_EAgjYFeC4I7yXyywgVpxXWhGRz4xLP8tgJybyuKLzUU882bOHrDns0hbYAX59Nbm54BPgZvg3oHgRH6wzdJ6TOMK8tG8wLnCmqrkAr_OLpD7v64uuixOkRRIcSrBcmJBqhluJDsGS/w640-h480/IMG_1178.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Hard as it might be to
believe, this little stream is the Thames.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZTBCDfaXIIlxynZNuWgRwq1z4b7G0c1AJFXPiv7UnBRmoG_dx00YSa6Dr1R8ty63PoQ71DwM0OQ_1d3uMGmGbrB1Jd08iJ54U6-9HC5i_uBhHUAmZkAO2LVEeOXaWi3KdKDHTbYlmO5egcBtDD23o79GCaCK9D1P5LB8gvXv4mCd90ia0gKi2jBLI/s5184/IMG_1187.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZTBCDfaXIIlxynZNuWgRwq1z4b7G0c1AJFXPiv7UnBRmoG_dx00YSa6Dr1R8ty63PoQ71DwM0OQ_1d3uMGmGbrB1Jd08iJ54U6-9HC5i_uBhHUAmZkAO2LVEeOXaWi3KdKDHTbYlmO5egcBtDD23o79GCaCK9D1P5LB8gvXv4mCd90ia0gKi2jBLI/w400-h300/IMG_1187.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Supposedly this bridge used to
carry a small canal, a branch of the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2022/04/thames-19-passages.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Thames and Severn Canal</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> now repurposed as a public
bridleway.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">If you’re here in good season you’ll
want to take your time in North Meadow, so make sure to factor it into your
walking plans.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8i9671xb-pdX0WjmJIR8fbqwuF7QlYfRcLJJ-LwuszAtspzCjtTVILZIIQvUfr8PqJBYJta8VW-cKlQggeRqGK_BOB96fio4BWOTpTwg9MSMOGKNdg7gj1cR5p3EVdYPSVQKAjR1x1jEjeiFMMZRvTytPIF9I-GGrH_F5wPLBh2EoI5xuOYTl5Nwi/s5184/IMG_1181.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8i9671xb-pdX0WjmJIR8fbqwuF7QlYfRcLJJ-LwuszAtspzCjtTVILZIIQvUfr8PqJBYJta8VW-cKlQggeRqGK_BOB96fio4BWOTpTwg9MSMOGKNdg7gj1cR5p3EVdYPSVQKAjR1x1jEjeiFMMZRvTytPIF9I-GGrH_F5wPLBh2EoI5xuOYTl5Nwi/w400-h300/IMG_1181.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Don’t forget the plentiful
non-fritillary species either. The rich plant life supports thriving
communities of insects, reptiles and birds.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj36_lO_umEkT-FJUYVOhDbgnzbgUoMW_6642sUOGfNWAVTP9HTZ18e0JgD19aJqRtteAotcardizq2_HOGrXy-huXwntvDsi6qNQBBYOVLb9HOYixoYk6N1N-M5XY5Cl5Yspb-gg8XL6c2V7jQjx7lxzv1m8QaNajO4UTybqXDQuNH8lhJZ7nt0hMH/s5184/IMG_1185.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj36_lO_umEkT-FJUYVOhDbgnzbgUoMW_6642sUOGfNWAVTP9HTZ18e0JgD19aJqRtteAotcardizq2_HOGrXy-huXwntvDsi6qNQBBYOVLb9HOYixoYk6N1N-M5XY5Cl5Yspb-gg8XL6c2V7jQjx7lxzv1m8QaNajO4UTybqXDQuNH8lhJZ7nt0hMH/w400-h300/IMG_1185.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">You can check </span><a href="https://crickladecourtleet.org.uk/category/fritillary-watch/"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">this webpage</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> for live updates on the
fritillary situation courtesy of Cricklade Court Leet.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdaPWiBulA3eEiAe7QyYf_GwYw9Bor7aJ4o_eQC9UQbVHsLRkIYioj2NWMvb9BwXlU9WXQU7HV5hiWTbwKDJe9nWPKMF1pz8IArPO9Qjz7Wov-z8bf6dcsLLJcAdbJ_jmCRkc1mbq__dMV6hAehTAgVgkaf9bGpPDgEUWT7QsXFQU82c8qR0u6aLG/s5184/IMG_1188.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdaPWiBulA3eEiAe7QyYf_GwYw9Bor7aJ4o_eQC9UQbVHsLRkIYioj2NWMvb9BwXlU9WXQU7HV5hiWTbwKDJe9nWPKMF1pz8IArPO9Qjz7Wov-z8bf6dcsLLJcAdbJ_jmCRkc1mbq__dMV6hAehTAgVgkaf9bGpPDgEUWT7QsXFQU82c8qR0u6aLG/w640-h480/IMG_1188.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Then there’s a little more farmland
to cross.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0dlX4UrFInArUzwnUQX5szCuJDXFFG22NgOoQ1mEUomVCHpKfbKXpl1H_qWnc6KwOU9WeqcZk-a_kOcSulmi_2B4scT0MRAgYbEkDneRcQP-BVM0FX72cAOE7Q2r1aNTdjbyvCTz4swikHqW2s_86NW6kcHnPxu-mbyBBNEp_dY6YHq6YNsAEbMrV/s5184/IMG_1192.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0dlX4UrFInArUzwnUQX5szCuJDXFFG22NgOoQ1mEUomVCHpKfbKXpl1H_qWnc6KwOU9WeqcZk-a_kOcSulmi_2B4scT0MRAgYbEkDneRcQP-BVM0FX72cAOE7Q2r1aNTdjbyvCTz4swikHqW2s_86NW6kcHnPxu-mbyBBNEp_dY6YHq6YNsAEbMrV/w640-h480/IMG_1192.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Fortunately there are nuuo.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZhIgH4rEhgOaif2HUcOk9elOsi8ULhLlBgLHQ-5M6ET4so1OxGR9IPe1MKoTVDUxn4m1XajbO8XszaK6gU5i6R4OlhpmcxNq_OFehjsYUCOXxo16XetCi2w3M_ZN82G1apLYRSzIfnBoyeRtBoNugT9K2Qq8VDVk8_Ef1ByadAfJ5Y2xYKFCK94b5/s5184/IMG_1193.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZhIgH4rEhgOaif2HUcOk9elOsi8ULhLlBgLHQ-5M6ET4so1OxGR9IPe1MKoTVDUxn4m1XajbO8XszaK6gU5i6R4OlhpmcxNq_OFehjsYUCOXxo16XetCi2w3M_ZN82G1apLYRSzIfnBoyeRtBoNugT9K2Qq8VDVk8_Ef1ByadAfJ5Y2xYKFCK94b5/w400-h300/IMG_1193.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Like this.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhobNL2YZoSwrxvFCwVxW0EfjNYzH-4t14vkadPX-mUFdFqCnUjZ7RZdlXyRKapyVJ2oWcyWV_3kx3Fz2f2nRJi1Lz9iUaDj8DuNwvFJZjFZRnDjXu7maZkjumTQZQrE9B8YieUGNRweZ5aLs7cmAN-AiXRNOylvSaRhZS2BhGv6YIh_zzqVEq8UZIF/s5184/IMG_1194.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhobNL2YZoSwrxvFCwVxW0EfjNYzH-4t14vkadPX-mUFdFqCnUjZ7RZdlXyRKapyVJ2oWcyWV_3kx3Fz2f2nRJi1Lz9iUaDj8DuNwvFJZjFZRnDjXu7maZkjumTQZQrE9B8YieUGNRweZ5aLs7cmAN-AiXRNOylvSaRhZS2BhGv6YIh_zzqVEq8UZIF/w640-h480/IMG_1194.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This region is not actually quite as
remote as the sweeping peripheries from here to the Oxford Basin. The invisible
presence here is <b>Cirencester</b>: a market town north up the Churn (whence <i>Ciren</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">)</span> that was the Iron Age capital of
the Dobunni people, before their Roman allies fortified and developed it as <i>Corinium
Dobunnorum</i>, the second-largest city in Roman Britain. Later re-emerging as
a rich Cotswold wool town, it is now the effective capital of the Cotswold Hills
and has dragged a constellation of high-prestige agriculture, trade and tourism
into an orbital zone which sweeps across the Thames’s springs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwauDBgLgIJ1brN8vrDn6xArpaH3yPMr1_1wtzYdtdQtEpxi_om5zHsHOZcStjR6RQcV8JkZf-49Wy7Zd8nptLXqK7YGtygbegUcVUNydKhOPNP--c4sc5yOjT9EENlaVVWj8_2xB_G6aTE4wPezZrHCwrpvWkvVwgaeAH0BgwGOhd_vo_qb650jTW/s5184/IMG_1195.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwauDBgLgIJ1brN8vrDn6xArpaH3yPMr1_1wtzYdtdQtEpxi_om5zHsHOZcStjR6RQcV8JkZf-49Wy7Zd8nptLXqK7YGtygbegUcVUNydKhOPNP--c4sc5yOjT9EENlaVVWj8_2xB_G6aTE4wPezZrHCwrpvWkvVwgaeAH0BgwGOhd_vo_qb650jTW/w400-h300/IMG_1195.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This bridge used to carry a
railway from Cirencester to Swindon, a large railway junction town down in
Wiltshire.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKlSBO6XWQQOx7A7OCrz6weFSJ7fl0Lj_z2Kn58NjcSGPnzqCFZTtEbT6D5Zs6je6SPoGVQqxc5niHv5FQZ8tXBB1i_ko4vkFKhKx3gRWuPRh7_tgiIBtiHGPWAqLSdQ2MwoFWI_rf6OSJ-dn7AKKabzd0lTKw_rK5mfj8LtEcwJBTa2ruULEXg_vR/s5184/IMG_1202.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKlSBO6XWQQOx7A7OCrz6weFSJ7fl0Lj_z2Kn58NjcSGPnzqCFZTtEbT6D5Zs6je6SPoGVQqxc5niHv5FQZ8tXBB1i_ko4vkFKhKx3gRWuPRh7_tgiIBtiHGPWAqLSdQ2MwoFWI_rf6OSJ-dn7AKKabzd0lTKw_rK5mfj8LtEcwJBTa2ruULEXg_vR/w640-h480/IMG_1202.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The railway lasted till the
1960s, when it fell victim to the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-8-river-shamans.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Beeching Axe</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. Its noticeably straight embankment
survives as this riverside footpath.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZcRbQgtub1DsDWdX8DeqMLa5lP_4Om0m-dS7_5MmESZoDJOh-DR2zA8fQ3769hlckeITw_hbnQr0dFtBjLH7DKJeQfyngfNdLpIXB2Tz4JfUMK6Q81g--gFYtjUa3LE3dcNELG6iebXvwuIX4zbWz41sVa32QsX75t_i3DAqVfdLnusCHEfUJy5_/s5184/IMG_1198.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZcRbQgtub1DsDWdX8DeqMLa5lP_4Om0m-dS7_5MmESZoDJOh-DR2zA8fQ3769hlckeITw_hbnQr0dFtBjLH7DKJeQfyngfNdLpIXB2Tz4JfUMK6Q81g--gFYtjUa3LE3dcNELG6iebXvwuIX4zbWz41sVa32QsX75t_i3DAqVfdLnusCHEfUJy5_/w400-h300/IMG_1198.JPG" width="400" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">At length the river curls around the
tiny hamlet of Hailstone Hill, an outpost of Cricklade – and then is ambushed
by a most audacious geographical rearrangement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilGjfSNIj4LkHZsZgvhhLHNmmXyQhD-klFG2xwsVKX-Sjll7FyuXPsy_S6pR1lKjwfIwsPdCXyS4UuMaO-_-_Q7aa8XR1iGyR0v-UfcMG34rCif3twXC1XZqCc_DeD3KPmGkbBvCoXRbKA4WbVKVNI6SsE7t7bR-8qPNh_i4E9kmYL463PjtuStUA1/s5184/IMG_1200.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilGjfSNIj4LkHZsZgvhhLHNmmXyQhD-klFG2xwsVKX-Sjll7FyuXPsy_S6pR1lKjwfIwsPdCXyS4UuMaO-_-_Q7aa8XR1iGyR0v-UfcMG34rCif3twXC1XZqCc_DeD3KPmGkbBvCoXRbKA4WbVKVNI6SsE7t7bR-8qPNh_i4E9kmYL463PjtuStUA1/w640-h480/IMG_1200.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This area is home to a large
population of great and blue tits. They like to wait till you have your camera
exactly ready then fly off at the last second.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsnqfNVhKuJvkTVwe4W5OSKb5jAm6vzdrNqA1Bio6_pCBdDXmpHT7VK8UgWCoMDB33deubsji7ZzggR629mxUyixWQq0xzuYEdF16XgNRLpA1LcbzBAhzv_f8HDY3zbyttVDxrMVXf0YX0KK8oXkm1pCm906a_pMPz31OH1ZJsx0U57pVxCy8osymL/s5184/IMG_1205.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsnqfNVhKuJvkTVwe4W5OSKb5jAm6vzdrNqA1Bio6_pCBdDXmpHT7VK8UgWCoMDB33deubsji7ZzggR629mxUyixWQq0xzuYEdF16XgNRLpA1LcbzBAhzv_f8HDY3zbyttVDxrMVXf0YX0KK8oXkm1pCm906a_pMPz31OH1ZJsx0U57pVxCy8osymL/w640-h480/IMG_1205.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_IUbaqxmqGUAMSjU6k1Lx61VCJwKTFs-mY85s1iHUObc8mGp6iu_R53omFzQ2wyzPSZO8SkQbQT662w0xl7QzRi1XkREJL49rTJwIIDMDQ2xKR31tPVkHuF_cidyzV_NK2Z8CksdxIgNMwiyyQWIWSC5L-dLOuugf6_xcYNNRsmUrPW2sErDOUbjP/s5184/IMG_1206.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_IUbaqxmqGUAMSjU6k1Lx61VCJwKTFs-mY85s1iHUObc8mGp6iu_R53omFzQ2wyzPSZO8SkQbQT662w0xl7QzRi1XkREJL49rTJwIIDMDQ2xKR31tPVkHuF_cidyzV_NK2Z8CksdxIgNMwiyyQWIWSC5L-dLOuugf6_xcYNNRsmUrPW2sErDOUbjP/w640-h480/IMG_1206.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Cotswold Water Park (East)</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The Cotswold Hills are renowned for
their yellow mid-Jurassic limestone, about 150 million years old and much in
favour as a local building material. But in low-lying valleys like the
Thames’s, a more recent half-million years of Ice Age glacial melts have carpeted
this rock in huge deposits of gravelly debris. Over a still more recent fifty
years, industrial-scale quarrying for this gravel to make concrete has carved this
landscape to pieces: gouging out pits, ripping apart hedgerows and waterways,
and throwing the water table into upheaval right here amidst the river’s
ancestral springs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">As they deplete the old pits and move
on to new ones, they leave the river’s channels to fill them in. The outcome is a sprawling mosaic of some 150 artificial
lakes, and increasing – which, as though it makes it all okay, have together
been re-imagined into the <b>Cotswold Water Park</b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSFTAoj69PzYydXAv_G0SW4aaVAd48P17axH9RVM2Z_-ubzMeiVQ_qrjAO-Fsap2SHpSnR7Va1AaLC3NYkIaiL8Uge7Y8OrSRgbY4LtMjoXeG5ZzKQl9ZpRW86T3QO9i0o8u2Oe8IlPQKhRB93dZlgkizP4Cw4oZdMrEWViFn7j-4GObH7uwo-QNEw/s5184/IMG_1211.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSFTAoj69PzYydXAv_G0SW4aaVAd48P17axH9RVM2Z_-ubzMeiVQ_qrjAO-Fsap2SHpSnR7Va1AaLC3NYkIaiL8Uge7Y8OrSRgbY4LtMjoXeG5ZzKQl9ZpRW86T3QO9i0o8u2Oe8IlPQKhRB93dZlgkizP4Cw4oZdMrEWViFn7j-4GObH7uwo-QNEw/w640-h480/IMG_1211.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The first glimpse of this
handiwork is the Cleveland Lakes, which make up the southeastern-most marl lake
cluster. They encompass one of the Water Park’s several waterfowl-rich nature
reserves.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmb1AsmlExKYJMvyM80FaCBPwgONZb7b_bs9oJ4WbYcTdqm0QZ8uB1P4122KJyyA_xkwIQ2L2FgzdXYmlOmCjWcd4FAvPeCMuOVpTerp7SJa3kTu0qQe16mVgdbxyS6eGmI49Pd9Ns5PUGadG3K2jrZPYpBn0ZGoPkkWtbAmmQu7BrFo_Mu2Ca4py0/s5184/IMG_1212.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmb1AsmlExKYJMvyM80FaCBPwgONZb7b_bs9oJ4WbYcTdqm0QZ8uB1P4122KJyyA_xkwIQ2L2FgzdXYmlOmCjWcd4FAvPeCMuOVpTerp7SJa3kTu0qQe16mVgdbxyS6eGmI49Pd9Ns5PUGadG3K2jrZPYpBn0ZGoPkkWtbAmmQu7BrFo_Mu2Ca4py0/w640-h480/IMG_1212.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This atmospheric old farm
bridge retires on the lakes’ southern perimeter.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The Cotswold Water Park now sprawls
over a hundred square kilometres and incorporates a matching sprawl of human activity.
Large swathes have emerged as thriving wildlife sites and received protection
as nature reserves or Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs),
but the smiling face of the thing is recreational: a middle-class wonderland of
sailing, fishing, birdwatching, watersports and holiday cottage retreats.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB-DA9miYMMxR-KQvoy8l31OYOHhnbJvU8-Uc2UbrrKDTbSNLveNzocZdNMjZPf06OblP2YombUt6O6lQKHKxu9CL4dxpbzfZovGClObafmaNcwc6nKdqvGLMI_FxAKw1hYB3tBdUzUnpDSdY_g4qtPxMo4APDL1CpJ7eUjhNEoSwEqtIq3VUfBMDt/s5184/IMG_1213.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB-DA9miYMMxR-KQvoy8l31OYOHhnbJvU8-Uc2UbrrKDTbSNLveNzocZdNMjZPf06OblP2YombUt6O6lQKHKxu9CL4dxpbzfZovGClObafmaNcwc6nKdqvGLMI_FxAKw1hYB3tBdUzUnpDSdY_g4qtPxMo4APDL1CpJ7eUjhNEoSwEqtIq3VUfBMDt/w640-h480/IMG_1213.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Camping and boating on the
Cleveland Lakes. The Water Park was previously run by a company, but it went
defunct in 2012 when its chief executive was imprisoned for massive fraud after pocketing some £700,000 at the Water Park’s expense. It’s now overseen by
a coalition of registered charity trusts.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJf0Sswy5IBI8H99By763ZcJHaM0VOW-zWqA_f24OVrGY7BTSZEm5y1UcTOnSS_bsWpnuSDS_cGSLque-YKrrbpTjFaTP42cTFK7aL3kBlqBLtCR4gtFm4NP2yctSBmbg-9Nw3EBhQaDZtC5gLIQOWcxaaCUQhZL5EbQOBzrkxzNicI82fgAMbIPQM/s5184/IMG_1214.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJf0Sswy5IBI8H99By763ZcJHaM0VOW-zWqA_f24OVrGY7BTSZEm5y1UcTOnSS_bsWpnuSDS_cGSLque-YKrrbpTjFaTP42cTFK7aL3kBlqBLtCR4gtFm4NP2yctSBmbg-9Nw3EBhQaDZtC5gLIQOWcxaaCUQhZL5EbQOBzrkxzNicI82fgAMbIPQM/w400-h300/IMG_1214.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Water-skating in action,
complete with ramp for high-decibel somersaulting. Precious contact point
between humans and nature? Or shocking desecration of the Thames’s hallowed spawning
grounds? The debate goes on.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRR6OOx9kgWO3G0dGz77JL7tWEdx_7Z2JPSUMjb1q7Cap0l76lZVs2-zsuqBFtTGNT7GPAoQDidBKjzrAm1kzmAOutkG4u2_wmFaNXDH9BtXnxVvrVtDj9vB8Mi2XPYLXYCsk3iDvdxbBA07wt4y-aorOJkEQR5eSvF3Aqz6h4E2bU3v-QfAVFq1rY/s5184/IMG_1215.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRR6OOx9kgWO3G0dGz77JL7tWEdx_7Z2JPSUMjb1q7Cap0l76lZVs2-zsuqBFtTGNT7GPAoQDidBKjzrAm1kzmAOutkG4u2_wmFaNXDH9BtXnxVvrVtDj9vB8Mi2XPYLXYCsk3iDvdxbBA07wt4y-aorOJkEQR5eSvF3Aqz6h4E2bU3v-QfAVFq1rY/w400-h300/IMG_1215.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Across the lake, a
gravel-hungry yellow monster prowls through the trees.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiriwq0OuebpvHDCmjPvUiIAO23pSrFP9YbRR7FTU-lNmMCd0W4trMiqFCcF5Di9N2kuk8l7ga1b-hvhmVlWRpwka8j8tvsbuCp2zqcsoMms-49WMizd0GwFZBHxqlf7wAn3_bBQkEQIG7HWwxA4BBghulLErte0rJRnGLV9y6NpHNEy1PPCpturOfi/s5184/IMG_1216.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiriwq0OuebpvHDCmjPvUiIAO23pSrFP9YbRR7FTU-lNmMCd0W4trMiqFCcF5Di9N2kuk8l7ga1b-hvhmVlWRpwka8j8tvsbuCp2zqcsoMms-49WMizd0GwFZBHxqlf7wAn3_bBQkEQIG7HWwxA4BBghulLErte0rJRnGLV9y6NpHNEy1PPCpturOfi/w640-h480/IMG_1216.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The river somehow keeps its
identity as it threads between the lakes, many of which it feeds through
underground culverts.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAh0Zy6TyhFwdwbEMB2wHG9t1VqgeQ6rpDnPLvO6MC_J7rvI_CweZy48-_lehUjLhXBDsyLYXIhcJGaIZDqvCbfv4qxqFp0kmZ593wcNuFHeKwNNQ24eCa22VkGh6S0gk10nJdt1Le8ftZgyKgadSzvcCE38hkFO5Ay6fWtCx2_iDYHoAsgQRcl9tR/s5184/IMG_1217.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAh0Zy6TyhFwdwbEMB2wHG9t1VqgeQ6rpDnPLvO6MC_J7rvI_CweZy48-_lehUjLhXBDsyLYXIhcJGaIZDqvCbfv4qxqFp0kmZ593wcNuFHeKwNNQ24eCa22VkGh6S0gk10nJdt1Le8ftZgyKgadSzvcCE38hkFO5Ay6fWtCx2_iDYHoAsgQRcl9tR/w400-h300/IMG_1217.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">One great crested grebe at the
</span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/10/thames-prologue-dark-river.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">very beginning of this journey</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, and another here at its end.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Eventually the river breaks from this
latter-day lakeland, and trickles round its southern rim to skirt the largely
vanished hamlet of <b>Waterhay</b>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVfUFDX0R64OQZWjtsXfpe3rQmGV3U4ZnmZyN4z-3fw2fu1_fqAtVDHC31VFYRrLlqK-fbcCzmw690pyzX4kmnuiNoRlHpOBdmn8If6qZoZSIFl14k3omGn6TJ-TH5tMJyTYwk-2KxX-jmTR3PWQptpfayy7M1PnWORUTrjP-54eGeke9iwcwII8N/s5184/IMG_1222.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVfUFDX0R64OQZWjtsXfpe3rQmGV3U4ZnmZyN4z-3fw2fu1_fqAtVDHC31VFYRrLlqK-fbcCzmw690pyzX4kmnuiNoRlHpOBdmn8If6qZoZSIFl14k3omGn6TJ-TH5tMJyTYwk-2KxX-jmTR3PWQptpfayy7M1PnWORUTrjP-54eGeke9iwcwII8N/w400-h300/IMG_1222.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Further ahead the river joins
the Swill Brook, which comes in from the west. Officially a tributary, the
Swill Brook is actually larger than the designated Thames, most likely a
result of the gravel mining. It’s a reminder of the river’s distributed
sources and how they change over time.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivLig0HiC9kj8Z0LpQ01US4fRJQgl3MnOTo5jbjReOJDGOJPWC_0RO7DiSItAJzKDOYPzXtapgvoT0olSfZsxSYNT1S81Tokz3BrQZ3aeAThM3rLv-4Y80APi5nss5Re8Cggge7FGHGi5WMRgF26l6W6GqZ0Fsc6Q4LvtmU-KcTi1hkBocI2LS579U/s5184/IMG_1223.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivLig0HiC9kj8Z0LpQ01US4fRJQgl3MnOTo5jbjReOJDGOJPWC_0RO7DiSItAJzKDOYPzXtapgvoT0olSfZsxSYNT1S81Tokz3BrQZ3aeAThM3rLv-4Y80APi5nss5Re8Cggge7FGHGi5WMRgF26l6W6GqZ0Fsc6Q4LvtmU-KcTi1hkBocI2LS579U/w400-h300/IMG_1223.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Nuuo.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnM-HM2pqkn6mkoyltaBoCnaOSafW8KagQIP8hrEmd_3hC3-3YKLBYqYWMiyH0pHpnw6djF86urN1tzgOLJvptL4SeHg2wDYQlzsu_zKOn45e7xaIXYG4wKgiZxJdX5f5nmZWVjaQGtgooeDkMG5A-su1oKpm72qOXtlWw4U6IatKK_tSgoGRGdMwq/s5184/IMG_1224.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnM-HM2pqkn6mkoyltaBoCnaOSafW8KagQIP8hrEmd_3hC3-3YKLBYqYWMiyH0pHpnw6djF86urN1tzgOLJvptL4SeHg2wDYQlzsu_zKOn45e7xaIXYG4wKgiZxJdX5f5nmZWVjaQGtgooeDkMG5A-su1oKpm72qOXtlWw4U6IatKK_tSgoGRGdMwq/w400-h300/IMG_1224.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This too might have been a
headwater channel till the quarrying ruined its flow.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">From here the trail leaves the river
to cut between two more lakes, before rejoining it in the village of Ashton
Keynes. </span>
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhllwhBBIXzByfZ3E4M1Fi6f-b955koIIJdHUKdYTOklO4GClDkHkY0FgWWg3_VHPctEQkB35-RO4H-DPGc73_4hX1Cp0mTKLXiPG6SQH6J9GRaLemsAQ5LNFOCekSh65Bx2U6TJHm0OtqQDvf6vZuXlnmo5QjCm_VCRco2jehsSTJMnbLwPwFrGAwP/s5184/IMG_1227.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhllwhBBIXzByfZ3E4M1Fi6f-b955koIIJdHUKdYTOklO4GClDkHkY0FgWWg3_VHPctEQkB35-RO4H-DPGc73_4hX1Cp0mTKLXiPG6SQH6J9GRaLemsAQ5LNFOCekSh65Bx2U6TJHm0OtqQDvf6vZuXlnmo5QjCm_VCRco2jehsSTJMnbLwPwFrGAwP/w640-h480/IMG_1227.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Even where they haven’t
quarried, the gravelly terrain is in evidence.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwGkmFa35D1fQWA5hspJlCmHdlyQngTanO-uHuhaKVr0GBqQBu7EvvR-fuOlG1YTLpKB23Z1GDM9qvXU-8ct84H6HKjQ2lkyPC3RkJbKixIpL7d7jYzsSJrSpwEe7wYt7gLQg_kCSq2Wvcrp7wZm95t-PkQsr6bHxNdjZVXY_K2xm7NoEgTL8qUsEz/s5184/IMG_1226.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwGkmFa35D1fQWA5hspJlCmHdlyQngTanO-uHuhaKVr0GBqQBu7EvvR-fuOlG1YTLpKB23Z1GDM9qvXU-8ct84H6HKjQ2lkyPC3RkJbKixIpL7d7jYzsSJrSpwEe7wYt7gLQg_kCSq2Wvcrp7wZm95t-PkQsr6bHxNdjZVXY_K2xm7NoEgTL8qUsEz/w640-h480/IMG_1226.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS44un7VHCcf4mUwtKHTXHgVtpEXJ-cpkJm-U9cY9Q04R81XbnugknUP2Oer7jUGV_OthO3811TPF2ERubTFnXFZuE_X0MdBm2CiVylLFGRAMXd2oB0wl6DvHASv7lvW0JLG4P7Yg4T0V1At__su8YNRPH5UhHWCYDZsYCuO5UBxjRYi1jzZsf5CBH/s5184/IMG_1229.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS44un7VHCcf4mUwtKHTXHgVtpEXJ-cpkJm-U9cY9Q04R81XbnugknUP2Oer7jUGV_OthO3811TPF2ERubTFnXFZuE_X0MdBm2CiVylLFGRAMXd2oB0wl6DvHASv7lvW0JLG4P7Yg4T0V1At__su8YNRPH5UhHWCYDZsYCuO5UBxjRYi1jzZsf5CBH/w640-h480/IMG_1229.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This lake and its partner
appear to be part of the nature reserve, hence the absence of touristy
troublemaking.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtekYm7npnSyTO3kcQ9Vo0UyoHHxRJEvNqhP6gVxruDOWN_5Gd0mY1YC4cDbZCsl_DePAbWa6lMJSd2dlfSszMUeot6vWMwPa13SIa_uq2xB3GgukKOCDAZcUr3Wlw46aq7eeDDLCaDtJQdPdfbN5gde24faxvGqhDh5soka5GqzSOnK_R5B2BfEwp/s5184/IMG_1231.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtekYm7npnSyTO3kcQ9Vo0UyoHHxRJEvNqhP6gVxruDOWN_5Gd0mY1YC4cDbZCsl_DePAbWa6lMJSd2dlfSszMUeot6vWMwPa13SIa_uq2xB3GgukKOCDAZcUr3Wlw46aq7eeDDLCaDtJQdPdfbN5gde24faxvGqhDh5soka5GqzSOnK_R5B2BfEwp/w400-h300/IMG_1231.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A fairly uncommon orange tip
butterfly.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Ashton Keynes</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This village is the last to make
immediate contact with the river. <b>Ashton Keynes</b> sits on two
main channels and multiple smaller ones, of which the one that runs through its
middle, it claims, is the main Thames. If we accept that, it gives the
village a surprising distinction: the only settlement, barring London (too
wrong to count), to stand astride the Thames on both banks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIERDJN2jaLqkzMobyrvGVa5EcF-l1HGMPCNHwUzXvVwBpqv-hhg5W6V5Ny5GFGqeDFNR4-iq2OEe3czyUAq992YxmYnq5Uw3GfBnBvkMmkzpaYydUP--MftgWGt8qqBY5qsieDWcebtE_0qku9VHuZgNoJKlY5OFsX5FI_su_sjnG2klcaHrDFAmO/s5184/IMG_1232.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIERDJN2jaLqkzMobyrvGVa5EcF-l1HGMPCNHwUzXvVwBpqv-hhg5W6V5Ny5GFGqeDFNR4-iq2OEe3czyUAq992YxmYnq5Uw3GfBnBvkMmkzpaYydUP--MftgWGt8qqBY5qsieDWcebtE_0qku9VHuZgNoJKlY5OFsX5FI_su_sjnG2klcaHrDFAmO/w640-h480/IMG_1232.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Young woods and sports fields
on Ashton Keynes’s southern approach.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0D6Y_XVHYNhfRh3cZGLbTTumuvuaYV39p_45JLKQuG157nEcoYDrZZWIsb6_iMYRbcGA44jRwsv98GuJT1vha8NvtEy41UO7LKgTg8vKjFjuTpk6aOimIz605MrPJwq1PCWOXXXNehNgMKJLnjtpP4E1OxL6R-BysxkzhEOirY-7HdPjfbU7UErkC/s5184/IMG_1234.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0D6Y_XVHYNhfRh3cZGLbTTumuvuaYV39p_45JLKQuG157nEcoYDrZZWIsb6_iMYRbcGA44jRwsv98GuJT1vha8NvtEy41UO7LKgTg8vKjFjuTpk6aOimIz605MrPJwq1PCWOXXXNehNgMKJLnjtpP4E1OxL6R-BysxkzhEOirY-7HdPjfbU7UErkC/w640-h480/IMG_1234.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The sports fields are lively
on this warm spring weekend.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBzcnqFF1hq8YyyBq60GQ7LgdwYPXlCxd4povbtF-HJbO60lw9fbJVZPWZ5OS3INy8iddBGouO3F21BkOOz7Mj0cIeTVrPY__OmaYHebGG6sYfySGkvr-1yMUHaFFOkEkNrUaM6iuuVSFMG4Dm0eZ5TLMdv5Fs--4ZWkJmuu8bA6CwAhQSCz5l6Um/s5184/IMG_1236.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBzcnqFF1hq8YyyBq60GQ7LgdwYPXlCxd4povbtF-HJbO60lw9fbJVZPWZ5OS3INy8iddBGouO3F21BkOOz7Mj0cIeTVrPY__OmaYHebGG6sYfySGkvr-1yMUHaFFOkEkNrUaM6iuuVSFMG4Dm0eZ5TLMdv5Fs--4ZWkJmuu8bA6CwAhQSCz5l6Um/w640-h480/IMG_1236.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">For a small Cotswold village
it has a fearsome militia that will visit you at night if you dispute the
matter of which channel is the proper Thames.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Yxzf70CokAyOP6CO3PQZ7YhbjlHpIDLBpuzk-qB1BzzzTfgiNaZNq8NiHLVaqpiDGTfpAIKy783dtr9XeZSRi1ZNdckgfK_SUFla87JiqJBPWoQqMgthTByL13wztEC0loMBKGfgtyzq0v89WTCP5fGxpuCQhVx_LcEkuP0i7AXv9aDWfYBqNd8C/s5184/IMG_1237.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Yxzf70CokAyOP6CO3PQZ7YhbjlHpIDLBpuzk-qB1BzzzTfgiNaZNq8NiHLVaqpiDGTfpAIKy783dtr9XeZSRi1ZNdckgfK_SUFla87JiqJBPWoQqMgthTByL13wztEC0loMBKGfgtyzq0v89WTCP5fGxpuCQhVx_LcEkuP0i7AXv9aDWfYBqNd8C/w400-h300/IMG_1237.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The bluebells are out in force
today.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Settlement at Ashton Keynes is
ancient, with much archaeological evidence uncovered by the
gravel digging. <i>Ashton</i> is thought to have indicated a place where ash
trees grew, and is the more ancestral part of the village’s double-barrelled
name. It gained the other when following the Norman conquest its manor fell
under the control of the de Cahaignes family: a powerful dynasty which built a
castle on the village’s north flank (whose earthworks remain), acquired
widespread lands, and whose best-known output was a certain John Maynard
Keynes, the characterful twentieth-century economist.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi96s58tBAAMRDIc9nvbIn2Ur-qzqiC-7X3i3OV1BnYYcxRx-ByxrYcsXCC0gKTrm7wneHl9sza4M33DCaSxz6ioCQ78QC_355uCuBU8XfME3kWcrmgtMg6hpErSsMdUokzbp4ZoaHCCGZi3SL4zljMLOrwb5zTCrohEUAnynWePnjqjW8e4rJbK2kn/s5184/IMG_1243.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi96s58tBAAMRDIc9nvbIn2Ur-qzqiC-7X3i3OV1BnYYcxRx-ByxrYcsXCC0gKTrm7wneHl9sza4M33DCaSxz6ioCQ78QC_355uCuBU8XfME3kWcrmgtMg6hpErSsMdUokzbp4ZoaHCCGZi3SL4zljMLOrwb5zTCrohEUAnynWePnjqjW8e4rJbK2kn/w640-h480/IMG_1243.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This channel that flows along Ashton Keynes’s high street is officially considered the main
Thames. It’s probably safest not to challenge that claim too loud here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg84CXxnD0y96XwyvUpGq0Y-LE2I1_I4V_AwmMTIGE5bDR9aHaKYUJyJhVtlcT_SbcsbWDlS4gYAIs4_eRTuLLVaRnbxRobzw_5zDG2fCwfMstxfd3EFN2N7D29SZtd63YG2Mf5ZkeTMFIJ1tTrLZW-k8gWPJ-s5OsVXk71yZrKMCfSZYiyHmYc6Udw/s5184/IMG_1244.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg84CXxnD0y96XwyvUpGq0Y-LE2I1_I4V_AwmMTIGE5bDR9aHaKYUJyJhVtlcT_SbcsbWDlS4gYAIs4_eRTuLLVaRnbxRobzw_5zDG2fCwfMstxfd3EFN2N7D29SZtd63YG2Mf5ZkeTMFIJ1tTrLZW-k8gWPJ-s5OsVXk71yZrKMCfSZYiyHmYc6Udw/w640-h480/IMG_1244.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">They’ve even wheeled out the
old man of the river to cement that claim, probably paying him to hit those who
contest it with his shovel.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi55qqMpUNscGEXP_E0KfjxLw14mxW9pH0SJl7KukfcCYgHVGAEy_0MUk2tmXzORCKKcV7WpMVCdZI8iWOPwVb8aRZphoc3BxvYiIE075cd0Ti8vSUwZi9CN6t7oazv4GHU7B0HvZvbfau9fpQDvqSR2M6divCJK6crE2AxOClaazIvkjzlbODgOAmO/s5184/IMG_1240.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi55qqMpUNscGEXP_E0KfjxLw14mxW9pH0SJl7KukfcCYgHVGAEy_0MUk2tmXzORCKKcV7WpMVCdZI8iWOPwVb8aRZphoc3BxvYiIE075cd0Ti8vSUwZi9CN6t7oazv4GHU7B0HvZvbfau9fpQDvqSR2M6divCJK6crE2AxOClaazIvkjzlbODgOAmO/w640-h480/IMG_1240.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It’s a picturesque place, but
its intercourse with the river’s web of channels makes it highly susceptible to
flooding.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMRe8OHT043GH1shnsILJeA55C8HwGJs9VD8A9HzNIkOQvOybJf3JJyxrxJM0K4go-LPyCDTDmU_Cd9IrAjRN-etheqsNAOo73x_6nlxPImzvhO6I-sCpAf0q8cFeq5BrLGWGZUPfq37-DjZy9tZOyYd9KW3wNvTMh_yrHoR2SusDO8uJAhxxBbQbV/s5184/IMG_1245.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMRe8OHT043GH1shnsILJeA55C8HwGJs9VD8A9HzNIkOQvOybJf3JJyxrxJM0K4go-LPyCDTDmU_Cd9IrAjRN-etheqsNAOo73x_6nlxPImzvhO6I-sCpAf0q8cFeq5BrLGWGZUPfq37-DjZy9tZOyYd9KW3wNvTMh_yrHoR2SusDO8uJAhxxBbQbV/w640-h480/IMG_1245.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">In recent decades the village
has served as a node for both the gravel quarrying and Cotswold Water Park
tourism. At right is what used to be one of its four market crosses; all four
were smashed by the parliamentary Puritans during </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">the civil wars</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg47lYZ3KWYGBTn-K5SqpLJOHrlX1DiVtRES0SRb2RyOIMH4wikQUv18fFpTkVdUMlT88nH5T6Pp-aKTh0Bs2vc3kaijOGCi2rBsochfHwDw7PWbIOILX821dhG1SG9JlEmx1zqJ405r3HMjl_bdXXkennghiFa8ztvatxv4DB8WAsMGxADvPoivjvI/s5184/IMG_1241.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg47lYZ3KWYGBTn-K5SqpLJOHrlX1DiVtRES0SRb2RyOIMH4wikQUv18fFpTkVdUMlT88nH5T6Pp-aKTh0Bs2vc3kaijOGCi2rBsochfHwDw7PWbIOILX821dhG1SG9JlEmx1zqJ405r3HMjl_bdXXkennghiFa8ztvatxv4DB8WAsMGxADvPoivjvI/w640-h480/IMG_1241.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">By another ruined cross the
river flows in from the northwest.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Cotswold Water Park (West)</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Above Ashton Keynes, the infant river
braves another cluster of Cotswold Water Park pit-lakes. This western zone is
centred around a chunk of holiday homes, with its lakeshores comfortably done
up for paid leisure-class recreations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGibVeTpbrjywcKigRc9DLhcQXGkOyk2XlMDJjfcwG3p_oN7G5obWX0Vfi5LflI4Ew3lyXDKMWRBGxrzbgzIJ7t8TIZAJi0fACqyjGBRRs0EhKreqmCVUsE3GYoSVgwDw9nJm3KR1wgS0OxSfNDE4En89msZEz8RRCSRubjd5jcWqdc0VH0GLM0cnd/s5184/IMG_1247.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGibVeTpbrjywcKigRc9DLhcQXGkOyk2XlMDJjfcwG3p_oN7G5obWX0Vfi5LflI4Ew3lyXDKMWRBGxrzbgzIJ7t8TIZAJi0fACqyjGBRRs0EhKreqmCVUsE3GYoSVgwDw9nJm3KR1wgS0OxSfNDE4En89msZEz8RRCSRubjd5jcWqdc0VH0GLM0cnd/w640-h480/IMG_1247.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The river enters Ashton Keynes
beneath this little mill sluice...</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXGbsQneZHVmUtnuojxruCwgfT2_DBoV2UTJYBKbPKDH5pVC4aY5bzlHhBvgwwfsHzV4W5aUE1KN4yEwO_a-_Pia-9VtjqrDjNSqPmYcgiKWybzwef11rEnjf8GJqNc_5t7WsH6L8ll473ki0t8IZl4Hm6trw8laBzCWj33KrnYGS1LwP14UTw_J5i/s5184/IMG_1248.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXGbsQneZHVmUtnuojxruCwgfT2_DBoV2UTJYBKbPKDH5pVC4aY5bzlHhBvgwwfsHzV4W5aUE1KN4yEwO_a-_Pia-9VtjqrDjNSqPmYcgiKWybzwef11rEnjf8GJqNc_5t7WsH6L8ll473ki0t8IZl4Hm6trw8laBzCWj33KrnYGS1LwP14UTw_J5i/w640-h480/IMG_1248.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">...behind which the blossoms
from that tree there have backed up with extreme pinkness. Also, if you like
fluffy pink things, </span><a href="https://www.aichaobang.com/works/paths-across-the-sea"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">click here to read a book about one.</span></u></a><br /></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikLZlDmSwLS8fNd9MFfaMlf8LxuFxMYTKTtm0TwQ-R2nlhInevAc4hXG8sjhBcQf0XGNjWtxXHIrNsdiTL-tYWYflv9NoDX-Tw7Kr3WEjpOyqrll05WSeCCQxVr5R_Ip6pxZ8p7ZN0E3I_TLZUmYx8SA-6eleuNH7Ngg95BLmilbcS0XXe5-Sls6iX/s5184/IMG_1249.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikLZlDmSwLS8fNd9MFfaMlf8LxuFxMYTKTtm0TwQ-R2nlhInevAc4hXG8sjhBcQf0XGNjWtxXHIrNsdiTL-tYWYflv9NoDX-Tw7Kr3WEjpOyqrll05WSeCCQxVr5R_Ip6pxZ8p7ZN0E3I_TLZUmYx8SA-6eleuNH7Ngg95BLmilbcS0XXe5-Sls6iX/w640-h480/IMG_1249.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It briefly takes on a
canal-like appearance here, perhaps having been worked for the manor’s
milling.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJmQsZsuqBuLIhN6o2OkDtAUCpmYyiw1mb3TyIfI3zldsxVsgl5ZgeWlRMajxLPcMv6W_3siJjeBP57a-jWMJoJlaOg1sjo2OykgjiVX231XZj_uLblcy0YLTPYtaQx_APXFp7Wq_YOzlpM9TuixAW8lar9rl_Hv9tpMe_pDnxiVX5TGVBKOIfgFj/s5184/IMG_1250.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJmQsZsuqBuLIhN6o2OkDtAUCpmYyiw1mb3TyIfI3zldsxVsgl5ZgeWlRMajxLPcMv6W_3siJjeBP57a-jWMJoJlaOg1sjo2OykgjiVX231XZj_uLblcy0YLTPYtaQx_APXFp7Wq_YOzlpM9TuixAW8lar9rl_Hv9tpMe_pDnxiVX5TGVBKOIfgFj/w640-h480/IMG_1250.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The next round of lakes
begins.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrAxEWyoHpOFKhRX2ErDEVa0SxZVCdvEsfS2BBXkM35XIB6UU-KbasjeL4HR3jclOu68Dhu5n8SK0xFSN5sYDmNKI8SUhIutJho_2y0RtSGuuK9XRIt0v8DQAsVgclmDitYM7S8K1SUxVLbWF63Cy40wE6MxstMYisy8qPRd6ADgqD28aVog1NnIUr/s5184/IMG_1253.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrAxEWyoHpOFKhRX2ErDEVa0SxZVCdvEsfS2BBXkM35XIB6UU-KbasjeL4HR3jclOu68Dhu5n8SK0xFSN5sYDmNKI8SUhIutJho_2y0RtSGuuK9XRIt0v8DQAsVgclmDitYM7S8K1SUxVLbWF63Cy40wE6MxstMYisy8qPRd6ADgqD28aVog1NnIUr/w400-h300/IMG_1253.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">If everything suddenly falls
down, it’s because this fellow has pulled out the bit that kept it standing.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This side of the Water Park is jarring.
The river threads between its lakes as before, but the sense is of a
constant effort to segregate their worlds, as geographically nonsensical as
that may seem. Wicker and wire fences, code-locked gates and private property
signs abound, altogether suggesting that the capitalist classes begrudge the
public right of way along the river and would like to make it absolutely clear
that everything else in this landscape is for paying customers only.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnaE5VnU9TDX2fiCSGf-4RKIUsxfwCZYGsBqj3T05diIXzxAOKPglxcEpe4--KnfaXJgBALGLv0BnDE3zZrOUJQ-RbVIFZyiRQb0eKG7PMJsVjfCoT8ABpjyxyzePm6AE3GIv202MF_OxT0JksTbmFYaG61cYNk51NPmLqp4l43U6ZlJWtI5hcTbkt/s5184/IMG_1256.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnaE5VnU9TDX2fiCSGf-4RKIUsxfwCZYGsBqj3T05diIXzxAOKPglxcEpe4--KnfaXJgBALGLv0BnDE3zZrOUJQ-RbVIFZyiRQb0eKG7PMJsVjfCoT8ABpjyxyzePm6AE3GIv202MF_OxT0JksTbmFYaG61cYNk51NPmLqp4l43U6ZlJWtI5hcTbkt/w640-h480/IMG_1256.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcTpy69f_Lt98l7lQSQeUfQ-GpaPHx6HdCC4YGB0j6_UR80C8tlZLX879FeCIWl21-muvE3Kr04tup2Z9WlpH6cReb1_JZK4OKVQhcgb3MBCp5xf4iZvFTusjwH87hNGJced_bODFTi49Xx6XWU1WD0-uaRQoEWnsaOhMnOaKrqILD9CSpEAU3DV5s/s5184/IMG_1260.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcTpy69f_Lt98l7lQSQeUfQ-GpaPHx6HdCC4YGB0j6_UR80C8tlZLX879FeCIWl21-muvE3Kr04tup2Z9WlpH6cReb1_JZK4OKVQhcgb3MBCp5xf4iZvFTusjwH87hNGJced_bODFTi49Xx6XWU1WD0-uaRQoEWnsaOhMnOaKrqILD9CSpEAU3DV5s/w640-h480/IMG_1260.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">They’ve even assembled wooden
llama golems that will headbutt you if you cross into their lakeside amenities.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNlL_vJAQbYCam55EpMvjA8Rd2zObUr92-VFP2Eh2HdE-sR0lEUZHt9w7YMFs4n4-UdY61Eau-OAe_N6-1SP-qDY5eHrYS68Wd9zXjgRHTn1WarpjU9HKLJggMyBhr_3W2C1C0JwuBBmFlP7JCGn6lUl5vJpAMk5TJDFITT0rjCi8UINq6kRNB59rJ/s5184/IMG_1263.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNlL_vJAQbYCam55EpMvjA8Rd2zObUr92-VFP2Eh2HdE-sR0lEUZHt9w7YMFs4n4-UdY61Eau-OAe_N6-1SP-qDY5eHrYS68Wd9zXjgRHTn1WarpjU9HKLJggMyBhr_3W2C1C0JwuBBmFlP7JCGn6lUl5vJpAMk5TJDFITT0rjCi8UINq6kRNB59rJ/w640-h480/IMG_1263.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The gated entrance to what
used to be the Lower Mill Farm, which fed the local animals when this area was
still agricultural. It’s now the Lower Mill Estate of posh holiday
accommodation.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-DawOjPdwAUD5X0IfJXPkUHjxf81apLzXeegKPYYRmmVfr-GmUteW_3L7wWhQFRNdAodZKDuKTVb3C8oZcjWPR6adUsClVfZQybzWmxI639aj72zf42OiFA2wwwAS2OM_hA0LvuwMqLLzaPD7j1VGx4zZA_TuuQVplH6ZDvH76M5uPpBpepM_DyQB/s5184/IMG_1264.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-DawOjPdwAUD5X0IfJXPkUHjxf81apLzXeegKPYYRmmVfr-GmUteW_3L7wWhQFRNdAodZKDuKTVb3C8oZcjWPR6adUsClVfZQybzWmxI639aj72zf42OiFA2wwwAS2OM_hA0LvuwMqLLzaPD7j1VGx4zZA_TuuQVplH6ZDvH76M5uPpBpepM_DyQB/w640-h480/IMG_1264.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Now pay up.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Somerford Keynes</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Another ancient settlement stretches
out along the Water Park’s northwest escape road. <b>Somerford Keynes</b>
eventually became an appendage of the local Keynes domain. The more
important part of its name, <i>Somerford</i>, suggests it was a summer fording
point, back when the river was still consistently too high to wade across. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsFcR83IB9U5Z7lMN_iiawLG6youmqesIAHGdT1RSepchmd3DN8hW8bfIvOQdR769xInA1xdukHBZE33V4AOHrwpKIXw26FZAlOJTqe36usB0bwcTutHsaYj4y8lsnF4jgqwY-XuBV8MaBdTWk3SBwpYjPRNnGBccZOsrCkWatN8oQ0y5AczSV4Hsu/s5184/IMG_1267.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsFcR83IB9U5Z7lMN_iiawLG6youmqesIAHGdT1RSepchmd3DN8hW8bfIvOQdR769xInA1xdukHBZE33V4AOHrwpKIXw26FZAlOJTqe36usB0bwcTutHsaYj4y8lsnF4jgqwY-XuBV8MaBdTWk3SBwpYjPRNnGBccZOsrCkWatN8oQ0y5AczSV4Hsu/w400-h300/IMG_1267.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Somerford Keynes is small and
largely residential.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis8zkxT2YAhH30exGKg-sd_YbkCSeRF0nlFJOEqfvEfuhA6Uc6YpbwX7dSV7d5bB0FQBTAYKKf5_CWU8XeNQPrzNYJjtTJHRywENM1wBLihrfGSGQrJq53e7qTJ_GGjin3IzNGfHYxtb6OLRWl1gjGDapDU3SQ944TAaxWs9SW20EaEOJs8_oSRs40/s5184/IMG_1268.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis8zkxT2YAhH30exGKg-sd_YbkCSeRF0nlFJOEqfvEfuhA6Uc6YpbwX7dSV7d5bB0FQBTAYKKf5_CWU8XeNQPrzNYJjtTJHRywENM1wBLihrfGSGQrJq53e7qTJ_GGjin3IzNGfHYxtb6OLRWl1gjGDapDU3SQ944TAaxWs9SW20EaEOJs8_oSRs40/w640-h480/IMG_1268.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It’s a bit of a diversion from
the river, but well-positioned for a rest stop and some lunch at the friendly and recommendable <i>The Bakers Arms</i> pub.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCdHWIfCLPNCXD460CdvrZZvUpkvY7xgSCUKtaAS2MotBM7487F-_k9r-H0iFlXraLjQMuZcQCDaU7pEsoEEYOHs8J9WqWO0ArIKaMLn3jvcSwmdVymK68wMGuMdj50XzhUf5vWhIEywCqShtsZl4TEml53K3y2bE3pm5wSeLUbxdsB4JtuSMC2AGm/s5184/IMG_1269.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCdHWIfCLPNCXD460CdvrZZvUpkvY7xgSCUKtaAS2MotBM7487F-_k9r-H0iFlXraLjQMuZcQCDaU7pEsoEEYOHs8J9WqWO0ArIKaMLn3jvcSwmdVymK68wMGuMdj50XzhUf5vWhIEywCqShtsZl4TEml53K3y2bE3pm5wSeLUbxdsB4JtuSMC2AGm/w640-h480/IMG_1269.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Victorian “restoration” swept
away much of the village’s All Saints Church’s historic features, but its
oldest elements go back to the seventh century. Somerford Keynes first appears
in writing at that time, as a land grant to the monastery at Malmesbury.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdLf7lRCaz_grKEI_POPK0gUd-ku8T33x2PzNKClfoWW0Ccn5V-8jgD1CL_TKcx4er-Ng7E-FX-XoeAOhZrBIW-JXwBZPtaMKS4faNI4glS2VfluNW-NV1gMUTB8o8JuKhcn_Hbe19IzXFyXDYrNpnLjo2dHwsTefJmId3imCuvBCPQIrRB9ZKnOz9/s5184/IMG_1270.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdLf7lRCaz_grKEI_POPK0gUd-ku8T33x2PzNKClfoWW0Ccn5V-8jgD1CL_TKcx4er-Ng7E-FX-XoeAOhZrBIW-JXwBZPtaMKS4faNI4glS2VfluNW-NV1gMUTB8o8JuKhcn_Hbe19IzXFyXDYrNpnLjo2dHwsTefJmId3imCuvBCPQIrRB9ZKnOz9/w640-h480/IMG_1270.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">An extremely Cotswold
structure.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE3zvQJyKcsUxp8TZ6IDGmj9qcVRXKGAcR4FN-Rlsj4VcREMAXMLN0AR64bO9J3MT9Wr-CYXFlByRpriHKX7OzLOToatXJf6TBpNnk2y5qi7zt9vthRaQZUWZZNRK9IYeJ92bya1YAXld76hcmGyhh9D5e77UU5ZHj2w_MCc3kWw_MyT--CD1sn6h4/s5184/IMG_1271.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE3zvQJyKcsUxp8TZ6IDGmj9qcVRXKGAcR4FN-Rlsj4VcREMAXMLN0AR64bO9J3MT9Wr-CYXFlByRpriHKX7OzLOToatXJf6TBpNnk2y5qi7zt9vthRaQZUWZZNRK9IYeJ92bya1YAXld76hcmGyhh9D5e77UU5ZHj2w_MCc3kWw_MyT--CD1sn6h4/w300-h400/IMG_1271.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Once an English national icon,
red telephone boxes have gone into drastic decline with the rise of the mobile
phone, and now only about 10,000 remain. Many have been repurposed as art
installations, mini-libraries, or defibrillator boxes like this one.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The river glides down in parallel
with Somerford Keynes to the west, through the suggestively-named Neigh Bridge
Country Park.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmyrbRtNI5Atjbjf49kToYogzr0Z9gew5e9HxyoosD8sjxVP34ilTSo7MJHL9uzOPu7Y_R9fgDDoZMOU5W579zZXS1xqQIa9_HUxP4hQglru-ZSGapWumkjTl9BiYsiRhWoL9g-7Cr2h_j0dLAkAQGNagA_0mycWkamTGhSstvzZcJapTAEHSqJZdu/s5184/IMG_1275.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmyrbRtNI5Atjbjf49kToYogzr0Z9gew5e9HxyoosD8sjxVP34ilTSo7MJHL9uzOPu7Y_R9fgDDoZMOU5W579zZXS1xqQIa9_HUxP4hQglru-ZSGapWumkjTl9BiYsiRhWoL9g-7Cr2h_j0dLAkAQGNagA_0mycWkamTGhSstvzZcJapTAEHSqJZdu/w640-h480/IMG_1275.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Neigh Bridge Lake is the last
of the Cotswold Water Park gravel-lakes. The name appears to indicate a bridge
that was used in winter when the ‘summer ford’ was impassable.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLmcsIRty9agXcMS7mdlq-aKRjfI52rImhDQfU4iF-Q51f6K-6CS84M5Q60y9d9BpuQEvDIKVgqTQuxfwe76ib2nstkF6zBV1nHoqplRWTdtw-Q86_jCjD2BomGMpEiRNJ9568WN5mim1YxLJNvjhnamzzUpb-LC49299flO2VILfrZySTtrd_5G6F/s5184/IMG_1276.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLmcsIRty9agXcMS7mdlq-aKRjfI52rImhDQfU4iF-Q51f6K-6CS84M5Q60y9d9BpuQEvDIKVgqTQuxfwe76ib2nstkF6zBV1nHoqplRWTdtw-Q86_jCjD2BomGMpEiRNJ9568WN5mim1YxLJNvjhnamzzUpb-LC49299flO2VILfrZySTtrd_5G6F/w640-h480/IMG_1276.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The river is very shallow here,
and regularly splashed in by dogs and small children.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPEWFb42egZWzvMpWY92QEVXYAWHMpDCXC2BFC3s9HdEH_ZmNrvBS1ZQG4tt7nKGSX-P8zP1IlzWfgYldbn6HOt6sbRNbw3SJJeBw6QPyoHQ5Z2ZhvPWnLCaekM2Hd0WDpwKC7To0AplAepR-uSXHi8t118PGoU2xby81Lu-swayyfV0sLsWIjcbFH/s5184/IMG_1277.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPEWFb42egZWzvMpWY92QEVXYAWHMpDCXC2BFC3s9HdEH_ZmNrvBS1ZQG4tt7nKGSX-P8zP1IlzWfgYldbn6HOt6sbRNbw3SJJeBw6QPyoHQ5Z2ZhvPWnLCaekM2Hd0WDpwKC7To0AplAepR-uSXHi8t118PGoU2xby81Lu-swayyfV0sLsWIjcbFH/w640-h480/IMG_1277.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1CZeasIEbn2kB6Tt6prPz2Aqo6ZfPx67IAVXUJujwQMcJWd-k-tflubueLuGqkXsciCdN5SUwocxQKRzKrvlvKLUGsXpMycNqRyNiglbHxi8Vk1LW1XO5TO9fOgBzxXPeLeDUzSUilQNTdutsztXGV6QRmE88i4IWWL3kNQ5gD9QcRljjWx4daxfH/s5184/IMG_1279.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1CZeasIEbn2kB6Tt6prPz2Aqo6ZfPx67IAVXUJujwQMcJWd-k-tflubueLuGqkXsciCdN5SUwocxQKRzKrvlvKLUGsXpMycNqRyNiglbHxi8Vk1LW1XO5TO9fOgBzxXPeLeDUzSUilQNTdutsztXGV6QRmE88i4IWWL3kNQ5gD9QcRljjWx4daxfH/w640-h480/IMG_1279.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Again, you are challenged to
imagine that this is the same water that carved through the Chiltern chalk, drenched
the southern marshlands, and still courses in raging bulk through both the
reality and imagination of English metropolitan power.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKP6YwT4t6iqTZVAWywAAJwvN1S0EkNACz9wnJtWHoriv4gXKT8uvmdUfhzXaV7lHczXWoUOBnr5-K4dq05COpYb_U4hVBHIt1xnuLFZfNXYLhu2e6Q6SzP3l_ObkySmA4tY9M-n3Y-WGtOZa2kSoY4PAHjDIEk9atB9MNbLbAbCFL91WeHef4Sk62/s5184/IMG_1280.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKP6YwT4t6iqTZVAWywAAJwvN1S0EkNACz9wnJtWHoriv4gXKT8uvmdUfhzXaV7lHczXWoUOBnr5-K4dq05COpYb_U4hVBHIt1xnuLFZfNXYLhu2e6Q6SzP3l_ObkySmA4tY9M-n3Y-WGtOZa2kSoY4PAHjDIEk9atB9MNbLbAbCFL91WeHef4Sk62/w400-h300/IMG_1280.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another glimpse of Somerford
Keynes’s church, from across the farm fields of its former manor.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">At last we are clear of the gravel-mining
legacy. We are more or less there now. From here a soft stretch of farms and
hamlets ease the Thames from its springs, whose aquifer spreads
wide beneath this soil. As for where exactly it breaks the surface – well,
that depends.</span>
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7cvPAcm3PE_nCgIUSGyCNzOvioFJxfIOwHsWdDY_67T7MoDZAIBFfv2HdkC7eTARlIUvn-KxJFLK5SjTdhL-IRugNNo4GdStBfh93ZUTvb4XPp3PFG2viyZxC3M8SGBnWo15gDJ7jbTMM_EgOcXksO5QVG1PTEgedvej1xrQSF2EXSGPb4Hba2kjK/s5184/IMG_1281.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7cvPAcm3PE_nCgIUSGyCNzOvioFJxfIOwHsWdDY_67T7MoDZAIBFfv2HdkC7eTARlIUvn-KxJFLK5SjTdhL-IRugNNo4GdStBfh93ZUTvb4XPp3PFG2viyZxC3M8SGBnWo15gDJ7jbTMM_EgOcXksO5QVG1PTEgedvej1xrQSF2EXSGPb4Hba2kjK/w400-h300/IMG_1281.JPG" width="400" /></a></div></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxY-mXyQPjNkTXY-RQxarLVYw_lulUtCqEevPhQg-bhIqCHsgGxQ4lFVYfP7sc5LXzmxW_5kHRPCsggDLcqpliRaTRo4LJCubLGoQKCxMUskNg0B3xqNM0YuT8Q7Bbx2_00BwWQLENBkcP1IZhZ4Yr6DLR_3DEUuxBpC6KCeStqrKaDqMDBibK9jax/s5184/IMG_1282.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxY-mXyQPjNkTXY-RQxarLVYw_lulUtCqEevPhQg-bhIqCHsgGxQ4lFVYfP7sc5LXzmxW_5kHRPCsggDLcqpliRaTRo4LJCubLGoQKCxMUskNg0B3xqNM0YuT8Q7Bbx2_00BwWQLENBkcP1IZhZ4Yr6DLR_3DEUuxBpC6KCeStqrKaDqMDBibK9jax/w400-h300/IMG_1282.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">In dry periods it’s been known
to trickle out around here near Neigh Bridge, leaving its upper course dry. On
this particular day there’s mileage in it yet.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8CUffBOQVctOrzJRw4F_6zn_ZkMbkMpZqI5dPo8v7tPklU_vMKTbzNT0sY_txPbhYFCZCSgKXnkgp5rrGiglHdf-fZVIBiHmXQvrMzq1kmEbshUbDDz8XT0dvc5HzKd_Kzhfhma2NrvPa7FqrKQrI0_hKs8tqI34NxGpn7L8R2hPLQtFS414tfOIu/s5184/IMG_1283.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8CUffBOQVctOrzJRw4F_6zn_ZkMbkMpZqI5dPo8v7tPklU_vMKTbzNT0sY_txPbhYFCZCSgKXnkgp5rrGiglHdf-fZVIBiHmXQvrMzq1kmEbshUbDDz8XT0dvc5HzKd_Kzhfhma2NrvPa7FqrKQrI0_hKs8tqI34NxGpn7L8R2hPLQtFS414tfOIu/w400-h300/IMG_1283.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The water is not the only thing
that’s recently emerged on these farms.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6myNG2NTTwp3HhQu8rDFRLLDiTTFa1jSAin9KKZx8aemZJ_BfJHUaxyp13YWJDPWSVUMCwIIB7W1sqvTOT7og74Rw0yJjwMUTAlBgC3c4Da_uMNMfQdP27c4Yhux6hvaKTYWepIUUOjvGK3k5WSAYVznknOYfYhSY77s7zn4_5RXCpGmtypTbHqjS/s5184/IMG_1287.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6myNG2NTTwp3HhQu8rDFRLLDiTTFa1jSAin9KKZx8aemZJ_BfJHUaxyp13YWJDPWSVUMCwIIB7W1sqvTOT7og74Rw0yJjwMUTAlBgC3c4Da_uMNMfQdP27c4Yhux6hvaKTYWepIUUOjvGK3k5WSAYVznknOYfYhSY77s7zn4_5RXCpGmtypTbHqjS/w640-h480/IMG_1287.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizMFQs_tILqiSRQHQqHYqkzvXzPP1Ncs1VYjNP4GYE3cwQSoK_AWcgoEKDEubfV8frr-e1i37ndp4J8J0dSXvdh69EyQFZfiiaB4SN9jiX5Vbp6yQWXlsK3NEKAL_jkKBLn1ZI8jKg7P7ZO66FEOAx_EhgqHNc1l7g9PlUjqUuUpkr8MoaLUUeSc4M/s5184/IMG_1291.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizMFQs_tILqiSRQHQqHYqkzvXzPP1Ncs1VYjNP4GYE3cwQSoK_AWcgoEKDEubfV8frr-e1i37ndp4J8J0dSXvdh69EyQFZfiiaB4SN9jiX5Vbp6yQWXlsK3NEKAL_jkKBLn1ZI8jKg7P7ZO66FEOAx_EhgqHNc1l7g9PlUjqUuUpkr8MoaLUUeSc4M/w640-h480/IMG_1291.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Old Mill Farm is part working
sheep farm, part rental holiday cottages which offer interaction with the lambs
as part of their charm.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTj5RXwgMTXarkq3w5Ea6OQnqReqhQza9Y7zlIyIw--7hFom34dWiVtVmcy5R_2Q6xsK5VRsumeicGMGhqeZSjKqh1HugWuQAtGj0-PN91Lzho6nYFksvMyDadxiZpu4DLOZgCgygg2eRL32LqCMEolE0CeWJnbZM0Mc2hDblzzo6KMt_W0tWUv9YB/s5184/IMG_1292.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTj5RXwgMTXarkq3w5Ea6OQnqReqhQza9Y7zlIyIw--7hFom34dWiVtVmcy5R_2Q6xsK5VRsumeicGMGhqeZSjKqh1HugWuQAtGj0-PN91Lzho6nYFksvMyDadxiZpu4DLOZgCgygg2eRL32LqCMEolE0CeWJnbZM0Mc2hDblzzo6KMt_W0tWUv9YB/w400-h300/IMG_1292.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh70KbIncaYXSZ2xiv53oG0DNjfl57JXbqIbnY1vn24b-YRn6UQdlwT3zkgoaR5M4wVcO6Kh934dV8fyqqTETIZzTETLyemIvwWFK8D_QSKGlGc8SR2JzNne1T-x1Q5xnkq1iXYIST0fhlAXLqTtcLT50JxrkxXGqn5i7RSFe5i8r_ficXSCfm0fDX-/s5184/IMG_1293.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh70KbIncaYXSZ2xiv53oG0DNjfl57JXbqIbnY1vn24b-YRn6UQdlwT3zkgoaR5M4wVcO6Kh934dV8fyqqTETIZzTETLyemIvwWFK8D_QSKGlGc8SR2JzNne1T-x1Q5xnkq1iXYIST0fhlAXLqTtcLT50JxrkxXGqn5i7RSFe5i8r_ficXSCfm0fDX-/w400-h300/IMG_1293.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUORdRgvv3qeWrxqcmbhKvCBXvhFlESmdmvhZJ-kHRRugrWuWu9ata4dr3L-cAyLp6miSy088N7E60nnUGE3M74rvmGbqcC5dAepzqnga1d-vL95ZqCIY9FlhlrVKtsvhs1DBb5vRkuHLBCZUWYJuA4bBTYHbCKvkZuT-reU6LA_NcVqhWDpIVaRTR/s5184/IMG_1294.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUORdRgvv3qeWrxqcmbhKvCBXvhFlESmdmvhZJ-kHRRugrWuWu9ata4dr3L-cAyLp6miSy088N7E60nnUGE3M74rvmGbqcC5dAepzqnga1d-vL95ZqCIY9FlhlrVKtsvhs1DBb5vRkuHLBCZUWYJuA4bBTYHbCKvkZuT-reU6LA_NcVqhWDpIVaRTR/w640-h480/IMG_1294.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">There are definite advantages
to doing this walk in spring.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">A strange tranquility descends
on these fields now. Amidst birdsong and the whoosh of a cool north wind,
animals and structures alike line up to let you know you approach significant
ground.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc178lTKB_dZx8Icll2ct0yhJdOtL7c5cylcjbfdyKbpvEI-0_JTT8t_kqN9MLa3tF-1UrRQpJbvOOaBThBbfdY2Ox3XWZHQa5BwOz2yOjwCs1V97JDaPdIjbim4VIUFU3nkium5Pu1AE2ZNhcRxt7IzAJoh5yUGIb_kMNBId3Lh6V1v-n0quZvW29/s5184/IMG_1295.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc178lTKB_dZx8Icll2ct0yhJdOtL7c5cylcjbfdyKbpvEI-0_JTT8t_kqN9MLa3tF-1UrRQpJbvOOaBThBbfdY2Ox3XWZHQa5BwOz2yOjwCs1V97JDaPdIjbim4VIUFU3nkium5Pu1AE2ZNhcRxt7IzAJoh5yUGIb_kMNBId3Lh6V1v-n0quZvW29/w640-h480/IMG_1295.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRPRytTN_Ov2LXdjvlutAYKCqxD9ERCMpfYsWs1vzZ_Fr-SMgo10HokZF2dd34k8eGQlodAuuUN2uari6cM1lCWy8mZZAtQCxJu1fQrtkH0eHRSeVfiXV4PG3Idrl-HhDO_XqR_wiruG_j32W_tFB6AW4k585zem94qMifABzex_elASw705Ot6re9/s5184/IMG_1297.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRPRytTN_Ov2LXdjvlutAYKCqxD9ERCMpfYsWs1vzZ_Fr-SMgo10HokZF2dd34k8eGQlodAuuUN2uari6cM1lCWy8mZZAtQCxJu1fQrtkH0eHRSeVfiXV4PG3Idrl-HhDO_XqR_wiruG_j32W_tFB6AW4k585zem94qMifABzex_elASw705Ot6re9/w640-h480/IMG_1297.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSBoPe0rxI087RdC3OUrKNtNMbLIxZ5WmtGoG-GRKjQes6ciAbRT8Klid03fo__j2M2Jlc7TxBi35hbgcnMbgWG_JNb82wce_KrL8uGygpkLNpLhqGkVAK_aLiJNZ7aoSuK4wJIJyi11UXnnfr01ja-rs1uODI0BtBFilZBYb3qN6sQVnX28lKNtfh/s5184/IMG_1299.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSBoPe0rxI087RdC3OUrKNtNMbLIxZ5WmtGoG-GRKjQes6ciAbRT8Klid03fo__j2M2Jlc7TxBi35hbgcnMbgWG_JNb82wce_KrL8uGygpkLNpLhqGkVAK_aLiJNZ7aoSuK4wJIJyi11UXnnfr01ja-rs1uODI0BtBFilZBYb3qN6sQVnX28lKNtfh/w640-h480/IMG_1299.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Ever narrower, ever
shallower.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRojbX1rA3yi0JSYtSKNhVoVs6VDvR7BQWkV92wyhIoBMbzx9L8nBVFTkN2_W3jRELI2Xt_95rt54HAhbLUzBzXzEFlcTD_2VJjUzUYrOG-XEl090CkrQVDqxi70vto22W5K9BU3EhO7MK2TQGLJ8N_CSt50un6edh7RcwRt2v2-4e-JlvteEfD7XO/s5184/IMG_1302.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRojbX1rA3yi0JSYtSKNhVoVs6VDvR7BQWkV92wyhIoBMbzx9L8nBVFTkN2_W3jRELI2Xt_95rt54HAhbLUzBzXzEFlcTD_2VJjUzUYrOG-XEl090CkrQVDqxi70vto22W5K9BU3EhO7MK2TQGLJ8N_CSt50un6edh7RcwRt2v2-4e-JlvteEfD7XO/w640-h480/IMG_1302.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">These are special calves – the
final nuuo of the journey.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaJ5PBe1i9FGhz-RTii3pOQ2fN1mvtdTovUa80tSgqHClugl4CkQToeRtKc3Hq8b--P72IJHfL4SU1sQ6vNwDvIsYE7vNTE9N5ssyoCZHyR9iD4bW4vRxZn8x69fvWKYiQfDnrI9Mi0D-rYgUoEqvWxw1pnLxVgCATawrUzqXnV9AOUqUfanUF5G_P/s5184/IMG_1303.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaJ5PBe1i9FGhz-RTii3pOQ2fN1mvtdTovUa80tSgqHClugl4CkQToeRtKc3Hq8b--P72IJHfL4SU1sQ6vNwDvIsYE7vNTE9N5ssyoCZHyR9iD4bW4vRxZn8x69fvWKYiQfDnrI9Mi0D-rYgUoEqvWxw1pnLxVgCATawrUzqXnV9AOUqUfanUF5G_P/w640-h480/IMG_1303.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Ewen</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">You’d be forgiven for thinking that <b>Ewen</b>
heralds the end, given its name supposedly indicates the source of a river.
We’re not quite there yet though. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUGdCETgnBL_9Yw002AW1WHCsFk9XPcVFBwq9l6Ll_sVd49pHn_nNqum4DIrvPTNmVKO_0lzIbU6pmu42gIH0EZVYoiuz53gVW7xsewdi5dF1IrIRF11MubZDPpyui6sYkd9c3rGTHFBbLREAz6a6NmdJ3wZ46t3LtJeGgRpx3ZV43Jec1EoDXWyw7/s5184/IMG_1304.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUGdCETgnBL_9Yw002AW1WHCsFk9XPcVFBwq9l6Ll_sVd49pHn_nNqum4DIrvPTNmVKO_0lzIbU6pmu42gIH0EZVYoiuz53gVW7xsewdi5dF1IrIRF11MubZDPpyui6sYkd9c3rGTHFBbLREAz6a6NmdJ3wZ46t3LtJeGgRpx3ZV43Jec1EoDXWyw7/w640-h480/IMG_1304.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJTerc_H1wNRVt9pILIQhmGFoxNVZLSyv9Vo-_svnLx__wjoEfcpY_DAdQaOjV5tcgwzK8eDaLpAmMR-TFRtKIP1R3hNndy5MLQ9BmUa0kPEPtn1p2yNH2d0-7GjwhmLalRTJ8V_A0dhuyTOhcL3qsT9Ydydw0cAqXZpBzZor_XYLty7g7CbFFWCK4/s5184/IMG_1306.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJTerc_H1wNRVt9pILIQhmGFoxNVZLSyv9Vo-_svnLx__wjoEfcpY_DAdQaOjV5tcgwzK8eDaLpAmMR-TFRtKIP1R3hNndy5MLQ9BmUa0kPEPtn1p2yNH2d0-7GjwhmLalRTJ8V_A0dhuyTOhcL3qsT9Ydydw0cAqXZpBzZor_XYLty7g7CbFFWCK4/w300-h400/IMG_1306.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">On and on and on and on...</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidb3z1wDa3uG56J05SOzPrifajYE5SNnvNL_lGGR_R1Sa6YFjM0MGeDMof5TyNFQLOxYwFk_qYuoRPRXwOkdpUfa-MocA50WZtuKtb9Hvhz1inBBlYVzBW09VBSMzpdFPS3Pcf1AFZIWeKtLO6sMzxoS_SoR0yWjlFXk77n2miqxibZrqgc7I5soG8/s5184/IMG_1308.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidb3z1wDa3uG56J05SOzPrifajYE5SNnvNL_lGGR_R1Sa6YFjM0MGeDMof5TyNFQLOxYwFk_qYuoRPRXwOkdpUfa-MocA50WZtuKtb9Hvhz1inBBlYVzBW09VBSMzpdFPS3Pcf1AFZIWeKtLO6sMzxoS_SoR0yWjlFXk77n2miqxibZrqgc7I5soG8/w400-h300/IMG_1308.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This well-disguised gateway to
the underworld is where you’ll respawn if you get killed between here and the
source.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicM3Afeh1A8kiKJF_sr6oKCshqJV2g36JB5I47Z_-AFP2Ir033oQ3L-lOCVvIAtjLnBsDPCHTrY4aWbNMxQJk0nOxke9r0kHLZ0e7iuoZX-xuvXplz6Jh1OzaZw4Zz-7w0LeyBoqXGY8tYiBbXDOH8udpjvGCVFz9Bqq_HC7TEJKMpY_pHYjeXKBhi/s5184/IMG_1310.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicM3Afeh1A8kiKJF_sr6oKCshqJV2g36JB5I47Z_-AFP2Ir033oQ3L-lOCVvIAtjLnBsDPCHTrY4aWbNMxQJk0nOxke9r0kHLZ0e7iuoZX-xuvXplz6Jh1OzaZw4Zz-7w0LeyBoqXGY8tYiBbXDOH8udpjvGCVFz9Bqq_HC7TEJKMpY_pHYjeXKBhi/w640-h480/IMG_1310.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Ewen appears.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Ewen is another quintessential tiny Cotswold
hamlet, almost entirely residential and with typical appeal for holiday
getaways. It is significant as the former site of what was probably the highest
mill on the Thames, before the gravel-mining drained the water table.</span>
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTd3c7zHohHH8ZBAM8SuzAJGkg2yff7qO9OQnSs-Sv17dVwv6q_hOEGFpQdzwkNENcafVcxBS05uasy3dUtPDXP-720p8bK-jKuKQgzV9gLuoMjPDaosMphdkeSi-Fz98htGQss5wXD5nnw-E-CuxyPQKDE4jb1P3jjKV5qwBvC_PcfrGk-5MtAsGF/s5184/IMG_1312.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTd3c7zHohHH8ZBAM8SuzAJGkg2yff7qO9OQnSs-Sv17dVwv6q_hOEGFpQdzwkNENcafVcxBS05uasy3dUtPDXP-720p8bK-jKuKQgzV9gLuoMjPDaosMphdkeSi-Fz98htGQss5wXD5nnw-E-CuxyPQKDE4jb1P3jjKV5qwBvC_PcfrGk-5MtAsGF/w640-h480/IMG_1312.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Ewen’s central T-junction.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSOeO-EnaZn0Xh4mZv3B113kpqS0IA2JrkifuXf83hkOJPoKKS15G_tP-J1n4UCRKhXMW8PIbXpw_Zw_KCYUdNaJD1iD8_8i4OKLub0fQnLMh-PRmpjYxae4CQ-BzltAKB84HHy6w-CUn1JJ_WAfYDjQlBcybc5iuPqmlLRBGT08WpmtdlTj9xKtXV/s5184/IMG_1313.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSOeO-EnaZn0Xh4mZv3B113kpqS0IA2JrkifuXf83hkOJPoKKS15G_tP-J1n4UCRKhXMW8PIbXpw_Zw_KCYUdNaJD1iD8_8i4OKLub0fQnLMh-PRmpjYxae4CQ-BzltAKB84HHy6w-CUn1JJ_WAfYDjQlBcybc5iuPqmlLRBGT08WpmtdlTj9xKtXV/w640-h480/IMG_1313.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Ewen’s other T-junction.
Variety isn’t the main draw here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3C4vOhZqnfDKgDOq6HcPnRsdpYP0BJyJM9et0DyyK5Xo-CofmEREHVoI0BVcCiTTI0IfTEqb3sURBqGdA4sueBgvT41JQEfMSgLxPE4YXOodBKlxzgjopZc93lrfF4tPYkRN2a6rn1Ll9ASiDuaonJ_vrKfKp5qJDOMnq2MfVkBrYGBH6IPVDikha/s5184/IMG_1314.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3C4vOhZqnfDKgDOq6HcPnRsdpYP0BJyJM9et0DyyK5Xo-CofmEREHVoI0BVcCiTTI0IfTEqb3sURBqGdA4sueBgvT41JQEfMSgLxPE4YXOodBKlxzgjopZc93lrfF4tPYkRN2a6rn1Ll9ASiDuaonJ_vrKfKp5qJDOMnq2MfVkBrYGBH6IPVDikha/w640-h480/IMG_1314.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Most of it looks rather like
this.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrhNxe_OpTBT0rtB3Z2Ey-oCQoFAoI8AJAIsNM6VWz3nK41JBYuFloZmimbRlHB3mCho7m_GrNv9ATr0AkniL5OoOWzoH6-FC2KV-F8hnvsGD1MqHnS1JvW-aMlxr43ZbVdi1j-RG_KznEBcEPDRlpLmy-GKb1ZlMp7gdzdrldPXeZ-YKC29Jof57/s5184/IMG_1315.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrhNxe_OpTBT0rtB3Z2Ey-oCQoFAoI8AJAIsNM6VWz3nK41JBYuFloZmimbRlHB3mCho7m_GrNv9ATr0AkniL5OoOWzoH6-FC2KV-F8hnvsGD1MqHnS1JvW-aMlxr43ZbVdi1j-RG_KznEBcEPDRlpLmy-GKb1ZlMp7gdzdrldPXeZ-YKC29Jof57/w640-h480/IMG_1315.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This is an Angry Ear Vine,
which crunches up its leaves as a sign of exasperation with the poor quality of
English political discourse.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Kemble</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">From Ewen it’s only a short push on
to the river’s highest settlement of all. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJQKTbtS4mresZXTLDy75CYfNmOCO0Bio80OocZeOqSJUbvTSVKxg2gsYAstE7m0jhO7v8tYgwKdk1CjupNl1D1gk82r4YhRC7ob1Mg5fBVjjpsJSjOFbdScyBCfNKrbobWeD71qZH-LmKzrYw3Bvk5YYdpZ4-e9Flb7eyi8YAYC2hh0pXvPC4OqPq/s5184/IMG_1319.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJQKTbtS4mresZXTLDy75CYfNmOCO0Bio80OocZeOqSJUbvTSVKxg2gsYAstE7m0jhO7v8tYgwKdk1CjupNl1D1gk82r4YhRC7ob1Mg5fBVjjpsJSjOFbdScyBCfNKrbobWeD71qZH-LmKzrYw3Bvk5YYdpZ4-e9Flb7eyi8YAYC2hh0pXvPC4OqPq/w640-h480/IMG_1319.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Yes, that’s the river on the left.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_DyJ61ynPBu4u2gt1C1vMv8WcqbRZCTw7kCYkBraAEiPJWwo1n9Q4XxR4kHmXUYeTAP_XTFLX1wWH_PFSFoql9INQITvzjIEW-mkEcocM0PKwxFWa0S0eI-dEtp3FV-keDCrHOzIJi4qiL99px8FKjcmzSBdSMU6_XvdGRlriRRrI2v4sZD9_UsvU/s5184/IMG_1322.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_DyJ61ynPBu4u2gt1C1vMv8WcqbRZCTw7kCYkBraAEiPJWwo1n9Q4XxR4kHmXUYeTAP_XTFLX1wWH_PFSFoql9INQITvzjIEW-mkEcocM0PKwxFWa0S0eI-dEtp3FV-keDCrHOzIJi4qiL99px8FKjcmzSBdSMU6_XvdGRlriRRrI2v4sZD9_UsvU/w640-h480/IMG_1322.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The houses of Kemble manifest
across gloriously golden rapeseed fields.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxqGedkJG0RUTRmjWEBhQ31RtGG1V4rschpBPQewFM8PJiRnIfHiPoMY9Hd7ByqvmUDVkDKZGLgOtk3EIvxvfqrTvhc4SQHGXGy39CFBabB2efzavdlBHyrSUixVIriYmiNNllMef9gHgtU8ugy68_k8TKXtadH8hOh48PLtmwF6UO2TbEA2n5DC2V/s5184/IMG_1324.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxqGedkJG0RUTRmjWEBhQ31RtGG1V4rschpBPQewFM8PJiRnIfHiPoMY9Hd7ByqvmUDVkDKZGLgOtk3EIvxvfqrTvhc4SQHGXGy39CFBabB2efzavdlBHyrSUixVIriYmiNNllMef9gHgtU8ugy68_k8TKXtadH8hOh48PLtmwF6UO2TbEA2n5DC2V/w640-h480/IMG_1324.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Yellow joins the established
greens and blues as the third colour of the Thames’s fountains.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnqvu-acrdHXVPBysDoTwT-JNPm8qvDAUxg94GKy2BgYl2Xlo_QIt5ZyNXwetATDF1Qmdij9mDqT3txS8pbcRzPws_bcOJajQr4rUf2kiuYth3_SgI_rI5s79C0aoIKCwD4oxZ09h0eCzNGYq-V2377C1AqVmXSMPnLgwm0iSjgG4yzgsT5s3-WdZV/s5184/IMG_1330.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnqvu-acrdHXVPBysDoTwT-JNPm8qvDAUxg94GKy2BgYl2Xlo_QIt5ZyNXwetATDF1Qmdij9mDqT3txS8pbcRzPws_bcOJajQr4rUf2kiuYth3_SgI_rI5s79C0aoIKCwD4oxZ09h0eCzNGYq-V2377C1AqVmXSMPnLgwm0iSjgG4yzgsT5s3-WdZV/w640-h480/IMG_1330.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Despite being the river’s
highest settlement, Kemble makes trouble by actually being set back from it a
kilometre or so, requiring a diversion unless you’re straggling there
afterwards to leave via its train station.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Though not particularly large, <b>Kemble</b>
punches above its weight by its proximity to both Cirencester, to the northeast
up the Roman <i>Fosse Way</i>, and the Cotswold Airport to its west. Formerly a
WWII-era RAF base, the latter was indeed known as <i>Kemble Airport</i> till
they changed its name in 2009, no doubt in a deliberate assault on the
village’s pride. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKfgJ5nWvfmykEgQL1Mt9uAM3wverQIgeO3DOioLjr9F0Q7WmcPd2npUrIyanY1WedQn6d1wwsO64fmJu-ppGuDKnGDisMOmK9Frmrn5aodIJfNi04N24EBsZTENT2Nfc5EWaW6Ye3pxCzKfyRPiooYAUMeQflL0DIXJojpABhV8pT8VTEBnml5-na/s5184/IMG_1332.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKfgJ5nWvfmykEgQL1Mt9uAM3wverQIgeO3DOioLjr9F0Q7WmcPd2npUrIyanY1WedQn6d1wwsO64fmJu-ppGuDKnGDisMOmK9Frmrn5aodIJfNi04N24EBsZTENT2Nfc5EWaW6Ye3pxCzKfyRPiooYAUMeQflL0DIXJojpABhV8pT8VTEBnml5-na/w640-h480/IMG_1332.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Kemble is predominantly
residential, and bears a quiet history that goes back through Anglo-Saxon
settlement to service to Roman traffic.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8KGOOmtNgZnu88WWxCpmwmOREgOY9efTPdxk49WP1rd7yi4WZye9Utagfn-7EHpib0RZphm63rYmbAdXAjj-lDK8e_jte_i9xaK77uLZqO7I2Pajjlkp-6sDdfE6owOh172Fqh-9W2CZUlYZvCAD_78GO9pI4-E5dN7aUFl2JoRJW6STzicSS50d/s5184/IMG_1335.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8KGOOmtNgZnu88WWxCpmwmOREgOY9efTPdxk49WP1rd7yi4WZye9Utagfn-7EHpib0RZphm63rYmbAdXAjj-lDK8e_jte_i9xaK77uLZqO7I2Pajjlkp-6sDdfE6owOh172Fqh-9W2CZUlYZvCAD_78GO9pI4-E5dN7aUFl2JoRJW6STzicSS50d/w640-h480/IMG_1335.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Kemble also breaks the pattern
of these interior settlements by holding on to a working train station – on the
London-Cheltenham main line at that, with regular services to Paddington within
an hour. It was a key regional junction till its other lines fell to Beeching
in the 1960s. The station is an original Brunel creation from 1845, complete
with a little internal garden area.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgILmj2n7IB9XmXhTy59ts9xXDIq8YYcVY_rYb0d_qt_yPCmTxx3EnlymHiJre8x5jVy_FhJTcm77l4tuP296B4ylDDoti1Q_ZaWhNwP4qloU5esZnlTNqqxRdXcDG0nETLM6xhHp5pGRaARpRurHlPEp3O_Wd-JuA_LvvtMvisfDu7F7XGB2rtDllx/s5184/IMG_1336.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgILmj2n7IB9XmXhTy59ts9xXDIq8YYcVY_rYb0d_qt_yPCmTxx3EnlymHiJre8x5jVy_FhJTcm77l4tuP296B4ylDDoti1Q_ZaWhNwP4qloU5esZnlTNqqxRdXcDG0nETLM6xhHp5pGRaARpRurHlPEp3O_Wd-JuA_LvvtMvisfDu7F7XGB2rtDllx/w640-h480/IMG_1336.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The waiting room for the
station’s invisible sky-platform, whose services connect the source of the
Thames to other worlds.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><br /><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 106.2pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Thames
Head</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Well, let’s suppose there is no “true”
source; that the source is everywhere some of the time and nowhere all at once.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Let us say that this channel, which
they’ve (mostly) decided is the “actual” Thames, is just one of many where its
water begins (or repeats) that new (or old) stage of its journey as a liquid surface flow.<br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Is there at least a spot, then, where
it emerges from the ground?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Even this is not so simple.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYwFAn6ftK8cYqRNmJ-2r0q28jaW7IRfVIppqTRdPqja9raB1y0-Ne_DH8L2A5T22VmqTzc2tFaMiC03HHDh_8OpHlgRJWdL_vYQuohCBtn4GKgeB_JSC24vc4d9KpCZY3juPTcZLS0bTO7oxXpfT9lgqiDnICmdqKND6U8vMjpOUDVt9OTrxqU7ty/s5184/IMG_1337.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYwFAn6ftK8cYqRNmJ-2r0q28jaW7IRfVIppqTRdPqja9raB1y0-Ne_DH8L2A5T22VmqTzc2tFaMiC03HHDh_8OpHlgRJWdL_vYQuohCBtn4GKgeB_JSC24vc4d9KpCZY3juPTcZLS0bTO7oxXpfT9lgqiDnICmdqKND6U8vMjpOUDVt9OTrxqU7ty/w640-h480/IMG_1337.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The first of three or four
fields north of Kemble, any of which, on a given day, might be the active
springs. The dry stream beneath this bridge is itself another tributary in
wetter periods.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZnTD6dvqhTUYUG9iOIdMrX4j2UYdj4SguLKXUBniEkYgEo7uUQv_UrqM70I3xA7j4XnrkOLNoogrQ0E7gYg1WELgndtZdSwaSQDZMjZP0EgHUTudIx4zasLbk5v4d-Fu5AyOK8mXwYo1n3ChfnRWOdJle_-n0hjHINZfguyi6bQF_txGG2GfLAZWa/s5184/IMG_1339.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZnTD6dvqhTUYUG9iOIdMrX4j2UYdj4SguLKXUBniEkYgEo7uUQv_UrqM70I3xA7j4XnrkOLNoogrQ0E7gYg1WELgndtZdSwaSQDZMjZP0EgHUTudIx4zasLbk5v4d-Fu5AyOK8mXwYo1n3ChfnRWOdJle_-n0hjHINZfguyi6bQF_txGG2GfLAZWa/w640-h480/IMG_1339.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Into the next field, and here
is its emergence: the source – or <i>a </i>source – for the moment, if not
yesterday or tomorrow.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4V3qEsY1QcTH_1JvQtf_-8noy3v9315v4shPhyeCbuHtW5ANRgkXOhy7AU2Q29AlhCMJjGPyAds2fAX0StMOsUaw7A_z3PjCiPkC7tgaRZQjEIyO1-0r2-SrzIeuRojWS63HKx811eNTUquo98uBaHuc8kMxJeHEkyRDOokuFHRxJBXhWPYN64siU/s5184/IMG_1338.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4V3qEsY1QcTH_1JvQtf_-8noy3v9315v4shPhyeCbuHtW5ANRgkXOhy7AU2Q29AlhCMJjGPyAds2fAX0StMOsUaw7A_z3PjCiPkC7tgaRZQjEIyO1-0r2-SrzIeuRojWS63HKx811eNTUquo98uBaHuc8kMxJeHEkyRDOokuFHRxJBXhWPYN64siU/w640-h480/IMG_1338.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A helpful indicator of the
water’s shallowness: approximately 0.1 Woofs.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In one sense – the immediate, the
particular – this is the end. The water recedes to nothing here: goes to
nowhere, comes from nowhere. This is the source.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZE0ng7AZMv4jrCgXTzQpfTRX9ugpJocNuItc75m2x4DyhICgHgmz5nZYgLt_AbLEGakLJ_SwD31-nKi40HHYvrCwKq194NFWGuGBOu2OaqeB1otRpVkWXlWdje23x3NFYPBWJ_AOBgTknPxlUEU9hdCwGb_ADMKxCQweBSToCMvnqo4S1KMe1u5xq/s5184/IMG_1340.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZE0ng7AZMv4jrCgXTzQpfTRX9ugpJocNuItc75m2x4DyhICgHgmz5nZYgLt_AbLEGakLJ_SwD31-nKi40HHYvrCwKq194NFWGuGBOu2OaqeB1otRpVkWXlWdje23x3NFYPBWJ_AOBgTknPxlUEU9hdCwGb_ADMKxCQweBSToCMvnqo4S1KMe1u5xq/w640-h480/IMG_1340.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Final sight of the water.
Here it ends; here it begins; here it carries on.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDHk9js8_CsrOmN2oug_mahwzi5SYi4bQTG9rqrL07drob-bu7CgHsWGVoMZ_U3364-JXWhpVVGpod0w1Bs36vr5vHxIFduzNwRKIcMwbM2ycD2Fh5AwOAEMRs27i6zAuniJLIKGCXSqFVknIx2JiIOs8rAAQBPouDuTehhL1VXmIl0vz79i-DunMX/s5184/IMG_1342.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDHk9js8_CsrOmN2oug_mahwzi5SYi4bQTG9rqrL07drob-bu7CgHsWGVoMZ_U3364-JXWhpVVGpod0w1Bs36vr5vHxIFduzNwRKIcMwbM2ycD2Fh5AwOAEMRs27i6zAuniJLIKGCXSqFVknIx2JiIOs8rAAQBPouDuTehhL1VXmIl0vz79i-DunMX/w640-h480/IMG_1342.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">On the other side of the
trees, the channel is dry. But notice the stones that people have piled up
here, as though to mark this spot as another regular source when wetter weather
raises the groundwater.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Given this variability, it might be
more fitting to consider <i>all</i> of these fields the source. And perhaps we
have it easy; imagine how still more confounding the question is for rivers
that come from marshes, lakes, or glaciers. Nonetheless, humans seem to enjoy
reducing complex, chaotic realities to over-simplified imaginary absolute
truths, so inevitably they’d put down an officious marker on a single spot as
though to declare it <i>The Source </i>in all times and conditions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">By its arbitrary nature you might
expect such a thing to be anticlimactic, if not some downright tacky tourist
trap. But having come this far we might as well find it, at the
highest place on these springs to be found frequently wet. It awaits in the
next field, across one last major piece of history.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghcWYGN7W_cXMuljF_Cc7Ok2JjG3R-4dr53VWjPawm1f_1DLYRyi5VSXN6keMVlR92klMmnmc2k62IWlS2L2GqYmlptw-Hmd5ao_6Y97L79mFzolbJP29DzLay_OrHEFanSD3CNzXrsbnao6pXhR3LlNTQRfXSybCa-ygdSsNIXSUWqoQQh3IAw9lw/s5184/IMG_1343.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghcWYGN7W_cXMuljF_Cc7Ok2JjG3R-4dr53VWjPawm1f_1DLYRyi5VSXN6keMVlR92klMmnmc2k62IWlS2L2GqYmlptw-Hmd5ao_6Y97L79mFzolbJP29DzLay_OrHEFanSD3CNzXrsbnao6pXhR3LlNTQRfXSybCa-ygdSsNIXSUWqoQQh3IAw9lw/w640-h480/IMG_1343.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The A433, once upon a time
known as the Fosse Way.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The <b>Fosse Way</b> is thought to
have originated as a boundary: the outer frontier of the first phase of Roman
rule following the emperor Claudius’s conquest of this island in 43 CE. It most
likely started as a defensive ditch, or <i>fossa</i> in Latin. Then
Roman-controlled territory expanded and the ditch turned into a road, connecting
two key forts </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span> Lincoln (then <i>Lindum Colonia</i>) in the northeast, and Exeter
(then <i>Isca Dumnoniorum</i>) in the southwest </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span> in a long diagonal all the way
across the island.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Though now fragmented, most of it
survives within the present-day road system, with parts easy to
distinguish on maps for their striking straightness. The segment which here
follows the A433 across the infant river was important in its own right,
linking as it still does the pivotal Roman centres of <i>Corinium Dobunnorum</i>
(Cirencester) and <i>Aquae Sulis</i> (Bath).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQn7lOT5hHpR0l0ZinS3eMebdDTjcqHLqN7TAgcwmFohwZGsJWKV-xqjLUBZ7N8akhy22o_jBOhkMDdYiwczySxbaWPFXXrZToOmtJXWr0ClcRYeMXWH6EYo7ghdCPw1mCLA47nrwgnyyU7iJw6pcp6OWEr0d8DNVcvS-Ok8GDm2fDgqxwB-V9QNcF/s5184/IMG_1344.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQn7lOT5hHpR0l0ZinS3eMebdDTjcqHLqN7TAgcwmFohwZGsJWKV-xqjLUBZ7N8akhy22o_jBOhkMDdYiwczySxbaWPFXXrZToOmtJXWr0ClcRYeMXWH6EYo7ghdCPw1mCLA47nrwgnyyU7iJw6pcp6OWEr0d8DNVcvS-Ok8GDm2fDgqxwB-V9QNcF/w640-h480/IMG_1344.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The final field, known as
Trewsbury Mead, with the Fosse Way at right. The depression down the
middle of the field is the currently-dry riverbed.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhwhvf90rTto2YwPD-HBMqHutQChPeSOYo0WSHCJfCKNQgmZCwmoBVcQnEMUII0SIMT471NeFjqY-ItzPn95Z6DevYQLoOWzWfkOCURU7jZAAr0aUjfHwr1Upl6LUOguaj2FM_oGq3D2ihyi8BrcsxfDzI5kAPqbOBX1b7P5-NX6EK8jSw3jrD5NjE/s5184/IMG_1347.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhwhvf90rTto2YwPD-HBMqHutQChPeSOYo0WSHCJfCKNQgmZCwmoBVcQnEMUII0SIMT471NeFjqY-ItzPn95Z6DevYQLoOWzWfkOCURU7jZAAr0aUjfHwr1Upl6LUOguaj2FM_oGq3D2ihyi8BrcsxfDzI5kAPqbOBX1b7P5-NX6EK8jSw3jrD5NjE/w640-h480/IMG_1347.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">For an anti-climax this place is atmospheric. The growl of traffic on the A433 recedes beneath an
oasis-like solitude of sweeping winds, creaking boughs, and daffodils springing
as though from blessed ground.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfXpFr2tuoIPOQQhe4T4UrMCIyjPKFvReCbhbrBzV2YDJcYgmrQvt8IdYn5xa5hFVep7_gkmTGSVg17BE3ZJl4lUdSpnGuHod3JecOtpN7_DT257MoUp7LZdxQ-ZhTpb8L9D10p3h10rxwjfPE5S_jvWeUF2Q_C_4fl9iKNy9MGKR85WEtpOXkFbss/s5184/IMG_1348.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfXpFr2tuoIPOQQhe4T4UrMCIyjPKFvReCbhbrBzV2YDJcYgmrQvt8IdYn5xa5hFVep7_gkmTGSVg17BE3ZJl4lUdSpnGuHod3JecOtpN7_DT257MoUp7LZdxQ-ZhTpb8L9D10p3h10rxwjfPE5S_jvWeUF2Q_C_4fl9iKNy9MGKR85WEtpOXkFbss/w640-h480/IMG_1348.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Even without water, the
river’s regular route through this grass is conspicuous.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO9CVAa1rhEuz-HTGvJp-xGEcxSattSAtSscTX6qfNGWGPnviHgRgSckbxvGVhwd0JUte42tdkTql4eUEO6zbY-WPiz2cjOUwcoblwX9p9N0i5gM4kR5YIp3YNsyQSUGBYOS_j1QZYW0aRveKN_hsKR3c94a2osCxFhP5ocfAAaK42lgJdZYOgkfmN/s5184/IMG_1351.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO9CVAa1rhEuz-HTGvJp-xGEcxSattSAtSscTX6qfNGWGPnviHgRgSckbxvGVhwd0JUte42tdkTql4eUEO6zbY-WPiz2cjOUwcoblwX9p9N0i5gM4kR5YIp3YNsyQSUGBYOS_j1QZYW0aRveKN_hsKR3c94a2osCxFhP5ocfAAaK42lgJdZYOgkfmN/w640-h480/IMG_1351.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This stone wall is said to
have been built for easy passage by the river underneath.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJwt5zQ_B8CE3uTJPifM1jmI2xmYwHw9xPqdjqQ8piJk-AzX83frfjLim_wh6pRCQtF6r_53JeLwx05E3A36pGCg3shVZUVfG-xALCc2JEGYasNECakOZjCZF0zFj0bejv3-VbAEHQoL0Ew8A5Vg_CVmsZr37tvCNeWDp9y_0Z0PyYWOcb3GrQCkOt/s5184/IMG_1352.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJwt5zQ_B8CE3uTJPifM1jmI2xmYwHw9xPqdjqQ8piJk-AzX83frfjLim_wh6pRCQtF6r_53JeLwx05E3A36pGCg3shVZUVfG-xALCc2JEGYasNECakOZjCZF0zFj0bejv3-VbAEHQoL0Ew8A5Vg_CVmsZr37tvCNeWDp9y_0Z0PyYWOcb3GrQCkOt/w640-h480/IMG_1352.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/10/thames-prologue-dark-river.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">‘It could be interesting to walk all
the way along a river like that, couldn’t it?’</span></u></a></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This exploration began late in 2019,
amidst the still-ongoing turmoil of Brexit. In the course of the journey, England and this world have further staggered from devastating
blows which took many by surprise, but were really escalations of the same
malaises already dragging humankind back into its own historical river of
catastrophes. They included the disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic,
which </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-9-death-in-willows.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">forced a year-long interruption at
this journey’s halfway point</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">; and now, as another set of violent nativists take out their demented fantasies on the Ukrainians, humanity is left reeling from a new round of bloodthirsty atrocities and promises of nuclear annihilation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>It
comes from nowhere; it turns round in a circle.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Lives, hopes and dreams, mown to
oblivion for no reason at all. A love-capable lifeform, with the proven will
and capacity to strain its senses to the very limits of time and space </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span> crushed
back to a fraction of its potential by the same shameful brutalities and senseless systems of belief and practice, which, though they shouldn't exist, should <i>never</i> have existed, have disembowelled every generation's best efforts to banish them.<br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>It comes
from nowhere; it turns round in a circle.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOwhJR0o9mvaikeWTutNC4FcgM8n-cSO6VpvrdSqyOrKEPxXpcpt1bFwOPKuoSVaiUh5dEfRlsErtp_hcnyaUUhYyrxxyvCehwPZUBMW9iEt-H8zMRV6NbF9qlWN3zQ7P9V47TaX7PhSCpVyALrxqQoydE6vjR22H_jcIK_X2f5zFItOu6p8OCY7JB/s5184/IMG_1355.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOwhJR0o9mvaikeWTutNC4FcgM8n-cSO6VpvrdSqyOrKEPxXpcpt1bFwOPKuoSVaiUh5dEfRlsErtp_hcnyaUUhYyrxxyvCehwPZUBMW9iEt-H8zMRV6NbF9qlWN3zQ7P9V47TaX7PhSCpVyALrxqQoydE6vjR22H_jcIK_X2f5zFItOu6p8OCY7JB/w640-h480/IMG_1355.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The final gate – and of course
it’d be a gate to nowhere. Goodness knows what it’s doing here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKBo_KqGTuCs4O8O6kRCmZ7Tfa5biMr-NJtPugccHcR8BSq8bp8lEMFIH8CNVvJWLwrTaTonr5SB31eZkAtsF09TVzib19K_P-lthU0yTpCdA_DoiuV4X01zQAqdUnGIxmsdq6SnmpaakaG-UtpYYa4DljDxj6wT-IAO5IbMsJHEu_yDB7dbApjLSX/s5184/IMG_1356.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKBo_KqGTuCs4O8O6kRCmZ7Tfa5biMr-NJtPugccHcR8BSq8bp8lEMFIH8CNVvJWLwrTaTonr5SB31eZkAtsF09TVzib19K_P-lthU0yTpCdA_DoiuV4X01zQAqdUnGIxmsdq6SnmpaakaG-UtpYYa4DljDxj6wT-IAO5IbMsJHEu_yDB7dbApjLSX/w400-h300/IMG_1356.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">They probably wanted to put up
arches, banners or pillars or something to mark the birth of their great river, but
with austerity cutting them to the bone, this had to do.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s also been personally tumultuous. My
expectation was never to get this far. Rather, while stranded in this country
after a near-annihilation of my own in Japan, I got into a daze of wandering
that at length, led to this river, this quiet presence in the background of my
life since my earliest ill-fated involvements with this country.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">To setting off up it,
and seeing how far I could go.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">That question, at least, finds its
answer here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-83yB5ciBwQ5CzcorAjMjAuSVtKpsnEf4FGnUgzhbdDj3Ymf1-aoMntJBHX48lP7qVRxX6zZIqE-_O2_pAjNSBY1uq9SmG-2sw0W2GTB2XmNFP2QJziJ3NA2N6IlQXNHi6gmBOikbklR9pCFSdTanq2dE8i05BA70oOn3E9xlhRA8eSJOoL02FYeP/s5184/IMG_1357.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-83yB5ciBwQ5CzcorAjMjAuSVtKpsnEf4FGnUgzhbdDj3Ymf1-aoMntJBHX48lP7qVRxX6zZIqE-_O2_pAjNSBY1uq9SmG-2sw0W2GTB2XmNFP2QJziJ3NA2N6IlQXNHi6gmBOikbklR9pCFSdTanq2dE8i05BA70oOn3E9xlhRA8eSJOoL02FYeP/w640-h480/IMG_1357.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJmMJWCzVKvTeH4AYQt19Ogu52SqIX8JjMRR1chDKUEXi0kX5iHPlF26effkgBGGybKQOF_PM3YPfHQ1fRTts3URT94lsZEnyvK4rIPuP2Yl7fBd878bm0ZUC9lSESabOXrocGqiuTkD4Ook7d1mbwFU6P4a5DTeCOPyLIBiY7zL47uSVKCHIr_ifb/s5184/IMG_1359.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJmMJWCzVKvTeH4AYQt19Ogu52SqIX8JjMRR1chDKUEXi0kX5iHPlF26effkgBGGybKQOF_PM3YPfHQ1fRTts3URT94lsZEnyvK4rIPuP2Yl7fBd878bm0ZUC9lSESabOXrocGqiuTkD4Ook7d1mbwFU6P4a5DTeCOPyLIBiY7zL47uSVKCHIr_ifb/w640-h480/IMG_1359.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The “official” source, as the
Thames Conservancy and succession of hands that put these stones here would
have it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJlYnEHXqUL_MH7Ud6FHzma8tI8QKPYp2YDs_iES3crVtNhddqMwRlCHNpj8oxNEqAuCfwlfUaRFuHhI33AgnG31iqrnrVes8VubtJmYvmHVvhaJt6M3NrDTj_Qy2fomM0GZjQsT5WLcatg0H09f8HbM_HSFfcO1STquwn6sN_m4RiMH8x7PcL0XAm/s5184/IMG_1362.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJlYnEHXqUL_MH7Ud6FHzma8tI8QKPYp2YDs_iES3crVtNhddqMwRlCHNpj8oxNEqAuCfwlfUaRFuHhI33AgnG31iqrnrVes8VubtJmYvmHVvhaJt6M3NrDTj_Qy2fomM0GZjQsT5WLcatg0H09f8HbM_HSFfcO1STquwn6sN_m4RiMH8x7PcL0XAm/w640-h480/IMG_1362.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoFpAYTD2qZpiBiXqMbdvn-7b-dENatCFOEx2_f061Lt4jeDtkIZsMCrQij-5sg-MDWdgjjZFPDR3ez-I0gYwXHVJodOgzf6qithNYT8dEjfICfARyPHzUrjq4Eh6rVeQ4Wew1hFJ7b30yeAHeGSghisZG4UUckfO_M5p0CdpIc9VBo0GdG66_R5TM/s5184/IMG_1364.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoFpAYTD2qZpiBiXqMbdvn-7b-dENatCFOEx2_f061Lt4jeDtkIZsMCrQij-5sg-MDWdgjjZFPDR3ez-I0gYwXHVJodOgzf6qithNYT8dEjfICfARyPHzUrjq4Eh6rVeQ4Wew1hFJ7b30yeAHeGSghisZG4UUckfO_M5p0CdpIc9VBo0GdG66_R5TM/w300-h400/IMG_1364.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Want to walk all the way
back?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUJVjA6BPYc6QDf56iZ2wW01064si3kQ7pAgG-Huy3kWdt8LwOGTRDpj-T08nFngaTJbCOv9a_enpOtN-MBHhmE28BWSrE5v0G3uuJmtfTY5BxzDTYw86VmS38MI_TNrbBmc4ZARvwBHkY9EI14WJYd2Pxu8zZrEO9a7QaaJCMkipLBdqiVvDj2mfh/s5184/IMG_1366.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUJVjA6BPYc6QDf56iZ2wW01064si3kQ7pAgG-Huy3kWdt8LwOGTRDpj-T08nFngaTJbCOv9a_enpOtN-MBHhmE28BWSrE5v0G3uuJmtfTY5BxzDTYw86VmS38MI_TNrbBmc4ZARvwBHkY9EI14WJYd2Pxu8zZrEO9a7QaaJCMkipLBdqiVvDj2mfh/w480-h640/IMG_1366.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The North Sea is that way.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">I can’t pretend things have improved.
True, these thirty months brought the completion of my <a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/12/new-release-turning-camera-around.html"><u>most </u></a></span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/12/new-release-turning-camera-around.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">significant writings</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> so far, as well as some of the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/new-story-release-paths-across-sea.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">most inspiring encounters I have known</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. But
inseparably, they have also been a gauntlet of further traumatic disasters </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span></span> all embittering, all exhausting, all harrowingly painful, and always, <i>always</i> </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">on account of humans</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, whose ways I find as impossibly alien and twisted as ever.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It's beyond words now; beyond comprehension. This world shall never be my home. I set off up the <i>Dark
River</i> in darkness, and now take leave of it in darkness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>It comes
from nowhere; it turns round in a circle.</i></span> </span>
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpeANIKPNMgx970yo9Sh8TdUPnbN_9BC8Gm-3a1HHDrYemwdZsujkKeDxWUZcm9eDQh4r-q5X9SFqlD2WaZdPpEaniNDE6xZm-qThZdo-mClv6WlBnQH9OgKNqeZIHFrsy0pKTx2SBRfSt1qDtPUYYiVzzGwYuiFFn-Vb2zARP_UrR_8ftP-63QydW/s5184/IMG_1361.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpeANIKPNMgx970yo9Sh8TdUPnbN_9BC8Gm-3a1HHDrYemwdZsujkKeDxWUZcm9eDQh4r-q5X9SFqlD2WaZdPpEaniNDE6xZm-qThZdo-mClv6WlBnQH9OgKNqeZIHFrsy0pKTx2SBRfSt1qDtPUYYiVzzGwYuiFFn-Vb2zARP_UrR_8ftP-63QydW/w640-h480/IMG_1361.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">But to the river </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">– </span></span>I pay
tribute. It’s been as reliable a friend as any in this beleaguered world.
Perhaps I owe my future to it, since, sixteen years ago now, driven into existential
crisis by this society, saturated with agony and lost in an infinite desert of care, support or understanding, I could do none other
than seek a final way out through its water – perhaps the very water that now
cycles back beneath this soil – only to be sent back, through the shock of its
cool embrace, with the flicker of a thought that perhaps, just perhaps, there
was more I could yet do for this world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">If that was the Thames’s doing, then
it’s a fitting honour to have got to know it in its entirety. So I part from it
with this wish: that one day, it will have the pleasure to flow through a
nation free at last from this abyssal cycle of poverty and corruption, lies and
abuse; a nation setting off up a newfound path of honesty, responsibility and compassion, as befits the river’s
ever-generous gifts to it. Would that these reflections of mine, from estuary to source </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> however
partial, poor-sighted or plain exasperating </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span> provide at least some
small contribution to those who would make it so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Chaobang, April 2022</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD4-RWlDkGJ5ufmHp47rHqRUtCrLFkDPFKr9Y-wfAOal3yJcHY743fbc13thPkaHQqvDZ_b1UFvAEoMyQEPj9caTMk7fqHt_m9tMeskbqFk3UKIz93iqdA90Bea0Fe8b1z0ZTA04JNbIeCOI7Gno64jZ6sSiyWRCsl2KS3Etr2PG1JQUwPAVJyKQ9A/s5184/Source.bmp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD4-RWlDkGJ5ufmHp47rHqRUtCrLFkDPFKr9Y-wfAOal3yJcHY743fbc13thPkaHQqvDZ_b1UFvAEoMyQEPj9caTMk7fqHt_m9tMeskbqFk3UKIz93iqdA90Bea0Fe8b1z0ZTA04JNbIeCOI7Gno64jZ6sSiyWRCsl2KS3Etr2PG1JQUwPAVJyKQ9A/w640-h480/Source.bmp" width="640" /></a></div><br /></span></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Kemble, Cirencester GL7, UK51.674794899999988 -2.019170651.504095578036335 -2.293828803125 51.845494221963641 -1.7445123968749998tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-59689661080633021662022-04-05T12:41:00.001+01:002022-04-05T12:41:51.852+01:00THAMES: 19) The Passages<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwGATRF_V8qPNZ3c0uPZhVswZBt8Qa9c1G99Dz8UcHKNZ4eMSONYhi0e3CH7yRXhHIPsUxoBSPYDyyU-wOtHHWP3bGF54PRCgl9wQzuBERz7nAZrh48_Hxyutg6yMDddBWanvd6OB1AplHYZ2GINcrwN0-KSEvVfncT6lJhUmbQPEv2Xu2iRz4hVnu/s5184/IMG_0956.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwGATRF_V8qPNZ3c0uPZhVswZBt8Qa9c1G99Dz8UcHKNZ4eMSONYhi0e3CH7yRXhHIPsUxoBSPYDyyU-wOtHHWP3bGF54PRCgl9wQzuBERz7nAZrh48_Hxyutg6yMDddBWanvd6OB1AplHYZ2GINcrwN0-KSEvVfncT6lJhUmbQPEv2Xu2iRz4hVnu/w640-h480/IMG_0956.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Lechlade</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> and <b>Cricklade</b>. The Thames’s highest
towns. Here at last is the river’s cradle, its nest of honey-and-mustard Cotswold
limestone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZjCagfvi137jCMwv-RsQEm3mQVeawY2UyVd-Wj_cn0sZn2PBbYeoP6Ab4CH7rltqll9xNujxkURq08WAL98SFh6T1keUMV63yKf-CTvaAXOF18a7DaEI7seR5leSns7uJ1TjcqqDP4W5-m1MuGVewGAMqMeScoQiJQMs7uTr6d1CAbjqrYxb-y2Eo/s5184/IMG_1099.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZjCagfvi137jCMwv-RsQEm3mQVeawY2UyVd-Wj_cn0sZn2PBbYeoP6Ab4CH7rltqll9xNujxkURq08WAL98SFh6T1keUMV63yKf-CTvaAXOF18a7DaEI7seR5leSns7uJ1TjcqqDP4W5-m1MuGVewGAMqMeScoQiJQMs7uTr6d1CAbjqrYxb-y2Eo/w640-h480/IMG_1099.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Narrow, shallow and clogged
with vegetation, the river from here on up is unnavigable to all but the most
tenacious of small craft.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_IYLnGJStFWkqj0WUjQ_K04RvUwFs6fHAJG8a0zVKaQ2AOonBwY1tm2vHODh30AJSPjjpdXtvqZzGGQLSe-dZjO48lb-5UwvMI4zyUg8ja9OQZqXT2l2zvi9HWw77WtFTrSn700AbBGRInaowPLJbnjuWOk0oDUwx0qOJC2BT-Zvc1hz97sCIAEm-/s5184/IMG_1116.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_IYLnGJStFWkqj0WUjQ_K04RvUwFs6fHAJG8a0zVKaQ2AOonBwY1tm2vHODh30AJSPjjpdXtvqZzGGQLSe-dZjO48lb-5UwvMI4zyUg8ja9OQZqXT2l2zvi9HWw77WtFTrSn700AbBGRInaowPLJbnjuWOk0oDUwx0qOJC2BT-Zvc1hz97sCIAEm-/w640-h480/IMG_1116.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Cricklade, the river’s
uppermost town and goal of this the penultimate section.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">But the foggy cloak of a hesitant spring sky hangs heavy over a world whose
wheels, already juddering when this expedition began some thirty months ago,
now appear to be spinning clean off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing
vengeance of twisted authoritarian power fantasies – in Syria, in Yemen, in
Myanmar, in Ethiopia, in Afghanistan, and now the invasion of Ukraine by
Putin’s Russia – have drowned in blood any remaining illusion that humankind,
morally and politically, has improved in the course of its own journey
of millennia. In England the abuses noted on the way up this river have yet to
explode on the sheer scale of those disasters, but easily belong to the same
trajectory of arrogance, cruelty, corruption, contempt for the different, and
forsaking of reality for a fortress of self-aggrandising lies. The fleeting promise
of modernity, of a future for humanity better than its past, lies in tatters;
replaced, it seems, by one of fresh atrocities as vile as any in human history.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In such a world, disillusionment is
rational. Rage; futility; doubts, in all sincerity, about whether humanity is a
life-form that can solve its own problems. In such despair, projects like this
one come to feel meaningless. After all, with no disrespect to the good natives
of Lechlade and Cricklade, are we to expect their hinterland of fields and
brooks to hold the remedies to this nightmare? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Tb-nB-BPcM4iizeuzZWNTI6l9H8v3UVOvwnnLKt6tsjk5-4h-_7iIDpJho_VjJ7zZDiQ8ZtgUYzKQiNCSOVxAYpXvfb1nOtL2AOgv6nua-5UiLJouT0N7qcWmvm4FccijUraCncyry7WtY8OWIEQJZ-w_eA2RFaoSQvGZ1s4Pc1fT64r2m6J2GpF/s5184/IMG_1071.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Tb-nB-BPcM4iizeuzZWNTI6l9H8v3UVOvwnnLKt6tsjk5-4h-_7iIDpJho_VjJ7zZDiQ8ZtgUYzKQiNCSOVxAYpXvfb1nOtL2AOgv6nua-5UiLJouT0N7qcWmvm4FccijUraCncyry7WtY8OWIEQJZ-w_eA2RFaoSQvGZ1s4Pc1fT64r2m6J2GpF/w640-h480/IMG_1071.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Well, their stories do matter.
For a start, they too participate in a world where nowhere is truly <i>far </i>anymore.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUXrTbsbKHoDvXchLttr2UDEPLBmdjrjSgns-BpxSIZ7vYgh0E3YaRfC27t50lDWzLwz4mfnBPtulqkASBx2BuTx8Ngh4GSjGk000EK4uop-0QD-Rat7mBPiQS4vgJ6ur7TdtEdFHGBFHN0_rwlOjYtQKO4k1ox6J6AhyxhTGyZqFMq92Mg3xO0y6d/s5184/IMG_0971.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUXrTbsbKHoDvXchLttr2UDEPLBmdjrjSgns-BpxSIZ7vYgh0E3YaRfC27t50lDWzLwz4mfnBPtulqkASBx2BuTx8Ngh4GSjGk000EK4uop-0QD-Rat7mBPiQS4vgJ6ur7TdtEdFHGBFHN0_rwlOjYtQKO4k1ox6J6AhyxhTGyZqFMq92Mg3xO0y6d/w400-h300/IMG_0971.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Lechlade’s Thames Street – for
now, in honour and solidarity, part of Cotswold Raion, Gloucester Oblast,
Ukraine. This must be the first time in this region’s history that the
Ukrainian bicolour flutters from its masts and flagpoles, in a startling echo of its blue streams and yellow-gold cottages.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The illusion of these towns’ high
remoteness trickles even through the sound of their names. They alone on this
river carry the element <b><i>-lade</i></b>, an obscure echo of Anglo-Saxon Old
English (<i>ge</i>)<i>l</i></span><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ā</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">d</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> which indicates a passage or crossing of some kind.
It’s unclear whether this means a passage across the river, i.e. a ford; or a
passage of the water itself, perhaps indicating some of the many little
tributaries which merge on these meadows and journey on together as the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/10/thames-prologue-dark-river.html"><u><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">dark river</span></i></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">.</span>
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Their service to human passage was
clear enough. Dwelling on the Thames’s flood-prone headwaters at its furthest
point reachable by boat, and so close to where it gives way to its mighty
and storied neighbour, the Severn, these two towns’ situations – Lechlade as a
trade post, Cricklade as a strategic junction – have been pivotal. On this journey
up they are the final threshold, the passages to the Cotswold nurseries, the
beginning of the end. But for the water, they lead to everywhere in the world.<br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTGZnyoSOORZleLrjsMwglZl50CNDw-lHWf9Hujfyr1nymMCXD-zszee1a27Bwnu2-aLWj6yAAFXQ99Yu-wxSn38mDFQ0ZQtAIJrEG1HVOraSzN6FBLQ8buLU9QqRmjIXlSVcijpKdKxUN66bIVlRIVd-5pYbPpT5Hx9ATP2zz3MjoswLRzK85XXS6/s5184/IMG_0973.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTGZnyoSOORZleLrjsMwglZl50CNDw-lHWf9Hujfyr1nymMCXD-zszee1a27Bwnu2-aLWj6yAAFXQ99Yu-wxSn38mDFQ0ZQtAIJrEG1HVOraSzN6FBLQ8buLU9QqRmjIXlSVcijpKdKxUN66bIVlRIVd-5pYbPpT5Hx9ATP2zz3MjoswLRzK85XXS6/w640-h480/IMG_0973.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Upstream from Lechlade’s
Halfpenny Bridge. The Thames’s uppermost boatyard can be glimpsed through the
trees.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1tr_J5a_JCIqbHR6sv_pMf7CMyUXmdKVOcRInEEnAuEL4MQY3J72rz_It1DJhczpES5-T1FbNtTHIFJa1-W5JovrSpHv4cZFvPLoqSEXNth0OCPtEsxlwwnpa1TWtrdAAxdJ_juMXEhtVEhMf8ZzBw1ElmF3S2NRBvcPyV05UlJLV62iivHeJjjVt/s1276/19)%20Lechlade%20to%20Cricklade.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="641" data-original-width="1276" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1tr_J5a_JCIqbHR6sv_pMf7CMyUXmdKVOcRInEEnAuEL4MQY3J72rz_It1DJhczpES5-T1FbNtTHIFJa1-W5JovrSpHv4cZFvPLoqSEXNth0OCPtEsxlwwnpa1TWtrdAAxdJ_juMXEhtVEhMf8ZzBw1ElmF3S2NRBvcPyV05UlJLV62iivHeJjjVt/w640-h322/19)%20Lechlade%20to%20Cricklade.png" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Start:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Lechlade (<i>no train station; buses
from </i></span><a href="https://bustimes.org/services/77-highworth-swindon-street-cirencester-the-forum"><u><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Swindon via Highworth</span></i></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">End:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Cricklade (<i>no train station; </i></span><a href="https://www.stagecoachbus.com/routes/west/53/cricklade-swindon/xsao053.i"><u><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">buses to Swindon</span></i></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Length: 16.8km/10.5 miles</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Location: Gloucestershire – Cotswold;
Wiltshire – Swindon, Wiltshire</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Topics</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">: <b>Lechlade</b>, the Thames and
Severn Canal and limit of navigation, Inglesham, Kempsford, Castle Eaton, <b>Cricklade</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Lechlade</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Close to the confluence with the seasonal
River Leach, whence its name, <b>Lechlade</b> is rich in thousands of years of archaeological
remnants: a </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-14-settling-point.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">neolithic cursus</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, Bronze Age barrows, Iron Age grain
stores, and a villa in the orbit of the Roman administrative centre of Corinium
(now Cirencester). But the current settlement is likely late Anglo-Saxon in
origin, and was sufficiently established by the Norman conquest to appear as <i>Lecelade</i>
in the 1086 Domesday survey.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRMauHKfO1PIZ8KYXNf08C8exu6WbHneHrwcmZtkHG57YWhSrRYnR_-CywYg9xXH4gSeRWQJlgHlIOn9qdBmbKYKL5qtAzaeYhtEzYACjmX9ueLlC4pBTiOJQ-7inUafwftK8QB5ka4Iz2zdQc7RjUtyJ3-wTmcWl1-CAMPvqgPeLiyz1ZTD9B6uY/s5184/IMG_0970.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRMauHKfO1PIZ8KYXNf08C8exu6WbHneHrwcmZtkHG57YWhSrRYnR_-CywYg9xXH4gSeRWQJlgHlIOn9qdBmbKYKL5qtAzaeYhtEzYACjmX9ueLlC4pBTiOJQ-7inUafwftK8QB5ka4Iz2zdQc7RjUtyJ3-wTmcWl1-CAMPvqgPeLiyz1ZTD9B6uY/w400-h300/IMG_0970.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Cotswolds are known for
their beige Jurassic limestone – rich in fossils, but also resistant to
weather, easy to split into blocks, and thus a much-quarried building material which
gives this region's towns and villages their distinct visual character.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Typically, William the Conqueror
granted the Lechlade manor to one of his minions from the French-speaking
Norman nobility. Perched on a major London-to-Gloucester road, it was perhaps
to support struggling wayfarers that one of that minion’s descendants, Isabella
de Ferrers, set up the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/12/thames-18-english-migrants.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">St. John the Baptist’s hospital-monastery down by the Leach’s mouth in 1205. The St. John’s Bridge
it built there, rebuilt in the 1880s, remains the principal crossing for road
traffic today</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">But it was in trade that this town
would build its future. In 1210 it was granted a market charter by King John
(of </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Magna Carta</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> confrontation fame five
years later, with Isabella’s second husband one of the barons who forced him to
the table). So began Lechlade’s rise as an inland port, feeding downriver the
lucrative goods for which it grew to serve as a waystation: Cotswold wool,
Worcester salt, Taynton stone, and of course, Gloucester cheese.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7ZkY-MDelvUx_4-gKBbZzH5OwHpu3yOeyfHY-xXVwozLp03Uqs_w9S2ZIKPlRMNI4-ga6x3FcfJ7tiYBNv28IE5X8GkelOYjuMCkhxLwsUoYsgqSa0nrT3PFLp4k_hBXY5-RilkKsF20cBhOpysIvKHViiF5KppcPcDHfyo9TaOIQSX2dti6oA48U/s5184/IMG_0968.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7ZkY-MDelvUx_4-gKBbZzH5OwHpu3yOeyfHY-xXVwozLp03Uqs_w9S2ZIKPlRMNI4-ga6x3FcfJ7tiYBNv28IE5X8GkelOYjuMCkhxLwsUoYsgqSa0nrT3PFLp4k_hBXY5-RilkKsF20cBhOpysIvKHViiF5KppcPcDHfyo9TaOIQSX2dti6oA48U/w640-h480/IMG_0968.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Lechlade town centre, with St.
Lawrence’s Church as its focal point. The town’s famous marketplace made use of this space till its final closure in 1928.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Lechlade’s sizeable church suggests
how lucrative. St. Lawrence’s is one of the Cotswold ‘wool churches’,
larger-than-life piles of prestige built on huge donations from local wool
farmers and merchants as a statement of their sway. It grew up in the 1470s,
partly out of materials from Isabella’s priory which shut down in financial
difficulties a few years earlier. Decked in elaborate stonework with plentiful carvings
of the woolmongers and their clout-bearing emblems, the church’s tall spire soars
above the surrounding landscape, thus doing long practical service too as a landmark
for river or road travellers straggling through these rural reaches.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5RECcrWH8UPyoSBnNdkFcRAmuzbZxoeHvgXMB2eNo8MdxNKcTzbf935ReEKWkTWKdMUipqNHim5cWe4FzUVGdBw-QYRDbjA9ZY_a7XZRLYU4RLEhn-fhHvcTS3H3P-7OWwMk1bHU6CLzNR_WXBSCmbtUXNkq0TxyPAsZb6fMJ5vFCTI2N9Ezk66bV/s5184/IMG_0953.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5RECcrWH8UPyoSBnNdkFcRAmuzbZxoeHvgXMB2eNo8MdxNKcTzbf935ReEKWkTWKdMUipqNHim5cWe4FzUVGdBw-QYRDbjA9ZY_a7XZRLYU4RLEhn-fhHvcTS3H3P-7OWwMk1bHU6CLzNR_WXBSCmbtUXNkq0TxyPAsZb6fMJ5vFCTI2N9Ezk66bV/w300-h400/IMG_0953.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The spire was added around
1510 by Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife, who came into control of
the Lechlade manor at that time. She also appears to have got its dedication
changed to St. Lawrence, who was Spanish like her.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFgfXdMrw-FGtHZkQInqchU1LrsGyfnai6k7J1eRxCeFWj9Ht6tEcrPlH3wQ3PrSKIVR72jg05ESQkLp8pRpYIACwazoGu4nkBPFpBqWCbgQlyqHsr0xJ-7rjh3w2hTGYDGT0SXLMWTjq3i1g2IFC3l798RX98qC-2HJc2-ZDqDJFxbE0DJCeOlhyd/s5184/IMG_0958.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFgfXdMrw-FGtHZkQInqchU1LrsGyfnai6k7J1eRxCeFWj9Ht6tEcrPlH3wQ3PrSKIVR72jg05ESQkLp8pRpYIACwazoGu4nkBPFpBqWCbgQlyqHsr0xJ-7rjh3w2hTGYDGT0SXLMWTjq3i1g2IFC3l798RX98qC-2HJc2-ZDqDJFxbE0DJCeOlhyd/w400-h300/IMG_0958.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Apparently they’re very proud
of their brass chandelier. Later this place’s atmospheric churchyard would
inspire a poem by Percy Shelley, for which in turn they named its path after
him – likely making this one of this country’s few churches to name part of its
premises after an atheist.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Lechlade attained its heyday on the
approach to industrialisation, as its trade grew increasingly commercialised on
the development of the turnpike, coaching and river transport systems. Wharves,
inns and alehouses flourished in support of this traffic, which exploded onto a
whole new order of magnitude with the completion of the <b>Thames and Severn
Canal</b> a kilometre upstream in 1789. With the navigable Thames, London and
all, now linked to the Severn – Britain’s largest river, with its major western
ports – Lechlade became a junction not only for wool, salt and cheese but also
enormous quantities of coal, iron, copper, tin, and assorted textiles and
foodstuffs travelling down to the capital from England’s western provinces,
while up the other way came timber and gunpowder, much destined no doubt for
the slave-trading atrocities of Bristol.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ8a6VCe61Ih02KWJtx1ASQNSKnBmt2vIwqtOKnSPZ-v4bR-a37swTlNzpECun6cANjrfzVCrPiKvlxZ0NRO0Jvs47Y95IqxtvgsYFzThM9kwOoXdt7qjRairbxlZN-xqJR9_MxkF_YnWcegoOq9_YYAKt1pXiLhVecDFYujiAkeCwQzVwR6c-IM4R/s5184/IMG_0976.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ8a6VCe61Ih02KWJtx1ASQNSKnBmt2vIwqtOKnSPZ-v4bR-a37swTlNzpECun6cANjrfzVCrPiKvlxZ0NRO0Jvs47Y95IqxtvgsYFzThM9kwOoXdt7qjRairbxlZN-xqJR9_MxkF_YnWcegoOq9_YYAKt1pXiLhVecDFYujiAkeCwQzVwR6c-IM4R/w400-h300/IMG_0976.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Riverside Inn, by
Lechlade’s Halfpenny Bridge, was formerly a warehouse on one of Lechlade’s
bustling wharves from this period. A shade of the wharf itself lives on as the
boat hire at right.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwygsVHhO42LqapWFTZryBtxg-ZW99KI0LCe2dEPk-kWsuAWx2A-zbEwWWzYBhZkvGHyWHI0vSh2naFRl1ycZEpkyvG-w1PrTnK6sqt8Fto4iASOe_19ss35CdDHZ-hEtj_8g6saXvtPKNOEUIucZfx7OyDfaGqdv1y-IYfnoGo-3NbjMecnUdkKYc/s5184/IMG_0974.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwygsVHhO42LqapWFTZryBtxg-ZW99KI0LCe2dEPk-kWsuAWx2A-zbEwWWzYBhZkvGHyWHI0vSh2naFRl1ycZEpkyvG-w1PrTnK6sqt8Fto4iASOe_19ss35CdDHZ-hEtj_8g6saXvtPKNOEUIucZfx7OyDfaGqdv1y-IYfnoGo-3NbjMecnUdkKYc/w400-h300/IMG_0974.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Halfpenny Bridge dates
from 1792, three years after the Thames and Severn Canal, when it replaced a
ferry as business grew crowded. Supposedly pronounced <i>heypenny</i>, it
refers to the toll (in the old English currency) that it charged pedestrians to
cross till 1839, when they angrily got it abolished.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">As elsewhere, this prosperity receded
in the nineteenth century as railways replaced rivers and canals as the
favoured industrial transport network. This relieved Lechlade of its function
as a key junction, but it did get a railway station of its own in 1873, only to
lose it in 1962 to the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-8-river-shamans.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Beeching Axe</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. By the late 1920s the Thames and
Severn Canal was a dilapidated wreck. Though no longer the flourishing trade
post of old, Lechlade took advantage of new forms of road, rail and river
transport to revive itself as a low-key recreational oasis, turning its
traditional agriculture to feed a new influx of rowers, cruisers and tourists. Its
most recent transformation came on account of the world wars, which saw the
Cotswolds sprout a smattering of RAF airbases. Two of these, <b>RAF Brize Norton</b>
and <b>RAF Fairford</b>, remain operational as major employers in these parts, driving
some late-day population growth and residential sprawl out along Lechlade’s
north and west roads.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvUQTrTeMN3O5S0Wr94KN3XHoNs7yIGTngDfphRbtXVzJLG7nqomw5-7DCAvHBmUbXK4Q3NsC_bmbCVkazIgBhbWV1Sgxsdr7Cw_bCMKO-nefB7j30gHY2khg0bRP2M2e9CimkwWerxN1UDy56DpovkYDiA1ZPCNhmb9fS76Eib-_HC7G9Hs8F4PgU/s5184/IMG_0972.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvUQTrTeMN3O5S0Wr94KN3XHoNs7yIGTngDfphRbtXVzJLG7nqomw5-7DCAvHBmUbXK4Q3NsC_bmbCVkazIgBhbWV1Sgxsdr7Cw_bCMKO-nefB7j30gHY2khg0bRP2M2e9CimkwWerxN1UDy56DpovkYDiA1ZPCNhmb9fS76Eib-_HC7G9Hs8F4PgU/w640-h480/IMG_0972.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">So persists Lechlade – much
quieter than it used to be, and known mainly for its status as a picturesque
Ultima Thule for the recreational boaters of today’s Thames.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -108pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">The Thames and Severn Canal, and Limit of Navigation</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Setting off upstream, we approach a
momentous threshold.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJt7uLUG3e0gXMcPQpLW_Rvj9UPTYs1gc4-rhvGZs_lq-DJZbtDZr_nIf9Whh2-qxVgUV_uUFgCPIWwS0ptp8uwWsUyP6TeV8GEyXxksMhH7mhxNvImYlvk0i_e79ty09BWX2K3U9CQQD2Wr7YZG33wKqD_LxDcw-R-GyXuhjD7fbVHsGUlbipWS_H/s5184/IMG_0979.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJt7uLUG3e0gXMcPQpLW_Rvj9UPTYs1gc4-rhvGZs_lq-DJZbtDZr_nIf9Whh2-qxVgUV_uUFgCPIWwS0ptp8uwWsUyP6TeV8GEyXxksMhH7mhxNvImYlvk0i_e79ty09BWX2K3U9CQQD2Wr7YZG33wKqD_LxDcw-R-GyXuhjD7fbVHsGUlbipWS_H/w640-h480/IMG_0979.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Through the trees is Lechlade
Marina, the river’s final boatyard. Note the Ukrainian flag on the second-last
boat upstream.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXXgHW-xp_HZIrhxBKeILmORjYESnTIgkRMeldzuWqSoZ4DV22w1kGxIF1109pPLY62Tf_zY6cXcLaVoss5K9dvc5-lodiX0c_hkCCc7IV5pJbjHsSAmMWCEh1c_5_WrPHcZXmI_Er5JfTw7jmZkM2KIYIuUYxgopSy_PFgSYiVwZ4TPjRfmJOXlyD/s5184/IMG_0983.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXXgHW-xp_HZIrhxBKeILmORjYESnTIgkRMeldzuWqSoZ4DV22w1kGxIF1109pPLY62Tf_zY6cXcLaVoss5K9dvc5-lodiX0c_hkCCc7IV5pJbjHsSAmMWCEh1c_5_WrPHcZXmI_Er5JfTw7jmZkM2KIYIuUYxgopSy_PFgSYiVwZ4TPjRfmJOXlyD/w400-h300/IMG_0983.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Human activity swiftly gives
way to the open fields that constitute most of what remains.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqNdb9FvGQ02PnPFxeBtFhET3Z6kwJKIw6MXUy-b_C0SnYb8Xb-gmd4nX8aOuelJudQgIzXseRUdc-Mzto8YNTC4vLcBMJDWp5Lh_IuwQ6MFUqWNZAEe9I_3FIUkK_UGs9xpwZ4qM3mx6c-b_GOU2F8uwm3ejhfJ58j6Z_sx7cSylUuTcDAUdzgeg4/s5184/IMG_0984.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqNdb9FvGQ02PnPFxeBtFhET3Z6kwJKIw6MXUy-b_C0SnYb8Xb-gmd4nX8aOuelJudQgIzXseRUdc-Mzto8YNTC4vLcBMJDWp5Lh_IuwQ6MFUqWNZAEe9I_3FIUkK_UGs9xpwZ4qM3mx6c-b_GOU2F8uwm3ejhfJ58j6Z_sx7cSylUuTcDAUdzgeg4/w400-h300/IMG_0984.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Some gabions they’ve placed to
combat heavy erosion along the riverbank here. This approach to the Thames and
Severn Canal was a critical connection in industrial times and would have likely
experienced much engineering for ease of traffic.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje1M2srP6Q5_0tD8lJgLfqqlyyvG1AqXDz-ODbYqnTQobi9g5-r0Zonb_khlmHsaC4KjcqGk0l7ZbzhuHzL1H0U7jWxgrD9txyy689-iiFJg1clu9IV8vnaCduAMDyxMid9WPyjnKIgA-iskU_WcUWx24NepZ-o4v6t1QQUY-47TWOvgTQhD3aLr0e/s5184/IMG_0987.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje1M2srP6Q5_0tD8lJgLfqqlyyvG1AqXDz-ODbYqnTQobi9g5-r0Zonb_khlmHsaC4KjcqGk0l7ZbzhuHzL1H0U7jWxgrD9txyy689-iiFJg1clu9IV8vnaCduAMDyxMid9WPyjnKIgA-iskU_WcUWx24NepZ-o4v6t1QQUY-47TWOvgTQhD3aLr0e/w640-h480/IMG_0987.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">But today, this footbridge is
as far as they go. Virtually all watercraft are advised to turn back here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Here the Thames and Severn Canal
joined the river, alongside the mouth of a tributary called the <b>Coln</b>. Ostensibly
an idyllic Cotswold limestone stream, the Coln is in fact one of many English
rivers now made filthy through the illegal dumping of sewage by unaccountable water
companies.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaTwl9SnAp3g3vGLX5q9eBE8DcbkQtjVuAo762Kb0gNrG_kZnSu0HYcExEFSlR-V_FU41GNhjpjynK7NRy0UyG3Z7DvEqbY4oGcepgCMwL2EowxeRxaYwphJvbrCBkzkf_VU1uqgOeOJXHMxBQkd-GPhc2Zo2br4ww6YYOerbw510f2lwkSIYnfm-F/s5184/IMG_0989.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaTwl9SnAp3g3vGLX5q9eBE8DcbkQtjVuAo762Kb0gNrG_kZnSu0HYcExEFSlR-V_FU41GNhjpjynK7NRy0UyG3Z7DvEqbY4oGcepgCMwL2EowxeRxaYwphJvbrCBkzkf_VU1uqgOeOJXHMxBQkd-GPhc2Zo2br4ww6YYOerbw510f2lwkSIYnfm-F/w640-h480/IMG_0989.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The River Coln enters the
Thames at right. The debris behind the willow stands on the derelict ruin of Inglesham
Lock, at the head of the Thames and Severn Canal.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFkdZp9cuAif2RO6-6VwbNAzajJuk9JlCRzbbSRJK6sD6sPUGx4Fn3S9gC2aNVdjtJSZxq6IZ37RWlDqM0aEUcKU-uHk-xzUdZ3W8II_zyF0d0YL8C5w6qAMxpdR3_V6BsYlxuUG6hVPCd6BVaCeXbB1oRLUmEewws2c0hg5bDbpTjGsjoibSKzEKu/s5184/IMG_0990.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFkdZp9cuAif2RO6-6VwbNAzajJuk9JlCRzbbSRJK6sD6sPUGx4Fn3S9gC2aNVdjtJSZxq6IZ37RWlDqM0aEUcKU-uHk-xzUdZ3W8II_zyF0d0YL8C5w6qAMxpdR3_V6BsYlxuUG6hVPCd6BVaCeXbB1oRLUmEewws2c0hg5bDbpTjGsjoibSKzEKu/w640-h480/IMG_0990.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Inglesham <i>Round House</i>,
one of five that housed the canal’s keepers. The cylindrical design was a
Thames and Severn Canal peculiarity; some of them, like this one, also featured
an inverted conical roof to catch rainwater. After the canal’s decline it was
converted to a private residence. Notice also the ruined footing of a
footbridge (at right) which crossed to the canal’s towpath.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This site is quite the paradox. For
all practical purposes this is the limit of navigation, the beginning and end
of the line. From here on the natural river prevails: wild, swift, shallow, packed
with weeds and thorns and rushes and low-hanging branches, with no further
locks, weirs, boatyards or other facilities to get anything heavier than a
canoe out of trouble. But for the brief century in which the canal was in
operation, this beginning and end magically became a middle: a water-bridge,
the central passage between the east and west rivers, the North and Celtic
Seas. For this most fleeting of moments, this flit of an English attempt at an
industrial modernity, the <i>Lades</i>, the passages, consummated their name.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Like that modernity, the Thames and
Severn Canal has gone. Also like that modernity, there are people attempting to
revive it – namely the Cotswold Canals Trust, whose armies of volunteers have
since 1972 been pursuing a painstaking multi-phase scheme to restore it as a
recreational waterway. Further like English modernity, these efforts have struggled
with inadequate funding and greedy private landowners, and so remain, at best,
a long-term prospect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Inglesham</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Here then are the true headwaters, uncontrolled,
uncontrollable, above and beyond.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGQtlKPOvPuR1-Q2p_jYAaMXCzrm2DDGZStbWQ9z7fVmlECFL6dEgwGfHbjjHtRj7UcyF_smUq11oZXLZ3WBi8tauBVbmViJ_1YxKwq8A0j_0k82MC9jZJcK6K_6AwjxhrvvH0NyQYdql16LyNgL0zgc6QBcxZvsx4r4_yQM3XJSgQBHKpVhW5eZhI/s5184/IMG_0993.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGQtlKPOvPuR1-Q2p_jYAaMXCzrm2DDGZStbWQ9z7fVmlECFL6dEgwGfHbjjHtRj7UcyF_smUq11oZXLZ3WBi8tauBVbmViJ_1YxKwq8A0j_0k82MC9jZJcK6K_6AwjxhrvvH0NyQYdql16LyNgL0zgc6QBcxZvsx4r4_yQM3XJSgQBHKpVhW5eZhI/w400-h300/IMG_0993.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And inevitably, lurking thick
in its fog, there are nuuo.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5l_7UZ08Daxz4y6EzoRFCT0BlHlcyQAVS6H3fObEnMe_OiQK0E5wUfkkLNcAnzz2LBOfoC3mT7qDYwkHjbZ--qAZZWluZUztVliywEmQicEN7jwTWSTttUt7d7t20jxKH2EKC4868ZviGHq-d2GOT0-R1b1tfEPN6WsoI6_NtFLzmKzlaaZ2rrXuP/s5184/IMG_0997.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5l_7UZ08Daxz4y6EzoRFCT0BlHlcyQAVS6H3fObEnMe_OiQK0E5wUfkkLNcAnzz2LBOfoC3mT7qDYwkHjbZ--qAZZWluZUztVliywEmQicEN7jwTWSTttUt7d7t20jxKH2EKC4868ZviGHq-d2GOT0-R1b1tfEPN6WsoI6_NtFLzmKzlaaZ2rrXuP/w640-h480/IMG_0997.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">They see you.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZIWOUNg1aPKxmGixXg4by7ChW132AQGerMIW6Kwf5B8E9zu85TDPIusgAp9xAV9X4V7ekLiDZd0-KgLinWQqIqOQyXcIuKX7p1slVOQV9YZ7sdm_h5arOuQB2M4P6gMiI6rOgm2OjJX8Dur4TkuTGQwQRRyLZPr1UFafiu0PdHJyoWOCqLLN_YoAf/s5184/IMG_0998.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZIWOUNg1aPKxmGixXg4by7ChW132AQGerMIW6Kwf5B8E9zu85TDPIusgAp9xAV9X4V7ekLiDZd0-KgLinWQqIqOQyXcIuKX7p1slVOQV9YZ7sdm_h5arOuQB2M4P6gMiI6rOgm2OjJX8Dur4TkuTGQwQRRyLZPr1UFafiu0PdHJyoWOCqLLN_YoAf/w400-h300/IMG_0998.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And so does...whatever
chilling manifestation this is. Up here the rules of the human world no longer
apply. Be ready to encounter monsters, nightmares or apparitions from any other
level.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The floodplain across from Lechlade houses
what’s left of <b>Inglesham</b>, one of the many medieval ‘lost villages’ in
these parts. Most of its remaining hundred or so residents have long since
retreated up the road to the farming hamlet of Upper Inglesham, leaving only a
tiny cluster on the riverside meadows...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrvCCx5C0N3n565V1aVaXTCjmju0aBoDRrx5bF2pxzbwMIN5pecvYIuXlegGHjkB8hu8zHlO0nvxWRAwQJtjTCN8edaPrpMF_1qYAgtZywwdavak53156sWBivpaqircuG0tZgTr8lSfFU1uFnovqgOz0yI5m2ALueue4pXv1yYIihG6r1o2eZflFf/s5184/IMG_0999.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrvCCx5C0N3n565V1aVaXTCjmju0aBoDRrx5bF2pxzbwMIN5pecvYIuXlegGHjkB8hu8zHlO0nvxWRAwQJtjTCN8edaPrpMF_1qYAgtZywwdavak53156sWBivpaqircuG0tZgTr8lSfFU1uFnovqgOz0yI5m2ALueue4pXv1yYIihG6r1o2eZflFf/w400-h300/IMG_0999.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Inglesham.</span></b></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">...and among them, a remarkable
surprise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHsToSnvM3lHjnAhIOa_SXZtycinVnsWC2FUNvJbjPvGmu3msQxfbmaujXPBHAQeODNwbO1sRv1vIxaYRcrB-AeZmQxYa0r9XhFT3ascIP_o9A-FYyxVmKqKtAbP55R90Ytprm8nZTeG24nHEnwY03Xs13Vwqtx4N3-pYL7p-CfOnpZ6tBKJihIw1M/s5184/IMG_1003.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHsToSnvM3lHjnAhIOa_SXZtycinVnsWC2FUNvJbjPvGmu3msQxfbmaujXPBHAQeODNwbO1sRv1vIxaYRcrB-AeZmQxYa0r9XhFT3ascIP_o9A-FYyxVmKqKtAbP55R90Ytprm8nZTeG24nHEnwY03Xs13Vwqtx4N3-pYL7p-CfOnpZ6tBKJihIw1M/w300-h400/IMG_1003.JPG" width="300" /></a></div> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Inglesham’s St. John the Baptist
Church is redundant – that is, no longer in use by the English religious
establishment, and left standing only as a piece of civil heritage. We came
across something similar </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">all the way back in Boveney, near
Eton</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">: a mysterious
little temple whose wood and stone, though assembled in service of English
Christianity, seem soaked with whispers of deeper animistic secrets.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH25tK7a7z9vgC0lGsJI2xvAvegEwWLOA2wZYAbz-njUijIC3DFNgHC5eVYecrvzwRDRfwqTNfCWs-z7HyeqC2VVW2BRt43wcnoqZ0do4rNdcpi5eRc9IOmLELH00sH8VP3Yt08AVxe6Lbap2-v47hCUhGuUcWPoeJ-WmrX3FI07O0yq56mo8LciDg/s5184/IMG_1009.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH25tK7a7z9vgC0lGsJI2xvAvegEwWLOA2wZYAbz-njUijIC3DFNgHC5eVYecrvzwRDRfwqTNfCWs-z7HyeqC2VVW2BRt43wcnoqZ0do4rNdcpi5eRc9IOmLELH00sH8VP3Yt08AVxe6Lbap2-v47hCUhGuUcWPoeJ-WmrX3FI07O0yq56mo8LciDg/w640-h480/IMG_1009.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The church’s exterior. The
building dates to around 1205, but has elements that go back to Anglo-Saxon times.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Extraordinarily, it has survived
largely unaltered to the present day. This makes it one of the very few
churches of such age to withstand successive tides of English religious
violence, from </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Henry VIII’s assault on the
monasteries to the iconoclastic sledgehammers of the Puritans</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. Anything that survived those was
then liable to get killed not out of hate by its enemies but, as is so often
the case, by supposed friends insisting it was for their own good – that is, the
over-enthusiastic Victorian restorers who wrecked the churches’ ancient arts,
architectures and atmospheres with flashy and extravagant refurbishments.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">That this church escaped that fate is
principally thanks to </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/12/thames-18-english-migrants.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">our recent acquaintance William
Morris</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, who bristled
with resentment at what he saw as the vandalisms and forgeries of these destructive
‘restorations’. His Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings advanced an
alternative approach, of repairing and protecting them as treasures of cultural
heritage, and in this capacity Morris personally oversaw this church’s
sensitive repair in the 1880s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8YY7ngQDuaQIdx9v4gnBUhDWpUvBcKDI6AzvPfwBCLT3XtO0Y1LFOXXFT9XWXppIgMPKP65jjYxroPqzBDciY0U6DnGZOMxSndOqIRS1s2cJsbdDx_BMtyggPY_fAPwZuZQ6Jb4nPCQC0Lkt_JtuMxYTPhbmHC5aK-X3hZw_4MbV8wFV-qOTR089R/s5184/IMG_1003.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8YY7ngQDuaQIdx9v4gnBUhDWpUvBcKDI6AzvPfwBCLT3XtO0Y1LFOXXFT9XWXppIgMPKP65jjYxroPqzBDciY0U6DnGZOMxSndOqIRS1s2cJsbdDx_BMtyggPY_fAPwZuZQ6Jb4nPCQC0Lkt_JtuMxYTPhbmHC5aK-X3hZw_4MbV8wFV-qOTR089R/w300-h400/IMG_1003.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">As a result of Morris fending
off the ‘restorers’, this church retains rare archaic features and fixtures – an
architectural simplicity, carved wooden screens and box pews, wall paintings –
that afford it a profoundly different character from most English churches
today.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf5VFsLiBrXF9Eg3uQ2Y04wCzQwXtWcRw2EX4qrvv0a06PuQoPBhNqeQ3LKoXP6NxuyMiw6p2Kop4wkZzvsbFMLWvHDd30i-0bHoH-soz7jfQ_Zm4WB3nTk-8L1oErztFJQ2HMKZF4U96HSE5kYn57LV5LpmbzD7X9UXDn6Yrg6uZ9XDB1Gv1sAu8u/s5184/IMG_1008.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf5VFsLiBrXF9Eg3uQ2Y04wCzQwXtWcRw2EX4qrvv0a06PuQoPBhNqeQ3LKoXP6NxuyMiw6p2Kop4wkZzvsbFMLWvHDd30i-0bHoH-soz7jfQ_Zm4WB3nTk-8L1oErztFJQ2HMKZF4U96HSE5kYn57LV5LpmbzD7X9UXDn6Yrg6uZ9XDB1Gv1sAu8u/w400-h300/IMG_1008.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The wall paintings are mostly
Biblical texts or illustrations. They span the thirteenth to nineteenth
centuries, often with paintings from different periods layered on top of each
other. Despite Morris’s efforts they remain under grave threat from water
ingress, especially after the theft of lead from the roof in 2017. The Churches
Conservation Trust is currently trying to raise money to fix it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9LE9kHVb8-kE5a2FirkxQEHTiGKF-arXNKlD1rIVgJJG9mLTib2YF74Z2jj-OsPLufT7MEax2t-lVUMKkAmmWsi0GLny5AfasBo9YRol-E-7v_FiQkx0YSRYUBLaa6XW9lniuWoF8km7SZNZ0xI8bpoTQeiFBu6GCiupKsE16xNPOWDghuplL-o5R/s5184/IMG_1004.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9LE9kHVb8-kE5a2FirkxQEHTiGKF-arXNKlD1rIVgJJG9mLTib2YF74Z2jj-OsPLufT7MEax2t-lVUMKkAmmWsi0GLny5AfasBo9YRol-E-7v_FiQkx0YSRYUBLaa6XW9lniuWoF8km7SZNZ0xI8bpoTQeiFBu6GCiupKsE16xNPOWDghuplL-o5R/w300-h400/IMG_1004.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">One of the building’s most
ancient elements: an Anglo-Saxon stone carving of Mary and the baby Jesus.
Though a common Christian motif, this is a staggering survival in a
spiritually-insecure country which smashed up most of its ancient religious monuments
like this one.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi84-eVtZoXaAQl3G92Q7gywcOXrSqYK79ZFvnVmAVrfGsXE01rqgTr_O6sWsMX5ZUKCN_OSFRqFtu_gp2j0-TCg_F7zkra_qlZU64ZRHNluNx0tNNvtpt2XFqFEkgHCr-RHX_P_2-hpOjm5hbgAtZ0hZg5QbH130knoISauwKgdSvXeGKCZlGYjsQr/s5184/IMG_1007.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi84-eVtZoXaAQl3G92Q7gywcOXrSqYK79ZFvnVmAVrfGsXE01rqgTr_O6sWsMX5ZUKCN_OSFRqFtu_gp2j0-TCg_F7zkra_qlZU64ZRHNluNx0tNNvtpt2XFqFEkgHCr-RHX_P_2-hpOjm5hbgAtZ0hZg5QbH130knoISauwKgdSvXeGKCZlGYjsQr/w300-h400/IMG_1007.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And of course it has an
armoured phantom who comes out at night.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">And now it’s time for a long slog
through riverside fields, down which the river comes rolling unimpeded. And straight
out of Inglesham, as if to make totally clear that humans don’t make the rules
here, the fog produces guardians to whom all who would pass must offer tribute.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUqZ7NYtNxwvkR5XfFUlmfxEyt8VyKXdNeX9pPHImpPkbkT5BpyeVgc2orWxGL5RaTcaSs-W1i5jbW12W4Qn8bpEHA47-zEZNpbVsVeg165GUsyUhwOLAuaPJSgv4qROwEd-dScj6ybu-0ZGTAcFNcA6Wld4BlZBthdjIh2zOyx24V0rDSOwdXC78p/s5184/IMG_1013.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUqZ7NYtNxwvkR5XfFUlmfxEyt8VyKXdNeX9pPHImpPkbkT5BpyeVgc2orWxGL5RaTcaSs-W1i5jbW12W4Qn8bpEHA47-zEZNpbVsVeg165GUsyUhwOLAuaPJSgv4qROwEd-dScj6ybu-0ZGTAcFNcA6Wld4BlZBthdjIh2zOyx24V0rDSOwdXC78p/w640-h480/IMG_1013.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Nuuo.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLBLLVgZkPK2uKa3GQtdVAaCaTsIk-qMdqXrwFbu6q2KqFT5IjblwQ7nT3mkzzd9sBVjmMZTfiqcbBNOSlXF2gyYIyKEpaOTA3ORjeMJTKbiNM_6H-ZrSpdpl6ekWAkpq2wqL6FurJuE8vtS0zFhDhY58hOHZjHCIWYFZW-FGf0JVlOm-6YyX1CVos/s5184/IMG_1014.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLBLLVgZkPK2uKa3GQtdVAaCaTsIk-qMdqXrwFbu6q2KqFT5IjblwQ7nT3mkzzd9sBVjmMZTfiqcbBNOSlXF2gyYIyKEpaOTA3ORjeMJTKbiNM_6H-ZrSpdpl6ekWAkpq2wqL6FurJuE8vtS0zFhDhY58hOHZjHCIWYFZW-FGf0JVlOm-6YyX1CVos/w640-h480/IMG_1014.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Notice how effectively they
have aligned themselves so as to bodily block access to the field.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKPmsMkxbRGka6PI33ftrg9CWVr4J_lI1C4qVsJfPcyz3iD8HNKciH-Yq0VrzBXdZxIoQlvte3YxfSzWtk8madIhcfsRIFCXt1IS0dakRNwk8BvgMAKq9VZ8gtfHZxzOFMcIYkoiiOlMhumsDGeq8WkK1VFORi_Ygf1MCsWyBifFcHKEkELag9x3ro/s5184/IMG_1016.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKPmsMkxbRGka6PI33ftrg9CWVr4J_lI1C4qVsJfPcyz3iD8HNKciH-Yq0VrzBXdZxIoQlvte3YxfSzWtk8madIhcfsRIFCXt1IS0dakRNwk8BvgMAKq9VZ8gtfHZxzOFMcIYkoiiOlMhumsDGeq8WkK1VFORi_Ygf1MCsWyBifFcHKEkELag9x3ro/w400-h300/IMG_1016.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The required tribute differs
depending on what they think of you. And once admitted, they will keep their
gazes fixed on you so you don’t do wrong things on their terrain.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">After that...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ssic58y8nDq2BIdZJ0pkXz2sq7i4xfoMkd9I04hQ3FQPtpdD5phpPZQ_3dprY8xgkBU-rk10Tk56z_FUDGW8vSKCvFj9QgNzMU1XZhJ85n1J4sfunHow2tgO1QL0HWDQrSaxFoekWSr3i1EUparWi0ae0EkXEhF6aJSBZKPDqsi53rL6t7KROblG/s5184/IMG_1017.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ssic58y8nDq2BIdZJ0pkXz2sq7i4xfoMkd9I04hQ3FQPtpdD5phpPZQ_3dprY8xgkBU-rk10Tk56z_FUDGW8vSKCvFj9QgNzMU1XZhJ85n1J4sfunHow2tgO1QL0HWDQrSaxFoekWSr3i1EUparWi0ae0EkXEhF6aJSBZKPDqsi53rL6t7KROblG/w400-h300/IMG_1017.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It’s all like this again.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJG8lqIqp6z-6c0YuCIcHmXONsMVZrt0dNxsH-F8dfW1xlvHSXp724D7DHC-Tyy-a5GRgbFlJGJBgRzDAaURFtiu68GBxZOzRQODrNTSrRcuwrXuIzdVOMcAGzrSge21H4zDoeKkP92oajU8uzfWLrvh8uSWi0qjHltiNg5YrGcLA3wn90s7fMgo9/s5184/IMG_1018.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJG8lqIqp6z-6c0YuCIcHmXONsMVZrt0dNxsH-F8dfW1xlvHSXp724D7DHC-Tyy-a5GRgbFlJGJBgRzDAaURFtiu68GBxZOzRQODrNTSrRcuwrXuIzdVOMcAGzrSge21H4zDoeKkP92oajU8uzfWLrvh8uSWi0qjHltiNg5YrGcLA3wn90s7fMgo9/w400-h300/IMG_1018.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And this. There really isn’t
that much else out here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDMnyPGodGJHi0W9KJ2NnPe7VOTNfTqo4ha65cy-A4eEsejvPxzQE3zDAYXDcH7voVbOYRIHTDMyD_pY438pu83F9rn4fIC3XUYS9UGBaRHjG1QTth3HgoSN2VzKGRqrrUWDGLRDaffSPQhBfPBuM2f1sugwJLKm2Aepu2pUZAKZpmkEEcEmko3Dua/s5184/IMG_1019.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDMnyPGodGJHi0W9KJ2NnPe7VOTNfTqo4ha65cy-A4eEsejvPxzQE3zDAYXDcH7voVbOYRIHTDMyD_pY438pu83F9rn4fIC3XUYS9UGBaRHjG1QTth3HgoSN2VzKGRqrrUWDGLRDaffSPQhBfPBuM2f1sugwJLKm2Aepu2pUZAKZpmkEEcEmko3Dua/w400-h300/IMG_1019.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Occasionally this, perhaps.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">At this point historic sites and
narrative landmarks are few and far between, rarely marked on the maps, and
easy to miss when they come.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg5fB4wp4isEK0L_kC7l9WBOJwYVXaYNPqF8l9ktRQgT46UXpt-3Oy7_maNE644KT_wYiXb9wzYp5pvvUNYMbPZ46dlWeeD2ApyRVfIKPg_C3HoQJMGxtoaVX-4ZlT-7pSTGTo9lGzyxzumGOEYqSFyb45ElnbuhrlWJUpUuxSHLjs60QUQSBA8Miu/s5184/IMG_1021.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg5fB4wp4isEK0L_kC7l9WBOJwYVXaYNPqF8l9ktRQgT46UXpt-3Oy7_maNE644KT_wYiXb9wzYp5pvvUNYMbPZ46dlWeeD2ApyRVfIKPg_C3HoQJMGxtoaVX-4ZlT-7pSTGTo9lGzyxzumGOEYqSFyb45ElnbuhrlWJUpUuxSHLjs60QUQSBA8Miu/w640-h480/IMG_1021.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The tiny stream beneath this
footbridge is in fact the River Cole. It’s more significant than it looks, with
a very long record of human modification for milling, agriculture, flood
protection, and, since 1995, a major project to restore its natural water
profile and ecology. Much of it runs across protected National Trust land and
marks the provincial border between Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQnZKwGWW_q_TiTSuFi2HPo4C0vuww9eODGWX3lTyPEByvci5Vxo8ixLnpf6_AcG55P43yDGghNxMkS1jDR6_mAJr-Ci65bScG3xBx0pbYPOO9h5tdi2egEWIsYQjBkYcbCVIeh-R9vtTdkawx3RauBQjzJTYpdkp_9IHViY5_Wy7ubkQxDM_nzi5/s5184/IMG_1022.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQnZKwGWW_q_TiTSuFi2HPo4C0vuww9eODGWX3lTyPEByvci5Vxo8ixLnpf6_AcG55P43yDGghNxMkS1jDR6_mAJr-Ci65bScG3xBx0pbYPOO9h5tdi2egEWIsYQjBkYcbCVIeh-R9vtTdkawx3RauBQjzJTYpdkp_9IHViY5_Wy7ubkQxDM_nzi5/w400-h300/IMG_1022.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The river says: “I did tell them
it was unnavigable. They could have listened.”</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDvYHqbCQJd_nPCILjMU5Sib7noIUH870eY3WFVrGDdwh1Kj5WR0w-25xVSM_4KnbL7Zo6A8Oqk2_LXqocbzAxYpI3CIFcKAr0969s-HgiJNclCUs0oGX9EZpu-MdTLjngsPpzq2NnMgYeOS3vQpdwA11CGA54MB18w8l9kt9DMesAswRvnLEh5Ocj/s5184/IMG_1023.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDvYHqbCQJd_nPCILjMU5Sib7noIUH870eY3WFVrGDdwh1Kj5WR0w-25xVSM_4KnbL7Zo6A8Oqk2_LXqocbzAxYpI3CIFcKAr0969s-HgiJNclCUs0oGX9EZpu-MdTLjngsPpzq2NnMgYeOS3vQpdwA11CGA54MB18w8l9kt9DMesAswRvnLEh5Ocj/w400-h300/IMG_1023.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And this must be where the
cows put people who refuse to proffer tribute.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbA0jDUTH_geMQFp8wEWHJbWRKRPVJtHpjdamqT0WVeVw786xc4NWmqsUy_GY0JkJwJLAb0Z21FiU0UDRKKpTpnu25fS0AMyTUvnVI2CnXLlcFkZK9WBWslZRYSZAx5OIOjugBw8dHuwoA1kCIF8iJGPgtcWviLWeGvQBV-xftFvRN0hbYRTuB9D5b/s5184/IMG_1024.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbA0jDUTH_geMQFp8wEWHJbWRKRPVJtHpjdamqT0WVeVw786xc4NWmqsUy_GY0JkJwJLAb0Z21FiU0UDRKKpTpnu25fS0AMyTUvnVI2CnXLlcFkZK9WBWslZRYSZAx5OIOjugBw8dHuwoA1kCIF8iJGPgtcWviLWeGvQBV-xftFvRN0hbYRTuB9D5b/w640-h480/IMG_1024.JPG" width="640" /></a></div> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Through a riverside thicket, another
surprise awaits.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJc5-X5-k1wcZQ3py5lpbfXizdP-FEAJMIQaaz5ycJ_N6uCTSbHoHCBQNVUG5hicifsVtHI-g5WijjuRcVHvxE2ryJmlPW08PLVV6WpxAl9CY8e1-L5Hu4WYr7RkZqjHvI3SrsTlvbYXYdF_QpGJrHUtXhmlkMzrGrvHXwHGHFoQtkoYtX1_2WrAxE/s5184/IMG_1025.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJc5-X5-k1wcZQ3py5lpbfXizdP-FEAJMIQaaz5ycJ_N6uCTSbHoHCBQNVUG5hicifsVtHI-g5WijjuRcVHvxE2ryJmlPW08PLVV6WpxAl9CY8e1-L5Hu4WYr7RkZqjHvI3SrsTlvbYXYdF_QpGJrHUtXhmlkMzrGrvHXwHGHFoQtkoYtX1_2WrAxE/w400-h300/IMG_1025.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz1ZTcAYav0tvhz9V3sjg-4ozpk8Xl3ITQscATsxFpwg1UBoeCynMdYSmmgRNJj-fYk-BGmIVhvS5d9M1pJRakXEUYZ22JP_0ErY29wSNtEwko6t9ObKM9IoG3t5uCyF8cCqudITZwsroAA3GyeHQ95MVfy3RhMTx29GLAcOA1YJs0korXTlzHMgbh/s5184/IMG_1026.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz1ZTcAYav0tvhz9V3sjg-4ozpk8Xl3ITQscATsxFpwg1UBoeCynMdYSmmgRNJj-fYk-BGmIVhvS5d9M1pJRakXEUYZ22JP_0ErY29wSNtEwko6t9ObKM9IoG3t5uCyF8cCqudITZwsroAA3GyeHQ95MVfy3RhMTx29GLAcOA1YJs0korXTlzHMgbh/w400-h300/IMG_1026.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Spring has yet to reach this part.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR7hkcf_LvDg7GL8L0gXLFnB3cv_GHFLmD5B8MxNd1zxTW8xedear6d9mFalT0ryTzEFVbhZdOpYBSZJHUV935bhPMnviSSB5oe0G7I732T5djZ-oYU-R6LQKxEAiYwApkYlEjQEUyUu8ROyhtBP4z69mTVCAjNAa8WpNigUBoV0Mp5Iw0b2Oo0S5A/s5184/IMG_1027.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR7hkcf_LvDg7GL8L0gXLFnB3cv_GHFLmD5B8MxNd1zxTW8xedear6d9mFalT0ryTzEFVbhZdOpYBSZJHUV935bhPMnviSSB5oe0G7I732T5djZ-oYU-R6LQKxEAiYwApkYlEjQEUyUu8ROyhtBP4z69mTVCAjNAa8WpNigUBoV0Mp5Iw0b2Oo0S5A/w400-h300/IMG_1027.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The trees here are equipped
with ancient laser cannons; be careful not to wake them.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbipOxERoX5W19TZU2qImHuxedJ9xdK9i-GtrWw32SDowc7fW3SFZL_aVFUvF9jygjx2dRZvlR6WJIvLvvajasil6-Tsqmyn3igI4mLL2lSw_Kr5KjN6AvhDZmK7v6Wy7H5Fx-RUKAeeVD6XKtITYBhMX7HkyzQgB-E4RLBadZwtRex84pe66DUggd/s5184/IMG_1028.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbipOxERoX5W19TZU2qImHuxedJ9xdK9i-GtrWw32SDowc7fW3SFZL_aVFUvF9jygjx2dRZvlR6WJIvLvvajasil6-Tsqmyn3igI4mLL2lSw_Kr5KjN6AvhDZmK7v6Wy7H5Fx-RUKAeeVD6XKtITYBhMX7HkyzQgB-E4RLBadZwtRex84pe66DUggd/w400-h300/IMG_1028.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Evidence of preparations underway
for the worsening consequences of Brexit.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">At first sight, the field beyond the woods
might be any other. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGMaBqd4_CHYrNZEIZD6XT7CxkGPrXRz-iQ5jRgboBqlVbiXuRc7W0rGD2UGhSsYjI1kWMshcMB8qRHe3wVYFALVhMRLgGveW8Kn-B1cDEXmOta6Y_EIRVif99LmqJPNxT2-JaDyAtP1yl88D2VqhlbvTVDyoNqiFkDx4FV-pr3Zri-yZym0Na91tT/s5184/IMG_1029.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGMaBqd4_CHYrNZEIZD6XT7CxkGPrXRz-iQ5jRgboBqlVbiXuRc7W0rGD2UGhSsYjI1kWMshcMB8qRHe3wVYFALVhMRLgGveW8Kn-B1cDEXmOta6Y_EIRVif99LmqJPNxT2-JaDyAtP1yl88D2VqhlbvTVDyoNqiFkDx4FV-pr3Zri-yZym0Na91tT/w400-h300/IMG_1029.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">One of the extremely few
watercraft of notable size to be found this far up. It’s unlikely to go
anywhere soon.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLcah_-2PtMA8N8UnNw1hIzePIdv_YGEX9CCEXJAX3kNNAdvVNjVfJF8bXKNurtlQvU9aR6Xcs1DIQ8z_qofOPQz-LtCkQ3PlD2sntm1EtkzB_qnfflCE8KXPh4GJa73uFOZWuQ2k3ccPaIw4D-i_-XNADghW_AC0K5m7iQ7zrXdKWHtGfgfS7qa3z/s5184/IMG_1030.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLcah_-2PtMA8N8UnNw1hIzePIdv_YGEX9CCEXJAX3kNNAdvVNjVfJF8bXKNurtlQvU9aR6Xcs1DIQ8z_qofOPQz-LtCkQ3PlD2sntm1EtkzB_qnfflCE8KXPh4GJa73uFOZWuQ2k3ccPaIw4D-i_-XNADghW_AC0K5m7iQ7zrXdKWHtGfgfS7qa3z/w640-h480/IMG_1030.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Closer inspection of this
field reveals a not-especially-agricultural instrument.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This is apparently an active airstrip
– most likely a private one, with a very long taxiway off to a hangar amidst
the farms of Upper Inglesham. Another expression perhaps of the strong imprint
of twentieth-century military aviation in this region.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg10ciz6fu9EImQMFw_GGne6olujBpm5Lc144L8RIeOn3NVthiJx769cM5eI9bya4OeN7stMKvqRrhpFR89HvYyvYF__SkjIYRFOBGGTlhrmB9Ti852yDeM8N4zoOWtSH9uQ4OQgegclTIwticXlXN-qVMfSQ48sp8BbJST_cXJi_g4MjFR3k0kZdt/s5184/IMG_1033.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg10ciz6fu9EImQMFw_GGne6olujBpm5Lc144L8RIeOn3NVthiJx769cM5eI9bya4OeN7stMKvqRrhpFR89HvYyvYF__SkjIYRFOBGGTlhrmB9Ti852yDeM8N4zoOWtSH9uQ4OQgegclTIwticXlXN-qVMfSQ48sp8BbJST_cXJi_g4MjFR3k0kZdt/w400-h300/IMG_1033.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWT-AC389W0TTXAyFdK1cHgEX0gpytALjzHwrSU3PJGhvTe78-y8iLtPyB3MO26qU823KO2sKJNEpywxoHXOw6_eIUbEeycan6gssCFGnXByKlR5q5g9_F58Rl7zX0ecaNkxW23EhpJBZjKufjvbsln61drokF8h7CvNVopnyKFs4Ed5U2eYILT19/s5184/IMG_1035.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWT-AC389W0TTXAyFdK1cHgEX0gpytALjzHwrSU3PJGhvTe78-y8iLtPyB3MO26qU823KO2sKJNEpywxoHXOw6_eIUbEeycan6gssCFGnXByKlR5q5g9_F58Rl7zX0ecaNkxW23EhpJBZjKufjvbsln61drokF8h7CvNVopnyKFs4Ed5U2eYILT19/w640-h480/IMG_1035.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">From this snarl of thorns the
Bydemill Brook trickles into the Thames.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8HMdZ3PCGiC23-3FAX1LF6tUnyAtMreVuYHQgApP786JIXWD4BRriMUIbo7goFEe_cQSeWDyQJur4H0VG9tDeE0MV45l_njWMHb8_VUx3sCNiz4dm0s3_2znJqgfL6CQfGUw30OxWjPdYGrBz1Q00If_qTo65YDs0PsBrD99D5oR_7bvNAB4xQSpU/s5184/IMG_1032.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8HMdZ3PCGiC23-3FAX1LF6tUnyAtMreVuYHQgApP786JIXWD4BRriMUIbo7goFEe_cQSeWDyQJur4H0VG9tDeE0MV45l_njWMHb8_VUx3sCNiz4dm0s3_2znJqgfL6CQfGUw30OxWjPdYGrBz1Q00If_qTo65YDs0PsBrD99D5oR_7bvNAB4xQSpU/w640-h480/IMG_1032.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">If you approach the tree
barrier, the fog thickens to zero visibility till you stumble into an invisible
wall, and the message appears: “You cannot go further.”</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Kempsford</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">At this point some thicker strips of
bush occupy the riverbank, forcing a two-kilometre detour over farm fields. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3IaB9IeigG9Aw70fZntcDMOvOXussBYnwyOMdDgpWI-k7GxpdUau-OvpR5vCPPAhMKc0VIlZ8LNUcwUpfhicesE9KStZMcoLJIpBK6YyV3Q77A9AsYxwhggUlxzZgDYmx954UCO8FFi90wnZjLgzC77kyrWxA1s8ZjkDL0GLzZLoBE-dvgBnf9FmS/s5184/IMG_1038.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3IaB9IeigG9Aw70fZntcDMOvOXussBYnwyOMdDgpWI-k7GxpdUau-OvpR5vCPPAhMKc0VIlZ8LNUcwUpfhicesE9KStZMcoLJIpBK6YyV3Q77A9AsYxwhggUlxzZgDYmx954UCO8FFi90wnZjLgzC77kyrWxA1s8ZjkDL0GLzZLoBE-dvgBnf9FmS/w400-h300/IMG_1038.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Red on the left, silver on the
right.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9eYZybqyzOddFNVRUtvXnZ3h9Pmg6Rt59XpdrGcxqniDM630dvNn49cVdSolUt0CpeN9IuOC74nEctTWSC9oQuScPsmv4msOQP0U0F1zG2a7SYSvn1lshK_06pb1BNlv5L4GVuBdx2ZmLwOGPjjinQNG6iT9YbcGifIJuREVDkw5_JtvrSqDqPbMX/s5184/IMG_1039.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9eYZybqyzOddFNVRUtvXnZ3h9Pmg6Rt59XpdrGcxqniDM630dvNn49cVdSolUt0CpeN9IuOC74nEctTWSC9oQuScPsmv4msOQP0U0F1zG2a7SYSvn1lshK_06pb1BNlv5L4GVuBdx2ZmLwOGPjjinQNG6iT9YbcGifIJuREVDkw5_JtvrSqDqPbMX/w400-h300/IMG_1039.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">English paddy fields? Who
would have thought.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The river is momentarily rejoined at <b>Hannington
Bridge</b> – which is in fact two bridges, carrying a minor road across the
main river and a side-channel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOqPIITbTe05Av_KTxhiONwtE6HlGgPYfJ_3NG4hAJJJ9zhSckAcqly5X9Zo4ztWEE_zc2aiBmqmSTyVTRe1lgtiDv3QiHcwnOJz-2IJMJdm5blqIGBv5hdter6rQfe2c49ddQvrTnY7enIJ69ipiC2KlPi7cJ_DPerPdxqV5WpMmT4feoYdsLOzd8/s5184/IMG_1042.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOqPIITbTe05Av_KTxhiONwtE6HlGgPYfJ_3NG4hAJJJ9zhSckAcqly5X9Zo4ztWEE_zc2aiBmqmSTyVTRe1lgtiDv3QiHcwnOJz-2IJMJdm5blqIGBv5hdter6rQfe2c49ddQvrTnY7enIJ69ipiC2KlPi7cJ_DPerPdxqV5WpMmT4feoYdsLOzd8/w400-h300/IMG_1042.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Again, in this high-level
close-to-the-end fog be prepared to encounter creatures from any other zone.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4SrUWABDwzrS8dH0wUnmP9fvoiRq08kGM5M44j2qnH7qOoHkJQFZH-0aZRZZFjIEOuxrcQOGX--Q1r8fm_jJlfYj1aiMwtKcgMQCiGZB5vS0i8HDFn7MVt_gnjrqBJQInJg1xX5yXd0SXzh9IAwIn6eFdM-VeAxiX-xdorLfxJ_50iwHfiZY22Nb9/s5184/IMG_1046.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4SrUWABDwzrS8dH0wUnmP9fvoiRq08kGM5M44j2qnH7qOoHkJQFZH-0aZRZZFjIEOuxrcQOGX--Q1r8fm_jJlfYj1aiMwtKcgMQCiGZB5vS0i8HDFn7MVt_gnjrqBJQInJg1xX5yXd0SXzh9IAwIn6eFdM-VeAxiX-xdorLfxJ_50iwHfiZY22Nb9/w640-h480/IMG_1046.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">These may look like their
cousins from previous areas, but don’t be fooled: their HP and DPS are
extremely high.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWWJkRanD-lCiME_RSxWxf5VWCxtvFr4upaODrddmj-iQdNdaVPmuCotWme3LuZBgIaU5rIxOdD1jLTPf1rEpfSU8c7p2zigTNT0XGjf3yNH4GwGiE9dQE1zP8AkQUeHScSwq1kkk9AXNM_zhndEYAbYcenK76_h_61hrlanubVNTemTcexPtzhplL/s5184/IMG_1047.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWWJkRanD-lCiME_RSxWxf5VWCxtvFr4upaODrddmj-iQdNdaVPmuCotWme3LuZBgIaU5rIxOdD1jLTPf1rEpfSU8c7p2zigTNT0XGjf3yNH4GwGiE9dQE1zP8AkQUeHScSwq1kkk9AXNM_zhndEYAbYcenK76_h_61hrlanubVNTemTcexPtzhplL/w400-h300/IMG_1047.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The river at Hannington
Bridge, dense with vegetation. For those rash enough to take their boats beyond
Lechlade, this is typically about as far as they get before the machetes fall
from their trembling arms and the chains snap off their chainsaws.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Again the riverside becomes
inaccessible, with wayfarers diverted along side-channels. The south bank here
is a broad web of farm fields, but over to the north the village of <b>Kempsford</b>
sits on the river and the ruined Thames and Severn Canal.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht5GwziXcGy4TnTFTgtAj48z-eAPUQ5g4-sI6CblOwuOFcaJ7BaSiPAH2GJgsAuAo-lrKHyJxQ6AF-g6CZT1YG6ZsW86dgFPIGOMIkCF_d3mo6vItxm4QFIdCdDP9FhOzRVZruHROUD3BGQudd8GL9tG6sng7kDeN911tM_iFYh0t_xLv7tzZXVsXV/s5184/IMG_1055.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht5GwziXcGy4TnTFTgtAj48z-eAPUQ5g4-sI6CblOwuOFcaJ7BaSiPAH2GJgsAuAo-lrKHyJxQ6AF-g6CZT1YG6ZsW86dgFPIGOMIkCF_d3mo6vItxm4QFIdCdDP9FhOzRVZruHROUD3BGQudd8GL9tG6sng7kDeN911tM_iFYh0t_xLv7tzZXVsXV/w400-h300/IMG_1055.JPG" width="400" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Small and isolated as it is,
Kempsford – whose Anglo-Saxon name, <i>Kynemereforde</i>, is commonly translated
as ‘Ford of the Great Marsh’ – bears some weight in military heritage. It first
appears in the <i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i> in the entry for the year 800, which
tells of an army of the Hwicce, a Gloucestershire people who by then were
clients of Mercia, riding out from this village to do battle with a Kingdom of
Wessex force coming across from the Wiltshire side. Wessex won, but both sides’
commanders were killed. Then after the Norman invasion Kempsford’s manor passed
through a long succession of fighting nobles – most famously John of Gaunt, first
Duke of Lancaster and progenitor of many English monarchs in the late
Plantagenet violence-pit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Dfp_B55JYXMIygBnXry6RbFRPSVbVRAWhMUsxfwYvfnCHS4Q-dFwF0WLpP6eJx0d6sWvr-kqfe8XJSz6VYE-2a01PPrF7C8qu8tHghINV5OQg0QiEJccJHU-168aFKxa6fLJqVwLaqVfjTlW1BK9WWPmCMzfVddASqAKpiqu3Z2DFwqVUbSoYKaq/s5184/IMG_1060.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Dfp_B55JYXMIygBnXry6RbFRPSVbVRAWhMUsxfwYvfnCHS4Q-dFwF0WLpP6eJx0d6sWvr-kqfe8XJSz6VYE-2a01PPrF7C8qu8tHghINV5OQg0QiEJccJHU-168aFKxa6fLJqVwLaqVfjTlW1BK9WWPmCMzfVddASqAKpiqu3Z2DFwqVUbSoYKaq/w640-h480/IMG_1060.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The tower of Kempsford’s St.
Mary’s church overlooks the riverside fields, long in use for archery training.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEcIvaXmCGlVloLUcR6a1bjdwrCGq6sTvAJH0TVFuw33xvT8Vz56zcLUoCdi2xeeEsxAhvT2fvX2dWl-evwbIahKz9Sj_-_VFcwvtZpTF7fCnHy2OB6V8BxGveW_E4xUXCWtGQIxf85kY7kStLLVkyz3IRa4BtCHCRV8tIZXL8d4DgDdSosPeNxxZV/s5184/IMG_1058.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEcIvaXmCGlVloLUcR6a1bjdwrCGq6sTvAJH0TVFuw33xvT8Vz56zcLUoCdi2xeeEsxAhvT2fvX2dWl-evwbIahKz9Sj_-_VFcwvtZpTF7fCnHy2OB6V8BxGveW_E4xUXCWtGQIxf85kY7kStLLVkyz3IRa4BtCHCRV8tIZXL8d4DgDdSosPeNxxZV/w400-h300/IMG_1058.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The church is twelfth-century,
but its tower was added by John of Gaunt in the 1390s and acquired a heap of
dynastic emblems. Unlike the little church in Inglesford this one did get a
thorough Victorian ‘restoration’ in the 1850s, so most of its present interior
is recent.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Today Kempsford’s military story continues
on account of the large RAF Fairford airbase to its north. Built in 1944
to provide air support for the Normandy landings, it remained in use during and
after the Cold War as a base for United States Air Force heavy bombers,
including for the 2003 war of aggression in Iraq. Exercises have continued
there since, with four B-52s arriving just this February amidst the ongoing war
in Ukraine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWQHOl0Z-FlJBKZKInn63YygV3QpEnEFdi68vwNMlYJsgZ6wu49feAUDf9cGWg-oTyMjX3ALeiK7fQQ7qHJXOdibjWQSWd2KeMLVdD7SjQCnMCD0XYwBjLU9o4_rT11nWSys0usSp3V_kXLTsKdnUPDcMhxtL2V4TM2If4nxd2U4RZrH_Xvz8SKaUJ/s5184/IMG_1062.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWQHOl0Z-FlJBKZKInn63YygV3QpEnEFdi68vwNMlYJsgZ6wu49feAUDf9cGWg-oTyMjX3ALeiK7fQQ7qHJXOdibjWQSWd2KeMLVdD7SjQCnMCD0XYwBjLU9o4_rT11nWSys0usSp3V_kXLTsKdnUPDcMhxtL2V4TM2If4nxd2U4RZrH_Xvz8SKaUJ/w400-h300/IMG_1062.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">On the south bank the detour
continues to Castle Eaton, past this hostel for extremely small people.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Castle Eaton</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Access to the river is properly
regained at another ford village, <b>Castle Eaton</b>. No-one seems to know if
the castle actually existed or where it was if it did, but there was supposedly
a Norman fortified manor house near the site of the village’s present church. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNfeGKEV8hKla8mlLPifxDUwU2xUo_PX9APUThUvZ1MjuVkaCoGxY9g5dMCKXkcen07zHO7H9M8gUiqcmBXZpzr739AWkv1SCTjlZ7Sn-apdayrcVy7ARydf4uA30MwIDjOfWuZWBGCwUvf3Y95IBVufcSgAxm7ZQRg2n5sTjrx9DKjo2lh8DUl1M/s5184/IMG_1065.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNfeGKEV8hKla8mlLPifxDUwU2xUo_PX9APUThUvZ1MjuVkaCoGxY9g5dMCKXkcen07zHO7H9M8gUiqcmBXZpzr739AWkv1SCTjlZ7Sn-apdayrcVy7ARydf4uA30MwIDjOfWuZWBGCwUvf3Y95IBVufcSgAxm7ZQRg2n5sTjrx9DKjo2lh8DUl1M/w640-h480/IMG_1065.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Today this village joins the moral
fortification of the human race against Vladimir Putin.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJe1varNmvg7oqdJl5lkwSAnGEQrz3E5WFGFJd4xvTP5o4I4HWo3f4rPaIh3PwR-t3-OLnmbMd0mkacK2uZiedz-eTnJDTcsbCwToRWhcb4wjLYy_nbaduDKezZQPtl7Gi3HaIhFwF05jFS83WZTqRCaOSEDzOGCOkfwr-qN4NFmuvw98laUm--94c/s5184/IMG_1067.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJe1varNmvg7oqdJl5lkwSAnGEQrz3E5WFGFJd4xvTP5o4I4HWo3f4rPaIh3PwR-t3-OLnmbMd0mkacK2uZiedz-eTnJDTcsbCwToRWhcb4wjLYy_nbaduDKezZQPtl7Gi3HaIhFwF05jFS83WZTqRCaOSEDzOGCOkfwr-qN4NFmuvw98laUm--94c/w400-h300/IMG_1067.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Castle Eaton has its own St.
Mary’s church. It has Norman origins (if likewise ‘restored’ by the
Victorians), but most of the village’s Cotswold-stone core seems to be
eighteenth-century or so.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieVc33qtRsSh4Eaq5oGtuBMIzbQdiB2bo7oyYCjet3VtyPdKEBNFWZFaiUtbEcCm9jIm6k4aob_9uygWTqjrXrajIuKThT0BnfnOQWz_xl2wsb4HgHrsg9QzLW8IlUcwbDJHIJu0BodZOAGCVLcgw2xvIR5-DkV-4-qFaiHMbtnOROQp87-sP5uaBh/s5184/IMG_1066.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieVc33qtRsSh4Eaq5oGtuBMIzbQdiB2bo7oyYCjet3VtyPdKEBNFWZFaiUtbEcCm9jIm6k4aob_9uygWTqjrXrajIuKThT0BnfnOQWz_xl2wsb4HgHrsg9QzLW8IlUcwbDJHIJu0BodZOAGCVLcgw2xvIR5-DkV-4-qFaiHMbtnOROQp87-sP5uaBh/w400-h300/IMG_1066.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Castle Eaton’s <i>Red Lion</i>
pub asserts to be the first (i.e. most upstream) pub on the Thames.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">And from there, it is all open
countryside as far as Cricklade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1hgeZl2iPFbnpzuNHtV2SSYJ9ZQL_TjkgcS8Lm9P4I1qXp1PBsWNZ6yZonQTSacsT8rV2JLg29OCT5kiTdtw95nQTWsGvW3yXZEm9enffm8XUIsk2ul3HBTSAjzrfs1z2h3WTyPI2j1-8d1zZoLjvreTCJeRPUd88EGCuAaq3GHxGnv0TT7dUM12N/s5184/IMG_1070.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1hgeZl2iPFbnpzuNHtV2SSYJ9ZQL_TjkgcS8Lm9P4I1qXp1PBsWNZ6yZonQTSacsT8rV2JLg29OCT5kiTdtw95nQTWsGvW3yXZEm9enffm8XUIsk2ul3HBTSAjzrfs1z2h3WTyPI2j1-8d1zZoLjvreTCJeRPUd88EGCuAaq3GHxGnv0TT7dUM12N/w640-h480/IMG_1070.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Castle Eaton’s west outskirts.
You can just glimpse its bridge, a ‘deplorable iron trough’ in the words of Thames
explorer Fred Thacker in 1920, which replaced a locally-beloved timber
construction twenty-seven years prior. Another explorer, Charles George Harper,
was equally seething in his 1910 <i>Thames Valley Villages</i>: ‘We cannot
frame to use language too strong for a crime so heinous against the
picturesque’, committed on account of the ‘wicked ways of the Thames
Conservancy’, that most ‘diligent destroyer of the beauty of the river’.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY5nc0phslvrrYQROfy38AOezabPgz2QD92iAGJHZQbpBikT-istRqTUkEjioXaE9yZAAOSbrvyq-J0zL_g4b4HjhWr30fqgxLOTOlPnQ4lqEuklqZTa89jAaP0UU6eeHqwE7q3sTmBowXn4iikH5ki1Z2Wo4GSUWS4teFOqG3JYbexVTnWKhmPdEP/s5184/IMG_1073.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY5nc0phslvrrYQROfy38AOezabPgz2QD92iAGJHZQbpBikT-istRqTUkEjioXaE9yZAAOSbrvyq-J0zL_g4b4HjhWr30fqgxLOTOlPnQ4lqEuklqZTa89jAaP0UU6eeHqwE7q3sTmBowXn4iikH5ki1Z2Wo4GSUWS4teFOqG3JYbexVTnWKhmPdEP/w400-h300/IMG_1073.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A random holiday campsite and
bungalow park crops up outside the riverbend here, with a mysterious older
chalet in its midst.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpK6eRppMmeedYNL8z9KVSWvjJlCKWVIgIspbkMK8gl2v-AvxySKB0V0EDWhNHIkUzFZdRwJqIKCaY4MtUVx5kHIrbeurBP9-_3HYujMHPu2FMSl_BEgCTt47M0vIs6DjdzqxTvpRsFFiIQxLjihJrUTMWRCHI_dCG286X-NLCMsUMd2DhT3BNJm8Q/s5184/IMG_1076.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpK6eRppMmeedYNL8z9KVSWvjJlCKWVIgIspbkMK8gl2v-AvxySKB0V0EDWhNHIkUzFZdRwJqIKCaY4MtUVx5kHIrbeurBP9-_3HYujMHPu2FMSl_BEgCTt47M0vIs6DjdzqxTvpRsFFiIQxLjihJrUTMWRCHI_dCG286X-NLCMsUMd2DhT3BNJm8Q/w400-h300/IMG_1076.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A small friend.<br /></span></b></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv9pT_lhura_jGUq3bXRjnOEKOlSe8EoKl74aaJF09zTTerOtvOQLQlW540flLWOaDraojEWc5ZSyaCfLCHM0OIHWg_7t-O49WNBe6MvIfUPlW94Vd6Ff3KnxgzF3sFddCsHKbWt9qPZuAyCY7Cl_mTSo_iWxYsXlQYFRaoWdbu269LEu4B3Kcmpdo/s5184/IMG_1077.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv9pT_lhura_jGUq3bXRjnOEKOlSe8EoKl74aaJF09zTTerOtvOQLQlW540flLWOaDraojEWc5ZSyaCfLCHM0OIHWg_7t-O49WNBe6MvIfUPlW94Vd6Ff3KnxgzF3sFddCsHKbWt9qPZuAyCY7Cl_mTSo_iWxYsXlQYFRaoWdbu269LEu4B3Kcmpdo/w400-h300/IMG_1077.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">One of a cluster of ponds here
that are almost certainly filled-in gravel pits – a herald of their vast constellation
beyond Cricklade that now constitute the Cotswold Water Park.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">If you somehow get a canoe out here,
these stretches seem not quite as impenetrable as those down to Lechlade. But
you would still have to contend with the thick submerged plants and rumours of
monstrous boat-ramming fish.</span>
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3qNh9kw9mQ-z-hHPk9H91979pLFRmDEGzs-Z2uEU9Qm3kpTYEVhTwBIJBRheAOlTzJGLrzZgBRmmamUEGdYhDyX8UfwJlxY1ypefm2lcO53p5m9i9mijf9kS0X2uzYTQJZKeRq3i7Q4V1XDrkegliTt7-1LfcOJZ8OK2_Ka9kQEcSwKoUQZUrId3D/s5184/IMG_1079.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3qNh9kw9mQ-z-hHPk9H91979pLFRmDEGzs-Z2uEU9Qm3kpTYEVhTwBIJBRheAOlTzJGLrzZgBRmmamUEGdYhDyX8UfwJlxY1ypefm2lcO53p5m9i9mijf9kS0X2uzYTQJZKeRq3i7Q4V1XDrkegliTt7-1LfcOJZ8OK2_Ka9kQEcSwKoUQZUrId3D/w640-h480/IMG_1079.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It looks sedate enough, after
a good week or two of dry weather. But flood conditions here after heavy rains
must be another matter entirely.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGDfTd0EUzC4-kfx2it8ZmZP2jzC4Pg4Q1dcCWBF7fobOz5Pr2GQhXMrqmNKTGuY3DHxemTdcYNm9kl1-TneTxOkXL3w_ELHWwIPEMj_Wq7864UNf0CACvLQt1xPsR-s6ypCuJLDJv9a4dOoWz75BbAsMSAAn2EsV8ZU6RQQQxHdmP3xnCZvk_EV2f/s5184/IMG_1080.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGDfTd0EUzC4-kfx2it8ZmZP2jzC4Pg4Q1dcCWBF7fobOz5Pr2GQhXMrqmNKTGuY3DHxemTdcYNm9kl1-TneTxOkXL3w_ELHWwIPEMj_Wq7864UNf0CACvLQt1xPsR-s6ypCuJLDJv9a4dOoWz75BbAsMSAAn2EsV8ZU6RQQQxHdmP3xnCZvk_EV2f/w400-h300/IMG_1080.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another light thicket.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQR3fIdVJKyttDtONGN78oD_ccsfvhiIFn2_NPBnJjiLt8Sy4cO5NvCMNAPUAr3og2Olv-U7MmXEl4_CNRmCFz2ZK33UFdnCG4php90DIVGhYky_MzV-EhNIDi0aDS8SCph_cQwy7g3yBgb-gVdujed1iZr0pa9JsBCjt_S6ERJrhbKWrdzY6EnWzB/s5184/IMG_1083.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQR3fIdVJKyttDtONGN78oD_ccsfvhiIFn2_NPBnJjiLt8Sy4cO5NvCMNAPUAr3og2Olv-U7MmXEl4_CNRmCFz2ZK33UFdnCG4php90DIVGhYky_MzV-EhNIDi0aDS8SCph_cQwy7g3yBgb-gVdujed1iZr0pa9JsBCjt_S6ERJrhbKWrdzY6EnWzB/w640-h480/IMG_1083.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Fields. Reeds. Swans.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBbWoLi9t8fdFYmPXzIcdBM51NyRGAI5hC2WPZgpCxzYCg9vd8uos0ump1kkKRg-b3DZTX7tCjmd7eTvxaNZ88iHY2f0zvalcjQAbq7xsVNSPYdEQf9ZHgN7Q1qjnDZwd22Kz6C6_p7hot2a9owRsVd4-zauMk7SjhPmePmoUFs04cskz6OMrMAIIy/s5184/IMG_1084.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBbWoLi9t8fdFYmPXzIcdBM51NyRGAI5hC2WPZgpCxzYCg9vd8uos0ump1kkKRg-b3DZTX7tCjmd7eTvxaNZ88iHY2f0zvalcjQAbq7xsVNSPYdEQf9ZHgN7Q1qjnDZwd22Kz6C6_p7hot2a9owRsVd4-zauMk7SjhPmePmoUFs04cskz6OMrMAIIy/w400-h300/IMG_1084.JPG" width="400" /></a></div> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">There is extremely little settlement
in reach of the river here. Most of these fields appear attached to some tiny
farm clusters together labelled on the map as <b>Water Eaton</b> – presumably agrarian
offshoots of Castle Eaton.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJeYp_MKUUsxSCnNSnNtcz3-Ksm6fOm2Z2YdLu_0HgSTio83--mNWIYbIlHfhVMRlKU98fstCe4bmqdOnFPIM4kMWBjPXqTAMWn4MScYgzgJ2Oeq09ds5w5Zl2Q4IqXrOssaoFO7XZNm5f6syhu6nBmf0QxUKWmMRSmoj9Fxhy5OrJ-jKj0IMI5xAh/s5184/IMG_1085.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJeYp_MKUUsxSCnNSnNtcz3-Ksm6fOm2Z2YdLu_0HgSTio83--mNWIYbIlHfhVMRlKU98fstCe4bmqdOnFPIM4kMWBjPXqTAMWn4MScYgzgJ2Oeq09ds5w5Zl2Q4IqXrOssaoFO7XZNm5f6syhu6nBmf0QxUKWmMRSmoj9Fxhy5OrJ-jKj0IMI5xAh/w400-h300/IMG_1085.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This one, for instance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2pw7bWKD5eiGBNQ8MpxutQUDN4huCUWnIC5z4fqEhsGCCnx0506IfhT-4ZHVRNWelIVrPXdgcj9VhAwEBHZL9ghUyu66DgB5qejDw6BqXrnc6HCvhpIQUGDnIetrU-CvD-CmGAUAWPe2LFpBXVy87SQTUAy_Jn5uUBpP-njc0F8zSMEDpaKaY02pD/s5184/IMG_1086.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2pw7bWKD5eiGBNQ8MpxutQUDN4huCUWnIC5z4fqEhsGCCnx0506IfhT-4ZHVRNWelIVrPXdgcj9VhAwEBHZL9ghUyu66DgB5qejDw6BqXrnc6HCvhpIQUGDnIetrU-CvD-CmGAUAWPe2LFpBXVy87SQTUAy_Jn5uUBpP-njc0F8zSMEDpaKaY02pD/w400-h300/IMG_1086.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">One runs out of things to say
about this terrain. Not much further to go though.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ4Dg9IDuBgg8yC0FT81n0f1TWFSqbdzADzS4--5z7n8l6zuc54NDeIUiCm8mE5lFFd3spcP-gx2ksgLIkf_DoCmSb3FE0zHWl7nSy7vrwxaTUNMnHdD-JAA4jVWW2rSScyS-P4tUqsgml5Ygaucm2O2T7HBhqy2S-12YBxh6fJYRNkIVCUOj9bXRY/s5184/IMG_1088.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ4Dg9IDuBgg8yC0FT81n0f1TWFSqbdzADzS4--5z7n8l6zuc54NDeIUiCm8mE5lFFd3spcP-gx2ksgLIkf_DoCmSb3FE0zHWl7nSy7vrwxaTUNMnHdD-JAA4jVWW2rSScyS-P4tUqsgml5Ygaucm2O2T7HBhqy2S-12YBxh6fJYRNkIVCUOj9bXRY/w640-h480/IMG_1088.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Remember what it was like </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/10/thames-prologue-dark-river.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">beyond the Thames Barrier</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlRCxLFPkvkQb3ha7WV39nsXMe-AJexxVANq-4K3ZE6Ybl55zUIJokgVnCGAYzx4CGCEJBKejwQAfjHJoz8rheY65ES3HkPDwsx08AeSYbJcVyZgfFR5Zv2yO6hHORRfu0ZzB-Zf4Qkw21DXcMhQj7qL3PSpD0Go1dqD3zRHwERFXyPlQ5TWsGPo9-/s5184/IMG_1089.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlRCxLFPkvkQb3ha7WV39nsXMe-AJexxVANq-4K3ZE6Ybl55zUIJokgVnCGAYzx4CGCEJBKejwQAfjHJoz8rheY65ES3HkPDwsx08AeSYbJcVyZgfFR5Zv2yO6hHORRfu0ZzB-Zf4Qkw21DXcMhQj7qL3PSpD0Go1dqD3zRHwERFXyPlQ5TWsGPo9-/w400-h300/IMG_1089.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The largest bit of Water
Eaton. They appear to have electricity, at least.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgguAEvA2VbwxRipznNJv0LGhfbuLsI79rrSflwbB3kv6sHwEqsevCUSnwlMdNPRYkaNnbRMto6F0ETc1shBRpZ2OlytsBqYRDmYRenaVMdHtaSRSf7a8Bvx6Kvu_ODbCOnJrPhbpgQaM3RkbUoPJk2sJEVtoL7N9SVN4gayQ9jVhi0C9QQCb-q5wTx/s5184/IMG_1091.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgguAEvA2VbwxRipznNJv0LGhfbuLsI79rrSflwbB3kv6sHwEqsevCUSnwlMdNPRYkaNnbRMto6F0ETc1shBRpZ2OlytsBqYRDmYRenaVMdHtaSRSf7a8Bvx6Kvu_ODbCOnJrPhbpgQaM3RkbUoPJk2sJEVtoL7N9SVN4gayQ9jVhi0C9QQCb-q5wTx/w640-h480/IMG_1091.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEqk6bKJ_Y1XGU52pLngWv_iLhdlQV0jDM8bDQuJuOaTexTWIiIK26j4A5590ZEjMYtt4uq_nydDRzThkrAuoWgXdZml4ItaO_cd3PmJxDJNx3UWhU7G-yRyD-NJw9AmDft0xHXvwJKveJgbvoEfDM2J2G0GZgVr-v2mcafQ-pSZL0lmY7UQSV-HDG/s5184/IMG_1094.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEqk6bKJ_Y1XGU52pLngWv_iLhdlQV0jDM8bDQuJuOaTexTWIiIK26j4A5590ZEjMYtt4uq_nydDRzThkrAuoWgXdZml4ItaO_cd3PmJxDJNx3UWhU7G-yRyD-NJw9AmDft0xHXvwJKveJgbvoEfDM2J2G0GZgVr-v2mcafQ-pSZL0lmY7UQSV-HDG/w640-h480/IMG_1094.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Not the usual farm field crowd.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Cricklade</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Church towers are about the only
landmarks tall enough to alter the skyline up here. No surprise, then, as to
the first sign of Cricklade that comes in view.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx1qHkbk9nrovg5IShADEmDauxL7OXqIjtQBp48VxJZjgam_xoI32jysXfJ584ZU0I058khC7E4l9EfFRGJx0-q-JB_-dUgiW7wD83CTu_sIJC6P4V5zJb1IYTMTzlJ9aHiFVxOHfpq6i7zj8JDpdqOA9RksL8umw9RBF0nR-ir9fXpC1QYJsXN_gu/s5184/IMG_1097.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx1qHkbk9nrovg5IShADEmDauxL7OXqIjtQBp48VxJZjgam_xoI32jysXfJ584ZU0I058khC7E4l9EfFRGJx0-q-JB_-dUgiW7wD83CTu_sIJC6P4V5zJb1IYTMTzlJ9aHiFVxOHfpq6i7zj8JDpdqOA9RksL8umw9RBF0nR-ir9fXpC1QYJsXN_gu/w640-h480/IMG_1097.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The four-pointed tower of St.
Sampson’s Church, Cricklade, announces the final waypoint on this expedition.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGCzy66bCIzlJWX3S4FhDMd_oJPg13tXNNoQndwllD74pYv-RKOrTF6ToX5LqtOWHd7HJ8YSdpG142H0r1dzvoGEIOBrGlSWqL0n3Wv8TqeCqbi2RUUoqu5kvgxRLxZH7T5wATiWZX9Yxlf7n16Uw3Hoto1iyEI0a0Pv_nAOeOVX5i-WEJeaEP6q2i/s5184/IMG_1098.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGCzy66bCIzlJWX3S4FhDMd_oJPg13tXNNoQndwllD74pYv-RKOrTF6ToX5LqtOWHd7HJ8YSdpG142H0r1dzvoGEIOBrGlSWqL0n3Wv8TqeCqbi2RUUoqu5kvgxRLxZH7T5wATiWZX9Yxlf7n16Uw3Hoto1iyEI0a0Pv_nAOeOVX5i-WEJeaEP6q2i/w400-h300/IMG_1098.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Numerous wooden footbridges
like this span the river on the Cricklade approach.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTIeJ8pyWK3uSpNSXw3k1sO9mlPaoh95kUhRzlJ7QG1lWCyKgeHb_7bISpOH5OxlU31FHttg4MqWzMP-mN7QEk2t-4mk4uSrQnCw8taAAA8iN2W_KdVMS6wrJeoJU7NhZ0ocnaDcGcXEG48RwAabQy7HJO1ikCzIxlVS9Ws8mO5Bv_HpE9WkyWgAW/s5184/IMG_1100.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTIeJ8pyWK3uSpNSXw3k1sO9mlPaoh95kUhRzlJ7QG1lWCyKgeHb_7bISpOH5OxlU31FHttg4MqWzMP-mN7QEk2t-4mk4uSrQnCw8taAAA8iN2W_KdVMS6wrJeoJU7NhZ0ocnaDcGcXEG48RwAabQy7HJO1ikCzIxlVS9Ws8mO5Bv_HpE9WkyWgAW/w400-h300/IMG_1100.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">What’s in the pipes?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRxGUTomWEQZpYa_EuY7-EkKOKFmPXgNqRS6hGpdSOq6LJgl8_yvlTUjTUXikCgqI0i5cyJeO6VZN516rRhfMA6zy9nKRqEJ6QdM_NsmXyP8LIGRlkvr6z7b5x9SN04hW-FySHHw34pdvqwGh6jIDBNCUW9FVxS7Lg4j5S8qEsoir6OCyVmNb0sAYU/s5184/IMG_1102.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRxGUTomWEQZpYa_EuY7-EkKOKFmPXgNqRS6hGpdSOq6LJgl8_yvlTUjTUXikCgqI0i5cyJeO6VZN516rRhfMA6zy9nKRqEJ6QdM_NsmXyP8LIGRlkvr6z7b5x9SN04hW-FySHHw34pdvqwGh6jIDBNCUW9FVxS7Lg4j5S8qEsoir6OCyVmNb0sAYU/w640-h480/IMG_1102.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Just outside Cricklade, these
reaches’ noisiest human intrusion by far comes soaring in. It is the A419
Cricklade Bypass, part of the Swindon-Cirencester dual carriageway put through
over this concrete bridge in 1988.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw2WbTCba3nYoskbbKvJPQ3H1IkwCUvlwVaLXLNpBEpqvh-pw_RPUQq-LNpE-jFDP6e0o92FlBxaBikabXSgHmrbIzt2MdSXp8PzPldVjOICCJM4fpiwvffLSXlbL93hIKTxKTAE60cmInbN1lSGWqN_2xrwM2uOo5n-4_W8713F4bNHXl1ofv6EMa/s5184/IMG_1104.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw2WbTCba3nYoskbbKvJPQ3H1IkwCUvlwVaLXLNpBEpqvh-pw_RPUQq-LNpE-jFDP6e0o92FlBxaBikabXSgHmrbIzt2MdSXp8PzPldVjOICCJM4fpiwvffLSXlbL93hIKTxKTAE60cmInbN1lSGWqN_2xrwM2uOo5n-4_W8713F4bNHXl1ofv6EMa/w640-h480/IMG_1104.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">An ancient road, here in use
by that most modern of tyrannical regimes, Amazon.com.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">For all its offence to the eyes and
ears, this is only the latest incarnation of a far more ancient road: the <b>Ermin
Way</b>, built by the Romans to link their forts in what is now Gloucestershire
with their southern centre of Calleva Atrebatum (now Silchester). It is almost
certainly to this route, with its crossing of the Thames about this site, that
the settlement of Cricklade owes its existence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKKvAhyt9pFj6_iHHclTChpu1-H6TTLHf8CDlEgn20ns51w1Hyu00LUa4MiLtLmusbLyKnncBkn0lxPqblBr0tEW1_xHtReYNEniIJTs4lCqcKY21ue85In6c-f2gCxBVc5jVaSErv4xQjJTbVQ1shg5z0hEdhS0X74Ui5LjXqzVjVxefuZufKsjeL/s5184/IMG_1106.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKKvAhyt9pFj6_iHHclTChpu1-H6TTLHf8CDlEgn20ns51w1Hyu00LUa4MiLtLmusbLyKnncBkn0lxPqblBr0tEW1_xHtReYNEniIJTs4lCqcKY21ue85In6c-f2gCxBVc5jVaSErv4xQjJTbVQ1shg5z0hEdhS0X74Ui5LjXqzVjVxefuZufKsjeL/w640-h480/IMG_1106.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The outskirts of Cricklade,
the ‘first town on the Thames’. Under the bridge at left arrives the River Key,
one of the many tiny tributaries that converge around this town.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikUv1-aASRE2zous9wyPUMIw9bfU5hyDRKXCca5MZhrjxfhdo6lf5rLfiYa65JDq7fki9gDmtkUsOmhfYi47Xe_TPLnoXLuS11IE_ayQTpmCjkrLxgYgIuS-kqPcgOuEjPn7OSs17l_iG0rkdX51ycw561PlL2Sl8114Pc6x3jn6_5z_HovzYhNnHQ/s5184/IMG_1107.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikUv1-aASRE2zous9wyPUMIw9bfU5hyDRKXCca5MZhrjxfhdo6lf5rLfiYa65JDq7fki9gDmtkUsOmhfYi47Xe_TPLnoXLuS11IE_ayQTpmCjkrLxgYgIuS-kqPcgOuEjPn7OSs17l_iG0rkdX51ycw561PlL2Sl8114Pc6x3jn6_5z_HovzYhNnHQ/w400-h300/IMG_1107.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Here too is Cricklade’s
‘Millennium Wood’, planted by its residents to mark the year 2000.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It is also here that the topmost
Thames’s mess of fragmented channels merge into the relative stability of the river
we have followed thus far. Cricklade sits on a hill surrounded by the low-lying
floodplain meadows where this takes place, whence one theory concerning its
name: ‘rocky passage’, from Old Welsh <i>creic</i> for ‘rock’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_v_NQ-Yy9QtsZpUslykIBhYmXlUQtjPwqv5F3ks70oTkmiaqeQK_RoBcoMRZIrd__5cPXS33RF22QVsMKcjanlZK_yF3DZ4vltOpKA6P5qGlzFp3G3XFzSBeENNlA5oQsPwsMYLzLkENo3ZlNdift2juH-ayJVmYV-9YJF_mppjrsTlcAYQfkpYAy/s5184/IMG_1109.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_v_NQ-Yy9QtsZpUslykIBhYmXlUQtjPwqv5F3ks70oTkmiaqeQK_RoBcoMRZIrd__5cPXS33RF22QVsMKcjanlZK_yF3DZ4vltOpKA6P5qGlzFp3G3XFzSBeENNlA5oQsPwsMYLzLkENo3ZlNdift2juH-ayJVmYV-9YJF_mppjrsTlcAYQfkpYAy/w640-h480/IMG_1109.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">As with Lechlade, Cricklade has
an old core centred around its high street, and a sprawl of newer (post-WWII) residential
housing to its east, west and south, likely driven by the nearby airbases and
Cotswold tourism.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi620qh3dAl4VxvR1C6EuaI7biPrnh3ze7G6Mwylwu12gHCTrgZo-UFFsSMDDQqKqYC-kM_AS9yGhDJL-ahRc_PRXa9f9vB1QDxUQ9GPKnVa6KdHAfeKLZcDWGaSSdgr4Fx3KipmcCt0W-6_-jon28QOkxOYG3mb8lrRxwqJ1KYxC3viH34dIJvuYeN/s5184/IMG_1121.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi620qh3dAl4VxvR1C6EuaI7biPrnh3ze7G6Mwylwu12gHCTrgZo-UFFsSMDDQqKqYC-kM_AS9yGhDJL-ahRc_PRXa9f9vB1QDxUQ9GPKnVa6KdHAfeKLZcDWGaSSdgr4Fx3KipmcCt0W-6_-jon28QOkxOYG3mb8lrRxwqJ1KYxC3viH34dIJvuYeN/w640-h480/IMG_1121.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The river at Cricklade Town
Bridge, setting off on its long downstream journey. This limestone bridge at
the head of the high street dates only to 1854; the historic and strategic
Ermin Way ford would have been closer to the present A419 crossing.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">While Lechlade, on the navigable
river, built its future in trade and commerce, Cricklade went down a more
military path on this Ermin Way crossing of oft-drenched water meadows on the
northern Wessex frontier. Established as one of King Alfred’s new <i>burhs</i>
or fortified towns in the 880s, it grew to </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">a rectilinear road plan enclosed in a system of defensive ramparts, walls and ditches, much like Wallingford</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhldp4SSNVZ-IkllbYb9JyjmiLWk49NeUp9Zhl8VEPEf8Ir7OGtjX9bsor9QoGStRlvWhY4paMSvrgUwQo3o-WAx43QPSlg9w7fRdbcSLS2LOYQd98xrYMpp8Yw3hJU5cwXHG_aWvRrY5iZS1z58uvXfwHB1Fhj53gmGRt1K8QKmeCo7w8tVNWFaHRA/s5184/IMG_1130.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhldp4SSNVZ-IkllbYb9JyjmiLWk49NeUp9Zhl8VEPEf8Ir7OGtjX9bsor9QoGStRlvWhY4paMSvrgUwQo3o-WAx43QPSlg9w7fRdbcSLS2LOYQd98xrYMpp8Yw3hJU5cwXHG_aWvRrY5iZS1z58uvXfwHB1Fhj53gmGRt1K8QKmeCo7w8tVNWFaHRA/w640-h480/IMG_1130.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Cricklade high street. The
fortified town’s grid-like layout and square-shaped ramparts are still very
apparent on present-day satellite images.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The security concern of the time was
the Danish Vikings, who as per their treaty with Alfred had come to control
most of what is now eastern England, including the former Mercian kingdom to
the north. But with each passing generation Cricklade’s fortifications would be
reduced, repurposed or upgraded to ward off a succession of new threats as the messy
proto-Englands of this age gave way to each other. The defences were
refurbished by Alfred’s successors, kings of a prospective Anglo-Saxon England,
but then torn down in the early eleventh century by Cnut, king of a
Scandinavian England unified with Denmark and Norway. Then came a Norman
England, and by </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Matilda’s and Stephen’s nasty little twelfth-century conflict</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Cricklade’s
defences were up and running again, with evidence of one of Matilda’s
supporters even building a temporary castle here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Beneath these changes of hands and of
Englands, Cricklade emerged as a consistent settlement. Its strategic value
gained it royal attention, its own mint for a while, and eventually privileged
tax breaks and rights to hold markets and fairs. So despite its militarised
condition medieval Cricklade seems to have picked up quite a pleasant
reputation, with its contemporary description by William of Dover (Matilda’s
friend), ‘<i>In Loco Delicioso</i>’ – Latin for ‘in a delightful place’ – now the
town motto.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJQA7zh9_GAjhva0inDRZbx24C2P8oOgrBCTfBXQaenMnc9PYC5dl38Z3ZXfet6emRRXjQnI_tn3EUHlAJg63gwPxW12uURvR7LJCf8Mn5ZXKGwW9bJMwVjyytWrSYbBMGZP0sRoJmxDXjxkqVRte8ZmgkbJMEY-Rrlir78j1Xea55ufo5oWoZTJdg/s5184/IMG_1139.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJQA7zh9_GAjhva0inDRZbx24C2P8oOgrBCTfBXQaenMnc9PYC5dl38Z3ZXfet6emRRXjQnI_tn3EUHlAJg63gwPxW12uURvR7LJCf8Mn5ZXKGwW9bJMwVjyytWrSYbBMGZP0sRoJmxDXjxkqVRte8ZmgkbJMEY-Rrlir78j1Xea55ufo5oWoZTJdg/w640-h480/IMG_1139.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Cricklade’s great landmark is
St. Sampson’s church, a monumental Norman heap of stone pinnacles many times
more massive than you’d think it has any right to be. The dedication to Sampson
– properly Samson of Dol, a Welsh or Cornish priest and founding missionary to
Brittany – is extremely rare in England.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqYlzEZX-bwaUcXl3xttTVOCYb-NRXCsqAEzosKkuefSJH5LDZL7LHTZy5vM5V0ZyLl-kd1OKLmVEDaxUSAa2IVjZuF6bpMVchz298n_HAGFfMIx48ojrrwDg4IqoBrDgHNwWFj_iVBhEbjm_aFj3BKSEhjLFFGD-Cgnok8-jW0hmCpB4b2872Kf-s/s5184/IMG_1137.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqYlzEZX-bwaUcXl3xttTVOCYb-NRXCsqAEzosKkuefSJH5LDZL7LHTZy5vM5V0ZyLl-kd1OKLmVEDaxUSAa2IVjZuF6bpMVchz298n_HAGFfMIx48ojrrwDg4IqoBrDgHNwWFj_iVBhEbjm_aFj3BKSEhjLFFGD-Cgnok8-jW0hmCpB4b2872Kf-s/w640-h480/IMG_1137.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The church appeared in the
tenth or eleventh centuries, but the not exactly modest tower, which took a
century to build, was completed in the 1550s.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0pRp477N1bvikfUkoYZd3S_A8WweLNEVqaSpu_6UspW19E6oZQDiLKPrM-i282_H7c1sqHM1s5LVBBujv9oOtDwJ1OIycdnxvwzMu7nkF6GIOd2miFM7A-fyYi3qaY75h2Pyj9TQCYqXUdUwjAdwQkwsgdWEODt3XTJBebcn0_Px-LGR9ah0ITQm/s5184/IMG_1145.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0pRp477N1bvikfUkoYZd3S_A8WweLNEVqaSpu_6UspW19E6oZQDiLKPrM-i282_H7c1sqHM1s5LVBBujv9oOtDwJ1OIycdnxvwzMu7nkF6GIOd2miFM7A-fyYi3qaY75h2Pyj9TQCYqXUdUwjAdwQkwsgdWEODt3XTJBebcn0_Px-LGR9ah0ITQm/w300-h400/IMG_1145.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And here it is from the
inside, with red hatch accessible only to people with the wealth to afford
jetpacks.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZV-IpNZ7ke4eyzEvQV4_pLV2V0Fn8184xS7JcRyXfjBH-FDwkNXKn5s9d03ptWjMEp6p7UMmZy0IQhjf83oyZyahDpT_W8R5-Q3d9SJWRsGzfpf4BshTxxpKcpioyT3neoykUKj_qX0UwbeQoPzWV5WqF8vOJtjIKPCxwFa9S5reh_Jf9Szpye8AQ/s5184/IMG_1135.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZV-IpNZ7ke4eyzEvQV4_pLV2V0Fn8184xS7JcRyXfjBH-FDwkNXKn5s9d03ptWjMEp6p7UMmZy0IQhjf83oyZyahDpT_W8R5-Q3d9SJWRsGzfpf4BshTxxpKcpioyT3neoykUKj_qX0UwbeQoPzWV5WqF8vOJtjIKPCxwFa9S5reh_Jf9Szpye8AQ/w400-h300/IMG_1135.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Cricklade’s town cross is here
too, having been moved to the churchyard from the central crossroads in the
1810s when it was deemed a traffic obstruction.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBbbk3djU-Ddvopfy3k5olUE0zryYsBrUd1P5yZUshl1DJv7ts7f_coLL4XS_CdhvQAoQPweG_hO75GGEbSsa1kdq3akl_NX6K76gjs1WIf6nAJapTf3LSAxSftWri_9fo78py4bEc61_arhT-wO3RYN4xmI0N9cJfDR4Fu9t8VIRXYDCvFmAaCnhW/s5184/IMG_1129.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBbbk3djU-Ddvopfy3k5olUE0zryYsBrUd1P5yZUshl1DJv7ts7f_coLL4XS_CdhvQAoQPweG_hO75GGEbSsa1kdq3akl_NX6K76gjs1WIf6nAJapTf3LSAxSftWri_9fo78py4bEc61_arhT-wO3RYN4xmI0N9cJfDR4Fu9t8VIRXYDCvFmAaCnhW/w400-h300/IMG_1129.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Cricklade’s other church, St.
Mary’s, probably originally an offshoot of St. Sampson’s, stands at the north
end of the high street beside the river and Anglo-Saxon rampart. In 1981 it was
declared redundant by the Protestant Church of England and returned to the
Catholics after centuries of persecution.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The <i>loco delicioso</i> did not
last long. The bubonic plague did its usual here, as did the civil wars, which,
though sparing Cricklade most of the fighting, took a heavy indirect toll
through market closures, impoverishment, disease and dislocation. Though it
recovered from these hits and gradually grew on, by the nineteenth century its
repute had practically inverted. Its most abiding damnation came from the pen
of journalist and anti-corruption campaigner William Cobbett, who </span><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34238/34238-h/34238-h.htm"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">lambasted Cricklade</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> as a ‘villainous hole...certainly a
more rascally place I never set my eyes on.’ Repulsed by the poverty-stricken
pile of mud, flies, stenches and political rottenness into which this town had
apparently descended, he seems to have run out of words: ‘this <i>Wiltshire</i> is a horrible county’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Ne80GIdAcLDWLXFk38_1ftRL_mCi13WWRJHRjExWcU3mYiJ_XrpUrL4txqQHCxnrNm3PJ11Va_cZ6CLe7bL7zkE-HyRW2R4avADpC3FeJijyhsnY8x9eegmBlaPyeofyw4-P8ldfbU1hx9JdNd4v8nXBWQ10RLyzQ3o5q6nrVA86DgoO8doCCEFv/s5184/IMG_1131.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Ne80GIdAcLDWLXFk38_1ftRL_mCi13WWRJHRjExWcU3mYiJ_XrpUrL4txqQHCxnrNm3PJ11Va_cZ6CLe7bL7zkE-HyRW2R4avADpC3FeJijyhsnY8x9eegmBlaPyeofyw4-P8ldfbU1hx9JdNd4v8nXBWQ10RLyzQ3o5q6nrVA86DgoO8doCCEFv/w640-h480/IMG_1131.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The <i>Vale Hotel</i>,
formerly the <i>White Horse Inn</i> and likely a turnpike posting house before
that, stands at Cricklade’s (and the old <i>burh</i>’s) central crossroads. The
old town cross in the churchyard used to stand on this site; the current red
and black clock thing replaced it in 1897 for Queen Victoria’s diamond
jubilee.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2azABodZS5fjZPFWPvPaR3NQtPEnyOi79xd6JR8RD8kYD4Hn5NBxT1ohkUdbFxg4lXiW5GThP9RHyO-VyLZU6XJSkYLSeyyFyWSt2AOLq1SVNVf8toQWhWqko2etAI0jDa_5Qjo3a6VOumVdv4UlI6ILEFIS4HyHtHX7HnUay91hbncMZA9C-FD0D/s5184/IMG_1128.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2azABodZS5fjZPFWPvPaR3NQtPEnyOi79xd6JR8RD8kYD4Hn5NBxT1ohkUdbFxg4lXiW5GThP9RHyO-VyLZU6XJSkYLSeyyFyWSt2AOLq1SVNVf8toQWhWqko2etAI0jDa_5Qjo3a6VOumVdv4UlI6ILEFIS4HyHtHX7HnUay91hbncMZA9C-FD0D/w640-h480/IMG_1128.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Some more from Cobbett: ‘The
labourers seem miserably poor. Their dwellings are little better than pig-beds,
and their looks indicate that their food is not nearly equal to that of a pig...In
my whole life I never saw human wretchedness equal to this’.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvYMt0NkxVZGkr-uZMAbShL6NJZSLHwI2Sr96t-500Kzri3SOeEPw8NQy_8_4oFBHvEjmd4vmgku09UljYWG5b74OGFF-H9QPDatwVapU83ZzhK_fTzSMY5PdpZZydNuPuT0v3rcfWUnlJm-LVlsfUZrnQW6DsIrlG7YF6gb_kEAhXKbnjo2dL4Mry/s5184/IMG_1125.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvYMt0NkxVZGkr-uZMAbShL6NJZSLHwI2Sr96t-500Kzri3SOeEPw8NQy_8_4oFBHvEjmd4vmgku09UljYWG5b74OGFF-H9QPDatwVapU83ZzhK_fTzSMY5PdpZZydNuPuT0v3rcfWUnlJm-LVlsfUZrnQW6DsIrlG7YF6gb_kEAhXKbnjo2dL4Mry/w400-h300/IMG_1125.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Cricklade has since worked
hard to restore the cleanliness of its image. This is a glimpse of some of its Snake’s
Head Fritillaries (<i>Fritillaria meleagris</i>), a lily with a striking
chequered pattern. These are now extremely rare in this country; its vast
majority flower on Cricklade’s northern water meadows.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Cricklade appears to have somewhat
recovered, and today once more carries a proud aesthetic consciousness: a
town of flowers, fresh breezes, architectural heritage, Cotswold tourism, and
of course, that singular status of the highest town on the Thames. And yet,
like Lechlade and the remotest fields and hamlets in between, it remains
connected to the distresses of its wider country and planet. Present-day
England sinks deep in a new period of poverty-creation in which years of
austerity, destruction to the welfare system, Brexit staff shortages and supply
chain disruptions, and the abysmal COVID-19 response, now combine with crises
in energy and costs of living to create a perfect storm of hunger, homelessness,
cold, disease and mental breakdown – even before the shadow of Russian
atrocities in Ukraine and the vengeful return of crazed Cold War geopolitics. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Of all the levels of the Thames, one
might suppose that this one, here at its height of heights, is as good a place
as any to get away from it all. But there is no getting away – no more now, in
this globalised age, than in these idyllic-looking headwaters’ turbulent past
of battles and sackings, plagues and prejudices, poverty and corruption. No
reason, either, that the hells unleashed on Kharkiv or Mariupol could not
happen here one day, and soon, whether at foreign hands or English ones. The
horror is a horror of all humankind; any emergence from it, the responsibility
of humans everywhere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Only one character in this story
knows of this world in a state where such things did not have to happen. It is
the one we have followed all along – followed all the way up here to where,
having assembled its water, it takes this passage, these <i>lades</i>, out to a
world gone mad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It might be too much to hope that
taking them in the other direction could bring us outside it: to a different time,
a different place, a different world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs4iP6FRqgxNDE51Fh0cvdsWbQoyK7oCCQK0Nx1DHqCMhTstVL4Nn2Gjr-T4EJVwOQUHVmlXSDi3-S0HHfdpUQLP6zmXs8J4vXCHm5u_-fqqzUoogboq4EIGGtKJwMM8HJnh1EETb4Xetmc9zIMi2WXB1o1VwESQ8Je_TbnAIWixbYDMnXzvzcSkUo/s5184/IMG_1122.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs4iP6FRqgxNDE51Fh0cvdsWbQoyK7oCCQK0Nx1DHqCMhTstVL4Nn2Gjr-T4EJVwOQUHVmlXSDi3-S0HHfdpUQLP6zmXs8J4vXCHm5u_-fqqzUoogboq4EIGGtKJwMM8HJnh1EETb4Xetmc9zIMi2WXB1o1VwESQ8Je_TbnAIWixbYDMnXzvzcSkUo/w480-h640/IMG_1122.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Upstream from Cricklade Town
Bridge, towards the Thames’s springs.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">But we’ve come this far. Might as
well find out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3BS79VWb0DnhWWXFiNOPaD9SVB2ddGBSN-egJthq39zHtN87-8dErlf6Hr0YkTQgGl3rB-wVopNGqJF0diHEcQIqm-Os5EmlQprhyAsFfQbBD7GEzVv2T2f-sQQ78uqudJOaJZDOgpG_TJaeH8AtxuP9huER2_WwwIJVxG3UFDCocEMc9RzpbwOHj/s5184/IMG_1123.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3BS79VWb0DnhWWXFiNOPaD9SVB2ddGBSN-egJthq39zHtN87-8dErlf6Hr0YkTQgGl3rB-wVopNGqJF0diHEcQIqm-Os5EmlQprhyAsFfQbBD7GEzVv2T2f-sQQ78uqudJOaJZDOgpG_TJaeH8AtxuP9huER2_WwwIJVxG3UFDCocEMc9RzpbwOHj/w640-h480/IMG_1123.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Cricklade, Swindon SN6, UK51.6380709 -1.85635123.327837063821157 -37.012601000000004 79.948304736178841 33.299898999999996tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-73485289255352938832021-12-28T15:52:00.000+00:002021-12-28T15:52:10.116+00:00NEW RELEASE: Turning the Camera Around – A Treatise on Autism and Normalism<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Announcing the release of another of
my principal written works. <u><b><i>Turning the Camera Around – A Treatise on
Autism and Normalism</i></b></u> is now available <b>to everyone</b>, <b>free of
charge</b>, at <span style="font-size: medium;"><u><b><a href="http://www.aichaobang.com">http://www.aichaobang.com</a></b></u></span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But there’s more to it than that. In
all these years, I have never felt my experience reflected in the dominant
narratives of autism and neurodiversity. Neither autism as <i>disorder</i> nor autism as <i>difference</i> really represent my story; and whenever they tried
to do so, as they often have, it felt as though my true voice was being written out
of the picture.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My story, and its erasure under those
terms – that is where this tract begins. And what that erasure reveals, it
takes up thereon as the true problem: societies built by and for <i>the
belief in normal, and its violent infliction on others</i>. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let us give it a name: <b>Normalism</b>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The <i>normal </i>violence of adults
towards children. <i>Normal</i> education, designed to exclude or dispose of
any child who will not be broken into compliant factory fodder. <i>Normal</i>
men, <i>normal </i>women, <i>normal</i> sexuality, <i>normal </i>relationships –
why is it anyone who does not conform to these absurd and abusive expectations,
rather than the expectations themselves, who are at worst pathologised and
punished, at best still marked as ‘different’; ‘divergent’; the <i>other</i>?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is not autistic people, after all, who have heaped up piles
of corpses over the centuries, disembowelled truth and love on the altar of
naked power, and now threaten the very ecology and climate of the
Earth itself.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Is not the violent obsession with <i>normal</i> the true
pathology? Is it not time to <b>turn the camera around</b>, and reverse the
terms of this discussion – so that instead of problematising natural human
diversity, we rather name, identify, and confront the actual driver of so much pointless suffering?</span></p>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi__AH8FbtfdMMkRBBIRN6UD7Z5EXm1szpZbKgsZdje4swzE7K5QIYupYoyiq4t7hZT9FowRaBtJa1u8O-d2FpeB7YNE5hR_0QgsPmnIvhJD1NB0cS0zml6Gp3HmUXoJGluEeyfWQpMZZaojNOamguumUomkFUa8hcz8QdtD2Ls4ciQWwSCM9tfxMCF=s690" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="617" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi__AH8FbtfdMMkRBBIRN6UD7Z5EXm1szpZbKgsZdje4swzE7K5QIYupYoyiq4t7hZT9FowRaBtJa1u8O-d2FpeB7YNE5hR_0QgsPmnIvhJD1NB0cS0zml6Gp3HmUXoJGluEeyfWQpMZZaojNOamguumUomkFUa8hcz8QdtD2Ls4ciQWwSCM9tfxMCF=w573-h640" width="573" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><i><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Turning the Camera Around – A Treatise
on Autism and Normalism</span></i></b><b><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> now available here:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.aichaobang.com"><u><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">http://www.aichaobang.com</span></b></u></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></b></div>Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-72257034976441455702021-12-12T17:03:00.001+00:002021-12-14T14:45:59.472+00:00THAMES: 18) English Migrants<div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhrsqI30O28qeGfTocLrCa9Ti-d9zgqacOBES5lMRBh899H2Ml0k8wLiQeaPGKinu_pfBOpnCTapEzFot1x6bP3Lxi2oxp7wnBbjeBSpbHusGuqEcn5IuTbaOz6PMP4Oymx4u1p_ThdUW0zC1Gq8mp6OHEm5w6OsXdlx0NrGsWMKxuK02Fh-EO6p-BM=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhrsqI30O28qeGfTocLrCa9Ti-d9zgqacOBES5lMRBh899H2Ml0k8wLiQeaPGKinu_pfBOpnCTapEzFot1x6bP3Lxi2oxp7wnBbjeBSpbHusGuqEcn5IuTbaOz6PMP4Oymx4u1p_ThdUW0zC1Gq8mp6OHEm5w6OsXdlx0NrGsWMKxuK02Fh-EO6p-BM=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><span style="line-height: 106%;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Here are the far heights. Field upon
field, sky beyond sky, winter horizons out beyond the back door. Beyond England, even while of it – for this verdant world of their dreams lies far beyond the world where most of them live.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggObndo9bwPIrl8XIOxrDXp5uzXYnafPKAqbzm1IcNICw_8v3BWvpGjm-9qMD7Js6a7dKBVggHuYt_Odf2P0yKzoJaIiLHwqNoz391Z2RT52qMdNTVf-JlZPvU3jve7coSvmFMcLWUMa27TSI5eCD5FlORO5tsNklgcXRDygfHUdwuFnTTOUR1rCP0=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggObndo9bwPIrl8XIOxrDXp5uzXYnafPKAqbzm1IcNICw_8v3BWvpGjm-9qMD7Js6a7dKBVggHuYt_Odf2P0yKzoJaIiLHwqNoz391Z2RT52qMdNTVf-JlZPvU3jve7coSvmFMcLWUMa27TSI5eCD5FlORO5tsNklgcXRDygfHUdwuFnTTOUR1rCP0=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><span style="line-height: 106%;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Here the river falls free of its
cradle in the Gloucester Cotswolds, but has yet to attain the Oxford Basin
where Englishnesses truly sink their claims into it. What's left is an in-between space of endless farm fields and deserted villages, anachronistic pillboxes and silent memories of goods or blows whose trade across this once-strategic hinterland has long since left it behind. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Its crossing, the longest slog on this expedition by far, now
presents its most arduous challenge. What better then than to trudge in
at dawn on the coldest day of the year so far, in the wake of a freezing
windstorm, with a meagre eight hours of daylight to make it to Lechlade, the high
trading post and gateway to the Cotswold Hills?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg0dx29IVUWqTGPcdiEzPhtI_YaLmjCj4C7751pAIqOoLaYzqm0QmRfFSoqg0gTnfyhYbuF4eHJs_31_Cd_l_to8zIcivo5JCTznt8Ha4Pr9o7qt8_S4XRbhfJ3Noo9yjtLUOl0kGbpZAX8JEAk3NcXGxgGXI3RH08OmnQz7fl7iBtJPc_w5T47HuUz=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg0dx29IVUWqTGPcdiEzPhtI_YaLmjCj4C7751pAIqOoLaYzqm0QmRfFSoqg0gTnfyhYbuF4eHJs_31_Cd_l_to8zIcivo5JCTznt8Ha4Pr9o7qt8_S4XRbhfJ3Noo9yjtLUOl0kGbpZAX8JEAk3NcXGxgGXI3RH08OmnQz7fl7iBtJPc_w5T47HuUz=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">As the river traverses this
back-of-beyond, the final flares of autumn fade in its cool, dark flow.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhUKIyomSdCNMxRnSN0ghkaL1vljKpobMWCY_ZuHGpsQtMEkUXL3NR93YTTKWjFZiCIGeFQMlC0jJp3KuWelPWfWrQW-CqYtiPgsEW-wQDDIdGFIoSA_P37dVhyP-QHRrwA8n4x1l6ZCzLCLI28KY5MzFJTb_OZkGJiRmY3utWpdUtOWVCPaOuqNjfj=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhUKIyomSdCNMxRnSN0ghkaL1vljKpobMWCY_ZuHGpsQtMEkUXL3NR93YTTKWjFZiCIGeFQMlC0jJp3KuWelPWfWrQW-CqYtiPgsEW-wQDDIdGFIoSA_P37dVhyP-QHRrwA8n4x1l6ZCzLCLI28KY5MzFJTb_OZkGJiRmY3utWpdUtOWVCPaOuqNjfj=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">There’s little else here. It
glides on with no end in sight.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">This is not where the English come to
build futures, to erect towers of pride, to imagine up self-aggrandising
histories. Those who set out for these far reaches more often came to escape the
violence of those delusions. They were migrants. English refugees, whose movements the river welcomed and enabled as has always been its way.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">A century and a half ago, as this
nation did up its arrogance in iron and steel and stuck on it the label
of <i>modernity</i>, it was here to this Desolate South that it drove one of that
industrial mis-destiny’s most colourful critics of the time. It was out here,
far from its poisonous stories and still more poisonous air, that this
big-bearded detractor found the space to turn from its ruthless
march and embroider a different path with his own hands. More darkly, it was also here that this
country’s bloodiest spasm of neo-colonial foreigner-killing in recent times claimed
its own highest-profile victim: a bespectacled, mild-mannered scientist who, one
summer afternoon, fled here to take leave of this world altogether.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzvFyJN4EY9fjVo_XvbFhkY0OVXMijx7tgI89rjuJi1HWGdO4rAbN0ku-4SlZB-7ij3bgao25_UUFVetPukNX1dpGkmC8JzYleJlGoPiKTYrOWo962WCrw9ChbiYHKeuAN30t-Z4BKgHwWFUnEu-jinFQskKLMAskgxHeZl_IWdlkKLJKBqcvwjtDs=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzvFyJN4EY9fjVo_XvbFhkY0OVXMijx7tgI89rjuJi1HWGdO4rAbN0ku-4SlZB-7ij3bgao25_UUFVetPukNX1dpGkmC8JzYleJlGoPiKTYrOWo962WCrw9ChbiYHKeuAN30t-Z4BKgHwWFUnEu-jinFQskKLMAskgxHeZl_IWdlkKLJKBqcvwjtDs=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">From the riverside, a glimpse
of Kelmscott Manor, beloved summer home of William Morris: artist, writer, designer,
translator, socialist and a great deal else besides.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh4hWZ0jPSqLBnqonaCOcI6q6rorgrqV-QNsRwRvPQvF48buh_8Bxe2BIDvgS6ydXWKdNL32u-KyDn1lj5RXDuCeGSHPRRq3Ag1PLMjb5wjn4RzSS9UQvyoWW6yeHarsTly_erlSnFAY7tSFKK3PV1j_oglLdZBnCZjmPNa2EyzwW3FqB9M7UHOL0e9=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh4hWZ0jPSqLBnqonaCOcI6q6rorgrqV-QNsRwRvPQvF48buh_8Bxe2BIDvgS6ydXWKdNL32u-KyDn1lj5RXDuCeGSHPRRq3Ag1PLMjb5wjn4RzSS9UQvyoWW6yeHarsTly_erlSnFAY7tSFKK3PV1j_oglLdZBnCZjmPNa2EyzwW3FqB9M7UHOL0e9=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Harrowdown Hill, final
destination of weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">The river here is a winterland of escapes
and retreats, deaths and departures, and so too for this long exploration it
heralds the beginning of the end. Here are the last Thames locks, the receding
of riverside settlement, and at Lechlade, the end of its navigable course. We
are almost there.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">If you would walk this way too, come
prepared. At 25 kilometres this is the lengthiest stretch of all, and it takes
place entirely across open country. There’s a handful of well-placed pubs but
otherwise next to nothing in the way of shops, public transport, or support if
you get into trouble. Add to that a tight daylight budget – eight hours at this
time of year, and you’ll need every one of them – and you’re looking at serious
peril if you overreach or get stuck out here after dark.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg5xmT_9UJ4fbg_-egNyYhAGM0EKOem-lTgsGVFvW60zHNClUjKY8drY3ZST9XxM4SpQr6fLfoUIcW7giaXLgqTQZ5NhNnGqmdcyA_qC5XyobdsJ5UTfEonVMbu2Qoj4771FoiJXVeNnv7xDOQvxlKTd1ew63heAafotnP_3LMv55ZAldDDrsyLXafx=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg5xmT_9UJ4fbg_-egNyYhAGM0EKOem-lTgsGVFvW60zHNClUjKY8drY3ZST9XxM4SpQr6fLfoUIcW7giaXLgqTQZ5NhNnGqmdcyA_qC5XyobdsJ5UTfEonVMbu2Qoj4771FoiJXVeNnv7xDOQvxlKTd1ew63heAafotnP_3LMv55ZAldDDrsyLXafx=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Upriver from the <i>New Bridge</i>,
where all is as cold as frozen glass.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh0CQSBadaRo4fr34zABAicT8frdlFfmU2FjZWxuG-5GicROCNR8Z8pkOzCamcLPjxc6qyE42Beu6HDU2hbIqf8iZyoiqgLdBfDTqewKkwAyDlbGiklWpOX4etrpkJ716OvbrjNpLPBpK7pR2RcCfWP3RXmeJ5TkasVuMTNiOLcB8NPGumgLobEiIJd=s1758" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="633" data-original-width="1758" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh0CQSBadaRo4fr34zABAicT8frdlFfmU2FjZWxuG-5GicROCNR8Z8pkOzCamcLPjxc6qyE42Beu6HDU2hbIqf8iZyoiqgLdBfDTqewKkwAyDlbGiklWpOX4etrpkJ716OvbrjNpLPBpK7pR2RcCfWP3RXmeJ5TkasVuMTNiOLcB8NPGumgLobEiIJd=w640-h230" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">By this point the settlements
are smaller than their labels. Most aren’t even villages, merely clusters of
houses or farm buildings.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Start:</span></b><span style="line-height: 106%;"> Newbridge (<i>no settlement, just a
bridge with a pub at each end; about five buses a day stop by the </i>Rose
Revived<i> pub on a </i></span><a href="https://www.pulhamscoaches.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Pulhams-15-Timetable-Sept-2020.pdf"><u><i><span style="line-height: 106%;">Witney-Abingdon route</span></i></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;">)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">End:</span></b><span style="line-height: 106%;"> Lechlade (<i>no train station; buses
to <a href="https://bustimes.org/services/77-highworth-swindon-street-cirencester-the-forum"><u>Swindon via Highworth</u></a></i>)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Length: 25.7km/16 miles</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Location: Oxfordshire – City of
Oxford, Vale of White Horse, West Oxfordshire; Gloucestershire - Cotswold</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Topics</span></u><span style="line-height: 106%;">: <b>Harrowdown Hill and the death of
Dr. David Kelly</b>, Shifford, the Duxford detour, Tadpole, Radcot, <b>Kelmscott
and William Morris</b>, Buscot, St. John’s Lock</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="line-height: 106%;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Harrowdown Hill – Dr. Kelly’s End</span></u></b></span><span style="line-height: 106%;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">We begin where we left off: with the
River Windrush, which </span><span style="line-height: 106%;">flows into the Thames at Newbridge</span><span style="line-height: 106%;"> just as the racist violence </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-17-high-pastures.html"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">which its name now permanently evokes</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;"> drenches this country in yet
another sorry new chapter. For just a few days earlier, thirty-one human beings
drowned in their attempt to cross the
Channel: that watercourse which connects this island to the mainland, yet which
in English imagination has become the most pitiless of imaginary borders.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhLoLJ0hiV_EGD-zjZLqAkb_F9ciA8cAtULKZmNZ01tU4gy-SkVLgsYFaxf_re99SyopDGZVHaaMVggQOIkTmjYWXOrMTeohl7Zopauzhs7VZj2EpYVt9V1vETN2IPXRQuPeod0BxAFjDp7uXm-PmNlvW3IY4VbKTtlhei2wj9Z5AByaQjEr1cPKOsi=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhLoLJ0hiV_EGD-zjZLqAkb_F9ciA8cAtULKZmNZ01tU4gy-SkVLgsYFaxf_re99SyopDGZVHaaMVggQOIkTmjYWXOrMTeohl7Zopauzhs7VZj2EpYVt9V1vETN2IPXRQuPeod0BxAFjDp7uXm-PmNlvW3IY4VbKTtlhei2wj9Z5AByaQjEr1cPKOsi=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">The Windrush, flowing in at
right. At left is the <i>New Bridge</i>, with the <i>Maybush</i> pub on the far
bank.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Insensitive to the horror of these
travellers’ final moments, or to the traumatic lifelong toll left on their
loved ones (</span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/27/death-in-the-channel-my-wife-and-children-said-they-were-getting-on-a-boat-i-didnt-hear-from-them-again"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">some of whom they were trying to
reach in this country</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;">),
the prevailing discourse erupted into a feeding frenzy of
government-led xenophobic hate-mongering. Yet these late wayfarers were only driven
to sail in their precarious dinghy because the present Conservative Party regime,
which roots its power in an appeal to popular nationalist bigotry, has long
since closed down all safe and legal routes for non-white, non-super-rich
foreigners to enter this country.</span></span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">The English were born of Channel
crossings. Their country would literally not exist without them. Even now, huge
numbers of them fly across every day. Why not these, then? What could possibly
account for this shrieking hostility to human beings doing what humans have
always done: moving in search of a better life or an escape from abuse? (Not
least when, as in Iraq or Afghanistan, so much of what they flee was wrought by
English violence in the first place?)</span></span></p><p>
</p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p>
</p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p>
</p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">But no – in England this is no longer
an argument anymore, let alone a debate. The order of the day is merely sadistic, dehumanising cruelty
for its own sake, or for political advantage therefrom. It is evil.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">And there is no escaping its shadow. Not even out in this rural
hinterland, where beyond the Windrush the first thing you come to is a
landmark of death and dark secrets from the bloodbath which opened
the English twenty-first century.</span></span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEigXj3DzKB47ZnNgdsd6y2Kgmfns0vIC5Lb19jdNfWS--8Ro37cpq_fx59CrLaEggivS-N7o0EfBVsfjUjuboJV9uWC1OQHkccL-Iig4DftY_P-IQ51ddbTndlNTUf39V4QX-ovQv1CxTyR2ba-G8f-s4wWdEOf5_4vBVcPPvRDX8DsgSS9nSHf5v2E=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEigXj3DzKB47ZnNgdsd6y2Kgmfns0vIC5Lb19jdNfWS--8Ro37cpq_fx59CrLaEggivS-N7o0EfBVsfjUjuboJV9uWC1OQHkccL-Iig4DftY_P-IQ51ddbTndlNTUf39V4QX-ovQv1CxTyR2ba-G8f-s4wWdEOf5_4vBVcPPvRDX8DsgSS9nSHf5v2E=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">A glassy chill permeates the
air here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbMQOgveJ3EbLsn3YzHzj1alExhB4jJm6cVuzVgBKSGW7LMNvot1ihhKKv_69A8qk6x7Mxuk9eTBqEeziqUFC_NtAxcT0yfPoex6g4lEls69H5M95j6wngGJY2QxYfTgOthROV7wKjI6Eu5vGqeA2Vi6jDdSl1gcvF2zFHVd-31ZEdukCFFYxF18gG=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbMQOgveJ3EbLsn3YzHzj1alExhB4jJm6cVuzVgBKSGW7LMNvot1ihhKKv_69A8qk6x7Mxuk9eTBqEeziqUFC_NtAxcT0yfPoex6g4lEls69H5M95j6wngGJY2QxYfTgOthROV7wKjI6Eu5vGqeA2Vi6jDdSl1gcvF2zFHVd-31ZEdukCFFYxF18gG=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Even these growths are
gnarled, barbed and bleeding, as if sensitive to the stench of injustice in
the air.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBMPdz-A6vOjLP4HSETb4YvXsKur8LeRyRgS4UvF6u188s010nLVjgAsG2nmFvK3YdNTCt-Vc5K6aTmuyeWgvJKwBwl_zI6KqNcNe3pXulI2N4PpQH-X8wd0BJiEcD5TaYnSJPiC7TNeP7zjn_KKCheAPqMyl4mHjfXnY_ZP5dkMWJgpx2jvP0UnYS=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBMPdz-A6vOjLP4HSETb4YvXsKur8LeRyRgS4UvF6u188s010nLVjgAsG2nmFvK3YdNTCt-Vc5K6aTmuyeWgvJKwBwl_zI6KqNcNe3pXulI2N4PpQH-X8wd0BJiEcD5TaYnSJPiC7TNeP7zjn_KKCheAPqMyl4mHjfXnY_ZP5dkMWJgpx2jvP0UnYS=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Winter is here, and its light
is cold and bloody.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVgIYF6vvvigC7wTfG1OSgSh-QmY877IyNcMeLlDwPCP7uzvLJQ9FMZ6AxkTBkd-Pw4DcXufYV60lnHA1MsHV7jkGT6KaauJn2J1gN_sYqinNeCK6J_lON5AYaJ03ejqbDiZ3HEWtap8HKs_FnhLqrPpCwVC4xTOTuoqPyaFw9wg_fQNNsG5gGBPR9=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVgIYF6vvvigC7wTfG1OSgSh-QmY877IyNcMeLlDwPCP7uzvLJQ9FMZ6AxkTBkd-Pw4DcXufYV60lnHA1MsHV7jkGT6KaauJn2J1gN_sYqinNeCK6J_lON5AYaJ03ejqbDiZ3HEWtap8HKs_FnhLqrPpCwVC4xTOTuoqPyaFw9wg_fQNNsG5gGBPR9=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">The English are far from alone
in driving the present calamities of humankind. How did it come to this? How do
societies never learn? <i>How can mass hatred of refugees and support for
abuse exist in this world?</i> Here at bottom-left and top-right are two of the
most important characters throughout the human story – but neither have a clue
as to the answer.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">The towpath runs beneath a slope as
it follows the river to <i>Haul Ham</i>. This meadow appears to have been an
island, but today any stories in its sodden soil are overshadowed by a wooded
hill that stands conspicuously to the south.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi1gkMjJ-dUmeNI4RdJVruMoC_4IR36I4kFVu_sjybuSpBCHQB4Wkpo_k3qaMKJ5TtsshFF0AC11aAAgbSUQ_hcyKijxwxWgq0t6X1EfkpdoQLq_mDQ0CSMqy1HOxalW8DQklv1tao9H--rJe4weBaKcDEAwoaMZul7_sWDhcSm-eUWnKReGpJTQT-v=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi1gkMjJ-dUmeNI4RdJVruMoC_4IR36I4kFVu_sjybuSpBCHQB4Wkpo_k3qaMKJ5TtsshFF0AC11aAAgbSUQ_hcyKijxwxWgq0t6X1EfkpdoQLq_mDQ0CSMqy1HOxalW8DQklv1tao9H--rJe4weBaKcDEAwoaMZul7_sWDhcSm-eUWnKReGpJTQT-v=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9uwxI4HIULUTTpRsbF00I7iA8HQIwcONzdh0OsN0mo_xVNT4by1_Jp9WPBp6wida_eWIJLIKnc-vdB_URI9rU-TDCdKlDvVTGqzEmxky4kUO5coWhPSHO4Rcc_wtlgBIXuSt4PcA6vPikEEltIuSZEarbWMMEX5dCvhOP5xwKRrzTJyusV058I82V=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9uwxI4HIULUTTpRsbF00I7iA8HQIwcONzdh0OsN0mo_xVNT4by1_Jp9WPBp6wida_eWIJLIKnc-vdB_URI9rU-TDCdKlDvVTGqzEmxky4kUO5coWhPSHO4Rcc_wtlgBIXuSt4PcA6vPikEEltIuSZEarbWMMEX5dCvhOP5xwKRrzTJyusV058I82V=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">The morning light has yet to
penetrate these thickets.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEim2oOU8fWJl1oXatPBLoaKbDfNZ2L0ehWqGFD2xyVNaaVB3VL1R8woiGjWpJxctmWMzWClkMVxOaskwFsRaeyY3mhHw_Vm50bXlVO4y2N6QPNG63Iq_uoe1sWdwkpxOQUmVh9xmsq3GTgnuJR3T68CV0PflTD7VdBzuhg8gxhiIzgn4i3VGlZQePow=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEim2oOU8fWJl1oXatPBLoaKbDfNZ2L0ehWqGFD2xyVNaaVB3VL1R8woiGjWpJxctmWMzWClkMVxOaskwFsRaeyY3mhHw_Vm50bXlVO4y2N6QPNG63Iq_uoe1sWdwkpxOQUmVh9xmsq3GTgnuJR3T68CV0PflTD7VdBzuhg8gxhiIzgn4i3VGlZQePow=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Haul Ham. There are faint
echoes here of milling and fishing interests from the old manor villages of
Standlake and Longworth, a way inland north and south respectively.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8ong9qNYMgFXQ4XqMlKraZSxhbhsER0-I9HcDX0_KMZAbXrryRzEFUHos4NXYgwdyDHLEukA51pIaj56CZJAhtF1OP2R-OnwhVvGh5LckNyu_cc1n-qmGuAx6M1Dh_FGNJ9XtuBc-87lEdVW0h-m6KTLGCP9twNezfPZ2EHyKCtgsgrY82UUnojId=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8ong9qNYMgFXQ4XqMlKraZSxhbhsER0-I9HcDX0_KMZAbXrryRzEFUHos4NXYgwdyDHLEukA51pIaj56CZJAhtF1OP2R-OnwhVvGh5LckNyu_cc1n-qmGuAx6M1Dh_FGNJ9XtuBc-87lEdVW0h-m6KTLGCP9twNezfPZ2EHyKCtgsgrY82UUnojId=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Turn south, and there a clump
of taller trees stands vigil over a site of national notoriety.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Harrowdown Hill</span></b><span style="line-height: 106%;"> is one of numerous locations in this
country (of which Harrow in London might be the most famous) whose name derives,
evocatively, from <i>hearg</i>: a pre-Christian sacred site or sanctuary. Often
these still carry a certain atmosphere – of shapes, of sounds, of light, of prominence
in the landscape, of closeness to the other worlds – whose weight on the heart
and senses likely helped draw that designation in the first place, and sure
enough, this hill strikes a haunting profile. Its ring of trees stand tight on an
otherwise open plain, bunched together against the dawning light as though to
shield their secrets against it.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">And well they might. Because at
around three in the afternoon on 17th July 2003, another walker approached
Harrowdown Hill. This one came from the south, from his house in Southmoor. He
did, in fact, cross the worlds here. The next morning his body was found here by
a volunteer search team, his left wrist slashed, his head and shoulders slumped
against one of those trees.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Dr. David Kelly</span></b><span style="line-height: 106%;"> was a man who kept his secrets. A
veteran weapons inspector and bio-warfare specialist internationally renowned
in his field, his work was steeped in the murky world of military intelligence.
He was discomforted by the public spotlight and rarely let its glare come near him. Nonetheless, suddenly and instantly, his bespectacled and bearded
profile became one of the most recognisable in the country when, a couple of
days before his death, he appeared on live TV to face questioning from the
House of Commons Defence Affairs Select Committee. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRxpMG-oQOoZ-E3vQASVthWfc_ycmoNHzQggfWsgMLB2SJ5V2w-h7QeTnS0UgIGHtWa_OxJ_DioetHiD77PPln4RZJG6hSTt473qi9egkNVYd2JmH6xj9xrmDrcTfjLUPg9lUMDfbWSPD87kb5VrRhGkYeg3tzBd6r5xP7UIhMvaUMsVEMJ-msiccH=s1240" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="880" data-original-width="1240" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRxpMG-oQOoZ-E3vQASVthWfc_ycmoNHzQggfWsgMLB2SJ5V2w-h7QeTnS0UgIGHtWa_OxJ_DioetHiD77PPln4RZJG6hSTt473qi9egkNVYd2JmH6xj9xrmDrcTfjLUPg9lUMDfbWSPD87kb5VrRhGkYeg3tzBd6r5xP7UIhMvaUMsVEMJ-msiccH=w400-h284" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Dr. Kelly’s now-infamous
parliamentary cross-examination – a spectacle that would be seared into English
memory as a defining image of their Iraq War debacle. Kelly afterwards
reportedly told his daughter it was a ‘real ordeal’, and described one of the
questioning MPs as an ‘utter bastard’. Photo: PA, in the <i>Irish Independent</i></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Dr. Kelly’s name had been exposed in
the media as the source for a BBC report alleging that Prime Minister Tony
Blair’s Labour Party government had exaggerated its claims about weapons of
mass destruction in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (which was true – the WMDs didn’t
exist), as a pretext for invading that country earlier in the year. The government
response was to launch its own furious war-within-a-war against the BBC, to the
centre of which it happily allowed Dr. Kelly’s name to surface then left him
stranded. This was in spite of his long and dedicated professional service, his deep personal
upset at the attention (a week before the Select Committee he’d been
forced to flee to Cornwall at short notice on learning that the media were
about to descend on his house), and the resultant public trashing of his painstakingly-cultivated
reputation.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">It is generally believed that, shocked and devastated at being
set up in this manner, and facing the demolition of his career and upending of his
private life by investigations and media intrusions, Dr. Kelly walked out to these woods, ingested Coproxamol tablets, and severed
his ulnar artery with a pruning knife.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTMePL9Gz9EOTUeLK0BeVAqFMPVv4c2EY2mELCONa-Ac4r5eTaySdRrLlpo6uNlgLwuyrUTKMk2t-vdihY0K24t3YeXdoaqGZFfXvwiYBUWB7JsfTtXKX7yTr2SiKsfcsbr9--9lEUZtADW7aNds9HkaagwXfJSqKgLbuF6tonOIIJD_NHIpEoslwn=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTMePL9Gz9EOTUeLK0BeVAqFMPVv4c2EY2mELCONa-Ac4r5eTaySdRrLlpo6uNlgLwuyrUTKMk2t-vdihY0K24t3YeXdoaqGZFfXvwiYBUWB7JsfTtXKX7yTr2SiKsfcsbr9--9lEUZtADW7aNds9HkaagwXfJSqKgLbuF6tonOIIJD_NHIpEoslwn=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Harrowdown Hill is neither
large nor steep, yet an otherworldly exhaustion seems to weigh on one’s
footsteps on the approach. This <i>hearg</i>, perhaps sacred to those who lived
here in ancient times, is where Dr. David Kelly left this world. There’s no marker or
memorial, and a small barbed-wire fence wards against entry.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDU3rbD65oSjClBvw0pW_BGZQBuj46iJi3FzJ9QF_0Y0KzLZXEf05sm4rabD5IF9mjEXqPlLt3ACqPKi-lBBZF2TiZwDPcSaoXUZeUvPR7kw9TGdFfi_0l0BPkC9G7NNGpNA3kjUtmQLz6AkSVsBjS5f_8Xj6NnA34x8Iyn6TPrLB9Q5OmrO3QclEV=s1240" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDU3rbD65oSjClBvw0pW_BGZQBuj46iJi3FzJ9QF_0Y0KzLZXEf05sm4rabD5IF9mjEXqPlLt3ACqPKi-lBBZF2TiZwDPcSaoXUZeUvPR7kw9TGdFfi_0l0BPkC9G7NNGpNA3kjUtmQLz6AkSVsBjS5f_8Xj6NnA34x8Iyn6TPrLB9Q5OmrO3QclEV=w400-h240" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">The scene which
established Harrowdown Hill in national memory: police and forensics teams
close to the same spot after the discovery of Dr. Kelly’s body. Photo: PA, in <i>The
Guardian</i></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table>In the polarised climate of the Iraq
invasion, a cookie-cutter narrative took shape: the innocent, soft-spoken whistleblower-scientist
who spoke truth to power and so was hounded to death by the war criminal Blair
and his gang of villains, above all his ruthless communications director and
dark-arts chief Alistair Campbell. Over-simplistic as this storyline is, what
is not in doubt is that Dr. Kelly's televised humiliation became a defining image of
the storm of duplicity through which the English plunged into Iraq, and
of the mendacity of the regime that dragged them there. The stench
grew rottener still when the judicial investigation into Dr. Kelly’s death, under
the government-appointed Lord Hutton, turned out an obvious set-up: it
dramatically cleared the Blair regime of all wrongdoing, and so utterly lambasted the
BBC as to force its leaders to resign and castrate its readiness to put
critical questions to power ever since.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">There are those who do
not believe Dr. Kelly’s death was suicide. The suggestion that he was murdered
was swift to emerge and has never gone away. Though no hard evidence has
emerged for it, its persistence is not surprising given the sordidness of his
treatment, the appalling circumstances of his death, the lack of an
inquest, and the shameless whitewash of the Hutton Inquiry. But perhaps that’s
not what it really tells us. Like many conspiracy theories, its real message is
the implosion of public trust in the politics of callousness, fakery and
murderous lies for which the Blair government’s conduct over Iraq
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<![endif]--></span><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 106%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: 游明朝; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">–</span> a deep cultural malaise which shambles on as a lasting legacy of that entire
miserable affair.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">The Iraq invasion dealt lasting destruction. It caused hundreds of thousands of atrocious deaths, not
least by taking pressure off the Afghan Taliban while paving the way for the bloodthirsty rise of Da’esh. Nonetheless, it has
virtually vanished from present-day English political discourse. This itself tells us something about them. Yet in yearning for a time before their more recent absurdities, they forget the genuine ugliness that preceded and in many ways prepared them. The
Iraq War’s division of the population clean down the middle; the glee with
which its supporters shouted down all facts, all warnings, in their unbridled
relish at the prospect of slaughtering foreigners into a promised land of democratic
deliverance – these arguably prefigured the cultural polarisations and jubilant
racist persecutions that would follow in the Brexit years, up to and including
the Hostile Environment policy and its latest drownings in the Channel.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Likewise, much argument was
had back then about the real reasons for destroying Iraq. If it wasn’t WMDs, they said, then
perhaps it was geostrategy, or oil, or humanitarian intervention, or a
Christian crusade, or a fawning devotion to the US on Blair’s part. But with
hindsight the entire discussion rings as disingenuously hollow as the
cargo-cultish boasts of the Brexit nationalists today. Rather, the whooping excitement
of the war’s proponents suggests a simpler reason: they attacked Iraq <i>because
they could</i>. It was little more than a neo-colonial orgy, a renewed outburst
of that persistent and implicit English belief in a right, rooted in racial superiority by any other name, to
march into other peoples’ homes, stamp on their faces, seize their resources,
and ransack their power structures for the sheer self-celebratory heck of it,
in the conviction that anything their enlightened hands touched would be so
much the better for it – or if not, then that of course would be the natives’
own fault, with no responsibility on or consequences for the empire of good
intentions.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Except – there were consequences. As
we see, the war’s taint still rots the English political
subconscious. And though typically nothing so lethal as it was for the Iraqis, for those like Dr. David Kelly it was very much lethal indeed.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Is that what accounts, then, for the
abiding shadow of his death on the English story? That his horrendous personal
tragedy, here on an ancient sacred site in the heart of the <i>green and
pleasant land</i>, so starkly gave the lie to that highest of English values,
that which drove them into their Iraqi bloodbath and has since sharpened into
the defining problem of its present crisis: that <i>responsibility</i>, and <i>consequences</i>,
are things that only happen to other people?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgL0gNdqDYMnVFDKIbcwj1CfAl4Y18Yvz6fPEwNloTbPjYRdj8kv8LYVUiI_7x8F4VzkJMbIPZuIhijtdAQERsCtd0KLDLg6xH2VKIassp2-78ewVomLBxl7tAdxRi3a7s9HVwim0IO1ThpcGKnLdELWAek-Y74xQHclQloDnOWSX0Xn0KaZNIVKI-W=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgL0gNdqDYMnVFDKIbcwj1CfAl4Y18Yvz6fPEwNloTbPjYRdj8kv8LYVUiI_7x8F4VzkJMbIPZuIhijtdAQERsCtd0KLDLg6xH2VKIassp2-78ewVomLBxl7tAdxRi3a7s9HVwim0IO1ThpcGKnLdELWAek-Y74xQHclQloDnOWSX0Xn0KaZNIVKI-W=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">We get to turn from Harrowdown
Hill and journey back to the river. David Kelly did not get to journey back to
his Southmoor home. To make this walk is to engage with the historic event of
his passing not as one does through textbooks and media headlines, but at a
realer level of footsteps, breaths, emotions. Could you imagine this approach
as your final walk, and Harrowdown's trees to stand at the end of your journey?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Shifford</span></u></b></span><span style="line-height: 106%;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">We speak of departures. Let us consider in that same vein the vestiges of settlement on the north bank. From </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Oxford (a ford for oxen)</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;">, to </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-17-high-pastures.html"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Swinford (a ford for swine)</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;">, to <b>Shifford</b> (a ford for
sheep): the largest and tiniest settlements on this plain are held together by
their origins in shared service to creatures crossing the river.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvyMgsuzYerDM72v5kfhZgKfR5-nv3xILRlaVAbs_hgb3qJEOLxZmzHnmbBEW2PXU0Mgaufma_8y3zmuvPFVhfMRJ31BnOKwgLovveSAuS2kImAcrDUJMrE5xx8g83Vrxs2CPbokP1d3hfv-x0Q7gN0rXnw6pOS6Y44YOf0-nnVTEyi-Bsu-z1aBmq=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvyMgsuzYerDM72v5kfhZgKfR5-nv3xILRlaVAbs_hgb3qJEOLxZmzHnmbBEW2PXU0Mgaufma_8y3zmuvPFVhfMRJ31BnOKwgLovveSAuS2kImAcrDUJMrE5xx8g83Vrxs2CPbokP1d3hfv-x0Q7gN0rXnw6pOS6Y44YOf0-nnVTEyi-Bsu-z1aBmq=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">In the distance Shifford’s chapel
stands atmospherically alone. It’s an 1863 Gothic Revival job, but its predecessors
have stood there since at least the thirteenth century.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Shifford’s site has a long record of pastoral
activity, as evidenced by finds of Iron Age weights and cooking equipment,
Roman coins, and a range of farm animal bone fragments. Its name first appears
in a charter from 1005, recording its granting to </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-17-high-pastures.html"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Eynsham Abbey</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;">. Soon afterwards a medieval poem, <i>The
Proverbs of Alfred</i>, appeared to suggest that Alfred the Great held a <i>Witenagemot</i>
here – that is, one of the earliest meetings of what </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">the English Parliament</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;"> likes to see as its ancestor. This
local legend was sadly punctured when later research found it highly
unlikely, not least because Alfred’s kingdom of Wessex did not control this
area till some decades after his death. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDaBT6EV34uZKMKybHPTa_gn9anNTf1VD17VW0ePxVDi5wEK2GeBGd34OU0S4Hdw8TLQ9hdIjkS-cRO287jRYO88Uc-0LUTUy6vUr9lZX_G_WbV8am-qFGxMHUoq2XHkW-W8FtU9lvYNNPwlp5vggg7wSoqImSPZA9R9_XcHwcajque4jUcjNZ1b0l=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDaBT6EV34uZKMKybHPTa_gn9anNTf1VD17VW0ePxVDi5wEK2GeBGd34OU0S4Hdw8TLQ9hdIjkS-cRO287jRYO88Uc-0LUTUy6vUr9lZX_G_WbV8am-qFGxMHUoq2XHkW-W8FtU9lvYNNPwlp5vggg7wSoqImSPZA9R9_XcHwcajque4jUcjNZ1b0l=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Haul Ham stretches on up the
south side. You can still see the outline of the island it once formed.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOyHTPw0KZQGVjZAhWpyfrdOaUpexMYhiBD5ylVjPCNXEKhq6DCMx9i2OV6mD7pqTdv1zd4yg0zAPWjd72HdSvIosgJZdkLUJtKb_ymVU8J1MjVIiymC455joW1tRVorj6ImzjuTAJHDm7Eb98TmarGh0UIZPK9t4Wgt6t41ayU7RQgCJJx3jej_AM=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOyHTPw0KZQGVjZAhWpyfrdOaUpexMYhiBD5ylVjPCNXEKhq6DCMx9i2OV6mD7pqTdv1zd4yg0zAPWjd72HdSvIosgJZdkLUJtKb_ymVU8J1MjVIiymC455joW1tRVorj6ImzjuTAJHDm7Eb98TmarGh0UIZPK9t4Wgt6t41ayU7RQgCJJx3jej_AM=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">The Thames’s thistles, now in
winter’s red rage, maintain their sturdy vigil.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Generations of Enclosure and
agricultural depression have since taken their toll on Shifford. In spite of
its chapel’s fancy do-over it has steadily haemorrhaged its population – that
is to say, generated English migrants, travelling away in search of a better
life. Today all that remains of Shifford beside the chapel is a single farm, which
as late as the 1990s had yet to receive mains water and gas. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuX6S7alghbMXKhonVarw9BI0PHJSzODfT8jlJHyzatbpdUMeAHNSNwLdQpevyI35y4uYMjmtPY04q-w_WJzm7Rygq2VJyH_0M3jNjtW5HQ9aR9bb82kp2zVvIm58zIpUjdvSAjaHR3Pe3IiRY-NdS25Pf3ZWTZ_uwHWgkBipZf88Z0hZOoRjnE614=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuX6S7alghbMXKhonVarw9BI0PHJSzODfT8jlJHyzatbpdUMeAHNSNwLdQpevyI35y4uYMjmtPY04q-w_WJzm7Rygq2VJyH_0M3jNjtW5HQ9aR9bb82kp2zVvIm58zIpUjdvSAjaHR3Pe3IiRY-NdS25Pf3ZWTZ_uwHWgkBipZf88Z0hZOoRjnE614=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNYaUSt5Htru92rzjGT9j5oGk9SivhJc2v4i0GrpqVJPAYgdRD8LPSnDAPJCcyAS7HMaJ7eZZ3AyhnLD3Ox8oS_jdyPO3wjFk54ZKLZun1OATxtgzAQfQLH18sIqWbzUpCaSD_yURSYHJMw0w7Ga5sgNC6gAhan6tdwH8A_BdsFolB9IFQTnbWVRc8=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNYaUSt5Htru92rzjGT9j5oGk9SivhJc2v4i0GrpqVJPAYgdRD8LPSnDAPJCcyAS7HMaJ7eZZ3AyhnLD3Ox8oS_jdyPO3wjFk54ZKLZun1OATxtgzAQfQLH18sIqWbzUpCaSD_yURSYHJMw0w7Ga5sgNC6gAhan6tdwH8A_BdsFolB9IFQTnbWVRc8=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">These hauntingly pollarded
willow trees have assembled on the bank across from Shifford. You have to move
through them to pass, but unlike the Home Office they won’t torture you or
drive you to suicide in immigrant detention centres.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAT7bHi1WExt6ruUgL1JfI6mCkua8jMCSQEbh47JGsK1w-mrXS-ECpX13POSIOGeQOlUkwOqleXQDu5z-VCfkfjJpaYDCxE5v0T8psuBF5TTI-n_i_AFu1iTsqph9rAlkdscToS4l5e4kVq5HgjHN7MvfFk422kQzN_zS188iyuUNEGCEqYlV_WGAa=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAT7bHi1WExt6ruUgL1JfI6mCkua8jMCSQEbh47JGsK1w-mrXS-ECpX13POSIOGeQOlUkwOqleXQDu5z-VCfkfjJpaYDCxE5v0T8psuBF5TTI-n_i_AFu1iTsqph9rAlkdscToS4l5e4kVq5HgjHN7MvfFk422kQzN_zS188iyuUNEGCEqYlV_WGAa=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">The remains of a stone
structure – possibly from an old weir? Or an incarnation of Shifford’s ford?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhrSR-R65sSATqX0wQCwt4NjUVdhDQ_7ChljgbQ_nh3_CxY90HfgCgz04W5inzmVp1XHtIh-zy2QTLPb56-8CSr8AqYI_CXBRw75BPKkFweAnoEwIhbNt394DK2aNdNM1QJr5HTZK-Wrma068iU-WDbKi4GAv4U7ZOndeZ1M9RIk9WPzt625XHOSuta=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhrSR-R65sSATqX0wQCwt4NjUVdhDQ_7ChljgbQ_nh3_CxY90HfgCgz04W5inzmVp1XHtIh-zy2QTLPb56-8CSr8AqYI_CXBRw75BPKkFweAnoEwIhbNt394DK2aNdNM1QJr5HTZK-Wrma068iU-WDbKi4GAv4U7ZOndeZ1M9RIk9WPzt625XHOSuta=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">And there’s Shifford itself.
‘This country is full’, they insist. Could not a few immigrant families revive
a nice little community here?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="line-height: 106%;">Shifford’s fate is typical of many of
the medieval villages along the river ahead. The creatures who gave it its name
have stuck around though.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgLC6e92xISYjBR1JpX0u2_RlqtxeuxN9Sxwn83AIBxFPemLq-mUrtEYb3HBF4QTjDWVH937RvUMdpmejZ2voX8fUu9H53I_HhGa5EU9CpK-xsUM3r9dM89ryziQCJkaz_XjDVOnnmhE3CZrjSpqjLhB4BhpGjSIyEY17xLzvaOUSC7DaSsQ2zZhWVE=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgLC6e92xISYjBR1JpX0u2_RlqtxeuxN9Sxwn83AIBxFPemLq-mUrtEYb3HBF4QTjDWVH937RvUMdpmejZ2voX8fUu9H53I_HhGa5EU9CpK-xsUM3r9dM89ryziQCJkaz_XjDVOnnmhE3CZrjSpqjLhB4BhpGjSIyEY17xLzvaOUSC7DaSsQ2zZhWVE=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Neeh.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi38Z9YkixJBknKtwifcuS3HAmgLlEj0HiN8bOwSGqZLYA5i1wRA81qujGE6DcJeSvk_BhTyeyvxeN6F8w4_BrHFb83DjOE58JQ4KjMIxHcmXY9OCoHNfoG5acCShAB2jLaiwl8YeCwgiAyK1w3Qe-oS4NVfjjiZQnD9Ca15CxPdoguV7ko8oTFTD_B=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi38Z9YkixJBknKtwifcuS3HAmgLlEj0HiN8bOwSGqZLYA5i1wRA81qujGE6DcJeSvk_BhTyeyvxeN6F8w4_BrHFb83DjOE58JQ4KjMIxHcmXY9OCoHNfoG5acCShAB2jLaiwl8YeCwgiAyK1w3Qe-oS4NVfjjiZQnD9Ca15CxPdoguV7ko8oTFTD_B=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjdHOD3847EJsYBt0-iVzEHMp03tGslb1tQVq6L7Ql7GE_4itvmz3oO8vneoyHVFV9Id6AGfNSGMJ4aMTmz2MAl8S346nHe1_LCOmmtfpc1bulPYu-Xr4ViFbuO-tQxbUAiIjmZUufvbW1w_QiIygQn--xR2JhyNFvNoHFhCPMvnm719wO7enia_Z95=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjdHOD3847EJsYBt0-iVzEHMp03tGslb1tQVq6L7Ql7GE_4itvmz3oO8vneoyHVFV9Id6AGfNSGMJ4aMTmz2MAl8S346nHe1_LCOmmtfpc1bulPYu-Xr4ViFbuO-tQxbUAiIjmZUufvbW1w_QiIygQn--xR2JhyNFvNoHFhCPMvnm719wO7enia_Z95=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Wonder if there’s a Dogford
somewhere too.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">The Duxford Detour</span></u></b></span><span style="line-height: 106%;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Oh look.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Well it probably wasn’t Dogford, or
even Ducksford. <b>Duxford</b> appears as <i>Dudochesford </i>in the Domesday
Book and probably came from someone’s name, although goodness knows what. It too is a tiny farming hamlet, standing outside a significant southward
meander.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">The standard path avoids it entirely.
In the late 1890s the Thames Conservancy installed one of the river’s final locks,
<b>Shifford Lock</b>, on a side-stream across the neck of the bend which it
widened into the <b>Shifford Lock Cut</b>. This became the main channel, while
the bend itself, long a shallow and treacherous navigational headache, fell
into disuse. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Nowadays walkers too cross a
footbridge and pass along the cut. But today, there’s a problem.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdnQga4gnpYPP21AuT-CgfBiz-TR13zV29v2oxqlZAp_Ovxh7zBOvkT5ij-QKp-kyCbUwozs3DTAUtf3hCkE9y8-ysd1zx52IhJX4PiOggQT3-w4b0R8DWm90R6ItntmVCJqTfsCDJNAtG8JmchXViet2zEB5WAe5Kk0KfVKNCJOEKNUdZ8PUruQ2u=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdnQga4gnpYPP21AuT-CgfBiz-TR13zV29v2oxqlZAp_Ovxh7zBOvkT5ij-QKp-kyCbUwozs3DTAUtf3hCkE9y8-ysd1zx52IhJX4PiOggQT3-w4b0R8DWm90R6ItntmVCJqTfsCDJNAtG8JmchXViet2zEB5WAe5Kk0KfVKNCJOEKNUdZ8PUruQ2u=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">The bridge is closed. Little
indication is given as to why, or of suggested alternative routes to take. The
only alternative is to follow the old towpath down the riverbend to Duxford, whose
ford, one is warned, is too treacherous to cross in winter conditions.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmpGfobaS4nisvfet2iLsLXkeWOQzCgLHx4e3uMBrrSSloKVPQ0-iOgvSahzoeA0Gxag9v26jqcSvsegU4JKAiTxT44d7sWw_a_Z433DLPrH-VRmI1O9IBsMVw1QOCeuk2daYOkCzmqAXNMPqjegrXOCf18rupdDX9LdIlF-Vb6XYv7Cygmm-Rx1w2=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmpGfobaS4nisvfet2iLsLXkeWOQzCgLHx4e3uMBrrSSloKVPQ0-iOgvSahzoeA0Gxag9v26jqcSvsegU4JKAiTxT44d7sWw_a_Z433DLPrH-VRmI1O9IBsMVw1QOCeuk2daYOkCzmqAXNMPqjegrXOCf18rupdDX9LdIlF-Vb6XYv7Cygmm-Rx1w2=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">The natural riverbend. Long a
popular stretch for local weirs, mills and ferries; less so for barge captains whose
frustration is easy to imagine.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhOSUEXElmnwE9sLtYAutcINqzERApCaAZjgk_e18m4TZazUNWEZOZaS5kauXhJsxYFkm0EdUXe2M0n9AVevHiOrOGu29xudDiAF6Nu4GEz1Lot54gLjhgpnQx9vVN0AIHdUEn4tQ4tETx6sp5N2A04aphfhG4tLNpcBkvDYwEQI4NN2labqMjh-ebh=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhOSUEXElmnwE9sLtYAutcINqzERApCaAZjgk_e18m4TZazUNWEZOZaS5kauXhJsxYFkm0EdUXe2M0n9AVevHiOrOGu29xudDiAF6Nu4GEz1Lot54gLjhgpnQx9vVN0AIHdUEn4tQ4tETx6sp5N2A04aphfhG4tLNpcBkvDYwEQI4NN2labqMjh-ebh=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">The old towpath is overgrown
but just about passable.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEirCOH-Dq1d54HIuJ2xC_UrasVIhLRqfWio9N3EccC3qUI2gMLoeWdSmqKiJMIOwqHUJUKb0be8tVqnjNdYN7iGmfmEDKf-Xv8rE-Ar5L59QA-KdBrz-II3cm64vpaiPf-80Pg-IKV_wcYtSXO3mQNdGNAyx9gKayb2ngqFjdViILo7_n_Ivn-wEBb7=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEirCOH-Dq1d54HIuJ2xC_UrasVIhLRqfWio9N3EccC3qUI2gMLoeWdSmqKiJMIOwqHUJUKb0be8tVqnjNdYN7iGmfmEDKf-Xv8rE-Ar5L59QA-KdBrz-II3cm64vpaiPf-80Pg-IKV_wcYtSXO3mQNdGNAyx9gKayb2ngqFjdViILo7_n_Ivn-wEBb7=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">On Duxford’s outskirts the
chubby sheep will stare at you, wondering what in the world drove you to
venture out here.</span></span></b></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZkWu9d7uOS1htIywElT1Elg6BIYjTvze83IplqkoRedZMdCEV6nZWGKjvfKFXm0OzZ19jt92H9HCwnv_U5qdY3FRhyjEOTZAySrXOur-RA-VNRiW1aws_n1QyWglkIgg7B2Esw56MJxLDdUkm8jZm-L0ZP0T_DfQK-XMuUW3mcxP_Z1RAdujQ_ZxE=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZkWu9d7uOS1htIywElT1Elg6BIYjTvze83IplqkoRedZMdCEV6nZWGKjvfKFXm0OzZ19jt92H9HCwnv_U5qdY3FRhyjEOTZAySrXOur-RA-VNRiW1aws_n1QyWglkIgg7B2Esw56MJxLDdUkm8jZm-L0ZP0T_DfQK-XMuUW3mcxP_Z1RAdujQ_ZxE=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">At the bottom of the bend is the
actual Dux-ford. Its function in this season does not live up to its
foundational importance in getting this area its name. Indeed, a ford you
cannot cross seems scarcely a ford at all.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhB22w_ORviJRgh_08v5T-y_ruxnWDT9HSwcevIJSOJdMvnoFiRndWfojagjH0fUDxa6mLdz9DUbZBhzWsEwCQVJK4GaO-4-gVMFDL0KYpOW-UxuPyhVrVXJ-VoRwQniD_1xBc_Ji2rCR6D6jAN2jgakUmLJ_ILWfJK5FHYIx-MzBjKbaHUDRQTmubK=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhB22w_ORviJRgh_08v5T-y_ruxnWDT9HSwcevIJSOJdMvnoFiRndWfojagjH0fUDxa6mLdz9DUbZBhzWsEwCQVJK4GaO-4-gVMFDL0KYpOW-UxuPyhVrVXJ-VoRwQniD_1xBc_Ji2rCR6D6jAN2jgakUmLJ_ILWfJK5FHYIx-MzBjKbaHUDRQTmubK=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">The path opposite leads back to
Shifford Cut, but the river’s fierce flow rules out any safe attempt to cross.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Here then fell this journey’s most serious
obstacle so far. The old towpath does not loop back up the riverbend, rather it
peters out into the Duxford fields which have all been fenced into private
farmland. With no straightforward route back to the river, the next best option
appeared to be to proceed inland to a footbridge further along. But said
private farmland occupies all the intervening terrain, with no signposts or
markers to guide you through an environment laid out with all the passive-aggressive hostility to wayfarers that is the signature of the English
propertied classes.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">On top of that, I then encountered a
small party of walkers coming back from the Duxford farm. They were in the same
position as I, attempting to find a way back to the river, only to have been
turned back off the farm’s lanes by a squad of rude and unsympathetic tree
surgeons.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Only a single recourse
remained: to make our own path. And so unfolded a microcosm of the bitter
English land struggle: the settler versus the migrant, the proprietor versus
the wayfarer, the land-grabber versus the land-roamer. Today the latter must
fight for their right to travel the Earth that all people naturally share, in
the face of the violence of those who would draw imaginary lines across it,
ring it in ditches and barbed-wire fences, and claim it as theirs alone while
dehumanising those they throw off it as <i>trespassers</i>, <i>vagabonds</i> and
<i>economic migrants</i>.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Well barbed wire was crossed and
privatised tracks followed on this day, because no other option was left to us.
The river as a right of way for all people precedes the notion of England and
its every invention. On this occasion it offered no further resistance. But
what, then, of the countless human beings, often fleeing poverty or
persecution, who are killed or abused by this country and so many others for
doing the same? What conceptual distance is there from the brutal
heritage of Enclosure to the present-day Hostile Environment policy – both
designed to heap suffering on real people for crossing imaginary borders?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjGsumxiIuYwW6maaFOm7YKPb694wpxtw8sNAThsL7qFBTydfwvbSs04Nw02MDKhgJLfxMTMveUE-iTrQFyK1zILf-BvcSBJ17qHC_cHiJnRmaIe9XktcjegpnfEOhIbIQZ0o1BRIOULg1FHoj-L13UHJtSPFE2vM33Z4FhKVcWIa5n9O848sr3-wx2=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjGsumxiIuYwW6maaFOm7YKPb694wpxtw8sNAThsL7qFBTydfwvbSs04Nw02MDKhgJLfxMTMveUE-iTrQFyK1zILf-BvcSBJ17qHC_cHiJnRmaIe9XktcjegpnfEOhIbIQZ0o1BRIOULg1FHoj-L13UHJtSPFE2vM33Z4FhKVcWIa5n9O848sr3-wx2=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">After half an hour of
determined pathfinding we finally made it back to the river at Tenfoot Bridge,
where we congratulated each other before going our separate ways. The bridge’s name
appears to come from a ten-foot-wide flash lock and weir that used to stand on
this site. By the 1860s its poor condition had brought complaints, so the
Thames Conservancy replaced it with this footbridge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlbY0za7F0vPwHuKdqJC8l63KtiEvhQsJm_p3yJOmZD8KuAi1Yc7C1FiqHelcyGmLBBMwAtvL1Ejmk8pd6k4m8mzmVjHSN33aUaJO0dIZlxrKCOJbowmDU9R6Fx3fZ8m5St7T0jxXlVl7qjDed5enYHtDQMjJ2gmzFeo44-SnWnCXGbO71INjXteSo=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlbY0za7F0vPwHuKdqJC8l63KtiEvhQsJm_p3yJOmZD8KuAi1Yc7C1FiqHelcyGmLBBMwAtvL1Ejmk8pd6k4m8mzmVjHSN33aUaJO0dIZlxrKCOJbowmDU9R6Fx3fZ8m5St7T0jxXlVl7qjDed5enYHtDQMjJ2gmzFeo44-SnWnCXGbO71INjXteSo=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">The main drawback of this
detour was to miss out on the Chimney Meadows, an ancient and attractive wetland
nature reserve spread across the banks north of Shifford Lock Cut. At their
centre is Chimney itself, a tiny farming hamlet whose name, meaning ‘Ceomma’s
island’, reflects its marshy surroundings. It’s also the discovery site of a
very large late Anglo-Saxon burial ground.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Tadpole</span></u></b></span><span style="line-height: 106%;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">They’re going all out on the
names here. Still, much about Tadpole’s downstream approach suggests a
realm where, as far as the river is concerned, names are of receding
significance.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIAI_RCHwG30jQjgKVLiFPhBcOTzDAt0WRy8fYF35_xuzCkYADem__tVK2_i3Q0UTGzho41Q6yXn4NkYRVffrYy_kaLlwoLl8PnqPwX246SObiL0hG8AMyTpdPZBStmQ3CmutINP52YNl-WzzACWhiARZkAeDrNWEvRO_0FkIbK_ODTwaLHUxYQ-We=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIAI_RCHwG30jQjgKVLiFPhBcOTzDAt0WRy8fYF35_xuzCkYADem__tVK2_i3Q0UTGzho41Q6yXn4NkYRVffrYy_kaLlwoLl8PnqPwX246SObiL0hG8AMyTpdPZBStmQ3CmutINP52YNl-WzzACWhiARZkAeDrNWEvRO_0FkIbK_ODTwaLHUxYQ-We=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjkrBDI7WX55Fg4K8o0Z3ahdkigHObjK0UdatYCNC3m9h1lx6ych7akvF3aJ9zQTrKeG8CgMdxPAF7jTNN_UHno2_xrQJ8oOPJutrIwmPye83cMYOicxOWrC2cNIL--dshaMEgHwfhL9hMcZHQ85iiHzCRbFbYoitcXUu4hmLvJMR393ndC4R0r5M85=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjkrBDI7WX55Fg4K8o0Z3ahdkigHObjK0UdatYCNC3m9h1lx6ych7akvF3aJ9zQTrKeG8CgMdxPAF7jTNN_UHno2_xrQJ8oOPJutrIwmPye83cMYOicxOWrC2cNIL--dshaMEgHwfhL9hMcZHQ85iiHzCRbFbYoitcXUu4hmLvJMR393ndC4R0r5M85=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">The water’s thin wooded sleeves here afford it wild
insulation. The boughs are rich in birdsong, but the birds themselves are
skittish and disinclined to sit around for cameras.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgagsTZT0PgjyAjNR62vertpFxTpi5LKlQ3wYGNtH0AVouhP-47KeixdITFPxxYMZbhf3_LQP0YFSYaIqnI5KyfFIwN0JHHFTGPcJM4jt8roRLZE_zWqWSAZLhgYmQXzxgZ-RMf3mskC_QHk1u1ngd3UHcYxxeWDuyEmP9XVzjAw83PBuqjjJuerxvu=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgagsTZT0PgjyAjNR62vertpFxTpi5LKlQ3wYGNtH0AVouhP-47KeixdITFPxxYMZbhf3_LQP0YFSYaIqnI5KyfFIwN0JHHFTGPcJM4jt8roRLZE_zWqWSAZLhgYmQXzxgZ-RMf3mskC_QHk1u1ngd3UHcYxxeWDuyEmP9XVzjAw83PBuqjjJuerxvu=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhson1LZ1vtvwb6T9dk_SCmCwea0J3qdNI6rko_vs_lMIwUTBCNV63jrTOgTqT62Jr2hZKRNKYSSQepc_OOauzEjDDYHBUTjYeQrgfrI5yg5NrgZeClY-42Gk2iHaJ9tKk0C8Tdl26Em1gjcBvS1ng-lC8VP7xoemf88uJAyfmc2pgsdoGpWxBas3rY=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhson1LZ1vtvwb6T9dk_SCmCwea0J3qdNI6rko_vs_lMIwUTBCNV63jrTOgTqT62Jr2hZKRNKYSSQepc_OOauzEjDDYHBUTjYeQrgfrI5yg5NrgZeClY-42Gk2iHaJ9tKk0C8Tdl26Em1gjcBvS1ng-lC8VP7xoemf88uJAyfmc2pgsdoGpWxBas3rY=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Look what’s back with a
vengeance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Having withdrawn for a time, these
World War II pillboxes now return in full force. Indeed, the reach from here to
Lechlade appears to hold almost as many of these obstinate relics as the entire
Thames up to this point. Presumably they were installed to slow the Nazis’
advance on the industrial midlands in the event of a ground invasion. Though it’s
unlikely they fired a shot, still they stand, helping to keep alive an
England-against-the-world psychology across the countryside today.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgI84MdV9NFrXbCZ9SGEixcF7QE73nthjPMp-0X_5T1EYJ0hHvjB41_kcOpdojw9qf4DptdNWUup7KSmrOkU5l-3xycqWXEyec1HHsQI1IZBy1VfXej3h4RVgNlNnwMYfzHK2NblQ-Cdes4VOK4G8gl_KkSaGig631ZaYaZKPJhq2ohoaCLT2S4ygnB=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgI84MdV9NFrXbCZ9SGEixcF7QE73nthjPMp-0X_5T1EYJ0hHvjB41_kcOpdojw9qf4DptdNWUup7KSmrOkU5l-3xycqWXEyec1HHsQI1IZBy1VfXej3h4RVgNlNnwMYfzHK2NblQ-Cdes4VOK4G8gl_KkSaGig631ZaYaZKPJhq2ohoaCLT2S4ygnB=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">And this must be the wheel you
turn to drain the water, revealing the ancient trap-ridden tomb complex concealed
in the riverbed.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWhgCrRVkCC2P94MqMtsmDIRujfs-V19Kzk7bln_b8Oxw8mTJZMoWoVYhVaxqAiNAo2Oo_HTPa0y2ppvnhR_aIKRaFv2z3yVP2zJ_cyZAIxtiM4stwsNh10fLYJABIEvPXfCOqM8baoR-hnLwZI_-Wqh8pkiT0Z33j68NhMeD5kiA9UIE64HmExJG2=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWhgCrRVkCC2P94MqMtsmDIRujfs-V19Kzk7bln_b8Oxw8mTJZMoWoVYhVaxqAiNAo2Oo_HTPa0y2ppvnhR_aIKRaFv2z3yVP2zJ_cyZAIxtiM4stwsNh10fLYJABIEvPXfCOqM8baoR-hnLwZI_-Wqh8pkiT0Z33j68NhMeD5kiA9UIE64HmExJG2=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhOa-f4aQ40xIMgZSCmljcugkHmkIh6IkloLl1EU0HiHAjU6DJjtqXv8-Mj3a58is7De-rin5Ke7g_F3ZZTQ8JqWZpdAQJ6-8tm_lqFLEzSiuwIh7TGrc5EkWOc9ybHZSouR9JjQh84-lN9ggY89VX6rV4ibZLVF9yiR21UH-4iCb425KckInt3syty=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhOa-f4aQ40xIMgZSCmljcugkHmkIh6IkloLl1EU0HiHAjU6DJjtqXv8-Mj3a58is7De-rin5Ke7g_F3ZZTQ8JqWZpdAQJ6-8tm_lqFLEzSiuwIh7TGrc5EkWOc9ybHZSouR9JjQh84-lN9ggY89VX6rV4ibZLVF9yiR21UH-4iCb425KckInt3syty=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Another one.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZH5mMeRhdAU0USefe0riFE2CqoAi5DffIY3Y1qpFouWE1h93dfmORrljZ3b4UtGJR-IrLZCU6gPoy_Ib-9aheXeDgSUzP5aUNjNF-MQZP6-eIxofm3Cnt8odPOs4NBjqmh5GYh3afcsWgu7MMzQl7eOzfyknPJLQSv3QkM45iIIEMWat2oLvolOIh=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZH5mMeRhdAU0USefe0riFE2CqoAi5DffIY3Y1qpFouWE1h93dfmORrljZ3b4UtGJR-IrLZCU6gPoy_Ib-9aheXeDgSUzP5aUNjNF-MQZP6-eIxofm3Cnt8odPOs4NBjqmh5GYh3afcsWgu7MMzQl7eOzfyknPJLQSv3QkM45iIIEMWat2oLvolOIh=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">A peek inside this one reveals
a very English sense of looking after history.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEisOfVoL5NZtYNV-1Mp9j33PjPQyLjrIYVB7vQNENAcV56yMvjUTVcM7Uu31rgyU5gKwiw5ZcOTBz7LXc5vL1gLP_JzPEh4rjZmX58eTId0CuR3fQjB-qjdX1Y8tZc0-OqVX1qLLgKqZqcR8wmQ2rNYwpWPqdgIfdoQDWM26ips8OmcpqhSdDW3cSVP=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEisOfVoL5NZtYNV-1Mp9j33PjPQyLjrIYVB7vQNENAcV56yMvjUTVcM7Uu31rgyU5gKwiw5ZcOTBz7LXc5vL1gLP_JzPEh4rjZmX58eTId0CuR3fQjB-qjdX1Y8tZc0-OqVX1qLLgKqZqcR8wmQ2rNYwpWPqdgIfdoQDWM26ips8OmcpqhSdDW3cSVP=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">On runs the river, with human
encounters few and far between. It makes you think. Here above all the stories it
goes on to absorb – the punting and rowing and cruising, the
privilege-fortresses and middle-class properties, the “sea of masts” and the power-thumping
reflections of palaces and embankments – before, beneath, and beyond there is
purely this water, in need of no names, notions or nations.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhT4a9vKoSbdPtU5IQ7ByYWVzq4MbiYotnymltrv5uLuCdlMV2Tpk2FRbvIpWx04ocw6xPdXmJF5YbGLg2cUxC67pEeCZbwc1_UmP4KwXKkX8pG0ghTzdvUAf8canFgRDrAB95Cz_mn_4w3ApbGIT2ZkYSKApo1hgUPFUQkHWHQbNt9wzNRlNJXO6qH=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhT4a9vKoSbdPtU5IQ7ByYWVzq4MbiYotnymltrv5uLuCdlMV2Tpk2FRbvIpWx04ocw6xPdXmJF5YbGLg2cUxC67pEeCZbwc1_UmP4KwXKkX8pG0ghTzdvUAf8canFgRDrAB95Cz_mn_4w3ApbGIT2ZkYSKApo1hgUPFUQkHWHQbNt9wzNRlNJXO6qH=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">An old gate for one of the river's
innumerable little side-channels here. Many
would have been dug out as irrigation channels to supply the surrounding farms
and villages.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0dfxjAs1HZc85OdU9hbUhtI8umFLxZeXMlCw3QUex4LQPhOIVwO54dQYk4GEKiVrqHICsaBLaT--vzirBuSnVC17FOwj8azirchbV-XSlK07FgmzKdwPOEnHPhFNnJU9iFlVdTYX_tbmAmSimTxWM9huM2w9tW1vzAknxwb-W2NntzObItJVOdCPC=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0dfxjAs1HZc85OdU9hbUhtI8umFLxZeXMlCw3QUex4LQPhOIVwO54dQYk4GEKiVrqHICsaBLaT--vzirBuSnVC17FOwj8azirchbV-XSlK07FgmzKdwPOEnHPhFNnJU9iFlVdTYX_tbmAmSimTxWM9huM2w9tW1vzAknxwb-W2NntzObItJVOdCPC=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUu4zZnIYldN4WdB6W4JMGPgKtdktdPd_0z5W7LhPAm01ySff3R8J4arqrDk8sccB8FNoQnNEa7nOl4_DrDQRAbUYJl_rbGudh8LiH5Iq2CHA8ZHDAQqZVTwCg9RxCe2Q3mSmBoJ3oaTYTus0vk29XiX4iUAdcK0xyNKU5F-H6mbjohhqKtHjwWU4F=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUu4zZnIYldN4WdB6W4JMGPgKtdktdPd_0z5W7LhPAm01ySff3R8J4arqrDk8sccB8FNoQnNEa7nOl4_DrDQRAbUYJl_rbGudh8LiH5Iq2CHA8ZHDAQqZVTwCg9RxCe2Q3mSmBoJ3oaTYTus0vk29XiX4iUAdcK0xyNKU5F-H6mbjohhqKtHjwWU4F=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">After a brief spell through this
eternity, hints of human activity return. They signal the approach to Tadpole
Bridge, which carries the only road across the river for miles around.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlLMBZdtc3lcNbr9dhl8UxNkkmaXTUjO_L56qu9h2LrxOTu-wAu20_nTNq5tp1MXApr7j3eXnTAkHHZWuodi4pWiVn3o9YijFs6akvzg8QhAvByki39w99SGRQz3btp7iUw7M6ZCUG902Pbpvo6U1wfvQ9KR5M46C3yrb-zblBCU8hUaXtYDYXo_OC=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlLMBZdtc3lcNbr9dhl8UxNkkmaXTUjO_L56qu9h2LrxOTu-wAu20_nTNq5tp1MXApr7j3eXnTAkHHZWuodi4pWiVn3o9YijFs6akvzg8QhAvByki39w99SGRQz3btp7iUw7M6ZCUG902Pbpvo6U1wfvQ9KR5M46C3yrb-zblBCU8hUaXtYDYXo_OC=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">A study in horizontality.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgr8bxqguSEuPBexiwNYkiohs8Bg1ZQ_6w3V8gdsieQsPUrUOjxcG5Y4m9UEXttOV1fNWWJwz663uqcGLTO8cXY7zlG3jprYunD2fvS0v_Emx4Dmn5A5UXtE0s9EzVUtpsk_1WCXqWUHIr7wEj8ZAuZT3jsvh8JsFh1Seq6o_uqcHFa_NVuPBv8MJKh=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgr8bxqguSEuPBexiwNYkiohs8Bg1ZQ_6w3V8gdsieQsPUrUOjxcG5Y4m9UEXttOV1fNWWJwz663uqcGLTO8cXY7zlG3jprYunD2fvS0v_Emx4Dmn5A5UXtE0s9EzVUtpsk_1WCXqWUHIr7wEj8ZAuZT3jsvh8JsFh1Seq6o_uqcHFa_NVuPBv8MJKh=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Electric pylons like these
have been ubiquitous all the way up, but suddenly strike a remarkable profile
out here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCkttQfimS0SJHEj8o1RwjNsTreh69pro16iADCY1fs3bfRjHKyzNBPauGVuLpA8z3qAiRgNC4qRWPsbMxrJ57_f2pTMBjIhkPZAqoZG-SrRR0a17qmhSKrsyLmeMzpIUR29WCPcc_0TtF3kHGf3rZaUFVX9SVHpB28RnDfE9Wye5O7VpGX2XvhzH7=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCkttQfimS0SJHEj8o1RwjNsTreh69pro16iADCY1fs3bfRjHKyzNBPauGVuLpA8z3qAiRgNC4qRWPsbMxrJ57_f2pTMBjIhkPZAqoZG-SrRR0a17qmhSKrsyLmeMzpIUR29WCPcc_0TtF3kHGf3rZaUFVX9SVHpB28RnDfE9Wye5O7VpGX2XvhzH7=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">In winter this plant reveals
its true nature as a colony of wiggling spider-crab aliens.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWJY03jrvgHBRI_4gYhXy-P4YwbbPSd4Ro1Vwi8C9ZEOAp6mKWpZP2AbnLO_kJmbAQopfrGl5DcH_kmc6Sx4eI7g1Jddo-Lbe6jNB686RO3lXGc1SjdytI3ZIGW8UYvxGjJJR-9I1hLJ84Dbj8UvCAc3k58vE3_0MPxRHlzR7QQ5jnBY4zc-r8rRZP=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWJY03jrvgHBRI_4gYhXy-P4YwbbPSd4Ro1Vwi8C9ZEOAp6mKWpZP2AbnLO_kJmbAQopfrGl5DcH_kmc6Sx4eI7g1Jddo-Lbe6jNB686RO3lXGc1SjdytI3ZIGW8UYvxGjJJR-9I1hLJ84Dbj8UvCAc3k58vE3_0MPxRHlzR7QQ5jnBY4zc-r8rRZP=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">A cluster of little
pleasure-boats, moored within easy reach of the road.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">The first written reference to <b>Tadpole
Bridge</b> appears on a map in 1784, about the time the current structure was built.
How it got that name is anyone’s guess, while the only hints of its historic
significance point to it being an important waystation for coal transport till
at least the late nineteenth century. The former coal storehouse is now a
well-reputed inn called <i>The Trout</i>, Tadpole’s only other structure of
note.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNmIYpcYSXksd1Rcn1FD4tvdZmBvUqRqA4FJQBTMK2BRlSDch-3694qbr57meiNEfqssCKwC4cmmyLZLN86Dq_W8t2QzO5kH07hLtks_kI3TrOBhRzAoNFSDkmR3K0T_avuVBoFLGjerX4wrlsI4L5ObfcT6D3TMTp4Laod_19vDjRWTbuPXpioCBZ=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNmIYpcYSXksd1Rcn1FD4tvdZmBvUqRqA4FJQBTMK2BRlSDch-3694qbr57meiNEfqssCKwC4cmmyLZLN86Dq_W8t2QzO5kH07hLtks_kI3TrOBhRzAoNFSDkmR3K0T_avuVBoFLGjerX4wrlsI4L5ObfcT6D3TMTp4Laod_19vDjRWTbuPXpioCBZ=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">If you take those square
elements for its eyes, and the arch for its mouth, then maybe you can just
about imagine it’s a tadpole. A hungry one.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTP13REBL_8GDG90WsJ6j43DfwNolZIP1yJL87uSvC1wkD21u-hC50jsPWbg5Dpe2hiaCeqbDo8KI8iVjnNr_6F1ewimaMTXIK9sK8cPSxdJOblxbQKJUhD3SYOv1m9UAchy_LwaQONQpA6HTGSW8LJSh0rvMmSF9Byu12RRa0gFs1AlGhPsSDW1yS=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTP13REBL_8GDG90WsJ6j43DfwNolZIP1yJL87uSvC1wkD21u-hC50jsPWbg5Dpe2hiaCeqbDo8KI8iVjnNr_6F1ewimaMTXIK9sK8cPSxdJOblxbQKJUhD3SYOv1m9UAchy_LwaQONQpA6HTGSW8LJSh0rvMmSF9Byu12RRa0gFs1AlGhPsSDW1yS=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;"><i>The Trout</i> offers one of
this broad isolation’s few sources of refreshment (and lavatories).</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Speaking of broad isolation, you’ll
never guess what follows.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9Xpl-cNzsIekPV9C24zbGITZgoOtRt0T6f_dOtyL4Rv_MVat4s97YdpsuPDzBdm_GF6-q_vjwjjNe_75rWyuwAwWKIkkJE1TEtF6Pn9J2_oVxfvuC7Mj96WxYXq8hZe2vJtxEzdJGQyZmDWrhj1vZ-cGKcl5bsqTzZxbZBGJynS3y-Fk_wWlXCAoK=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9Xpl-cNzsIekPV9C24zbGITZgoOtRt0T6f_dOtyL4Rv_MVat4s97YdpsuPDzBdm_GF6-q_vjwjjNe_75rWyuwAwWKIkkJE1TEtF6Pn9J2_oVxfvuC7Mj96WxYXq8hZe2vJtxEzdJGQyZmDWrhj1vZ-cGKcl5bsqTzZxbZBGJynS3y-Fk_wWlXCAoK=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The paved road makes a change at
least. It’s the access road for another lock ahead.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgPY4BV9tf9bR0cHW7nY45R8a-jgNUtiyGp3McpR6kzWedugC7km6hlsmpuBrzr04N-hd3Z4vgj1yxOH_PoCrqqKM3iroTF91TRqQfcEdJ3rrq-JcuRqLuDGLtGl6dGjh_hAB-n_JPQl_bTitlOVWUgGUhANZ6AiTsZOOzr7ZO0srh7cQznvnZdbV0A=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgPY4BV9tf9bR0cHW7nY45R8a-jgNUtiyGp3McpR6kzWedugC7km6hlsmpuBrzr04N-hd3Z4vgj1yxOH_PoCrqqKM3iroTF91TRqQfcEdJ3rrq-JcuRqLuDGLtGl6dGjh_hAB-n_JPQl_bTitlOVWUgGUhANZ6AiTsZOOzr7ZO0srh7cQznvnZdbV0A=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjcXSxqRvXUeAmy6zg0thVXhbexVJ-ShiQvfizZt9A80q0I-Z-RF_Vpw0ZBW0G-KtCtk4l9KqSf43zQAJrya2QUX_d70ihh4s-VTLuOWVz3vq1hWudEvdPfgMDUgTQ35mVN9QV3_IUeSfbiZFvzI-yTggFDNPvYzV9i8ik_2heFErA-HTFwsqD5IpVZ=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjcXSxqRvXUeAmy6zg0thVXhbexVJ-ShiQvfizZt9A80q0I-Z-RF_Vpw0ZBW0G-KtCtk4l9KqSf43zQAJrya2QUX_d70ihh4s-VTLuOWVz3vq1hWudEvdPfgMDUgTQ35mVN9QV3_IUeSfbiZFvzI-yTggFDNPvYzV9i8ik_2heFErA-HTFwsqD5IpVZ=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">A lock of pivotal strategic
importance, apparently. For now they’ve gone quieter on the Germans to instead
scream at the French for not stopping the refugee crossings, so perhaps this
one’s here to stop Emmanuel Macron.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEqFNFKEnlaGcaN0vA_B04qLRoi3RpboUzsRMqj_IhJqT4S2caV6vyEGkqAN8IHtiz5UC9a_o2hLytRJKVqRJVLGE59ihPbBS-DROQtevw-DtYVfeGQEfspO3iVmfFOM4EmVZOGKAV7tGfNaBmsMl_uVnwpEGF7CWfbc15KJvjwCmHy1CUM5nJ5JuW=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEqFNFKEnlaGcaN0vA_B04qLRoi3RpboUzsRMqj_IhJqT4S2caV6vyEGkqAN8IHtiz5UC9a_o2hLytRJKVqRJVLGE59ihPbBS-DROQtevw-DtYVfeGQEfspO3iVmfFOM4EmVZOGKAV7tGfNaBmsMl_uVnwpEGF7CWfbc15KJvjwCmHy1CUM5nJ5JuW=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Another renowned (and ultimately pointless) wartime
tactic of theirs was to rotate signposts so any invading Germans would get
confused. Perhaps this bizarre gate is an extension of the same technique.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Hearteningly, the lock’s environs are
host to some familiar friends.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjufV9yxOSrCxyk4lf9-Y9sK3gzZsZcws7E6y_bfAGk5g4KuytCiEKS4n2R9FAFVC3UawFjsb-i9AWFlXcMEH74lomCKL0nWnmQ3bmA5_ezr10nBF2LxBBpodl9rl8bJEWgrBTZ1NvzaQdPICeHVqDAaWKJ32we_f2xzf7R8OtgiBI-BfySHFrqWpEw=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjufV9yxOSrCxyk4lf9-Y9sK3gzZsZcws7E6y_bfAGk5g4KuytCiEKS4n2R9FAFVC3UawFjsb-i9AWFlXcMEH74lomCKL0nWnmQ3bmA5_ezr10nBF2LxBBpodl9rl8bJEWgrBTZ1NvzaQdPICeHVqDAaWKJ32we_f2xzf7R8OtgiBI-BfySHFrqWpEw=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOAdgHj0lRFU4lwqWDrVFHXThdCROajnH3pacjRj7CNjX4BNdD1WVwPYJtDMU76I-MOn-B4zd4wLhVXU-HajMLZt6HiVvchlOZafoYySwt4P6x8h_xSOieX6Ls39oDvZN66z5TYO1c4PYahkRdLlCprVSIkVR4RciZbNoHfPRuLrJbD4h9q75rTe64=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOAdgHj0lRFU4lwqWDrVFHXThdCROajnH3pacjRj7CNjX4BNdD1WVwPYJtDMU76I-MOn-B4zd4wLhVXU-HajMLZt6HiVvchlOZafoYySwt4P6x8h_xSOieX6Ls39oDvZN66z5TYO1c4PYahkRdLlCprVSIkVR4RciZbNoHfPRuLrJbD4h9q75rTe64=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Nuuo.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbNR12Y0J9U1xaQ3oqPBqTIR0YuRNMDhQX3JuFveCP3pqeAYPFJkolQraKATy_n-CsTSrKzz_jNxAJFgLSEcviYGieWgLKFRphPfYCNA7N3H19UuBS5pWG2iv8zlVfTBUi3J0WqE0y92HEi3ztvaxP6eMkbczCXGmY3arsajgdD-Fv5K7Xtv0jSUOf=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbNR12Y0J9U1xaQ3oqPBqTIR0YuRNMDhQX3JuFveCP3pqeAYPFJkolQraKATy_n-CsTSrKzz_jNxAJFgLSEcviYGieWgLKFRphPfYCNA7N3H19UuBS5pWG2iv8zlVfTBUi3J0WqE0y92HEi3ztvaxP6eMkbczCXGmY3arsajgdD-Fv5K7Xtv0jSUOf=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">I am given to understand that
the technical term for this is <i>mlem</i>.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Rushey Lock</span></b><span style="line-height: 106%;"> was one of the earlier Thames
Navigation Commission locks, built in 1790 before falling to dilapidation and
so benefiting from an 1898 rebuild. One of the river’s remotest locks of all,
it likely gets its name from the local rushes traditionally harvested to make furniture.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiSFKf2Z-9eaPBdS8LaON3AAMWWUEJm53TjObhMJMRWQ17lb5MUnokxr6axgJ3fXHU8VUk4dpkOXQlj3VPWDIjRZwmD5M4BtgcBAJFDc9Df-AUEkTHEeudvGY3wbBAaCnN5W5otzgT38PUkgddNhcUP1OveTeYY4WGW86xzxXmWHckRk98GiJTzGnl9=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiSFKf2Z-9eaPBdS8LaON3AAMWWUEJm53TjObhMJMRWQ17lb5MUnokxr6axgJ3fXHU8VUk4dpkOXQlj3VPWDIjRZwmD5M4BtgcBAJFDc9Df-AUEkTHEeudvGY3wbBAaCnN5W5otzgT38PUkgddNhcUP1OveTeYY4WGW86xzxXmWHckRk98GiJTzGnl9=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The locks here all have
manually-operated gates, but unlike those on </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-17-high-pastures.html"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">the downstream reach</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;"> they were all deserted. Large
signboards make clear that these locks are all self-service, with not an
on-duty lock-keeper in sight.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgllhP9giIvCAgb0JhQa1RfSSaIVZRKtjvwIp4pQ8kt-jN0z2qh005xl5anhq9NRjcAk6_qvHgKBuNACtE9M7HMmHuVHVI7EbSY-Jx0kcG6-Y1l-fY5e6VvlJlZb5Pfyjw5LlPn1FxtvE_hBJZK3BQjv_X-kHPPA6mrcBfryenPYii1Y-vHhlcHRYrd=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgllhP9giIvCAgb0JhQa1RfSSaIVZRKtjvwIp4pQ8kt-jN0z2qh005xl5anhq9NRjcAk6_qvHgKBuNACtE9M7HMmHuVHVI7EbSY-Jx0kcG6-Y1l-fY5e6VvlJlZb5Pfyjw5LlPn1FxtvE_hBJZK3BQjv_X-kHPPA6mrcBfryenPYii1Y-vHhlcHRYrd=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Rushey Lock is also
distinguished among river-travellers for the topiary frog in its garden.
Here we find it under assault from an army of moles, who have almost completely
encircled it with their siegeworks.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj98dswn_UOxAZOE9Fk4GBZIuG6YkV-9CccqDwHMSpBqgtneJlrwAGtb_DvKx4x1HTGstmOQ129gpb2TPj42FU1LVImcTmDcR1J14ino6zy07M2iK1ObH6BYB05xM8BaBxI54rXDKVKI8QlI5kRZBqxVcmTK3uiQG0RbWzPPGHpYnZoFBF222Glcnbu=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj98dswn_UOxAZOE9Fk4GBZIuG6YkV-9CccqDwHMSpBqgtneJlrwAGtb_DvKx4x1HTGstmOQ129gpb2TPj42FU1LVImcTmDcR1J14ino6zy07M2iK1ObH6BYB05xM8BaBxI54rXDKVKI8QlI5kRZBqxVcmTK3uiQG0RbWzPPGHpYnZoFBF222Glcnbu=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The weir appears to have been
recently refurbished and carries the towpath onto the south bank.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Radcot</span></u></b></span><span style="line-height: 106%;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">There follows a prolonged accordion
of bumps and bends through some of the most splendid isolation so far. That
said, it frames one of the river’s oldest bridging sites, on a position of quite some long-term historic importance.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgyqtbbfuat7k-TLj1K5ZgJ7S4fj6CQ5xLWan7uIW-nyy96uXx5kq6aixhN6vB7nH1cpVuR1gxercq6kbVhkJ48kBzGjw-iVJJYVo3rn-EKOZD4NZ9rRxX1I8TDfbHFvxzLp2u2p74KsJuIMPq2rG3wqaFBKmne6dJgbpDSPOH_dhKQwB05xdE3LYSf=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgyqtbbfuat7k-TLj1K5ZgJ7S4fj6CQ5xLWan7uIW-nyy96uXx5kq6aixhN6vB7nH1cpVuR1gxercq6kbVhkJ48kBzGjw-iVJJYVo3rn-EKOZD4NZ9rRxX1I8TDfbHFvxzLp2u2p74KsJuIMPq2rG3wqaFBKmne6dJgbpDSPOH_dhKQwB05xdE3LYSf=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The many meanders here makes
this stretch longer than it looks on the map – presuming your steps keep faith
with the river rather than cutting provocatively across the bends.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh93qLrlUar2-scGyEiu-Eui2d36yUCBq1IUGjurAmZcwmLoBZa6qHJI0Fw8OqTrixO1oqLHs9iWpoyAPg7gq4_bXYQyRk5mZI5CpMsmgweBDBnNGGW8DhlwFtWUNVhuLlvgqy1LqWvNXnesOuNU7k8bXodbUL4ZpjGOppjwE35GJqkMgpH7_F7DLRL=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh93qLrlUar2-scGyEiu-Eui2d36yUCBq1IUGjurAmZcwmLoBZa6qHJI0Fw8OqTrixO1oqLHs9iWpoyAPg7gq4_bXYQyRk5mZI5CpMsmgweBDBnNGGW8DhlwFtWUNVhuLlvgqy1LqWvNXnesOuNU7k8bXodbUL4ZpjGOppjwE35GJqkMgpH7_F7DLRL=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Around these parts an old weir
once stood with the name of <i>Old Nan’s Weir</i>, although who or what <i>Old
Nan</i> refers to is lost in the mists of time.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjS2DnSi3A19rzhRWkFhJbugfbKcNjZc_AzUzI2K9LwjvF3SPGG6iVisyqkBe_9nm-Hb70PlI7UkTV1cZ9DfvMQLGSb8KYGCfvn3L5hS3c3YkkQLZnh47JnCGv8Hh4fVPz2KyQA6CFzJ5WOGs-Gq1ToQY16Fj-2Nsc9XH9ISRmJTDzwXjxOCpdTgOY4=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjS2DnSi3A19rzhRWkFhJbugfbKcNjZc_AzUzI2K9LwjvF3SPGG6iVisyqkBe_9nm-Hb70PlI7UkTV1cZ9DfvMQLGSb8KYGCfvn3L5hS3c3YkkQLZnh47JnCGv8Hh4fVPz2KyQA6CFzJ5WOGs-Gq1ToQY16Fj-2Nsc9XH9ISRmJTDzwXjxOCpdTgOY4=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Many a fine old willow guards
the Radcot reach. Could one of these be <i>Old Nan</i>?</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg97_BnZvRYtYvaOJyxe3-feAp8VlMw_NT2eSZnurOrfgbMYPxsLpy_YCs048Ac2DhSuElhai7jDuIblV5IdYyI6-mGBT8F2lE3u9F_kfsBRBKCx0FkAVp8z50CG3V1SzriTGGId1ThDCuJJ6HVZL8LRdtgqKOTrii1uue_ZYTrqDyH3X3yBi_e-1cW=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg97_BnZvRYtYvaOJyxe3-feAp8VlMw_NT2eSZnurOrfgbMYPxsLpy_YCs048Ac2DhSuElhai7jDuIblV5IdYyI6-mGBT8F2lE3u9F_kfsBRBKCx0FkAVp8z50CG3V1SzriTGGId1ThDCuJJ6HVZL8LRdtgqKOTrii1uue_ZYTrqDyH3X3yBi_e-1cW=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Decades of wind have taken
their toll on this one.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjMVOulJtFUI3vkdMwYxRy51BMPau58LSzF-gJ7i59mS0TN_Vd6mQSKNnyBL194loSzk31iTTZWbwEbhxkgS8GRNLOlf99oMY_1-ZWs3b57aTmKHGCVEfrtcnw3N6W51t1t5KUSdnQpY4xTAUPaNuTjm-tpv-w5m_wYEvoXyEjto-VgDCEWFGVB5a0=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjMVOulJtFUI3vkdMwYxRy51BMPau58LSzF-gJ7i59mS0TN_Vd6mQSKNnyBL194loSzk31iTTZWbwEbhxkgS8GRNLOlf99oMY_1-ZWs3b57aTmKHGCVEfrtcnw3N6W51t1t5KUSdnQpY4xTAUPaNuTjm-tpv-w5m_wYEvoXyEjto-VgDCEWFGVB5a0=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">It thinks we can’t see it.
Emmanuel Macron is in serious trouble the next time he dares come sailing up
this way.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRqZvsaf0pai1ck_0AlRai_f6dJpAyNHdwlRARxZQ1LIQYO6pqTVR8lew_p-kIzSvJ-Q8lshwNOYMm17DkLe_zdB6BXTo1gW7vw4Za573NYUdujkKgd_hOihALKlx9C-M6gPNeiA4UomRwi-VgQxRDK69vRU7NWVb3x_qOmoeQVyTlY7-zKLmYK8Mt=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRqZvsaf0pai1ck_0AlRai_f6dJpAyNHdwlRARxZQ1LIQYO6pqTVR8lew_p-kIzSvJ-Q8lshwNOYMm17DkLe_zdB6BXTo1gW7vw4Za573NYUdujkKgd_hOihALKlx9C-M6gPNeiA4UomRwi-VgQxRDK69vRU7NWVb3x_qOmoeQVyTlY7-zKLmYK8Mt=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Look closely to spot a native
on the opposite bank.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">This area offers a chance to study
the local fishing culture. In spite of the bitter cold, a fisherman (and for
some unaccountable reason they do all seem to be men) can be found every few
metres up the riverbank here. Each sits in front of a single car that evidences
how he got here, and he is always alone, maintaining a respectful if wary
distance from his closest fellow in either direction. Perhaps this indicates a
fierce territoriality, as though encroachment by any one on another’s claimed
fishery would produce a bloody confrontation.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSjEr-9k7Zq4FxkoEPwDoHk9FoXoIOC41j4423zjevMhW4931Tj8uE7x8vlrV-Vc0rCnChDPFH5Gk6dIHDIj195haiuiQB_IpnSMAiKIYjWYtGq_hqYV0pP1knbMY7FUbn0weytn7xaRQqWH3IbQUAPszmBeK4UPcF6PcrW2MGw131Jfw4vwv3A8yS=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSjEr-9k7Zq4FxkoEPwDoHk9FoXoIOC41j4423zjevMhW4931Tj8uE7x8vlrV-Vc0rCnChDPFH5Gk6dIHDIj195haiuiQB_IpnSMAiKIYjWYtGq_hqYV0pP1knbMY7FUbn0weytn7xaRQqWH3IbQUAPszmBeK4UPcF6PcrW2MGw131Jfw4vwv3A8yS=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Woe too to any boaters foolish
enough to navigate through their claims. This one’s rod is likely reinforced
with composite metals capable of shearing slices off any civilian vessel.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIKrcsK8o7S-Els0mvYcGBeo2ClI7mvZ_kEl1kHOq8gXx8D4z-UiZuLxsMbDmTDVYTJePZW9e-5la_X3YqNSM9lP6XkMeIQRZ6D6U4tlinpk_taKUrXCJfUrKIgJJZycR_UNQQQcX-YbzW8qXQb_rww42savlwpNy_num_zsQUKRyj4Qz7ED6adJOM=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgIKrcsK8o7S-Els0mvYcGBeo2ClI7mvZ_kEl1kHOq8gXx8D4z-UiZuLxsMbDmTDVYTJePZW9e-5la_X3YqNSM9lP6XkMeIQRZ6D6U4tlinpk_taKUrXCJfUrKIgJJZycR_UNQQQcX-YbzW8qXQb_rww42savlwpNy_num_zsQUKRyj4Qz7ED6adJOM=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Makes one wonder why they
bothered with these, really.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdvgRz_1-CGTZSUFw8d64_0HUFv61DdC5f6GDmymhMtWHkScxBIzdLlfaDr910Odn6ZCWqALMJEKgChthq3Dx43ptqa_mtE2ek7fwQC2n68lCmQ8Ywp9aOrK_PLb6uu4jIQ2F2R21P2dSMb7nJIWxzOQLqXh5zQiT2B8SEbx1SNkaoc9bmwj5ilrE0=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgdvgRz_1-CGTZSUFw8d64_0HUFv61DdC5f6GDmymhMtWHkScxBIzdLlfaDr910Odn6ZCWqALMJEKgChthq3Dx43ptqa_mtE2ek7fwQC2n68lCmQ8Ywp9aOrK_PLb6uu4jIQ2F2R21P2dSMb7nJIWxzOQLqXh5zQiT2B8SEbx1SNkaoc9bmwj5ilrE0=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">A swathe of that bank is also
under pasture for a very large flock of sheep. Every now and then a fisherman’s
car will come growling through, scattering any individuals from its path.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjU_BJHc60wbPWBIWG4X53SGYx1w5XTZvUBmEB95bIFWQTPeO97wN6mKAhJ_rrumJt9yxpQCjMZJIdqyYQKFi5uuFmJM-js34ZKOZUtc0Bh4qYCng7vPGf8zHVOPirMRfNZfrw8erArRs7a1X2uNjpL7V3r63NAyc3pxrOrWt1MVYknM2qE7FTvV7Nd=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjU_BJHc60wbPWBIWG4X53SGYx1w5XTZvUBmEB95bIFWQTPeO97wN6mKAhJ_rrumJt9yxpQCjMZJIdqyYQKFi5uuFmJM-js34ZKOZUtc0Bh4qYCng7vPGf8zHVOPirMRfNZfrw8erArRs7a1X2uNjpL7V3r63NAyc3pxrOrWt1MVYknM2qE7FTvV7Nd=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">There’s a footbridge out here. <b>Old
Man’s Bridge</b>, whose name’s resemblance to <i>Old Nan’s Weir</i> raises
questions, replaced another old weir around the 1860s. Within a few decades the
bridge was deemed unsafe and got replaced in turn by this wooden iteration.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEitnldo_MBAjzZUIUx70IjS0_MWwF3T_hWhuvIyZc1EURa6_y48JuD1_KTmPn0suJzCVBsQpaJ1EmFhNFuNgeOT2NIXktAPC6T0UbJ4Dtp0LvvRl9oL_0droY1w1_Mg1Z9ZAWY23UmT9dauAbdEdXVGPZ3DeQvzsmHrQy6ny8lZQMgDrFXNJDKepiGg=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEitnldo_MBAjzZUIUx70IjS0_MWwF3T_hWhuvIyZc1EURa6_y48JuD1_KTmPn0suJzCVBsQpaJ1EmFhNFuNgeOT2NIXktAPC6T0UbJ4Dtp0LvvRl9oL_0droY1w1_Mg1Z9ZAWY23UmT9dauAbdEdXVGPZ3DeQvzsmHrQy6ny8lZQMgDrFXNJDKepiGg=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Old Man’s Bridge. Once more
it’s unknown to whom <i>Old Man</i> refers. It’s suggested a pub once stood
here too, but it has since completely disappeared. In the days before railways
and motor transport these remote fords and waystations would have been a vital
lifeline for connecting the local villages and supporting cargo barges.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">It’s a very long trek before signs of
more concentrated human involvement return.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUTirRtdB9qW82tmO4olm4rIm5ygt06sNmlkJ4e7IOTiHWCi5r5oWG_adefB44f0JEFkZ7NIy3YJt_3lgEEMIoaXKhQprra_VzHSRIpQIpug_ZQ0cBi_r9KdHNFAMVwWkUahpUbrjigg99cH1GLFUsNaTC3cGO8eVFiemcHF4E3RdDEmaiKMwdgz1T=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUTirRtdB9qW82tmO4olm4rIm5ygt06sNmlkJ4e7IOTiHWCi5r5oWG_adefB44f0JEFkZ7NIy3YJt_3lgEEMIoaXKhQprra_VzHSRIpQIpug_ZQ0cBi_r9KdHNFAMVwWkUahpUbrjigg99cH1GLFUsNaTC3cGO8eVFiemcHF4E3RdDEmaiKMwdgz1T=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">This field past the footbridge
offered a peculiar sight: an organised mass activity involving metal detectors,
whose participants combed the ground while spaced out at wide intervals whether
as part of the exercise or for COVID-19 distancing. It’s unclear what they were
looking for and whether they found it.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7yUddVw0p-R8T0tUBdgNFZEJj_MR6gDThSU04mM8B0Sy-2AN14IeRXsuaenCzRJOjhc6bOoSe5GcYWeP5e27LqXKJUNrn4ozyF-gMSTnv4O8u2j5FCEcLXexh2PZOrfUoOSBEX9FhsXQmLjgd1Qq3_CxQrliZz_7JCsD_yiZbno1up0FB6EUJf4Ii=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7yUddVw0p-R8T0tUBdgNFZEJj_MR6gDThSU04mM8B0Sy-2AN14IeRXsuaenCzRJOjhc6bOoSe5GcYWeP5e27LqXKJUNrn4ozyF-gMSTnv4O8u2j5FCEcLXexh2PZOrfUoOSBEX9FhsXQmLjgd1Qq3_CxQrliZz_7JCsD_yiZbno1up0FB6EUJf4Ii=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Radcot Lock. This is another
late one (1891), also replacing an old weir. It
recently gained the distinction of a side-passage for fish and canoes.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6GviRZ3Y2JiyRJlxeDTwMI4RUyl4R6hwMUuFDOGsMJQthJZc3Ig9pRZm0j0Uz4ZnEabpVDw6mAyS6vGlTCixgILve7lmuV6Vo8v_XZ9MpKdnPSGhM-z_uJ5IxOeERSw-lkHDOHvxUqCOw9VSdh7R_6r56wAbZsC1NMV3_NYiQsnVHtmCHnK-sA_Gu=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6GviRZ3Y2JiyRJlxeDTwMI4RUyl4R6hwMUuFDOGsMJQthJZc3Ig9pRZm0j0Uz4ZnEabpVDw6mAyS6vGlTCixgILve7lmuV6Vo8v_XZ9MpKdnPSGhM-z_uJ5IxOeERSw-lkHDOHvxUqCOw9VSdh7R_6r56wAbZsC1NMV3_NYiQsnVHtmCHnK-sA_Gu=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">As at Tadpole, the boats and
temporary dwellings of English nomads cluster round the strategic artery of
Radcot Bridge. The natural river is at left; the course at right was added in
the canal age to improve navigation.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Radcot</span></b><span style="line-height: 106%;"> – supposedly ‘cottage by the road’ –
is yet another tiny farming hamlet. This one however sits on what has long been
a pivotal node of migration, transport and military strategy. Supporting an old
north-south road that once linked the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Wessex and
Mercia, <b>Radcot Bridge</b> claims no less than to be the oldest bridge on the
Thames. Indeed, it preceded the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-17-high-pastures.html"><u><i><span style="line-height: 106%;">New Bridge</span></i></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;"> as part of King John’s programme, around
the year 1200, to bring in Norman French monks to build and maintain both bridges
to facilitate the rising wool trade.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh5ScsNIwsEZoLgJ1xDXauBI-2SBBPI4savq2xAE4v13V6spfiVO1Gp0zAHoKuAk6B10aIYo0U39Cyj24pjT4wUU54u-cW-YYfWQMGjnG7Yyomo4L47ly6BZJYBV0tNFLRk0b3ZoXEtY47msXkG7FidY4UjJrEf_kCyNJNuiKySAOk2joYXaFFh3RgD=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh5ScsNIwsEZoLgJ1xDXauBI-2SBBPI4savq2xAE4v13V6spfiVO1Gp0zAHoKuAk6B10aIYo0U39Cyj24pjT4wUU54u-cW-YYfWQMGjnG7Yyomo4L47ly6BZJYBV0tNFLRk0b3ZoXEtY47msXkG7FidY4UjJrEf_kCyNJNuiKySAOk2joYXaFFh3RgD=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Radcot Bridge is the one on
the left (south), across the natural river. The wider channel at right was dug
out around the 1780s and given a canal bridge of its own. A third bridge off to
the north crosses a smaller backwater.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">The claim is frustrated by the fact
that, unlike the <i>New Bridge</i>, the current Radcot Bridge is a reconstruction.
Such was its importance that it got repeatedly damaged or destroyed during the
no fewer than four national-scale conflicts which put it in the centre of a
battlefield. The first was the twelfth-century </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">power struggle between Matilda and
Stephen</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;">, in which
the former, occupying Oxford, had it fortified with a north-bank castle
discovered by a <i>Time Team</i> excavation in 2008. Its second ordeal came in
1387 during a rising of the nobility against the authoritarian king Richard II
– infamous for his bloody suppression of the Peasants’ Revolt – when one of those
aristocrats, leading a force to intercept an ally of the king bringing
reinforcements, broke the bridge to impede them. It was wrecked again during
the Wars of the Roses, after which it is thought to have been rebuilt to its
present shape. It then somehow survived the cannons and gunpowder of the Civil
Wars, through a long and fierce contestation between a Royalist garrison and
Parliamentary assaults in the latter’s campaign against Royalist Oxford.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaYFwfxzMdfBScIDWDdhXy8ir7qF0IAfuklSEHeJDWzqljo-DUqdoYFpCt4lS5OcTrAK59XZDE7B-AQjSgVtbk32ngHJ92bThHAQ75TiqYCgHYV4dAuOpMl9z4c_yxqhTEcFBN3MenkBOvJ6MsTK5Ku8MGJr7CBBqaQ1FGH5MAPurmAp_xiHoDxQsI=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaYFwfxzMdfBScIDWDdhXy8ir7qF0IAfuklSEHeJDWzqljo-DUqdoYFpCt4lS5OcTrAK59XZDE7B-AQjSgVtbk32ngHJ92bThHAQ75TiqYCgHYV4dAuOpMl9z4c_yxqhTEcFBN3MenkBOvJ6MsTK5Ku8MGJr7CBBqaQ1FGH5MAPurmAp_xiHoDxQsI=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The surviving Radcot Bridge, a
limestone ashlar structure which on close inspection exhibits evidence of
rebuilding, in particular a flattening of its central arch.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Having borne this mistreatment, this
bridge and its location grew still more prominent as the monumental building
projects of Oxford and London hungered for high-quality Cotswold stone. Radcot developed
into a key wharf on the stone supply line, which the barges grew ever larger to
service, all the more so when the new canal to the River Severn upstream added
coal to the mix. The result was the widening of the northern side-channel in
the 1780s during widespread canalisation in this area, and a focal
industrial-age function for Radcot till the rise of the railways let it slip
back to rustic seclusion.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggZiylb7Fyt0h8knICzkbalHze-ypiY-eA1M5vNlCbAl1IHJYOQqsSqjzcaFhGtmkQoIUyizK_x9K3622L71z9e6TZ7oPRReqgzbQdh3SVHwTRLXa8oZI99oHq5wT3-x0IVlpTnS738h_CWoxLfJLtDRJrE_gsjHNmKMGQD-CRPSLxk53L8OzBwa7y=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggZiylb7Fyt0h8knICzkbalHze-ypiY-eA1M5vNlCbAl1IHJYOQqsSqjzcaFhGtmkQoIUyizK_x9K3622L71z9e6TZ7oPRReqgzbQdh3SVHwTRLXa8oZI99oHq5wT3-x0IVlpTnS738h_CWoxLfJLtDRJrE_gsjHNmKMGQD-CRPSLxk53L8OzBwa7y=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Considering the new channel
was added for extra width, one might wonder why, when they built this second
bridge to cross it, they gave it about the narrowest arch possible. It is said
that many barges got into difficulties with it.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg85IhmOYHuhuwzxWrjKBJqI09tyBTlnk6AXqyKYBKKEnCiwG_fl3qwdD0AZ9vlcopkMM74ee48MSk83RO1pS5Baa-h6X9FM92nmsliDSat2blJWZWUxBE3ge-FtmD9dh-0VOYSViIspqykytBN0qAFHxPMv6Vm_xLqbOzgS9IXvNRePgPONDUu1UTa=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg85IhmOYHuhuwzxWrjKBJqI09tyBTlnk6AXqyKYBKKEnCiwG_fl3qwdD0AZ9vlcopkMM74ee48MSk83RO1pS5Baa-h6X9FM92nmsliDSat2blJWZWUxBE3ge-FtmD9dh-0VOYSViIspqykytBN0qAFHxPMv6Vm_xLqbOzgS9IXvNRePgPONDUu1UTa=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">There’s a pub here
too. <i>Ye Olde Swan </i>dates back two or three hundred years to the height of
Radcot’s commercial service, and lives on to feed and water walkers and
recreational boaters.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjXBODIO_EKgrmpas2LYeaK7jKkwMEnrVoRyEgEgYnaf61CpwBR_Vv3zpAUel_Pjecl73SsDU4c06KwowNB-fBO9y8Fm56L39PWTZOVF_iAa8eUf2u1J1QWOi5X8SAXmki1bDUs9izHZ7v34HlQvwrLjoypMpUVLL0DnEdS4wJJ4gQ0aO3M1ZOztih2=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjXBODIO_EKgrmpas2LYeaK7jKkwMEnrVoRyEgEgYnaf61CpwBR_Vv3zpAUel_Pjecl73SsDU4c06KwowNB-fBO9y8Fm56L39PWTZOVF_iAa8eUf2u1J1QWOi5X8SAXmki1bDUs9izHZ7v34HlQvwrLjoypMpUVLL0DnEdS4wJJ4gQ0aO3M1ZOztih2=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Its good food and cosy winter
fire makes it a recommendable lunch spot. Notice the Civil War commemorative
mural. As the period is little taught in English schools, be advised that the
visage of Oliver Cromwell is deeply offensive to Irish people, and for good
reason.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">And beyond Radcot, it’s straight back
into the bush.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgGKCcd5bxWcB0A2f4NfGTBBoyKefxw4J911We92e7bMb60ZhK6NrK_FgSTG5k5TjmEvtRDVu-uMMBobdGrTU-erEBFwPbnLWJWKunWsiVWPNQcgR7zAQXu_X6riG25u2StblIhcrJUHDzWzZfa-vUSDlQGR9Nju_1PmifwH6jC9-9WyZJKzNBw3GLW=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgGKCcd5bxWcB0A2f4NfGTBBoyKefxw4J911We92e7bMb60ZhK6NrK_FgSTG5k5TjmEvtRDVu-uMMBobdGrTU-erEBFwPbnLWJWKunWsiVWPNQcgR7zAQXu_X6riG25u2StblIhcrJUHDzWzZfa-vUSDlQGR9Nju_1PmifwH6jC9-9WyZJKzNBw3GLW=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Radcot got one of these too in
case a fifth conflict got added to its list.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfoy3EY7AfHfGs_KjusCX8tAJ5ooPtEkZcLehEmK6yB0xFb05szcfNdXhYo0CpYBDqg7X64CvLeBtUmbF2brlyr9z2SPNN1MYWrQgu4VG2X25q07aZ2JUn9NjmmtAaE4pDhv-iEAVbKesJrOZQrAM-6YmJC6mY4YFS_-19VKXitSopexG3_N1q-m8q=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfoy3EY7AfHfGs_KjusCX8tAJ5ooPtEkZcLehEmK6yB0xFb05szcfNdXhYo0CpYBDqg7X64CvLeBtUmbF2brlyr9z2SPNN1MYWrQgu4VG2X25q07aZ2JUn9NjmmtAaE4pDhv-iEAVbKesJrOZQrAM-6YmJC6mY4YFS_-19VKXitSopexG3_N1q-m8q=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Already half the day is gone,
and now the sky fills up with cloud. Rain and snow of the type never predicted
by the weather forecast now threaten.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTwCfRCVw7lzg7ujEYTQUgU1CT169JlTVEivu5oKxEsPLMZ3LNoGLHNzJ4vTtQpjsrjNSxGiRc1vMcSY6CZTcy2ThzgGQ1QBOoETZyrA-6ZVTVdiZKtODvFmjOaQBfqIcpHAVmWZ0NdGzD5ebvOMG6gRcicaonwdhgfc9NgOB635f3vjR25mLWLAOr=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTwCfRCVw7lzg7ujEYTQUgU1CT169JlTVEivu5oKxEsPLMZ3LNoGLHNzJ4vTtQpjsrjNSxGiRc1vMcSY6CZTcy2ThzgGQ1QBOoETZyrA-6ZVTVdiZKtODvFmjOaQBfqIcpHAVmWZ0NdGzD5ebvOMG6gRcicaonwdhgfc9NgOB635f3vjR25mLWLAOr=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Some brave souls exhibit the
scale of craft that are soon the majority on these narrowing upper reaches.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEirVgAorXVxEbpcBSXWJXXbR5hehi06MnpCLXlTObPdu0vAo8VkTPcC3wLRwTcjSxMt8NOCuyA1VxDznYlsrYbGFoVLdFTkTlcmpgE8w1cX0A-AtKuA1KJ0vwC_tD9eLbIjxYCD_upTxuL_amUUJ2Uz1CQTz-oiaTNCdRSsXiaYs-Dey6UBiptx8czr=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEirVgAorXVxEbpcBSXWJXXbR5hehi06MnpCLXlTObPdu0vAo8VkTPcC3wLRwTcjSxMt8NOCuyA1VxDznYlsrYbGFoVLdFTkTlcmpgE8w1cX0A-AtKuA1KJ0vwC_tD9eLbIjxYCD_upTxuL_amUUJ2Uz1CQTz-oiaTNCdRSsXiaYs-Dey6UBiptx8czr=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Kelmscott – William Morris’s ‘Heaven
on Earth’</span></u></b></span><span style="line-height: 106%;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Around the corner, the light and
landscape line up to produce what might be a scene from any English rural
postcard.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhfw1quhm6HMO_l1N5F9-XjiEFQdONpVKAccBz6NFtTzRyEYhQo34m9CCMdfR-bj5ZjkAiiEnZBHgyQ75nYL0-gOZCz_1F79BdBVF5GTYRI9pVxRmJPfRPR3CshxYdwaCFlL-M6TqJclTzFuf_aKaSzxZUYx-CkaD2Ts-kcBmbUsv0EVo-aSqm9xaU6=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhfw1quhm6HMO_l1N5F9-XjiEFQdONpVKAccBz6NFtTzRyEYhQo34m9CCMdfR-bj5ZjkAiiEnZBHgyQ75nYL0-gOZCz_1F79BdBVF5GTYRI9pVxRmJPfRPR3CshxYdwaCFlL-M6TqJclTzFuf_aKaSzxZUYx-CkaD2Ts-kcBmbUsv0EVo-aSqm9xaU6=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgj2TTyl4_HBiBnSH_uFYQSmtQSbX5LPDTn_JrUiFyt-Jq-NPdKseSvP_KkSwvd6KkSpxz5jUicCMbcuK5ro3rn_4r_FGytysRQKXDFO2AksF1t5dD95PdGgIYTfpRndCwjpDMbAgAg1ATue2ZCIJceinYro4pzEakp_hueYe1aI9APea5dWD9En4rr=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgj2TTyl4_HBiBnSH_uFYQSmtQSbX5LPDTn_JrUiFyt-Jq-NPdKseSvP_KkSwvd6KkSpxz5jUicCMbcuK5ro3rn_4r_FGytysRQKXDFO2AksF1t5dD95PdGgIYTfpRndCwjpDMbAgAg1ATue2ZCIJceinYro4pzEakp_hueYe1aI9APea5dWD9En4rr=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmZ11QGSLMCqvb9VJEbaQdAadNYXy08fVUJTI_xJDIPTA63GvHh7lVum55X3iMsBEE1Hi3WzQcvtGAzXFne7HRxto5t04o_10-JwkuPDTRXh-XoTJKj4CEl_sUAPySr6q348XKB1QrCgAu-2HcCB0TZXptQX4VZit2geJ9yvT-43-cYpVDJxhRIcYX=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmZ11QGSLMCqvb9VJEbaQdAadNYXy08fVUJTI_xJDIPTA63GvHh7lVum55X3iMsBEE1Hi3WzQcvtGAzXFne7HRxto5t04o_10-JwkuPDTRXh-XoTJKj4CEl_sUAPySr6q348XKB1QrCgAu-2HcCB0TZXptQX4VZit2geJ9yvT-43-cYpVDJxhRIcYX=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Nuuo x2. (Wondering why they
go <i>nuuo</i>? Read </span><a href="https://www.aichaobang.com/"><u><i><span style="line-height: 106%;">Paths Across the Sea</span></i></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;">!)</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">This journey has oft revealed the
gulf between this country’s agrarian idyll – the <i>green and pleasant land</i>,
or, if you will, the <i>sunlit uplands</i> of the Brexit reverie – and the
dispossession, violence and cruelty that in fact carve through the history of
the English countryside. But if the romance retains resonance, perhaps it owes
something to its contrast with the equally oppressive, and more saliently
ongoing, <i>dark satanic mills</i>: the crowding, exploitative, polluted
nightmares of urban industrial capitalism.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">As the smokestacks rose, it became
common for those English with the means (not least those smokestacks’ owners) to
escape the cities and seek salvation in greenery like this here (or alternatively,
</span><span style="line-height: 106%;">to </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">construct artificial versions
closer to home</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;">). Most
such migrants were of course super-rich landowners from the old nobility or
industrial tycoons from the new one: people, that is, who had no real interest
in genuine rural life, and who readily turfed out local communities or
rearranged ancestral landscapes to preserve a comfortable luxury in what was
to them a foreign world of stenches, dialects and hard work.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Were they all like that? Is English
hostility to migrants rooted in a fear that, because that’s how <i>they</i> so
often behave in their own migrations, everyone else must be like that too?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Well here, just possibly, we have an
exception. A single name (and beard) looms large over the riverbanks ahead, and
the escapee it belongs to, so they say, showed an interest and care which was
genuine before it was anything else. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh5aXqoMnAkTkdEE4jbJcDEzgSzlJByM9LGcXdql-mN455OIz1hk_uBx5Iv6qP7DoEOoRszt9CQUQJPtuASw784hG_HE0gBCOXxD6hMopaxt5LInIpmIfokCoHBhlN7Ug6l50_yNEctZ5WMR6QXH38YNvMuZ81aMN2T8YF1JD54DDq2QO1djSKbY0BX=s1007" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1007" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh5aXqoMnAkTkdEE4jbJcDEzgSzlJByM9LGcXdql-mN455OIz1hk_uBx5Iv6qP7DoEOoRszt9CQUQJPtuASw784hG_HE0gBCOXxD6hMopaxt5LInIpmIfokCoHBhlN7Ug6l50_yNEctZ5WMR6QXH38YNvMuZ81aMN2T8YF1JD54DDq2QO1djSKbY0BX=w318-h400" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">William Morris
(1834-1896), a titan of critical counter-culture in Victorian England. The
photo was taken in the 1880s, around the time he came up the river to Kelmscott.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Put the name <b>William Morris</b>
into a search engine and your screen will likely erupt in a profusion of vivid leaf and flower patterns. These textile designs might be what Morris is most
popularly remembered for, a decorative trail which flourished across wallpapers,
windows, furniture, or as often nowadays, mugs or fridge magnets on the shelves
of heritage gift shops. In fact William Morris was one of those
larger-than-life figures who defies categorisation. We could call him an
artist, but that would be to understate a character whose creative passions
spanned from textiles to literature, poetry, typology, architecture, mythic
translations, and, inseparably, activism within the nascent English socialist
movement.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">If this cascade of commitments had a
unifying theme, it was surely this. They were all expressions of his insistent,
and highly political, critique of the industrial England of his day, as well as
of an effort to usher in a fairer, more authentic, more attractive and
responsible alternative social vision. And it was here, around another of this
region’s forgotten medieval villages, that that vision would coalesce in the
crowning years of Morris’s exertions.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiOTIbmcwRVSoWrgN04h3F8lOc-DRIKu4z_Vboagt9BprTVYVpdvVXt1-4opSBERRn854K8hhGGbhZmZ3hc5mKXxlbO1sShTvlSeZHptqDJ3JQGLz191YwdXSQuUbqJzE8Mt2WUqaDZXNfB6L0QeHgnFO2yUG-EkxltyDayDU9O0_PZfw-eE4SWXS1=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiOTIbmcwRVSoWrgN04h3F8lOc-DRIKu4z_Vboagt9BprTVYVpdvVXt1-4opSBERRn854K8hhGGbhZmZ3hc5mKXxlbO1sShTvlSeZHptqDJ3JQGLz191YwdXSQuUbqJzE8Mt2WUqaDZXNfB6L0QeHgnFO2yUG-EkxltyDayDU9O0_PZfw-eE4SWXS1=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">You bet that at certain times
of the day, in particular light and weather conditions, this waves its branches
about to scare walkers and molest people in boats.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNxyjP3KhhD5F87JFTAFsePNTOln8jVfxPkMcv-DP-l_zEYznLx5qCWwr6uD_rwYOfbpmEzCOZ1V1O5LxjvePN0tfD9SGbUvSh_FjPPum6BSSqY3qMh3ANcpQVHfx-BvYKzxoWdC_p7E0oAp1su64RSZl4-u1fBzt50-VcM8xDuOufTCssdJoFI2O4=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNxyjP3KhhD5F87JFTAFsePNTOln8jVfxPkMcv-DP-l_zEYznLx5qCWwr6uD_rwYOfbpmEzCOZ1V1O5LxjvePN0tfD9SGbUvSh_FjPPum6BSSqY3qMh3ANcpQVHfx-BvYKzxoWdC_p7E0oAp1su64RSZl4-u1fBzt50-VcM8xDuOufTCssdJoFI2O4=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">One of these verticalities is
not like the others.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfrd27UZNsXDo2IXgp6nwAh7P1PmFtz7m2PtWaaRJ2mrazcK8fvbyqTtkDCTaBXWqF_BS80CeX-Y3clZhUbocmlcYyoxQsPmS_uSAr7qXsa7-cEjWoPL7rwLbOpM8ezINTJVOSu9mZ90pxmRGJoSKONog39Xi1rfprxiY4kqeUu3GfVTwLt2BTq2v1=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfrd27UZNsXDo2IXgp6nwAh7P1PmFtz7m2PtWaaRJ2mrazcK8fvbyqTtkDCTaBXWqF_BS80CeX-Y3clZhUbocmlcYyoxQsPmS_uSAr7qXsa7-cEjWoPL7rwLbOpM8ezINTJVOSu9mZ90pxmRGJoSKONog39Xi1rfprxiY4kqeUu3GfVTwLt2BTq2v1=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">William Morris would have
known something known to very few people today: what the river along here felt
like without these pillboxes.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">On the approach to Morris’s village sits
one of the last in the long sequence of Thames locks. <b>Grafton Lock</b>
replaced a flash weir in 1896 and is definitely one of those lonely ones people
come to for nature, birdsong and fuzzy animals. Otters are rumoured to frequent
the river here, and an adjacent natural meadow has been designated a Site of
Special Scientific Interest for its biodiversity.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZ7HBUaStYzQ4BOqEAHoJXHFZD74t1DKiRLkGhwqJzOgn_eSqB2bUIRKyPaCfg_zkDbEMBfdZqS8-oG5gjXflvmfYTPzmR1cLo6epQ2jvl6dMgdtjxVnxtu-HATvUVZiSn1DjWnSaJKTUXLN8rOl_0ZFmmClx3U6iKM4qgXT2c5VU9EwEbK72klqSQ=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZ7HBUaStYzQ4BOqEAHoJXHFZD74t1DKiRLkGhwqJzOgn_eSqB2bUIRKyPaCfg_zkDbEMBfdZqS8-oG5gjXflvmfYTPzmR1cLo6epQ2jvl6dMgdtjxVnxtu-HATvUVZiSn1DjWnSaJKTUXLN8rOl_0ZFmmClx3U6iKM4qgXT2c5VU9EwEbK72klqSQ=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">A large pack of cruiseboats
appears to be wintering on the bank here, although it lacks the facilities of a
proper boatyard.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWf2Byjmqi3bfn3WU03IMT-l-uoJ_euGwGwzMJIhV9CTj_OzkNQyOz_DJ406VCiZAIiV34ARzBlzULKrr3aOSsfuyBBf-5uSgKOiY4wvyftacgoay0919RV0wPqylr_UOuMUCTUJrkK0DO0qI8kl9RWNGAHvGIVrMprcwOD0miRMIcm3vC9om44HCR=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWf2Byjmqi3bfn3WU03IMT-l-uoJ_euGwGwzMJIhV9CTj_OzkNQyOz_DJ406VCiZAIiV34ARzBlzULKrr3aOSsfuyBBf-5uSgKOiY4wvyftacgoay0919RV0wPqylr_UOuMUCTUJrkK0DO0qI8kl9RWNGAHvGIVrMprcwOD0miRMIcm3vC9om44HCR=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Grafton Lock. It’s very quiet
here.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjAEvtF-EmME0nHv8wEgKoHMkHPVU3oBiA8QjnmKBUtZhs_ptMzsSkJM2Jx8Yg9WI5JR2RrHdvtt7thTGE862pw6wX3stVldtMiNrKsUMtvgeDkCEVIUSt1kdyLAi4ZVcXVr6v0g3YLN4ndFFmogUyhNZaQaQ6CkR9ecdQp3mf0gZml2rvSBvQ4dMBL=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjAEvtF-EmME0nHv8wEgKoHMkHPVU3oBiA8QjnmKBUtZhs_ptMzsSkJM2Jx8Yg9WI5JR2RrHdvtt7thTGE862pw6wX3stVldtMiNrKsUMtvgeDkCEVIUSt1kdyLAi4ZVcXVr6v0g3YLN4ndFFmogUyhNZaQaQ6CkR9ecdQp3mf0gZml2rvSBvQ4dMBL=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">William Morris came from a privileged
background: born in Walthamstow in London to a wealthy middle-class family, with
a stockbroker father and lucrative shares in copper mining. He studied at </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Oxford University</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;">, where he made many of the friends
who were to remain influential throughout a life in which he rarely if ever
wanted for money. Nonetheless, he developed a guttural dismay at the Victorian
industrialism which passed for the <i>modernity</i> of his day. He loathed its
ugliness and unhealthiness, its suffocating smoke, the ruthless divisions it
had torn open between social classes, and in particular its miserable
consequences for the working poor – that is, both its dehumanising violence towards
them, and the way its cold, hard values degraded the very nature of their work.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">For inspiration Morris turned instead
to medieval history, or rather the movement to revive an artistic ethos out of
it as represented in particular by John Ruskin. Morris came to see the Gothic designers,
crafters and builders of earlier centuries as operating with a naturalness,
freedom, precious imperfection, and – presaging his later Marxist turn – a
personal <i>connection</i> to and pleasure in their labour, which together offered
an antithesis to the dirty, nasty, soulless Victorian obsession with hard
progress.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Idealistic as this vision sounds and
no doubt was, his point was not to deny the equally dirty and nasty abuses that
pack the English feudal heritage, of which he was very much aware. Rather it
was about the value of that heritage, as he saw it, in presenting a foil for the
England his generation lived in – an England which, as today, was no less
nasty, yet had a knack for hiding its nastiness in a wardrobe of
hypocrisy and lies.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjcb06u7SFbhoT6tUNbdMg7uuUyIAfYLUFbR2DffdJztg0npNED_yg9bJYE_Wd_KfRmNhQtFpozvK5fMwI1gCnhkRKVzeHqQ5V7i7svp_YAN1e1zCw1QVOz4onS4UA1eaO-3aSGvEy3BciPwzDHGhdJ4Wnk0zTgBU6AivQIpIGlGc40HtUFVg20wsqL=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjcb06u7SFbhoT6tUNbdMg7uuUyIAfYLUFbR2DffdJztg0npNED_yg9bJYE_Wd_KfRmNhQtFpozvK5fMwI1gCnhkRKVzeHqQ5V7i7svp_YAN1e1zCw1QVOz4onS4UA1eaO-3aSGvEy3BciPwzDHGhdJ4Wnk0zTgBU6AivQIpIGlGc40HtUFVg20wsqL=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">This magical furnace appears
to have fallen through a spacetime rift from <i>The Legend of Zelda: Breath of
the Wild</i> and landed next to the river here. No doubt Morris would have
approved of the values expressed in the beauty of Hylian craftsmanship.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgI7V1170MDhzRE-6CUYV3bObQyFQlLlyBNOv7NJjMbNY9HJbttjr1kPiZtGz8C5opygbPqC-5L1sdYI0sdIDvQqCuKNueUqVW0EXFpS_lRYBenr2SmRLS4No2GUM2Hujfl3DsZ5gage3-2Nfd_z-_WF7FEc0AGULQHHjXKyhAj3fZnJTghgC1G7shz=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgI7V1170MDhzRE-6CUYV3bObQyFQlLlyBNOv7NJjMbNY9HJbttjr1kPiZtGz8C5opygbPqC-5L1sdYI0sdIDvQqCuKNueUqVW0EXFpS_lRYBenr2SmRLS4No2GUM2Hujfl3DsZ5gage3-2Nfd_z-_WF7FEc0AGULQHHjXKyhAj3fZnJTghgC1G7shz=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Perhaps influenced by Morris’s
legacy in the area, another local crowd turns its backs on a poisonous
modernity.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-b_r0qobHiJURozVONM69g8lBfo3_mj0apSHTdkCPPWwZJfxt9w1sX67156jI8xWownxPrF_oWQxv-tcPFLfHij6ct4QMCmsbqfi1DPROhi7cGgCqM8s-GksFDf9ImARVaSVB-uakxA0VK-9NKYTZmUmHoispowI4v9WMMnsRX5ezTGQ5IaejIBPM=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-b_r0qobHiJURozVONM69g8lBfo3_mj0apSHTdkCPPWwZJfxt9w1sX67156jI8xWownxPrF_oWQxv-tcPFLfHij6ct4QMCmsbqfi1DPROhi7cGgCqM8s-GksFDf9ImARVaSVB-uakxA0VK-9NKYTZmUmHoispowI4v9WMMnsRX5ezTGQ5IaejIBPM=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Aren’t the barbed wire fences
supposed keep the enemies out, rather than your own soldiers in?</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6H8U0P5FpBPUVDKTCVnfw9tI-67LZ8zIzylaQsKVvBy_slf9YRnAl5E4tNSvosmkX9tY0UQW4jE1fkl4l_OsQIy1YtZh8yoDYmHC0acTqWxdRTsK5JAcboEWxK4xdYkUc9hkZbR3hWQcBVWtSG5TCWALEOkI4ge2AaEm4L5Nk9Ym3rGnfIkdzNZXP=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6H8U0P5FpBPUVDKTCVnfw9tI-67LZ8zIzylaQsKVvBy_slf9YRnAl5E4tNSvosmkX9tY0UQW4jE1fkl4l_OsQIy1YtZh8yoDYmHC0acTqWxdRTsK5JAcboEWxK4xdYkUc9hkZbR3hWQcBVWtSG5TCWALEOkI4ge2AaEm4L5Nk9Ym3rGnfIkdzNZXP=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">On the southern bank stands yet
another near-deserted medieval village. The origins of Eaton Hastings are
obscure, save that it appeared in the Domesday Book and got reallocated in
eleventh-century Norman land-grabs – hence the <i>Hastings</i>, from the Norman
family who got it. Both the Black Death and Enclosure smashed its population,
and today fewer than a hundred people live there. Its most prominent survival
is its eleventh-century church, with restoration work including stained-glass
windows by William Morris.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table>In short, Morris seems to have
occupied a precarious and frequently maligned position: that of emerging from,
and relying for means on, a privileged culture which nonetheless bitterly
alienated him. The ironies of that situation would exasperate him all his life
– from the brutal abuses in the Devon copper mines from which his family
derived much of its income, to how it was principally the middle and upper
classes, in their ‘swinish luxury’ as he snarled at it, who could afford the
high-quality crafts and furnishings through which the decorative arts company
he founded, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., attempted to put his critical
artistic principles into practice.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Nonetheless, little doubt seems to have
surfaced about the integrity of his commitment to use what resources he had to
better the corrupt world around him. His approach to textile design attempted
to revive it as a genuine art form, and thereby reform the English
approach to production through its concern for sustainable, natural and
hand-embroidered beauty. He made no secret of his furious anti-imperialism, and,
later, though less overtly combative towards religion, his atheism despite his evangelical
Christian upbringing. His will to live in his own natural way even extended
into his personal relationships: whether in his marriage to Jane Burden, a
working-class muse of his painter friend Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in the face of
the hostile class norms of the time; or, later, his acquiescence to, and
supportive behaviour towards, Jane’s intimate relationships with Rossetti and
other individuals, notwithstanding the evident mental strain with which these
challenged him.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjG4aWdVRE8fzhiGRPkUgKctnsjjUCr92gSBtMm4N3zBe-D0niLsd6Wi_wlE3mihMsqGIpdIhljsczfj-AChoKZk5QmVZznFT7GWppSTDhY-uKGnYqBRulzh5xYw18W3BhAPkHqOBAB0bqFHisHHD1NwE2pgQtzQG1toJn3Ui67wAjfq_OCvQ9gVhdz=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjG4aWdVRE8fzhiGRPkUgKctnsjjUCr92gSBtMm4N3zBe-D0niLsd6Wi_wlE3mihMsqGIpdIhljsczfj-AChoKZk5QmVZznFT7GWppSTDhY-uKGnYqBRulzh5xYw18W3BhAPkHqOBAB0bqFHisHHD1NwE2pgQtzQG1toJn3Ui67wAjfq_OCvQ9gVhdz=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">A more straightforward presentation
of the rural idyll close to Kelmscott.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqkGlAmlBb-DYJJa511S9nljhdxDE4VXUUzjbO5QLZf2J96tcYo02wilm6XLCHMziU0WiLXKters9IflfUCjVVKrze-lNRFr92H_EGjp8qnUvptJoHojp3uXvmKUM4JqOdFfveacAvUmEJuWcdOjxGHpv3SmarUYXUYGD3ujazL_ssnpbgmV6mmUqE=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqkGlAmlBb-DYJJa511S9nljhdxDE4VXUUzjbO5QLZf2J96tcYo02wilm6XLCHMziU0WiLXKters9IflfUCjVVKrze-lNRFr92H_EGjp8qnUvptJoHojp3uXvmKUM4JqOdFfveacAvUmEJuWcdOjxGHpv3SmarUYXUYGD3ujazL_ssnpbgmV6mmUqE=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Nature dislikes this pillbox
and has begun to eat it.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuJ-iidWWEE531rw2HcuiY-oIOSYSR2yBf2AP1Q4VeecJO9pwRq03OjMGLAfZYUXmqokvkgWKtuBBBuuWjYC9GxdRE-fScyvm_C6KjyhVhS4ie4vPeYEYJZGsoYy3vTyDpZu5YCvOjia0XhdNgMSkLk4T-3okmcQVCZSzCoKAaOin6cTUoeb14lDP5=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuJ-iidWWEE531rw2HcuiY-oIOSYSR2yBf2AP1Q4VeecJO9pwRq03OjMGLAfZYUXmqokvkgWKtuBBBuuWjYC9GxdRE-fScyvm_C6KjyhVhS4ie4vPeYEYJZGsoYy3vTyDpZu5YCvOjia0XhdNgMSkLk4T-3okmcQVCZSzCoKAaOin6cTUoeb14lDP5=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Kelmscott village is a short
walk up a dirt road from the river here, with the manor house close to
adjoining it.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">It was around 1871 that Morris, keen
on getting himself and his family away from the London pollution, disembarked
from the river here at <b>Kelmscott</b>. This is a village like many in this
area, with likely origins as an Anglo-Saxon farmstead (the name means
‘Coenhelm’s Cottage’) followed by long depopulation on account of plague and
Enclosure. Its manor house, built around 1570 for the Turner family, was a
regularly-flooded block of limestone which, its feudal trappings having largely lapsed
by Morris’s day, was getting regularly sold or let out to whoever could
afford it.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Morris fell instantly in love with
it. In his eyes, the house, village, and surrounding countryside were so
harmonious a manifestation of his medieval visions that it was as though they had
sprouted organically from the very soil. He wasted no time in renting the manor
house, which from then on served as his countryside retreat and the crucible
for the most advanced phase of his works. It was in his Kelmscott period that
he consolidated his textiles company and embarked on a frenzied period of
design and experimentation, elevating Morris & Co., as it was now known, to
national renown. It was at this time too that he travelled to Iceland, having
set about learning its language and translating its sagas (his dabbles in translation
would go on to encompass Virgil’s <i>Aeneid</i>, Homer’s <i>Odyssey</i>, and
attempts at <i>Beowulf</i> and the Persian <i>Shahnameh</i>). And in the 1890s
he founded his own publishing company, known for its beautiful decorative
engravings, and even designed three typefaces for it. Though based in London’s
Hammersmith, Kelmscott’s influence by that point was evident in the name he
chose for it: the <i>Kelmscott Press</i>.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhYPIoVGJj3US9Uqk3qkjUlu-tieOPlhaUa2MrBqye-SAfZjHZB3FBpTOP3OwI7b896D-kxwH4V5rXuzSxdxEQHTvpFcfFZyRSIdOriLSJ_Ff6579OZYaLaXkzezUqYtYfEHA3E855hxv9b-okbnsDpQMswabiN0vruQ4thc7WFy7u6sqDv5CCSVvLg=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhYPIoVGJj3US9Uqk3qkjUlu-tieOPlhaUa2MrBqye-SAfZjHZB3FBpTOP3OwI7b896D-kxwH4V5rXuzSxdxEQHTvpFcfFZyRSIdOriLSJ_Ff6579OZYaLaXkzezUqYtYfEHA3E855hxv9b-okbnsDpQMswabiN0vruQ4thc7WFy7u6sqDv5CCSVvLg=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Kelmscott Manor, up the lane
from the river. Significantly, Morris did not turf the locals off their land or
stick lawns and fences everywhere as English class tradition expects. Rather he
appears to have taken to life in this riverside community, regularly walking
along the river to collect reeds and flowers for dyes or design motifs, and
boating about the meadows when they flooded. His concern for heritage extended
to the local buildings, which he and his daughter May did much to conserve. He
and most of his family are buried in Kelmscott’s churchyard and appear to be
fondly remembered in this area.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Very much a writer too, Morris’s
literature evokes a regular theme of escape from alienation. Frequently this
takes the form of migratory journeys into other worlds or timelines, whether in
search of meaning, belonging, or critical contrasts with the injustices of the
England he knew. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30332/30332-h/30332-h.htm"><u><i>The Earthly Paradise</i></u></a> (1868-70), which made his literary
reputation, for example, is an epic retelling of Greek and Norse myths through
a frame story of Scandinavian refugees seeking a better life across the sea. <a href="http://morrisarchive.lib.uiowa.edu/exhibits/show/romances/dreamjohnball/textdreamjohnball"><u><i>A Dream of John Ball</i></u></a> (1888) tells of a time-travel encounter with the
eponymous rebel priest from the 1381 Peasant’s Revolt, through which Morris
joined his voice to those re-interpreting that uprising, traditionally told in
terms heavily disparaging to the peasants, into a struggle for an egalitarian
society against the evils of serfdom. And </span><a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-morris/the-wood-beyond-the-world/text"><u><i><span style="line-height: 106%;">The Wood Beyond the World</span></i></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;"> (1894) features an alienated English
everyman who, on setting sail, ends up in a magical otherworld where he gets
tangled into the schemes of a reigning lady and her thrall, both complicated
women; a story which, for all its relative obscurity, is thought to have heavily
influenced writers like Tolkien and C. S. Lewis and laid the foundations for
English fantasy literature. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhosF0-cSEZ-GRukNRn7PCz_cgbj2cc9xwpVrBKz2r7MkqynD-Qpj594IzjEJnZ6Lsq9Ub7T_houm4F_cvhrEDLcdZ5zKEpRO-o7zb4gFrCfmIritGbRBPPF9nj2KSNIY7tCx7K-ESqUfIakSmx4v5wwb6xEvbc58zB9rgaiC_J55TYyVomXQUAO5nZ=s1024" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="1024" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhosF0-cSEZ-GRukNRn7PCz_cgbj2cc9xwpVrBKz2r7MkqynD-Qpj594IzjEJnZ6Lsq9Ub7T_houm4F_cvhrEDLcdZ5zKEpRO-o7zb4gFrCfmIritGbRBPPF9nj2KSNIY7tCx7K-ESqUfIakSmx4v5wwb6xEvbc58zB9rgaiC_J55TYyVomXQUAO5nZ=w400-h285" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The frontispiece to <i>The
Wood Beyond the World</i>, exhibiting the lush decorative aesthetic for which
the Kelmscott Press came to be known.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">But it is in probably Morris’s
best-known text, <a href="https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3261/pg3261-images.html"><u><i>News from Nowhere</i></u></a> (1890), that the late-life sharpening
of his critical edge is most apparent. This is another time-travel tale, in
which a London socialist falls asleep and wakes up in a far future in which his
city has become an agrarian paradise with no private property, no government, no
money, no social classes, and no repressive relationship norms like marriage or
the nuclear family. Having come increasingly into contact with the English
working poor through his explorations in the dyeing industry, Morris’s disgust
at the poverty and pollution his country inflicted on them now spurred him fast
to a sort of political epiphany. He discovered himself to be a committed
socialist, and from the late 1870s became tirelessly involved with
organisations like the Social Democratic Federation – England’s first socialist
political party – and the Socialist League, of which he was a founding member.
Soon he was regularly booming the case for socialism to the shock of bourgeois
society, unleashing his lectures on humiliated top-hatted audiences and making big
bearded appearances at strikes and street protests. He was even arrested at
these a couple of times, but never prosecuted, likely because his name had
grown too big for them to dare risk it. Yet his socialism was as thorough and
critical as the rest of him, and he seems to have spent as much of his
political energy fighting ideological quarrels and negotiating the vicious
splits which, then as now, have ever characterised the English critical reaction.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiiJvcdeQeZWhEr3RG7k28oBAyeAiyDgTftPcaak7C1PG6u4ZXcMAqc5-KTmwkmhQA9IYNdC13xRjLwPN74eL1r9D4VAFOTQK0bCzAiYcdavlVxIpwa0brBbk-Swi3FBR6Ho25Qm7Q1AfthM54F2F_gN8knZwzmqkWCL-Lb7GEpKO4F0FM7eAiXHcwV=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiiJvcdeQeZWhEr3RG7k28oBAyeAiyDgTftPcaak7C1PG6u4ZXcMAqc5-KTmwkmhQA9IYNdC13xRjLwPN74eL1r9D4VAFOTQK0bCzAiYcdavlVxIpwa0brBbk-Swi3FBR6Ho25Qm7Q1AfthM54F2F_gN8knZwzmqkWCL-Lb7GEpKO4F0FM7eAiXHcwV=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">A peek over the gates of the
Kelmscott Manor compound. After William Morris’s death the house passed to his
widow Jane, then his daughter May, who carried on the Morris legacy in
Kelmscott till her own death in 1938. Bequeathed then to Oxford University, it has
since landed in the hands of the London Society of Antiquaries, who preserve it
much as it was when William Morris lived here. Typically open to the public, it
is currently closed for COVID-19-delayed conservation work.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">It’s difficult to conclusively assess
a character like William Morris, if for no greater reason than his natural, if
nonetheless steamrolling, insistence on living as a real human being. Rather than slot
himself into neat categories, he insisted on abiding by his own values and
principles, his own habits and flaws, rather than adopting the incorrigibly
deep flaws of the society around him. His foundational legacies are widespread,
from architecture and the Arts and Crafts Movement, through otherworldly and
science-fiction writing, to the emergence of socialism as a serious force in
twentieth-century English politics. Even the 1960s hippy counter-culture and
the urgent environmental movement of the present day can be said to echo with his
contributions. They might not be so visibly-defined as to raise him among the
most prominent titans of one field or another. Yet, once detected, they are
profound enough to leave you wondering where any given strain of English
critical counter-culture might have washed up without them.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">England never did resolve into
something akin to the prophesised paradise of his <i>News from Nowhere</i>. It
is the horrors of English feudalism, rather than the blessings he saw in it,
that are now revived and moreover blended into the horrors of its industrial
scene to create a truthless and unrelentingly abusive <i>modernity</i> as far
removed from his visions as at any point during his lifetime. How desperately
painful, then, must the corporate serfs of today find Morris’s vision of a
world in which <span>all work is creative
and pleasurable?</span> How critically relevant is it still as the beacon for a
future the priests of modernity insist comes ever closer, yet which ever remains so heartbreakingly
out of reach?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjr2q8uEDYIhxw85v4-UX9INI0Hu8ZSspq-WCuvuTCtS8yzHzk9M02vQwvBOS_0YIvswDxUrBwXDxzKhFrmMWX7eiPcOz6z8oBV_lcH_vNpKcLXkut0oBzk5esb3RblzdlFkOo-WrXR1Wws-l_lvh5WsmuIbmHCMEPwSWp1UR4joHrx_G824B54fNv5=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjr2q8uEDYIhxw85v4-UX9INI0Hu8ZSspq-WCuvuTCtS8yzHzk9M02vQwvBOS_0YIvswDxUrBwXDxzKhFrmMWX7eiPcOz6z8oBV_lcH_vNpKcLXkut0oBzk5esb3RblzdlFkOo-WrXR1Wws-l_lvh5WsmuIbmHCMEPwSWp1UR4joHrx_G824B54fNv5=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Kelmscott Manor: still a long,
long way from England.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Buscot</span></u></b></span><span style="line-height: 106%;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">All trace of blue is gone from the
sky now, and the air is cold with moisture. Today’s goal of Lechlade is close
but, like the better future dreamed of by Morris, still feels lost in the darkening gloom.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYQjcUjWBJ8YNyaAllkdMsBBUHRFbcI1pOj0dnYCXpCbfTMnGsCcmmqANwKjRiXPM9WOrg3z0QUuROrcpuicQPUObnIezuvO-bpdv3fbYwEcv3updiC9s8ev2fRi_y80J8mzTY1gEiy5TCPOa6gDhLW8lh3IsHlxe-8_EzfhzZ4CTAP0aBCNA47eIl=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYQjcUjWBJ8YNyaAllkdMsBBUHRFbcI1pOj0dnYCXpCbfTMnGsCcmmqANwKjRiXPM9WOrg3z0QUuROrcpuicQPUObnIezuvO-bpdv3fbYwEcv3updiC9s8ev2fRi_y80J8mzTY1gEiy5TCPOa6gDhLW8lh3IsHlxe-8_EzfhzZ4CTAP0aBCNA47eIl=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The residues of William
Morris’s otherworld crossings have lingered. This bunker for instance is haunted
by something not from this dimension.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgro4BIWZdbr6YlpGI53WZbdntPRRXw_b2FGp4hrtX6m4_WbUhaKuMajs2kJoniWTGlxT4rImUlIq-2I4mnyTP4JrsFIxMPQ4Y5znneeUmIXQDZMvu6nDxF_tJWBALpw3jTcBME6ZJ9I60fSfXfioKblFDKE7r63qZ-0zfFNCr4mU9TqrzJ9WyvQXfv=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgro4BIWZdbr6YlpGI53WZbdntPRRXw_b2FGp4hrtX6m4_WbUhaKuMajs2kJoniWTGlxT4rImUlIq-2I4mnyTP4JrsFIxMPQ4Y5znneeUmIXQDZMvu6nDxF_tJWBALpw3jTcBME6ZJ9I60fSfXfioKblFDKE7r63qZ-0zfFNCr4mU9TqrzJ9WyvQXfv=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">‘Heaven on Earth’: a place
with no humans in it? One can relate.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Here another matchstick footbridge
marks the site of the last of the river’s old flash locks. For the remote
countryside, <b>Hart’s Weir</b>, as it was known, was supposedly a lively spot with
a campsite and pub called the <i>Anchor Inn</i> on its island.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3uH0AKX3s1WyHT9FEqkQzWoeTWpokdf-yXtRCdcNg6_xNNJlYrqedL-iKQVCQ0u-ivZZAjFr6UMRntotUt95FyD_on9XFfGBCS8hu5GkAe_iBf-C9a1GBXgPf9Jdoq6_vtyyqrMlsTfWYpdjP_L1ccJ9sokRwOaugNCjq7XZbiEAITr8eHeobnK4X=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3uH0AKX3s1WyHT9FEqkQzWoeTWpokdf-yXtRCdcNg6_xNNJlYrqedL-iKQVCQ0u-ivZZAjFr6UMRntotUt95FyD_on9XFfGBCS8hu5GkAe_iBf-C9a1GBXgPf9Jdoq6_vtyyqrMlsTfWYpdjP_L1ccJ9sokRwOaugNCjq7XZbiEAITr8eHeobnK4X=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Eaton Footbridge, with the old
lock island visible. William Morris, who used to swim here with his friends,
writes in <i>The Earthly Paradise</i>: ‘What better place than this, then,
could we find,/By this sweet stream that knows not of the sea,/That guesses not
the city's misery,/This little stream whose hamlets scarce have names,/This
far-off, lonely mother of the Thames.’</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">The weir and lock were notoriously
difficult for watercraft to navigate and in 1936 they were removed, with this
footbridge built in their place. The pub lived on, only to burn down in
mysterious circumstances in 1980.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiHCTjyQXKbBIq-3gkm5ti-hsJBWtYIHJ7PNKySQD7oVOfm1fTRXEJyszkkGQ9l-nreQN6fkll2l6bsh8NVSNW6N30Y6-WeI42Qxthgu86WEIvYycD4sHXgOfZ2WPoNE8IS-3L3GkXUnIP8yj3hPC1IxDf-DqXPlmPGrcoFuqL-pSvnYokOXmXryoqb=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiHCTjyQXKbBIq-3gkm5ti-hsJBWtYIHJ7PNKySQD7oVOfm1fTRXEJyszkkGQ9l-nreQN6fkll2l6bsh8NVSNW6N30Y6-WeI42Qxthgu86WEIvYycD4sHXgOfZ2WPoNE8IS-3L3GkXUnIP8yj3hPC1IxDf-DqXPlmPGrcoFuqL-pSvnYokOXmXryoqb=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The former weir keeper’s
house, now the <i>Anchor Boat Club</i> according to its sign, is the only surviving
building. It’s another sight that suggests some well-managed immigration could
really breathe life back into this area.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivkcH9H9Rd-cc8r7at6J_uv8zEVLIE6RwIqYclj1wdba-J7aPhWqovml-UBa0mMocYZKlDfvMTTNEcr1AqC6ZkJrkeJvSaCCuu6YZV2vmQi62b5uwWbrRLJe5Gd_4uJWpDdgBRVvootRD6FZqDOit47xBfttzP5QCCL7lDtz8v-BLE1_TveBhGsViD=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivkcH9H9Rd-cc8r7at6J_uv8zEVLIE6RwIqYclj1wdba-J7aPhWqovml-UBa0mMocYZKlDfvMTTNEcr1AqC6ZkJrkeJvSaCCuu6YZV2vmQi62b5uwWbrRLJe5Gd_4uJWpDdgBRVvootRD6FZqDOit47xBfttzP5QCCL7lDtz8v-BLE1_TveBhGsViD=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Oh look – another imaginary
border.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">If you believe in borders, this ditch,
gate and fence are more significant than most. It is here that the wayfarer
finally leaves the Oxford sphere of influence, and in crossing this line, takes
first steps into the strange green heights of Gloucestershire Province. It is
this ancient land whose limestone heart gives birth to the river, and whose old,
old ways are said to whisper still.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhFUbi7lv0hMhzlx16fh-BMTRpeBxKOidZU0d3mCn0rGK3UwwhZ0YgaNuYsDSgsyfo5iyZSWMuakEjcp-My4ZAcLx_Xe3_iT8cq_Rnk07NN_6CJegqxbOpr137V6F3V8EkKRCiOJ0C0nUZZeiBUMuVMSvCUgVqWjDt4wOW6IgLiXLT2tLYIQpCipl_N=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhFUbi7lv0hMhzlx16fh-BMTRpeBxKOidZU0d3mCn0rGK3UwwhZ0YgaNuYsDSgsyfo5iyZSWMuakEjcp-My4ZAcLx_Xe3_iT8cq_Rnk07NN_6CJegqxbOpr137V6F3V8EkKRCiOJ0C0nUZZeiBUMuVMSvCUgVqWjDt4wOW6IgLiXLT2tLYIQpCipl_N=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Naturally Gloucestershire too
has nuuo.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEif2TKixB7sE2MlfofwS6VnToMJ8bNHNsSsiT7g3hmYGpGuGtb7LZZvQv7ujR21or6dghgmbwKOwf64NPlu3DL1ukljHPYMot8qnwuUQzXRUoPhRKhewEwLyCo4W7_6Jt-boIS8VYqegLPYUymgbE3GHgWXKon7y3rX7ZgTJiYprkBvowdWP2WUZnSp=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEif2TKixB7sE2MlfofwS6VnToMJ8bNHNsSsiT7g3hmYGpGuGtb7LZZvQv7ujR21or6dghgmbwKOwf64NPlu3DL1ukljHPYMot8qnwuUQzXRUoPhRKhewEwLyCo4W7_6Jt-boIS8VYqegLPYUymgbE3GHgWXKon7y3rX7ZgTJiYprkBvowdWP2WUZnSp=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The remains of a ritual pyre
suggests regional variations in how their pillboxes operated.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzZTv9HNLyMIfHbj2tRUbtGVhTRADRX3DnAVs-VNMKDLvgDVas3fqDu8tYoIqp9BSOH-fhsJDqLmifQcMNoEvoYIRIYI9knzF8HTkah14HtK_OWgbFV5-9se2P3__hMgX0BlF9Gc0kXDR-gego4Bd66Un8DgSKPaqjq07RoNhlTmDqNYT09gTC8NtI=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzZTv9HNLyMIfHbj2tRUbtGVhTRADRX3DnAVs-VNMKDLvgDVas3fqDu8tYoIqp9BSOH-fhsJDqLmifQcMNoEvoYIRIYI9knzF8HTkah14HtK_OWgbFV5-9se2P3__hMgX0BlF9Gc0kXDR-gego4Bd66Un8DgSKPaqjq07RoNhlTmDqNYT09gTC8NtI=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">This one looks unusually
elevated. Perhaps it’s calculated to play on French invaders’ postulated
sensitivity about their heights.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="line-height: 106%;">Buscot Lock</span></b><span style="line-height: 106%;"> is the penultimate lock on this
journey. It’s unusual for being just one part of a more involved heritage complex
on this site, which connects to the nearby country mansion of <b>Buscot Park</b>
and its associated <b>Buscot </b>village.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Goodness knows what William Morris
made of this place when he looked across the river. The grand house, a
Neoclassical-Palladian hybrid, was built in the 1780s for a local magnate and
Whig politician with the curious name of Edward Loveden Loveden. Heir to a
massive landed fortune, this individual’s further wealth and status came from driving
the canalisation of the river in these parts as a member of the Thames
Navigation Commission. This included the canal to the Severn just upstream of
Lechlade, but also Buscot Lock which, in a set with several others we have
passed, was built in 1790 to smooth barge passage at the top of the navigable
Thames.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEhw0Hz4eCgwx8jrp-nrUjwIlvwNcbbz1dvG9O3XSbkp75AU0x-tNHHKAyvWlENL2k3orHtkZxW8X4_kJs684WSfSlvsPUgBauLBG5Zxf2WI_1RAmJomrG9xiOJqJD2lbZQVAnNcqY7bopxOwb9dxmSSyVG1c0gDSaDX9qMzpzw2rjZ80-3mKbJqWU=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEhw0Hz4eCgwx8jrp-nrUjwIlvwNcbbz1dvG9O3XSbkp75AU0x-tNHHKAyvWlENL2k3orHtkZxW8X4_kJs684WSfSlvsPUgBauLBG5Zxf2WI_1RAmJomrG9xiOJqJD2lbZQVAnNcqY7bopxOwb9dxmSSyVG1c0gDSaDX9qMzpzw2rjZ80-3mKbJqWU=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Buscot Lock, whose subtly storied
landscape is ruined by the metal fence.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">The following century the Buscot
estate took a more peculiar turn when it was sold to another rich white man,
Robert Tertius Campbell. This one was of Australian colonial extraction, from
an obscenely wealthy landowning family
with an (almost certainly dodgy) killing in farming and the gold trade.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Around the 1850s, Campbell got it
into his head to transform Buscot Park into some kind of model agro-industrial scheme.
In perhaps a weird mirror image to William Morris’s unblemished paradise across the water,
this was to be a systemically irrigated, railway-supported working compound reliant
on state-of-the-art technology. At it heart was a commercial-scale distillery
where French labourers processed sugar beet – over 10,000 tonnes of it per year
– to produce alcohol for export.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEij8Ee3c9hYls1LY-vmMYsPrd3UVxhL2sfoZG_ef3Yvu5voQWmdzmOfBBDixB2wmV3wb433wV7gMFAUBZPv4pFmQC4VOh8Oz8a23sXWXQSLFQ0tGRHiLEXbJbWshisE8hZU5cRZNs0luoKX-p1RT-fvWhW_uG13P8iS7sRVv8ciIzMUa6l0XIxLqNWu=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEij8Ee3c9hYls1LY-vmMYsPrd3UVxhL2sfoZG_ef3Yvu5voQWmdzmOfBBDixB2wmV3wb433wV7gMFAUBZPv4pFmQC4VOh8Oz8a23sXWXQSLFQ0tGRHiLEXbJbWshisE8hZU5cRZNs0luoKX-p1RT-fvWhW_uG13P8iS7sRVv8ciIzMUa6l0XIxLqNWu=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The local talk was that
Campbell was producing brandy here. He wasn’t, but the rumour stuck, so the
island created by the channels dug for its water wheels became known as <i>Brandy
Island</i>. None of the buildings lasted long after the scheme’s collapse, with
Thames Water later building this pumping station where the distillery used to
be. Another wharf nearby shipped out Gloucestershire cheese to the lands below.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">What the conditions were like for the
people who worked here is anyone’s guess, though it is said Campbell was
relatively considerate with wages and working hours (and we know it at least
did not so offend William Morris into punting across and knocking it down with
his beard). Nonetheless the extensive dredging, digging, planting and
construction ate a huge hole in Campell’s finances, and when all his French
workers left to fight in the Franco-Prussian war, their English replacements,
familiarly, lacked the skill or will for the job. By 1879 the whole thing had
collapsed, leaving the house mortgaged and everything else sold off. Campbell
died bankrupt eight years later, his misery compounded by watching the ruin of
his daughter, almost certainly unfairly, in one of the most sensationalised
murder-mystery scandals of that period.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Thereafter Buscot Park fell back in
the hands of the English nobility, specifically the Barons of Faringdon (a
nearby market town, and the main centre of settlement south of the Thames
here). There is however a nice sting in this tale, one of which William Morris
might have approved. The second Baron Faringdon, Gavin Henderson, was a
socialist, a pacifist, and almost certainly gay. In brazen defiance of English
class scripts, he used the estate to host meetings for the Fabian Society, the
democratic-socialist organisation which helped produce the Labour Party. He
went on to sit for that party in the House of Lords – on one occasion attending
in a fireman’s uniform while volunteering for the London Fire Brigade, and on
another opening a speech with ‘My dears’ – and even went to Spain to provide
medical support to the anti-fascist forces fighting Franco.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZMKkJcDQZkIs8Otp0AdzwPXebopOHt1H-uwKIwHmvbRhRS2dIcsuL9bE9yLWvdq9fqClZQ8BiPUOb9-2zY0ReEq6EvFNp92sQQRWQhVcATXWkMP9k4jdyxNEXNHz7KmDScZCtUpcy-168aQrXKPW4KEVlC3k9QLhzpgg_Mjh6mAAkHZYvS-2AIbmY=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZMKkJcDQZkIs8Otp0AdzwPXebopOHt1H-uwKIwHmvbRhRS2dIcsuL9bE9yLWvdq9fqClZQ8BiPUOb9-2zY0ReEq6EvFNp92sQQRWQhVcATXWkMP9k4jdyxNEXNHz7KmDScZCtUpcy-168aQrXKPW4KEVlC3k9QLhzpgg_Mjh6mAAkHZYvS-2AIbmY=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Buscot village can be glimpsed
across the river, in particular its thirteenth-century St. Mary’s Church. Many
of the village’s historic buildings were commissioned by Alexander Henderson,
first Baron Faringdon, when he took over the estate. Buscot Park is still the
residence of their line in the form of the third and current Baron, Charles
Henderson (nephew of the socialist Gavin).</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">St. John’s Lock</span></u></b></span><span style="line-height: 106%;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Now the day draws shiveringly to its
close, and it is of course a dark, cold, and wet one. But the end is in sight,
not only for this exhausting eight-hour slog but for some of the river’s own
most important capacities.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXraI2ycxl-eO4je_BESrkB0fA8waLTQK0gx_uYTtnFAYMbXAg5GVkBdznCG9QPgykL60cmNio7jY4ZkWDnB51nCp23ugKMX39O29ZF4h8Iz_6EVStKqUpGkdruQ9d4BemMmNdLox4eyLiJK9SL4ygvMIipmc4C-16c6FbmBXh1M5NxI15rA8dPNk3=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXraI2ycxl-eO4je_BESrkB0fA8waLTQK0gx_uYTtnFAYMbXAg5GVkBdznCG9QPgykL60cmNio7jY4ZkWDnB51nCp23ugKMX39O29ZF4h8Iz_6EVStKqUpGkdruQ9d4BemMmNdLox4eyLiJK9SL4ygvMIipmc4C-16c6FbmBXh1M5NxI15rA8dPNk3=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Hopefully these among them.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijLwXzSVgf5SmICdyMqdTe4budKD5cyr3BGnLJDT5pWFxv5_ORXtu_m-ElFru1xMrEslbZMuIij55WrvTEBoLlOJUrgxiG4jNyns13Z3C9nL3txkghtEGF-7Qm0BYd0AtZrTd-wEDcCfw0O8pZ2v3P87uHxpVH9ibJIH7dw473fiY8fyGZcceXKcxO=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijLwXzSVgf5SmICdyMqdTe4budKD5cyr3BGnLJDT5pWFxv5_ORXtu_m-ElFru1xMrEslbZMuIij55WrvTEBoLlOJUrgxiG4jNyns13Z3C9nL3txkghtEGF-7Qm0BYd0AtZrTd-wEDcCfw0O8pZ2v3P87uHxpVH9ibJIH7dw473fiY8fyGZcceXKcxO=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The final approach to Lechlade
features some of the meanest, jerkiest meanders so far. It’s little surprise
that this is the uppermost navigable reach.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Trudging on up these twisting bends,
we come to <b>Bloomer’s Hole</b>. It’s a wider spot said to be convenient for
turning boats, though where it got its name is an utter mystery.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhun2x5G_VchA-Ue97F3G9cz8mXegRbWiScbQoGGq_vKKWMFABL48UiC43ObONKtGB7SjkpUxjurZyInuDqcLHxjwy-TwSBL4AfPxal0mY3WwqTQ0aXgkXhgzBrWWzdY-OjPDIWUrLabnBj4RlEOVDh2ZlNX-Qed5ai1QtNIdukFYd93UpuMQG3YLcf=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhun2x5G_VchA-Ue97F3G9cz8mXegRbWiScbQoGGq_vKKWMFABL48UiC43ObONKtGB7SjkpUxjurZyInuDqcLHxjwy-TwSBL4AfPxal0mY3WwqTQ0aXgkXhgzBrWWzdY-OjPDIWUrLabnBj4RlEOVDh2ZlNX-Qed5ai1QtNIdukFYd93UpuMQG3YLcf=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Bloomer’s Hole. Its footbridge, apparently
another timber piece, in fact breaks the pattern. The wood is
just an envelope for a steel structure within, and it’s also distinct for
having been installed by Chinook helicopter in 2001.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Lechlade’s eastern flank retains the
name of <b>St. John’s</b>, after an Augustinian priory built on the north bank
here in the thirteenth century in the name of John the Baptist. Unusually done
in not by Henry VIII but by its own financial hardships in the 1470s, its
monks’ abiding importance with regards to the river was their construction and
maintenance of <b>St. John’s Bridge</b>, which for most generations since has
carried the main road between Gloucester and the southeast (now the A417) over
the river. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh5Lwes0FBA4Fk3yR8TuahVqHugH8abOWL_elzg3chG4Nf_k7KOkKEavV6q3Xv6fR7fKzsl97HWqE2P3m4NAX4n63hRX6eoLfOMXeVFMeY693MM3vkrMWci2CzUtTK4dTSre_GdwIlGqVCSEccJwGHKNHhrNGJMZw6fnZAbEsknGr4GWuVkuInfCa2j=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh5Lwes0FBA4Fk3yR8TuahVqHugH8abOWL_elzg3chG4Nf_k7KOkKEavV6q3Xv6fR7fKzsl97HWqE2P3m4NAX4n63hRX6eoLfOMXeVFMeY693MM3vkrMWci2CzUtTK4dTSre_GdwIlGqVCSEccJwGHKNHhrNGJMZw6fnZAbEsknGr4GWuVkuInfCa2j=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">This isn’t the main St. John’s
Bridge, but an extension built for the later lock cut. The principal bridge,
and the <i>Trout Inn</i> which is all that remains of the monastery’s
almshouse, are beyond contention in this final push to the end before the clouds
burst open.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjPD6E_X-11b0dUWkWfwlEqxmO4rtYjLx5y7n169NOXms54uC2nWSz1bbDAHdHUSOgvZLqm5lJhoaKtfagSGv8ToBgR9M7wriyPB4IZhzKFlxNvnGJFL59fHm1FKFhiBO5LXPMRHhR2wA8ZhCz3S__q9XbWySxJrGLkwXrUfPxNUp89xQ28lRu6dXed=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjPD6E_X-11b0dUWkWfwlEqxmO4rtYjLx5y7n169NOXms54uC2nWSz1bbDAHdHUSOgvZLqm5lJhoaKtfagSGv8ToBgR9M7wriyPB4IZhzKFlxNvnGJFL59fHm1FKFhiBO5LXPMRHhR2wA8ZhCz3S__q9XbWySxJrGLkwXrUfPxNUp89xQ28lRu6dXed=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><b>Likewise invisible hereabouts
in the murk and exhaustion is the mouth of the river Leach, the small Cotswold
tributary for which Lechlade is named.</b></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Immediately beyond that, we come to
the final entry in the long, long sequence of locks which, for this expedition,
began two years and two hundred kilometres ago at </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Richmond Lock</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;">. What opened in the world below, <b>St.
John’s Lock</b> now closes here on the far heights. Built as one of the Thames
Navigation Commission’s 1790 set following the opening of the Thames and Severn
Canal, the present structure is a 1905 rebuild which, as per usual today, is
totally deserted.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhV0K0ScY_WJLWf41ZvlTVAuV8fo7Jx3ykRjK1MtHp5zReBoYhZwBuXn1hJYyl8qnB8ytaeHXqrwfoMQeOiFUekSt1opa6lnT8oyvl9xOXSvN2NOhNy2hKkzO-xFaxA6O4kiUWHkQna94hpBIxvbSFEAi8C-NavnxsmWm60MrLEyQ7S2XnKRkq1s1ao=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhV0K0ScY_WJLWf41ZvlTVAuV8fo7Jx3ykRjK1MtHp5zReBoYhZwBuXn1hJYyl8qnB8ytaeHXqrwfoMQeOiFUekSt1opa6lnT8oyvl9xOXSvN2NOhNy2hKkzO-xFaxA6O4kiUWHkQna94hpBIxvbSFEAi8C-NavnxsmWm60MrLEyQ7S2XnKRkq1s1ao=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">St. John’s Lock, the highest
on the Thames. And that’s it. No more locks.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimGML2JNtlQrPbs7LPvb_RqgOnWJhxxf6AYfIoTDg10MCAUYkW8oH5JXegjFtbpm0n13mGtebkpBO_JsBtPUsZflXe3vR1VwW9C1Nw3MBtw3vB7uoAFhmOujgq9xwVHh6oQP8VRkLstHtpUMBF-J5k9kNYLyM6gPnoVhfnTCsvWhxvbktSJ344xtD2=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimGML2JNtlQrPbs7LPvb_RqgOnWJhxxf6AYfIoTDg10MCAUYkW8oH5JXegjFtbpm0n13mGtebkpBO_JsBtPUsZflXe3vR1VwW9C1Nw3MBtw3vB7uoAFhmOujgq9xwVHh6oQP8VRkLstHtpUMBF-J5k9kNYLyM6gPnoVhfnTCsvWhxvbktSJ344xtD2=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The lock island appears to
harbour a community of tiny people.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">From here it’s a shattered,
mind-numbing stagger up the final bends to Lechlade. A look at this trading
post and transport junction at the top of the accessible river will have to
wait for next time, because we arrive just in time for the storm's return.<br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZcOb7UKbYND_mShoejvhL1lmz8qUopG5cyD1V8J8RTkAX2IysGG69Hn6_k5TD6bcQBBBZ1xsoClMSwMNKRzcUmTtoPQDtxXMbfRGsvjaB5q6QjizxkP_OMT1oQNL_VjzTBp6adZOXSFkalzPJu21dHR9kDm5zr_p1EU98gX090hfltN-zYDL-6711=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZcOb7UKbYND_mShoejvhL1lmz8qUopG5cyD1V8J8RTkAX2IysGG69Hn6_k5TD6bcQBBBZ1xsoClMSwMNKRzcUmTtoPQDtxXMbfRGsvjaB5q6QjizxkP_OMT1oQNL_VjzTBp6adZOXSFkalzPJu21dHR9kDm5zr_p1EU98gX090hfltN-zYDL-6711=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">The spire of Lechlade’s St.
Lawrence’s Church materialises on the horizon, no doubt a welcome sight for
generations of hard-travelled wayfarers and barge captains.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNWZFxp7UNWeZTQQfsSCR5zVKA4RXt6gHLf1qdZYCkObonzOeT503XjSL4doqXBUX_Iy6XpATJDYviNdVVW5sk5Hdsg2s4CTvoP2WLFbuzEgp2RPfO1KVe2XAeW-RoIOhJhTptOml_4sPxe3Y0StCfVJ3iZ9QLPTv6r4tF-7lCAtoCuFd5OcmFcusX=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNWZFxp7UNWeZTQQfsSCR5zVKA4RXt6gHLf1qdZYCkObonzOeT503XjSL4doqXBUX_Iy6XpATJDYviNdVVW5sk5Hdsg2s4CTvoP2WLFbuzEgp2RPfO1KVe2XAeW-RoIOhJhTptOml_4sPxe3Y0StCfVJ3iZ9QLPTv6r4tF-7lCAtoCuFd5OcmFcusX=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Don’t be fooled by the
camera’s way with light. By this point, gloom enswathes the land.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFOSGCZHXR-7cVfG7HZuzSMedbJ0pn71wUeSOcgfBPLn5T0e0JjUv4z8APeY3-9_EwpXsubsg2Jpx2S51U4MtnGASVQy08BCbpNjFMjp9M5YoIT44FADkXH5T0JKsAMDNEzNCpOIwL-mlk26LXblordqvaNBP0O7IxoSCDWBW9D5XJ24YfTbfkCina=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFOSGCZHXR-7cVfG7HZuzSMedbJ0pn71wUeSOcgfBPLn5T0e0JjUv4z8APeY3-9_EwpXsubsg2Jpx2S51U4MtnGASVQy08BCbpNjFMjp9M5YoIT44FADkXH5T0JKsAMDNEzNCpOIwL-mlk26LXblordqvaNBP0O7IxoSCDWBW9D5XJ24YfTbfkCina=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Just in time for a safe
arrival, the still-more-welcome lights of Lechlade itself.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhegdDqiTvHkSfssHeamvnFyKLVrXXDjvivsHMdQZ8PHDxNmVV3FCNu8Hx5lj6fBXzxjHt7F8BH1DgLGalTHRorRVfwO_9Cw61Gsl_gRBQWdHNVVSkyDxg6mRDpE9q9jktAJXKdRqTObsZcq2ucDUdi8b6j05zGX8ToIhP5kxC6XjyV4ryy3cxrqc9-=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhegdDqiTvHkSfssHeamvnFyKLVrXXDjvivsHMdQZ8PHDxNmVV3FCNu8Hx5lj6fBXzxjHt7F8BH1DgLGalTHRorRVfwO_9Cw61Gsl_gRBQWdHNVVSkyDxg6mRDpE9q9jktAJXKdRqTObsZcq2ucDUdi8b6j05zGX8ToIhP5kxC6XjyV4ryy3cxrqc9-=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">Lechlade’s Halfpenny Bridge,
more on which in the next instalment...</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgm_4zmGULVHE6C9ss-_Mv__UheHZITSWaYo-Pf3mUFfiP8MjE-KYLy4-t-vssclHEHQ2lMOV_uoWk42G20hCuvE7eKUV92gcBLuGf-9rNp-5dFql5AnKpMBEqCdB-jzzqOBYYZxtrfpD02e1hJOFtQ7siVzS2kCixFTOAcK8lwdc8iPa0JjC4BTG86=s5184" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgm_4zmGULVHE6C9ss-_Mv__UheHZITSWaYo-Pf3mUFfiP8MjE-KYLy4-t-vssclHEHQ2lMOV_uoWk42G20hCuvE7eKUV92gcBLuGf-9rNp-5dFql5AnKpMBEqCdB-jzzqOBYYZxtrfpD02e1hJOFtQ7siVzS2kCixFTOAcK8lwdc8iPa0JjC4BTG86=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="line-height: 106%;">...and across it, <i>The
Riverside</i> inn, born of tea rooms on a former wharf in the 1950s and
well-positioned to restore travellers with <s>pints, teas, coffees and</s>
deluxe hot chocolate.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">The moment of this threshold is lost
in the murk. This river of English migration – this water whose movement enabled
their movement in turn, from the Anglo-Saxon small boats crossing the Channel
up the full procession of container ships and luxury liners, aggregates
dredgers, steamboats, sailboats and tugboats, working barges, punts, skiffs and
rowboats, narrowboats and middle-class cruiseboats – this, here, is where it
ends that service, to all but those whose craft are small enough to propel with
their own limbs.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Fitting that its highest lock could
also be considered a shrine of sorts, for it heralds a reunion with a figure we
last met atop the former headquarters of the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-1-tides-of-time.html"><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Port of London Authority on Tower
Hill</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 106%;">, all the way
back at the start.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj56X7eSPmp1uONSNYGMEgvLQR4sw0IUl9czoYDscbbYwfFg5ZvwifhTyOw9nkhHDOYn-LmU9EJHQYjyS-omO2ki7wjAfMJ7lzBXdxpoLYtUGURkmioGZVI20UG4VDrgMK4KarMjv9Qff5twxijmKxZ_TNhagnH1TDnORWOCjZxh0BWwy-KIztn_GnK=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj56X7eSPmp1uONSNYGMEgvLQR4sw0IUl9czoYDscbbYwfFg5ZvwifhTyOw9nkhHDOYn-LmU9EJHQYjyS-omO2ki7wjAfMJ7lzBXdxpoLYtUGURkmioGZVI20UG4VDrgMK4KarMjv9Qff5twxijmKxZ_TNhagnH1TDnORWOCjZxh0BWwy-KIztn_GnK=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="line-height: 106%;">Father Thames</span></i><span style="line-height: 106%;">, the river’s guardian deity, is
obscure in origin but very possibly dates back in some form to prehistoric
river-worship. This latter-day interpretation was carved by an Italian sculptor
on commission for the Great Exhibition of 1854, that glittering showcase for
the Victorian dream of an industrial, scientific and technological future. It
then migrated to South London with the Crystal Palace, where it survived that building’s
disastrous destruction by fire in 1936 and was thereafter rescued by the Thames
Conservancy.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">Parked for a time at the Thames’s
official source, Father Thames moved here in 1974 supposedly in response to
vandalism. But perhaps there’s a better reason. Look at him: an itinerant
worker, ever on the move with his shovel and packs of cargo. Here by the limit
of his river’s navigability, he reminds the English that for the fullness of its
history, the entire breadth of its meaning in the hearts of humans for which he
stands in embodiment, the river’s greatest importance to them was that <i>it
moved them</i>. On its natural <i>freedom of movement</i> they settled this
land, imagined up their provinces and their kingdoms, and constituted straw by
straw, brick by brick, memory by memory, those things which, over the
centuries, they have come to call <i>English</i>. And they did that by bringing
in that which was foreign: customs, goods, beliefs, ideas, and most of all their very own bodies.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">They suffer the delusion, now, that
only by ending that movement – violently, and with cruelty – can England
survive. The river knows the truth is the opposite. If it flows through
multiple realities, it knows there is at least one of them in which the Home
Office, transplanted into the past, sank the <i>small boats</i> on
which their ancestors first came here and so erased England from the timeline. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;">When the movement stops, England
dies. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 106%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgjXs4kFgXGFkiQzUBd5p9ViUsgNNXyg11UVvARUxwZpMeOAhl14ZZxmyj_Arunb9sGJpglGIAMP3_Zu_Jb4Lng4UT1FolrRofnkUneDST-sHPV4EUd-HuueDM1OzOEECSKnd6BTLqzfVMoCOFezCw9ntOzancV4JO6CyeevQFp9qrasXGLKNnBBCj=s5184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgjXs4kFgXGFkiQzUBd5p9ViUsgNNXyg11UVvARUxwZpMeOAhl14ZZxmyj_Arunb9sGJpglGIAMP3_Zu_Jb4Lng4UT1FolrRofnkUneDST-sHPV4EUd-HuueDM1OzOEECSKnd6BTLqzfVMoCOFezCw9ntOzancV4JO6CyeevQFp9qrasXGLKNnBBCj=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><p><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></p>Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Lechlade-on-Thames, Lechlade GL7, UK51.6997759 -1.691452323.389542063821153 -36.8477023 80.010009736178844 33.4647977tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-34892627083308976992021-10-29T10:27:00.000+01:002021-10-29T10:27:48.541+01:00NEW STORY RELEASE: Paths Across the Sea - The Voyage of Mikoro and Dari<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When stranded in an
impossible world, there is no shame in seeking what you need in other worlds
instead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Alienated and traumatised even before
the COVID-19 pandemic, that has been my only recourse through this horrendous period.
And today, at the time of the year when the boundaries between worlds are at
their thinnest...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">...I bring back something to share.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A story.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjia5yH5vykWpN6YFUo11EMWMdRLz4NanYtTCGHCD8IVYTsgottBPYfPgFOyJy-ZoqJeQaikCXxtdU8va-qti-J0gPKcMXY5K-tT7B3-SljHgI4_MgujOtoow9WxWsbyG1Gzo-SBHhYPlQ/s2029/TITLE+%252822+Oct+2021%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1731" data-original-width="2029" height="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjia5yH5vykWpN6YFUo11EMWMdRLz4NanYtTCGHCD8IVYTsgottBPYfPgFOyJy-ZoqJeQaikCXxtdU8va-qti-J0gPKcMXY5K-tT7B3-SljHgI4_MgujOtoow9WxWsbyG1Gzo-SBHhYPlQ/w400-h341/TITLE+%252822+Oct+2021%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><b><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Paths Across the Sea</span></b></i><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> is the tale a hyperactive fluffy
pink-haired cat girl, a tiny explorer, and their journey together on a
rabbit-shaped ship across a vast sea of stories. Join Mikoro and Dari on their
wholesome and heartwarming quest through a wide range of worlds, some
of which you might well recognise from literature, mythology and video games. You
never know – you might just find yourself on an exploration into the very
nature of stories, journeys, and reality itself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I have launched a new website to host
this story, with more of my large written works set to appear there in the
months ahead. <i>Paths Across the Sea</i> is now available <b>to everyone</b>, <b>free
of charge</b> at the following link:</span></div><b><a href="https://www.aichaobang.com/"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></a><a href="https://www.aichaobang.com/"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">https://www.aichaobang.com/</span></a></b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></span></u>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This story is the first of its kind I
have published and very unlike my typical writings. So for those who might be curious,
here is a little more about how it came about.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7NqvwfNUgovDD_oH8tNXoj4aDyKEOHXogABxUFldKvRVJVgc3F1MyeQal7rvQcFd1u5dpoOQcMi-8kkisZnVUSrhY8HbVEzUGR9P58mHF_RJdQg7oNWcQIIhlZARVahy3DHCQobhfuJk/s1152/MikoroPeek.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="899" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7NqvwfNUgovDD_oH8tNXoj4aDyKEOHXogABxUFldKvRVJVgc3F1MyeQal7rvQcFd1u5dpoOQcMi-8kkisZnVUSrhY8HbVEzUGR9P58mHF_RJdQg7oNWcQIIhlZARVahy3DHCQobhfuJk/w156-h200/MikoroPeek.png" width="156" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On <span style="color: #ff99cc;">Mikoro</span>
and <span style="color: #00b050;">Dari</span></span></b><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Dari, Mikoro, and those around them
are the original characters of a handful of independent writers and artists I
am today very pleased to call my friends. I first came across them in a series
of chance encounters during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, and was shocked
to find myself inspired by them on a scale I have only very rarely experienced.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My involvement began with a short
story starring Dari the shrunken explorer, which I plan to add to the website
at a later date. After that one thing led to another, such that in the late
autumn of 2020 I was kindly invited, indeed encouraged, to write a little more for
Dari, Mikoro and their friends. It appeared the universe wished me to as well,
for over the following months this prospect took on a life of its own. And now,
exactly one year later, <i>Paths Across the Sea</i> is the result.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The individuals responsible for
Mikoro, Dari and their friends are remarkable artists and upstanding characters
in themselves, and I am deeply thankful to them for their constant encouragement
and support throughout this project. Full credit is afforded to them in the
Acknowledgements within the text itself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On the Voyage</span></b><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Paths Across the Sea</span></i><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> is a mythic journey. My role in writing
of it was less one of creation, more one of <i>connection</i>; less a
productive process, more a shamanic exercise; less a matter of coming up with stuff
to call my own, more a matter of faithfully expressing what the realities
wanted to be written. And that is all I shall say on my part in bringing it
forth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Paths</span></i><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> is a story about stories. Some of Mikoro’s
and Dari’s encounters might be familiar to you depending on your own encounters:
in myths, from the Irish <i>Táin Bó Cúailnge</i> to the Japanese creation
cycle; in literature, from Swift to Bulgakov; in video games, from <i>The
Legend of Zelda</i> to <i>World of Warcraft</i>; or in philosophy, from the Chinese
classics to the rulesets of modern academia. These, along with so many other
stories, together constitute the mythosphere or narrative seas in which the
humans of this world swim, and whose archetypes and assumptions, whether they
are aware of them or not, shape their realities and are shaped by their actions
in turn.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Stories matter. The present crisis of
humankind on Earth can be read as a crisis in humans’ sense of themselves as
narrative beings. Fluid, contingent, <i>created</i> stories are taken for
absolute truths; those who live in only a single story are too easily trapped
in it just as a fish has no concept of water. And when captured by those who
would wield them to manipulate and abuse, stories offer nigh-limitless
destructive power.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What would happen if all people had
the chance to swim in healthier stories than those of a superior <i>us</i> and
inferior <i>them</i>, or of dominion over nature, or of rigid categories of
humans each behaving in fixed ways? What are the stories, ancient or recent, that
have shaped how you imagine such vitally important things as <i>home</i> or <i>family</i>,
<i>work</i>, <i>nature</i>, <i>freedom</i>, <i>history</i>, <i>knowledge</i>, <i>sex</i>,
or <i>morality</i>? Do those stories work for you? Are you at home in them? What
other understandings might be possible?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You might be happy with your current understandings,
or you might feel something’s not right with them. But whether you choose one
or another is not the point. Rather, it is surely only by coming to know different
stories, by journeying through them, that you can meaningfully be said to have a
choice at all – can your story, that is, truly be <i>your</i> story.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If that’s all a bit much for you then
don’t worry. You’ll find plenty of cake, cows, stars, ships, battles, cuddles
and <i>Mario Kart</i> in this adventure too.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b><i><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Paths Across the Sea</span></i><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> now available here: <a href="https://www.aichaobang.com/">https://www.aichaobang.com/</a></span></b></p> <span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.aichaobang.com/"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></a><br /></span></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-14931748462705622772021-10-20T15:53:00.003+01:002021-10-26T15:53:10.458+01:00THAMES: 17) The High Pastures<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdwqcyYypd77dUtIpqtMiRqf4wtloGbHon9B5Y0Gx12SLgBVYTOk2zi775aum93h2IKxrXLqa-2F7az2kikZBqV4Ifzhxx0T62Ns57KV8rtDHnJdFCBQxjXsl8ZGMggLgvPfDxZqcUM_4/s5184/IMG_0587.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdwqcyYypd77dUtIpqtMiRqf4wtloGbHon9B5Y0Gx12SLgBVYTOk2zi775aum93h2IKxrXLqa-2F7az2kikZBqV4Ifzhxx0T62Ns57KV8rtDHnJdFCBQxjXsl8ZGMggLgvPfDxZqcUM_4/w640-h480/IMG_0587.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Through a haze of cloud, milky sunshine
washes the plains of the high Thames. It is an early October
morning, and the reason it is early is that from here on, out the back doors
of Oxford, the riverlands grow so remote that getting in and out becomes a
four- or five-stage operation, of almost as many hours, on increasingly patchy
public transport.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Ee_1LZy8_pMwVS9ymJYpBB387NB59aJFCIRCaDB3g31M3rMaPUPh9d8QiWXyXtDs33BIrD6wX_mam3NGurPFHXyDeI0lw-yaDv6ANvKDpCZDVT7ITbhJZako5uuT_BNYfJJXiZD4GLM/s5184/IMG_0483.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Ee_1LZy8_pMwVS9ymJYpBB387NB59aJFCIRCaDB3g31M3rMaPUPh9d8QiWXyXtDs33BIrD6wX_mam3NGurPFHXyDeI0lw-yaDv6ANvKDpCZDVT7ITbhJZako5uuT_BNYfJJXiZD4GLM/w640-h480/IMG_0483.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The ancient common of Port
Meadow, stretching far up the west flank of Oxford.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1p0qGyZNCx1q033GhMenvQWvph9TD93eGmUvcHyklvhMMcl0ojMrrYcYFV-7x6qiwBLVSBBdvtpxnDPNoT8LPiypyWbkppTK7Z4ka8WtOI2vv2qGVVT0h2HzFPHXDBq_fhd6B58WJ4sg/s5184/IMG_0536.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1p0qGyZNCx1q033GhMenvQWvph9TD93eGmUvcHyklvhMMcl0ojMrrYcYFV-7x6qiwBLVSBBdvtpxnDPNoT8LPiypyWbkppTK7Z4ka8WtOI2vv2qGVVT0h2HzFPHXDBq_fhd6B58WJ4sg/w640-h480/IMG_0536.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">More cows graze by the river
close to the northernmost point in its course. If you like cows you’re in the
right place with this one.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Gone are the towns and cities, the castles
and palaces, the towers of exclusion which lord over the middle Thames. Here there
is green as far as the eye can see, with only a smattering of small craft – tugs,
canoes, and the iconic narrowboats – puttering from lock to lock. This expedition,
having shoved through the English capital with its industrial relics, political
struggles and crowded illusions of modernity, then through the long parade of past
and present privilege-nests that hold the middle river, has at last broken out
to the high countryside, the remnants of the English bush, where the infant
river emerges from its cradle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Peace at last then? Not quite. The
picture-postcard daydream of the upper Thames, in which it trickles serene
through grassy meadows and hamlets of beige Cotswold stone, belies a volatile
flow loaded with pent-up grievance. Concertinaed through bunched-up meanders
and straining in the fetters of its locks, the young river here is as liable as
any reach downstream to drown these low-lying plains in remorseless floods. And
as the water, so too the humans who have written their stories in it – for even
out here, stories of strife and struggle whisper from the reeds.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD0nwAZdBJu6diCrC5QafYE9Yq_JIjuUIFV2ywl3wXbE4Zm2jxjOkLm_R4WjPRm_g6V1iDPIN7M-EGVzHSlEjiMcZdjpoy7rQAwh-t1lx5jpbfZg7Op271C_W7eLzdcFZ4oxw2pz24ft4/s5184/IMG_0493.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD0nwAZdBJu6diCrC5QafYE9Yq_JIjuUIFV2ywl3wXbE4Zm2jxjOkLm_R4WjPRm_g6V1iDPIN7M-EGVzHSlEjiMcZdjpoy7rQAwh-t1lx5jpbfZg7Op271C_W7eLzdcFZ4oxw2pz24ft4/w640-h480/IMG_0493.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The ruins of the Godstow nunnery,
on the outskirts of Oxford, is one of that city’s more mythically-charged
installations.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH58lj1xTkztdwUlXsuRc3bqcbs_QkoDDRRZmWW4AReVWGj23M20HKqU0f5Nw2mS4b7nNF-US8ffPr2JDs3rIThm2LphqXz8u-w-rsKg2m5TgUsnuM0cfh6uRZz8fkVbmbD7IQwc2crgQ/s5184/IMG_0653.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH58lj1xTkztdwUlXsuRc3bqcbs_QkoDDRRZmWW4AReVWGj23M20HKqU0f5Nw2mS4b7nNF-US8ffPr2JDs3rIThm2LphqXz8u-w-rsKg2m5TgUsnuM0cfh6uRZz8fkVbmbD7IQwc2crgQ/w640-h480/IMG_0653.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The goal of this section is
the <i>New Bridge</i>, which typical of English naming conventions is the
oldest bridge on the Thames. It is there that the river meets a tributary whose
name reaches right into this country’s present moral calamity. You’ll have
heard of it: the Windrush.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">With the end in sight, it’s time to
step this expedition up a gear. The remaining sections, starting with this one,
are all twenty-kilometre hard slogs over open country. Anyone thinking of tackling
this for themselves should plan with full respect for weather and seasonal
conditions, in particular rainfall, flooding, and hours of daylight, as well as
preparing good footwear, sensible clothing, and well-organised travel and/or
local accommodation arrangements. Sufficient food and drink, especially water,
are vital; there are occasional pubs on or near the river, but also long
stretches in between with absolutely nothing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">As we shall see, you’ll also find
plenty of large animals in these parts. Be nice to them. Brexit wasn’t their
fault.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrCKfw_tg67y18OlfmyZyt7d5PyxLp0Y5udq6wgk5GQ_yXQfqgVtrWjPUbeZI3jWXTIjOVSBlXORICKA0Zk1X8HaDdYGUiETjiq9sWso1emK2S0lnOHv7RLGJvfzMBRgWwe9N9wwWJOLE/s5184/IMG_0437.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrCKfw_tg67y18OlfmyZyt7d5PyxLp0Y5udq6wgk5GQ_yXQfqgVtrWjPUbeZI3jWXTIjOVSBlXORICKA0Zk1X8HaDdYGUiETjiq9sWso1emK2S0lnOHv7RLGJvfzMBRgWwe9N9wwWJOLE/w640-h480/IMG_0437.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Upstream from Osney Bridge in
west Oxford: the upper limit for large watercraft and effective gateway to the Upper
Thames.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRTG32abfwY2Gze5QCmPHkC-aqNZ4WWVran50lG4bgGYT3Nz7Zpg2RRc2WuxyP0ImvU4mjRCDdj2EXBn4fCGU45Uu3V_evniOBrGzmNksU9UYiwdhnt9lgUl8anP2E-CwwjAFSZcsU6y8/s993/17%2529+Oxford+to+Newbridge.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="993" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRTG32abfwY2Gze5QCmPHkC-aqNZ4WWVran50lG4bgGYT3Nz7Zpg2RRc2WuxyP0ImvU4mjRCDdj2EXBn4fCGU45Uu3V_evniOBrGzmNksU9UYiwdhnt9lgUl8anP2E-CwwjAFSZcsU6y8/w640-h474/17%2529+Oxford+to+Newbridge.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"> Notice the increase in scale since the previous section.<br /></span></b></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Start:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Osney Bridge (<i>nearest station: Oxford</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">End:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Newbridge (<i>no settlement, just a
bridge with a pub at each end; about five buses a day stop by the </i>Rose
Revived<i> pub on a </i></span><a href="https://www.pulhamscoaches.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Pulhams-15-Timetable-Sept-2020.pdf"><u><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Witney-Abingdon route</span></i></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Length: 21.7km/13.5miles</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Location: Oxfordshire – City of
Oxford, Vale of White Horse, West Oxfordshire</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Topics</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">: <b>Port Meadow</b>, <b>Godstow</b>,
miles and miles of cow meadows and sheep meadows (Wytham Foothills, Farmoor
Reservoir, Bablock Hythe and Northmoor Meadows), <b>Newbridge</b> and the <b>River
Windrush</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Port Meadow</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The river </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">keeps its distance from central
Oxford</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, but its course
down the western flank of the university city is nonetheless close to its heart,
both in the high imagination of its myths and literature and more practically
in its daily jogs and strolls. More bucolic than the southward reaches and not
so integrated into its suburbs and its rowing, these northward banks draw
plenty of locals and their dogs out for morning exercise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb9Oewcok8NWVJacT61luxV4Fs7pi3QyGfqTJL6l1NL9JENpef9DLJapxOb4OJ3_pCVCip6HWU_Mp1MkiXX0Lud759XWTHrtWpiKlbDPcaXNTai8lt5iJb5Fs9vltETj1fN_5AN5_i71s/s5184/IMG_0441.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb9Oewcok8NWVJacT61luxV4Fs7pi3QyGfqTJL6l1NL9JENpef9DLJapxOb4OJ3_pCVCip6HWU_Mp1MkiXX0Lud759XWTHrtWpiKlbDPcaXNTai8lt5iJb5Fs9vltETj1fN_5AN5_i71s/w640-h480/IMG_0441.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The riverside houses of Osney
adjoin the water here, with their little gardens’ back doors opening straight
onto the towpath. The west bank is occupied by a large set of allotments, which
the river’s ducks seem eager to get into.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikEjIo6TjlHQaEnfnfR57fTb731d8FUFKPxflqPL_6_XG7sXTerU2U8r3hgJw7XYkhyphenhyphen1Gj8hGkiItPLaWPK4O1psKo_0MoiWftXtgYs8p6R0EnGXF33FdE0Amr0AJn68TPeab1mw5kP7U/s5184/IMG_0442.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikEjIo6TjlHQaEnfnfR57fTb731d8FUFKPxflqPL_6_XG7sXTerU2U8r3hgJw7XYkhyphenhyphen1Gj8hGkiItPLaWPK4O1psKo_0MoiWftXtgYs8p6R0EnGXF33FdE0Amr0AJn68TPeab1mw5kP7U/w640-h480/IMG_0442.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A reminder of the branching
maze of channels into which the river splits around Oxford. This one wasn’t
even the main flow, having been </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">cut out by the monks of Osney Abbey to power their mills</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
The cut under the footbridge at right (east) links to the Castle Mill Stream
and the start of the surviving part of the Oxford Canal, which runs all the way
up to Warwick Province. To the left (west) the river’s old main course – now
the Bulstake Stream – heads off down a weir-controlled open-air swimming pool
that was closed in the 1990s. The water level gauge is a reminder that these
flows are at times far more dangerous than they look here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVZu95tmjauOsw1IqQ9Iobd1N3-gSmHQBGKWE24WV4n8DrJcqEUFbMsWA6gwjg3BEBAu1FqX0TI9jwl70dDTwtiktW5KV6yT9H9GDcf-zjqWC4YuLWWk4qLJrWvPTUZbxcbKD7KCfQHt8/s5184/IMG_0443.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVZu95tmjauOsw1IqQ9Iobd1N3-gSmHQBGKWE24WV4n8DrJcqEUFbMsWA6gwjg3BEBAu1FqX0TI9jwl70dDTwtiktW5KV6yT9H9GDcf-zjqWC4YuLWWk4qLJrWvPTUZbxcbKD7KCfQHt8/w400-h300/IMG_0443.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The link to the Castle Mill
Stream is known locally as the <i>Sheepwash Channel</i>, another echo perhaps
of the <i>Oxen-ford</i>’s rustic origins.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe7-zjgo6RFAva7J602mDHto4ATWCDXGXFLLIHtwj39WFsAG55IzF1YD8LO7BZSbXIMI4ZG2OpOCvOiLVESwj-3XdSrC9HFbtHlXIe_NLghqnZ1qz0MOu95cgTGXJKpp-r2JTrfUuxR98/s5184/IMG_0444.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe7-zjgo6RFAva7J602mDHto4ATWCDXGXFLLIHtwj39WFsAG55IzF1YD8LO7BZSbXIMI4ZG2OpOCvOiLVESwj-3XdSrC9HFbtHlXIe_NLghqnZ1qz0MOu95cgTGXJKpp-r2JTrfUuxR98/w400-h300/IMG_0444.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Through the foliage to the
east is the tower of St. Barnabas’s Church, built in 1869 to cater for what was
then growing into the impoverished working-class Jericho district. Its industrial
labourers were crammed into poor-quality housing with no effective drainage or
sanitation, exposing them to terrible risks from floods and water-borne
diseases.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The towpath then crosses to a sliver
of an island barely three or four metres in width – essentially a raised track,
between the river to the west and the tiny <i>Fiddler’s Stream</i> to the east.
This <b>Fiddler’s Island</b> might look a charming place for a stroll, but its
severe vulnerability to flooding is obvious immediately.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSuru10eDmpdZzshfLHNkGM-HB6hAXvOOO2Qs-DFEI1e3OQgq5vwMhRPXh69wNhxKnsPXc6dhFvNmp9xmCnEY_OdQCUH0iMuL8u7sHCGRhSKQPNXzS9lV58cOT0_Qdy5jCZ15pCtPbfSU/s5184/IMG_0449.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSuru10eDmpdZzshfLHNkGM-HB6hAXvOOO2Qs-DFEI1e3OQgq5vwMhRPXh69wNhxKnsPXc6dhFvNmp9xmCnEY_OdQCUH0iMuL8u7sHCGRhSKQPNXzS9lV58cOT0_Qdy5jCZ15pCtPbfSU/w640-h480/IMG_0449.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Pretty, isn’t it? But signs
warn that deaths have occurred during floods here and strongly advise people
not to attempt to walk this path when it’s inundated.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh433oL5UMePEFkjNeem7mDrk1YzHBsSPYHRdXrqaQ50WlddMMch008CpN7DC0e_3-NZNLp-a13RxmX3Rc8a61zM4H0WXRapSmKTQrNfCUtVLLjR-wMuI9FxPmiVvyAPRPKqBJ9iDGIiOQ/s5184/IMG_0448.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh433oL5UMePEFkjNeem7mDrk1YzHBsSPYHRdXrqaQ50WlddMMch008CpN7DC0e_3-NZNLp-a13RxmX3Rc8a61zM4H0WXRapSmKTQrNfCUtVLLjR-wMuI9FxPmiVvyAPRPKqBJ9iDGIiOQ/w400-h300/IMG_0448.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Fiddler’s Stream is
clogged with duckweed, making it popular with hungry waterfowl.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4rKkZtUTJmWUTxDEQEPfLLlIanUS5NV4pHjmrVoxSsH22QPGwASxpSnxax5jQNipk-siwcFkdXabpN6ULeNLS1-6cJMaJxfcZvuZwiH5T7BIGak-L_BqLq3CAs0geZiFgEPAT-FWn6oM/s5184/IMG_0450.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4rKkZtUTJmWUTxDEQEPfLLlIanUS5NV4pHjmrVoxSsH22QPGwASxpSnxax5jQNipk-siwcFkdXabpN6ULeNLS1-6cJMaJxfcZvuZwiH5T7BIGak-L_BqLq3CAs0geZiFgEPAT-FWn6oM/w400-h300/IMG_0450.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Evidence of rather ferocious
tree management across to the west.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpzJjDgBdjwkO_sXxYqUu78eKyayjprJtvCdHVgewwxjtfXl7Cye5Np7RHaLI2ZB-ppiOckT09kFO8NMeYuAkNm3TkcBSVx5huBCTkCsZelotXs6B3mCK9VW_OnZgfyxeRkqbbmmzkvvo/s5184/IMG_0452.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpzJjDgBdjwkO_sXxYqUu78eKyayjprJtvCdHVgewwxjtfXl7Cye5Np7RHaLI2ZB-ppiOckT09kFO8NMeYuAkNm3TkcBSVx5huBCTkCsZelotXs6B3mCK9VW_OnZgfyxeRkqbbmmzkvvo/w640-h480/IMG_0452.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Your boat needs a low profile
like this to make it up here past Osney Bridge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The island ends at a large boatyard,
right where the river and Castle Mill Stream first diverge. Here too is the
bottom corner of the vast <b>Port Meadow</b>, a 400-acre expanse of common
grazing land.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCgW6tLdAIL9-7uoJ1gXCDRN0AUIw_AyBCmqIZ4qffpf8bG2LT44Qv7cbpLJHhrYXCltfj8Vyg__FHN4At_mc8jju0IuKbMyN2LJAtIHHCnJZr2nBQUmeAvoqSbt31FaTwt2a08tQhCOs/s5184/IMG_0454.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCgW6tLdAIL9-7uoJ1gXCDRN0AUIw_AyBCmqIZ4qffpf8bG2LT44Qv7cbpLJHhrYXCltfj8Vyg__FHN4At_mc8jju0IuKbMyN2LJAtIHHCnJZr2nBQUmeAvoqSbt31FaTwt2a08tQhCOs/w640-h480/IMG_0454.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This rusty footbridge allows
Oxford’s escapees to get across to run around on the Port Meadow. But the
towpath, which the boatyard reminds us was originally built for hard work on
the river, trails on to the tip of Fiddler’s Island.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMA1-pN_pV8uqpvrXLJmnkh6VySeDaw8jnHh4rCfp31_4LFzX4-uFrQEi0N2pzeLaQrU1rXUHF9VyWkfIyiaW2XYfkZIVhcrGFjPg2ceo4rQoeebQrnaoHG8xmvNC9SrVSdgKl5Yfdxjs/s5184/IMG_0457.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMA1-pN_pV8uqpvrXLJmnkh6VySeDaw8jnHh4rCfp31_4LFzX4-uFrQEi0N2pzeLaQrU1rXUHF9VyWkfIyiaW2XYfkZIVhcrGFjPg2ceo4rQoeebQrnaoHG8xmvNC9SrVSdgKl5Yfdxjs/w400-h300/IMG_0457.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Here too are flashes of the
otherworlds haunting Oxford. From this boat a tiger and unidentified two-headed
entity keep a wary watch on wayfarers.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSz7g6pbFd40fe3fatIjcg_Mf_a9FARL9yEtlUAjm-apMWG1ALWKdrbgjokB0fX_XzJFKSz5V_1lAkBDCWXAcz06q0JF_bPTk3ShDUZ_nMQFksLrE58v6cs_efDSd3Y0lwEootYIvpi0k/s5184/IMG_0458.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSz7g6pbFd40fe3fatIjcg_Mf_a9FARL9yEtlUAjm-apMWG1ALWKdrbgjokB0fX_XzJFKSz5V_1lAkBDCWXAcz06q0JF_bPTk3ShDUZ_nMQFksLrE58v6cs_efDSd3Y0lwEootYIvpi0k/w400-h300/IMG_0458.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The north end of Fiddler’s
Island, where the Medley Footbridge, built in 1865 and also known as the <i>Rainbow
Bridge</i>, crosses west. Medley appears to be the name of a small farming
hamlet that used to stand on that bank.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6v9QB0K2cwtc4JdjkmmQuYk7n6XBiwX8VwV58mkqGbwquk_x4yB4HopsFBvrRoLpDrBM5OdsLXBQ0Ka-w4jX79mFszk9JCvtv56pT5rHztlAFu8Xb-VIU1R5yOG1lr07FrSWezXkUFk/s5184/IMG_0461.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6v9QB0K2cwtc4JdjkmmQuYk7n6XBiwX8VwV58mkqGbwquk_x4yB4HopsFBvrRoLpDrBM5OdsLXBQ0Ka-w4jX79mFszk9JCvtv56pT5rHztlAFu8Xb-VIU1R5yOG1lr07FrSWezXkUFk/w640-h480/IMG_0461.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Bossoms Boatyard is a
significant local institution. Run by the Bossom family from its opening in the
1830s until 1945, it claims to have been a pioneer of fibreglass hulls and
still operates one of the few boat-building and repair stations to be found on these
far reaches. Next door to it is the Medley Sailing Club, the highest such club
on the Thames.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpzotjxEGIjfJdyVOcp4iHf_C6gArrYGKlDHEfL9f6j-EBzDDy8YH0H6Suehu-wAbVRJ4vuIm7dieZN-1ZrBUxhT_WKyzn396-F808Xkir6l3jFvSxW03w-HXkEu1s_e2y087tZLqE_dc/s5184/IMG_0463.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpzotjxEGIjfJdyVOcp4iHf_C6gArrYGKlDHEfL9f6j-EBzDDy8YH0H6Suehu-wAbVRJ4vuIm7dieZN-1ZrBUxhT_WKyzn396-F808Xkir6l3jFvSxW03w-HXkEu1s_e2y087tZLqE_dc/w640-h480/IMG_0463.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A first sighting of Port
Meadow, stretching broad and flat all the way up to Wolvercote in the
distance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Port Meadow is ancient. According to
legend (and to at least some extent historical record), this grazing field has
remained unploughed, unbuilt on and largely unchanged for more than four
thousand years. The archaeological remnants it harbours stretch from recent
horse-racing bridges and civil war fortifications right back to Iron Age
settlement traces and Bronze Age burial mounds – a record of the many shifts in
management and usage systems through which, apparently, the meadow has
persisted as a common pasture.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02ppxHVb7piSwQsDoEJvaUMkW_mG6BP7MupcyktyRzAixSFVisApWLaD8EnYOVccIjW9FE-nuKEQJ0KBcvEo80jRRdk8Gzs6sXbnTsgbbux8wpopJuEuKRqTCV-OJJlURw7brEJeGAQ4/s5184/IMG_0460.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02ppxHVb7piSwQsDoEJvaUMkW_mG6BP7MupcyktyRzAixSFVisApWLaD8EnYOVccIjW9FE-nuKEQJ0KBcvEo80jRRdk8Gzs6sXbnTsgbbux8wpopJuEuKRqTCV-OJJlURw7brEJeGAQ4/w640-h480/IMG_0460.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It’s the first of <i>many</i>
pastures on the menu today.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifEvF4qDt-dgOgP2Er_sEZG9Qvm22SFyxg0K-3EYPXfxtdrQHdGA4Pr1Gvrz9KKRw6KbWB2evo6AseBe8BjlWFH3Ge2s9uONAqJWSDQ1lGDqmNoCKISsWt9G_qR8g3vB8LL8yGTWM9L_8/s5184/IMG_0466.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifEvF4qDt-dgOgP2Er_sEZG9Qvm22SFyxg0K-3EYPXfxtdrQHdGA4Pr1Gvrz9KKRw6KbWB2evo6AseBe8BjlWFH3Ge2s9uONAqJWSDQ1lGDqmNoCKISsWt9G_qR8g3vB8LL8yGTWM9L_8/w400-h300/IMG_0466.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">An alternative approach to
grazing? Or a metaphor for this country’s troubled relationship with the truth?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxwMyfEMAJlrh9Xh_y4zcgXaP3HLL12b0Zeb6-E8E8_3L6yE1DR9MOg962zWGjvhtFdKUs1AsyErCkVrE57QTEA1b5uV2deCKkflLLd5z6U1Ln-40QccxPC7_ccnXMOdq8arvGmqumYOI/s5184/IMG_0467.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxwMyfEMAJlrh9Xh_y4zcgXaP3HLL12b0Zeb6-E8E8_3L6yE1DR9MOg962zWGjvhtFdKUs1AsyErCkVrE57QTEA1b5uV2deCKkflLLd5z6U1Ln-40QccxPC7_ccnXMOdq8arvGmqumYOI/w640-h480/IMG_0467.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Just up the road to the west
is the tiny hamlet of Binsey. Once considerably larger, it is known for its St.
Margaret’s Church’s legendary healing well, said to have been called up by </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Frideswide, Oxford’s patron saint</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. Long a pilgrimage site, it gained
international fame when it inspired Lewis Carroll’s ‘treacle well’ in <i>Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland</i>. ‘Treacle’ was a medicinal term in the day of the
Frideswide legend but by Carroll’s time had come to mean the syrupy by-products
of sugar refining.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQVfaF9jbYa6gEMcxDdk371jWauukzVV1o-8Z3q8PGClurJt2L74yJG4wHRgvNSQj22bYdri6rHmnkQXlh1C6-TrUdoeFBlg2JbQi5gZIxluFHn7P0uN71pC6_7xRBYJw9j-gmPCuzqpU/s5184/IMG_0468.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQVfaF9jbYa6gEMcxDdk371jWauukzVV1o-8Z3q8PGClurJt2L74yJG4wHRgvNSQj22bYdri6rHmnkQXlh1C6-TrUdoeFBlg2JbQi5gZIxluFHn7P0uN71pC6_7xRBYJw9j-gmPCuzqpU/w400-h300/IMG_0468.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Binsey also used to have a
ford in this area, close to its still-active pub, <i>The Perch</i>. It was one
of several farming villages that relied on and claimed rights to Port Meadow.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The survival of any common,
especially one so large as Port Meadow, is of note in a country thoroughly
transformed by its violent Enclosure of them, from which process it has
inherited its present abusive land practices. It is tempting to attribute Port
Meadow’s survival to the power of the Oxford ‘freemen’ (i.e. that tiny minority
of its feudal population who were rich and male), into whose formal ownership
it had fallen by the time of the 1086 Domesday survey and under whose gaze the
peasant serfs of surrounding villages like Binsey, Medley and Wolvercote grazed
their animals here too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet we should recall that with the
rise of Oxford University, the mere mortals of that city, even the privileged
officials among them, </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">were not so powerful</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. In fact Port Meadow seems to have
become a perennial object of contestation between a thousand years of competing
interests. These included the ‘freemen’ and city authorities, the village
commoners, the Godstow nuns and the rising wool industry, as well as later industrial-age
comers such as the railway-builders, allotment-planters and flying clubs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1FeroYt16DtguHfCHeLKQveUoJLvlj-L0VcJODh_O7L-li_wZGvYl0EFb911Kq3kzYvnTbmgMGvGiQtQ3tI4eS5ms7ONKncohU4_Qigmi6SNvZ4uFh5__F530dYGfPwqmpKZJoLKYxG4/s5184/IMG_0469.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1FeroYt16DtguHfCHeLKQveUoJLvlj-L0VcJODh_O7L-li_wZGvYl0EFb911Kq3kzYvnTbmgMGvGiQtQ3tI4eS5ms7ONKncohU4_Qigmi6SNvZ4uFh5__F530dYGfPwqmpKZJoLKYxG4/w640-h480/IMG_0469.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And there it looked like a
nice simple field without a trouble in the world.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Far from a pastoral paradise, Port
Meadow must at times have been a merciless battle-pit for lawyers, bailiffs and
pitchfork-toting peasants as they had it out over rents, fines and licence
fees, fought off each other’s Enclosure claims, and seized each other’s horses,
geese and cattle. Ironically it seems to have been this perpetual struggle,
rather than any semblance of long-term cooperative project they could be
congratulated for, that guaranteed Port Meadow’s survival as a common. That is
to say, no invested party could make any permanent change to it without
incurring the prohibitively expensive wrath of everyone else.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0plLO8mGGKY9r7QnDtl2GZSxUJ2Bwh0eP5NimmGFGiuJqKD7fb5RyCh1CF7JoYsHVt77M3HqDLIh034hd0V9HPXlrj90s1CPh8DDLiwJIhKSVv61T171ByHcH2twtPlvvn5-CES7Ebwg/s5184/IMG_0476.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0plLO8mGGKY9r7QnDtl2GZSxUJ2Bwh0eP5NimmGFGiuJqKD7fb5RyCh1CF7JoYsHVt77M3HqDLIh034hd0V9HPXlrj90s1CPh8DDLiwJIhKSVv61T171ByHcH2twtPlvvn5-CES7Ebwg/w400-h300/IMG_0476.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The western bank seems less
vicious by comparison. Perhaps the Mario and Luigi impression of this pair of
trees has helped keep the peace.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYtg3RML9WgpGJ5DqwATQtja3glZSY-sidq9ZPZAhnzdpJRIxiiuUTqbeRuABn2g8hyPhgmgC2TBU1G_dpACag6zUrIYM1Eju8m9BaPgsI6hXsMm-97Ma9Pt1zNJ9GXhVuH41owzIdZkM/s5184/IMG_0479.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYtg3RML9WgpGJ5DqwATQtja3glZSY-sidq9ZPZAhnzdpJRIxiiuUTqbeRuABn2g8hyPhgmgC2TBU1G_dpACag6zUrIYM1Eju8m9BaPgsI6hXsMm-97Ma9Pt1zNJ9GXhVuH41owzIdZkM/w640-h480/IMG_0479.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Yet no patch of English soil
is without a heritage of greedy violence it seems. The Binsey Poplars, a row of
poplar trees, stood around here till they were summarily felled in the 1870s to
feed the railway boom. Their destruction <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44390/binsey-poplars"><u>inspired </u></a></span><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44390/binsey-poplars"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">a poem of lamentation by Gerald
Manley Hopkins</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, and
efforts to re-plant them have since drawn a great deal of management work to
this bank.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUBTfq98Q5g1bT79UgWlXRtpo8MSsS-NEueySGeohYyigDBrOI2X8zWasyNtwNbVHC7Jpgd7mMpJySz3doj62y9hcViOGNqu9p002xrhy6_IZC5QPpsRWGjqG1wlptE0PTv5rkT4Fdlt0/s5184/IMG_0480.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUBTfq98Q5g1bT79UgWlXRtpo8MSsS-NEueySGeohYyigDBrOI2X8zWasyNtwNbVHC7Jpgd7mMpJySz3doj62y9hcViOGNqu9p002xrhy6_IZC5QPpsRWGjqG1wlptE0PTv5rkT4Fdlt0/w640-h480/IMG_0480.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It also has its own bovine
population. They graze right up to the river and will stand there exchanging remarks
about you as you walk past. Show them lots of respect, especially if you see
calves.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0-YjxbECDlMhNJ_g14gRicywBVGk5eCcPAu76k6O2P9kOa8cQq8B_uq6iERkcnPD9-GOst_6Wadc1QMpCctx7iTIxp_Fy3bRttFXU0LvLt73kr_22eOrILRJBn7KZvuN9f0p5jdoC7xc/s5184/IMG_0481.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0-YjxbECDlMhNJ_g14gRicywBVGk5eCcPAu76k6O2P9kOa8cQq8B_uq6iERkcnPD9-GOst_6Wadc1QMpCctx7iTIxp_Fy3bRttFXU0LvLt73kr_22eOrILRJBn7KZvuN9f0p5jdoC7xc/w400-h300/IMG_0481.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">On the north side of Port
Meadow is Wolvercote. An ancient farming village mentioned in the Domesday
survey as <i>Ulfgarcote</i> (‘Woolgar’s cottage’), it fiercely protected its
rights to the common against the Oxford heavies, but was eventually absorbed by
that city’s growth over the last two centuries and is now part of its inner belt of village-suburbs.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiGzIlV93GISGLfzkCqGMLjxru4VMaSu87xmRPBUtxgnCQbExB2D8YfoNKvpTZKM8_7ucwvWK4Lb7U9EWkFRuQIvHymIFhUNnKRtd4Y8yB5x8lNTY5TxfnW4PYN2B5vwtGYex8Begygxg/s5184/IMG_0482.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiGzIlV93GISGLfzkCqGMLjxru4VMaSu87xmRPBUtxgnCQbExB2D8YfoNKvpTZKM8_7ucwvWK4Lb7U9EWkFRuQIvHymIFhUNnKRtd4Y8yB5x8lNTY5TxfnW4PYN2B5vwtGYex8Begygxg/w640-h480/IMG_0482.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Nowadays Port Meadow is a
popular recreational space, especially when it freezes over in winter and gets
used for ice skating. Its long absence of building, ploughing, and chemical
fertilisers or pesticides has also made it a site of scientific interest given
its richness in rare plants and birds.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfNESWQ_zp-pL4T4wnX4laeGVpD2iUuaswzVotTSj00uCVpGFndLWPbPIfL1ITT-oFj4ZNl7fBfnmXzPLjTvKR6NPb6Gl4bh_QYgv4Fn4FMvIGAtLWdKQq6o9R_01katp1miDhHwvo0uI/s5184/IMG_0484.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfNESWQ_zp-pL4T4wnX4laeGVpD2iUuaswzVotTSj00uCVpGFndLWPbPIfL1ITT-oFj4ZNl7fBfnmXzPLjTvKR6NPb6Gl4bh_QYgv4Fn4FMvIGAtLWdKQq6o9R_01katp1miDhHwvo0uI/w640-h480/IMG_0484.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Meanwhile the ‘freemen’ of
Oxford and ‘commoners’ of Wolvercote still graze their horses and cattle on it,
and still get involved in disputes when they feel their interests are
threatened. One of Port Meadow’s latest dramas concerns a bitter row over the
Castle Mill student housing development on its southern rim, which has ruined
its view of the Oxford skyline.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Godstow</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Near the top of the Port Meadow a
backwater arrives that was long drawn on by Wolvercote as a mill stream. At
this junction the main river flows through <b>Godstow Lock</b>, the first in
today’s sequence of upper-river locks and also the highest of all Thames locks
to use electro-hydraulic operation. In other words, if you’re travelling up
this way by boat, you have to physically open and shut all the locks from here
on (or hope there’s a nice lock-keeper on duty to do it for you).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRFHgGxXVbXZ6MaXU0v-E58o_rPALk15fgoTXgl2d7ANBrRGbB1DXQQvq-1oc-0PvPbLJ8Fjp4ptxGt06i4ZKSuJM356E6VWWRinwcci-8rWqDr50UvLqTHul4JX3XB35W5DsyM6cAvnw/s5184/IMG_0486.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRFHgGxXVbXZ6MaXU0v-E58o_rPALk15fgoTXgl2d7ANBrRGbB1DXQQvq-1oc-0PvPbLJ8Fjp4ptxGt06i4ZKSuJM356E6VWWRinwcci-8rWqDr50UvLqTHul4JX3XB35W5DsyM6cAvnw/w400-h300/IMG_0486.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">If you know anyone in or near
Oxford who recently lost their keys, let them know that they’re on this bit of
wood somewhere in this random field near Port Meadow.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJtPRueFlI4jcJPpqJHQznQVfJdowpuh5bSgbFP7_W8RiY92VMbGcg9a2RWNBTIJPRp3WVMDifoChAFOUBQUYGY9b6izSCx-_9YqfJB8Lm127eBqQ1OjQBsGVFleIltp92mnDKkRPOQhw/s5184/IMG_0487.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJtPRueFlI4jcJPpqJHQznQVfJdowpuh5bSgbFP7_W8RiY92VMbGcg9a2RWNBTIJPRp3WVMDifoChAFOUBQUYGY9b6izSCx-_9YqfJB8Lm127eBqQ1OjQBsGVFleIltp92mnDKkRPOQhw/w640-h480/IMG_0487.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The approach to Godstow Lock,
with the Wolvercote Mill Stream curving away at right past the Hinksey Sculling
School.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVpCZQb-46gXxfcoUMVk49G7eqj4RDi_yKbw4tOv5KPURRVLqlBVHQPotgKSG5CrKokeirmyxWvi00k69oBU8tuhZ9wp3SllQpVZM42slItHdOWFzHOp0wnniY0prff0yjmt-2Lw8kzks/s5184/IMG_0489.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVpCZQb-46gXxfcoUMVk49G7eqj4RDi_yKbw4tOv5KPURRVLqlBVHQPotgKSG5CrKokeirmyxWvi00k69oBU8tuhZ9wp3SllQpVZM42slItHdOWFzHOp0wnniY0prff0yjmt-2Lw8kzks/w640-h480/IMG_0489.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Godstow Lock was built in 1790,
replacing a flash weir, and rebuilt in 1924.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtpfU_es3hlM8cT6S1br71SqKEm5EBZukm9g4duJXfnYwVvdJjR00Ek9w-y4gaKZO_NwNvKpzC6tXDOjFFd7TG4RmjjYV8XGqbL60wvPT7Z_DD9M08N84MhzUWN9CDyk6SWpoe97HHUAE/s5184/IMG_0488.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtpfU_es3hlM8cT6S1br71SqKEm5EBZukm9g4duJXfnYwVvdJjR00Ek9w-y4gaKZO_NwNvKpzC6tXDOjFFd7TG4RmjjYV8XGqbL60wvPT7Z_DD9M08N84MhzUWN9CDyk6SWpoe97HHUAE/w400-h300/IMG_0488.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The lock-keeper’s cottage.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Through a gate at the far end of the
lock, this corner’s operative structure – or what’s left of it – sits
straightforwardly next to the river.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggcDUtEVutoYdaR1jpSMSrvCZ8GQVBuM29T9VyLH404afcZ-WbIisqvAL57fVFejej-ClZyfNk7vgdxsO1VuGyT3kD0jw7vvDK6hesdqES5Kqtb1u-je6I4ICIHerTKbLG8wJbaBGCc44/s5184/IMG_0492.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggcDUtEVutoYdaR1jpSMSrvCZ8GQVBuM29T9VyLH404afcZ-WbIisqvAL57fVFejej-ClZyfNk7vgdxsO1VuGyT3kD0jw7vvDK6hesdqES5Kqtb1u-je6I4ICIHerTKbLG8wJbaBGCc44/w640-h480/IMG_0492.JPG" width="640" /></a></div> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Godstow</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> was an outlying participant in </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Oxford’s prospering medieval monastery
networ</span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">k</span></span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. It was a nunnery – an all-female religious community – founded around
the 1130s by a woman called Ediva (a.k.a. Edith) from Winchester. The widow of
a Norman knight, the story goes that she followed visions in her dreams to
nearby Binsey. There instructed by the voices to find a light from the sky, she
saw a shaft of sunlight falling on this site, and so, with financial support
from </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">king Henry I</span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> (always
keen to back such projects to build church support for his fragile Plantagenet dynasty)</span></span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, set up this Benedictine convent,
whose name means simply ‘God’s place’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJ0g4_ME8wYc3ft9A8IOVHQ-gxiGTBXc3cEX1yqcLiONVgw2Jkqw262mu4gv3Q6DCNgfwSEaEVuqtdDigvHk-soUkY61cspYKGwJiSGNlg6pfK67WtZ15Zog5ENKwFh39G1sCbJU1Rrc/s5184/IMG_0494.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJ0g4_ME8wYc3ft9A8IOVHQ-gxiGTBXc3cEX1yqcLiONVgw2Jkqw262mu4gv3Q6DCNgfwSEaEVuqtdDigvHk-soUkY61cspYKGwJiSGNlg6pfK67WtZ15Zog5ENKwFh39G1sCbJU1Rrc/w640-h480/IMG_0494.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Like many other monasteries
the Godstow nunnery grew into a large and wealthy complex. It acquired rich
landholdings all across the country and drew donations from powerful sponsors, likely
connected to the many women from nobility backgrounds who came to study here. This
best-preserved part of the main structure appears to have been its chapel.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Clearly the place had clout and
profile, but perhaps because the English don’t like it when women have those
things, they took to attaching regular scandals to Godstow’s name in the
following centuries. Perhaps the most sensational concerned a certain
individual among the community (the extent of her membership as either nun or
student is unclear) whose name was <b>Rosamund Clifford</b>: a young noble from
the Welsh frontiers, best known as king </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Henry II</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">’s favourite long-term lover.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-pUOmPOF9GaWaJ1NdNyy1hD9y-mmG76-kgukOIvwKsUELQB3sY84YvRs-yBAkhT0gOfxBDrqgk5lHF80zD22KXh3fiGx1072_YGnuIUflpz5D2adsDA23uadfRaDrJG7ApgD3pIXBpio/s5184/IMG_0499.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-pUOmPOF9GaWaJ1NdNyy1hD9y-mmG76-kgukOIvwKsUELQB3sY84YvRs-yBAkhT0gOfxBDrqgk5lHF80zD22KXh3fiGx1072_YGnuIUflpz5D2adsDA23uadfRaDrJG7ApgD3pIXBpio/w640-h480/IMG_0499.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Godstow’s ruined inner court. Rosamund
Clifford was buried in the complex when she died around 1176, still only in her
twenties. The circumstances of her passing are unknown; the story that she was
poisoned out of jealousy by Henry II’s queen, the formidable Eleanor of
Aquitaine, is unverifiable, and the embellishments that stuck to that legend over
time suggests it owes more to English misogynistic sensationalism than to actual
events. Even in death however Clifford’s legend continued, with her grave
becoming a pilgrimage site, then getting shunted outside by a disapproving
bishop, which gave rise to rumours that her ghost haunted the abbey in
objection to this ill-treatment. What’s more reliably on record is that as
Clifford’s resting place, Godstow received substantial gifts of money and
resources from her beloved Henry II.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandalism went on through to the
fifteenth century, by when Godstow seems to have swirled with stories of
dismayed inspectors, quarrelsome legal proceedings, extravagant lifestyles, and
the ever-recurring rumours of ‘ill-discipline’. Most of these seem to have
concerned the community’s contact with the secular outside world, especially
students coming up from Oxford. The hyperbolic tenor of some of these
reports leads one to think the nuns might as well have been abducting and
trapping them in their beds, when not overwhelming them with raucous drinking
and feasting. Perhaps the accusations really reflected the more
common story of powerful men in the church establishment resenting the idea of
a community of women making their own decisions, and so doing everything in
their power to hobble, constrain or otherwise interfere in the running of their
community.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">There was less ambiguity about the
fall of Godstow, which took place, as at most other monasteries, in the late
1530s following sustained pressure from Thomas Cromwell and his commissioners
on behalf of Henry VIII. The last abbess, Katherine Bulkeley, surrendered the
nunnery after a principled stand in negotiations – and more caustically, a
personal stand against the official sent to receive that surrender, the Oxford
priest Dr. John London. Each accused the other of threats and assault, and in
the end the abbess secured a small victory in persuading Cromwell to remove Dr.
London so she could give up Godstow to a more amenable commissioner. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLke0yWehxXS1LmmhgZNV965icW0rF7n6fN1nSUlKYzsJ9vXI0ZIlLGGZrWnK8KWruBgWjTjOq0-WcDM5y2PKSpHD_THazGySvgMQaoSYGnTM4DvEuLNgbMtauBTnf1fGT6mvHPSJs-ic/s5184/IMG_0504.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLke0yWehxXS1LmmhgZNV965icW0rF7n6fN1nSUlKYzsJ9vXI0ZIlLGGZrWnK8KWruBgWjTjOq0-WcDM5y2PKSpHD_THazGySvgMQaoSYGnTM4DvEuLNgbMtauBTnf1fGT6mvHPSJs-ic/w640-h480/IMG_0504.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">After its fall the nuns were
pensioned off and much of the complex was destroyed, including Rosamund
Clifford’s grave. Henry VIII passed what was left to his physician George Owen,
who built a mansion out of the ruins in which his family lived for the next
hundred years.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In a further familiar trend, the
final end to habitation in Godstow came in the Civil Wars. The house was
garrisoned by the Royalists to defend their Oxford headquarters, gunpowered and
occupied by the Parliamentary army, and its stones scavenged thereafter for
local building projects. What remains is now a scheduled monument under the protection
of Oxford University.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Okhvsi85fPkQNnh8YUew2x2R7dQsLNLotKnWIvOIS4D_Mq9w3Rc86dqeLv0G8x3pOP6EqQhq6lVRjEZNF5OhlL2B_37nuvLI_MhfmerT2DdYYlK2B5wT2g_aJWc-DuGxTYQEsl6qmb0/s5184/IMG_0507.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Okhvsi85fPkQNnh8YUew2x2R7dQsLNLotKnWIvOIS4D_Mq9w3Rc86dqeLv0G8x3pOP6EqQhq6lVRjEZNF5OhlL2B_37nuvLI_MhfmerT2DdYYlK2B5wT2g_aJWc-DuGxTYQEsl6qmb0/w640-h480/IMG_0507.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Across a bridge from the ruins
is the nunnery’s former hospice, which found new life after its destruction as
the famous <i>The Trout</i> inn. This pub’s physical and cultural proximity to
Oxford, Godstow and the Thames have given it a profound and far-reaching mythic
profile.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK_VTPdN-aBvEyqvxtnfB_pzHp01IsuoVrq8lnxvMvttct1xhjhaOj6apIeJPTdQ3Hp_tgXuGNiYcOP0c7_mpotIgTQB65NNlqfMrypL7hAp36l2QMovDA6j56DYYWBpo0zwgnDHmAeg0/s5184/IMG_0503.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK_VTPdN-aBvEyqvxtnfB_pzHp01IsuoVrq8lnxvMvttct1xhjhaOj6apIeJPTdQ3Hp_tgXuGNiYcOP0c7_mpotIgTQB65NNlqfMrypL7hAp36l2QMovDA6j56DYYWBpo0zwgnDHmAeg0/w300-h400/IMG_0503.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">These letters – mostly
initials or acronyms by the look of it – have been carved into the ruined
walls. Oxford students? Troublemaking tourists? Any ghosts that linger around
here can’t be happy with those responsible and probably know where they live.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkYNqhvFyWT5SL5jJHMSB91yDo5MacQFEMhnAtS39_mi-zzJ4bZ08bypoDnSaoBUMvFrB2CnRSEMAQwOKbgySQ-lFAkIb29nFxiO_HbaVKAHcSOMLEw3dGWTOpEVp2AFEFa7SS_X3wWUg/s5184/IMG_0505.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkYNqhvFyWT5SL5jJHMSB91yDo5MacQFEMhnAtS39_mi-zzJ4bZ08bypoDnSaoBUMvFrB2CnRSEMAQwOKbgySQ-lFAkIb29nFxiO_HbaVKAHcSOMLEw3dGWTOpEVp2AFEFa7SS_X3wWUg/w400-h300/IMG_0505.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Beneath the overarching narratives
are always lots of smaller-scale personal experiences that equally form part of
the story. Usually their profile remains small, but here’s a rare case of one
getting publicly commemorated on-site.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIc4PbD7LLjYx4nRdSkGFA7xaUT3hI9dSxHIboszXutkUN-FbjsdcQjhj_fixK7ZHXW8qyrvgGgdmDgdZ6qjlZH2583L_V72dssKp6kgB3Gsk1eJeBbRgi0mvhHrHDIBc08NX-lBXQJO0/s5184/IMG_0508.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIc4PbD7LLjYx4nRdSkGFA7xaUT3hI9dSxHIboszXutkUN-FbjsdcQjhj_fixK7ZHXW8qyrvgGgdmDgdZ6qjlZH2583L_V72dssKp6kgB3Gsk1eJeBbRgi0mvhHrHDIBc08NX-lBXQJO0/w640-h480/IMG_0508.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Godstow Bridge, which links
the ruins and the pub, dates back at least as far as the Civil War when the
Royalists attempted to hold it against the Parliamentary army. The appearance
of the nearby Oxford Bypass bridge in 1961 has left this protected structure a
lot quieter than it used to be.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">There is something almost
supernaturally daring about how Godstow’s ruins just sit by the river here,
with next to no protection or explanation in spite of the hostility it once
received or the hard-nosed interests still lurking nearby. Perhaps it’s
unsurprising then that the nunnery has gone on to lead quite an afterlife in
Oxford’s imagination. Both the ruins and <i>The Trout</i> inn featured heavily
in the lives of its literary heavyweights such as C. S. Lewis and J. R. R.
Tolkien; in that of Lewis Carroll before them, whose </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">river trip that spawned <i>Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland</i></span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> is said to have come here; and also in the <i>Inspector
Morse</i> series of novels and TV dramas. One of Godstow’s most fully-defined
mythic outings, as well as one of its most recent, is in Philip Pullman’s
ongoing <i>The Book of Dust</i> trilogy, the sequel to <i>His Dark Materials</i>,
in whose parallel-universe Oxford the monastery with its industrious and
strong-willed nuns still exists (known there as the Priory of St. Rosamund –
now who might that be?); while <i>The Trout</i>, where one of the main
characters works, plays host to shady political intrigues prior to (what else?)
a great flood and darkly mythic river journey.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQrH1XpaT9jFn77cs9zOCl6cOAzZvuH3aaxEojjfMtIS089-aEqneKBKB0gS4vZWU3wFRbHi2Wvw56-TiYr6imiB5DTMt6DyL1ff8V-U9Wq46cf5TQtVO-6l3S-kKZapalAP9Ijqg5hJE/s5184/IMG_0502.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQrH1XpaT9jFn77cs9zOCl6cOAzZvuH3aaxEojjfMtIS089-aEqneKBKB0gS4vZWU3wFRbHi2Wvw56-TiYr6imiB5DTMt6DyL1ff8V-U9Wq46cf5TQtVO-6l3S-kKZapalAP9Ijqg5hJE/w640-h480/IMG_0502.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">If not for Henry VIII there
might have been teas and cakes on offer to walkers here today. He should feel
bad about what he did.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeOrOvG3bI4UOj4YE3j9yOa-3Ilj65a6E6-XQr902bn9cEH49pBlBoMWk3ErCGzfMetB4HAcpAGxyoutu9hGjKuJICjUHBZQolAlNB95Pdac0SyymXaMpM0gBbIp89v39M5pq-VyRN0ko/s5184/IMG_0501.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeOrOvG3bI4UOj4YE3j9yOa-3Ilj65a6E6-XQr902bn9cEH49pBlBoMWk3ErCGzfMetB4HAcpAGxyoutu9hGjKuJICjUHBZQolAlNB95Pdac0SyymXaMpM0gBbIp89v39M5pq-VyRN0ko/w400-h300/IMG_0501.JPG" width="400" /></a></div> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">King’s Lock</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Godstow is where the Oxford
conurbation ends. From here we’re into the hinterland. The casual pedestrians
and dog-walkers fall off, leaving the green swathes devoid of human presence
save for the occasional narrowboat or more committed hiker.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0Zow-ab-GzAUM4nGSiTXw8Ln1kMJX0qyTQGKZwGVC1sH4u22lW1WatwvERKRssi-Vh2btqVWbqbW8tvvjVhnQXOYr8Uaeq3HBjujsBWf9wo2g7fxMif5kHf2iUqIJQN4GKKfPCar_44/s5184/IMG_0509.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0Zow-ab-GzAUM4nGSiTXw8Ln1kMJX0qyTQGKZwGVC1sH4u22lW1WatwvERKRssi-Vh2btqVWbqbW8tvvjVhnQXOYr8Uaeq3HBjujsBWf9wo2g7fxMif5kHf2iUqIJQN4GKKfPCar_44/w640-h480/IMG_0509.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Just past Godstow is the 1961
bridge for the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Oxford Ring Road</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, here part of the A34. In keeping
with the otherworldly resonances of this place, it was given the breathtakingly
imaginative name of <i>Thames Bridge</i>. The old City of Oxford boundary
marker in the foreground indicates that travellers venture beyond at their own
risk.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDidvq0ngq8JR_an7AV8uJCt2H7uixY0yn3vT_zG4MxyR5tCAjRfSTzSTKQwqEKokmWL7VJDWHDQVzhiNGR79gMFq4A06es14CPetAJFVqZRrjGRrJ1zKaIEynVSW1QdSEiET9TkRma3M/s5184/IMG_0510.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDidvq0ngq8JR_an7AV8uJCt2H7uixY0yn3vT_zG4MxyR5tCAjRfSTzSTKQwqEKokmWL7VJDWHDQVzhiNGR79gMFq4A06es14CPetAJFVqZRrjGRrJ1zKaIEynVSW1QdSEiET9TkRma3M/w400-h300/IMG_0510.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A lost piece of either the
agricultural revolution or World War I has fallen through a time-rift and
landed under the bridge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp1RD4-qxS8UfxZckr23HcDwQ-nzz85R0keCTWpgWLnzyfBkJPA_VDZhfwhmENcIZZK1jo46B3kooi-5_zH142NSK_JKAIk_NyZa_kU_Yo2YhUaE493n81o3tWrKR0rBt_7SkwjojRIlM/s5184/IMG_0511.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp1RD4-qxS8UfxZckr23HcDwQ-nzz85R0keCTWpgWLnzyfBkJPA_VDZhfwhmENcIZZK1jo46B3kooi-5_zH142NSK_JKAIk_NyZa_kU_Yo2YhUaE493n81o3tWrKR0rBt_7SkwjojRIlM/w300-h400/IMG_0511.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Floofs.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwxRTL-5-G7ivzD6mKgWr7OfM1AJnwJx859TY03RQmEzUOiE-ufEkYhOIZlz_c4PAYQgBox6sc4zom5N8mXbfG419gS1KvegaSzqDn1td74JUlDV04xZ3GaRgHrt8zyHcQJ8HVSLcWA8A/s5184/IMG_0512.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwxRTL-5-G7ivzD6mKgWr7OfM1AJnwJx859TY03RQmEzUOiE-ufEkYhOIZlz_c4PAYQgBox6sc4zom5N8mXbfG419gS1KvegaSzqDn1td74JUlDV04xZ3GaRgHrt8zyHcQJ8HVSLcWA8A/w640-h480/IMG_0512.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And from here on the river is
basically like this.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS580AZN1k52wo7EX97ymkHs_rPsQyLTyP3FUk2dJRCmuNn2zW780yDqKymIbZIY_1WWKxfGCy4tvT5_Xwm-_aj9xlK4hS18y17L5fA9rTbGmWE6fbcXQ3gYA0PToxjuZY9iixbkw-zIo/s5184/IMG_0513.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS580AZN1k52wo7EX97ymkHs_rPsQyLTyP3FUk2dJRCmuNn2zW780yDqKymIbZIY_1WWKxfGCy4tvT5_Xwm-_aj9xlK4hS18y17L5fA9rTbGmWE6fbcXQ3gYA0PToxjuZY9iixbkw-zIo/w640-h480/IMG_0513.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And this.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The river’s headwaters fall from the
west, but immediately above Oxford it swings into its first great loop which
constitutes most of this section. Looking west from here, you can see the
probable reason.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY4JkuwYhR2xhmFUuhLVIXxWu6HmG3G7XedAIgkYHYwWBw2j9BTLURqGAXeT0J7M53EJr3jZ6jQvUXEFMzwAmIFW38cA7AS9a8pRgVdDut37OStDsZ-fLHRg0n8wgw2MlSUGJPcbrEVOI/s5184/IMG_0514.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY4JkuwYhR2xhmFUuhLVIXxWu6HmG3G7XedAIgkYHYwWBw2j9BTLURqGAXeT0J7M53EJr3jZ6jQvUXEFMzwAmIFW38cA7AS9a8pRgVdDut37OStDsZ-fLHRg0n8wgw2MlSUGJPcbrEVOI/w640-h480/IMG_0514.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Wytham Hill, rising in the
near distance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The heavily-wooded <b>Wytham Hill</b>
is the northwestern-most piece of raised ground in the central Oxford Plain,
and forms a part of that cluster which breaks the young river into a web of
marshy, flood-prone channels as it wrestles its way through. It circumvents
this limestone lump by circling north round its base, where those thick woods
come right up to the waterside.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">After negotiating the hill, the river
arrives here at <b>King’s Lock</b>. This is the northernmost point in its entire
course.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx0j84UCtPQBVNlQRkRDxsYzNMFXwPy8xNL26gX62xEMymHcw8QOwSSz5MvRRF98lI5HiwYuk2bGWOuwc4dJ__oX3mZmrUUp0HzfGjQuu0xz4eVnv1wpia6jlx1hy0g-cMgEfGWmPiaAk/s5184/IMG_0515.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx0j84UCtPQBVNlQRkRDxsYzNMFXwPy8xNL26gX62xEMymHcw8QOwSSz5MvRRF98lI5HiwYuk2bGWOuwc4dJ__oX3mZmrUUp0HzfGjQuu0xz4eVnv1wpia6jlx1hy0g-cMgEfGWmPiaAk/w640-h480/IMG_0515.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The builders of King’s Lock
cut through this corner of the river, creating a triangular island. The
Wolvercote Mill Stream diverges here too, on its northern side past this weir.
An artificial cut along that stream connects it – and thus the river – to the
Oxford Canal, and seems to be the preferred link for boaters moving between them.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbvs8jQpm2GVB5ko81putjPNad4ctKFl7vh5Il84FwOw5lJCWqIJDCq82R1VXpWWMTKZQlTgTpPLQsFkGIHUDb9Mc7a_4vF73AnHaO13G-iyJQ5L-tGO8lDj6NUxWrrImZ0UyCn51KHtc/s5184/IMG_0516.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbvs8jQpm2GVB5ko81putjPNad4ctKFl7vh5Il84FwOw5lJCWqIJDCq82R1VXpWWMTKZQlTgTpPLQsFkGIHUDb9Mc7a_4vF73AnHaO13G-iyJQ5L-tGO8lDj6NUxWrrImZ0UyCn51KHtc/w640-h480/IMG_0516.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">King’s Lock was one of the
Thames’ final pound locks, built only in 1928, but it was preceded here by at
least seven hundred years of flash locks, weirs, and fishing traps. It has the
shortest fall of any lock on the river, and is the first, heading upstream,
that must be operated manually – that is, by heaving your body against those
wooden bars.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiriTvrs82DedxXSvaXvcwP6PBckr9f4G5b3Y4vUhJ3GnR0pFFVxxdqJ-QDT3LQmBboLoCGktpoQiHQtqxBZLX9ssFtmVikss5-ikFRE-41orkVtRnZtFeWOKrFug4FlCFctDD5s4HKL88/s5184/IMG_0517.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiriTvrs82DedxXSvaXvcwP6PBckr9f4G5b3Y4vUhJ3GnR0pFFVxxdqJ-QDT3LQmBboLoCGktpoQiHQtqxBZLX9ssFtmVikss5-ikFRE-41orkVtRnZtFeWOKrFug4FlCFctDD5s4HKL88/w400-h300/IMG_0517.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The lock-keeper’s cottages
begin to exhibit the colourations of Cotswold limestone.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9SU-2OL8B14Tj_5iPsBMCeHqRA0j1VKagBBUEvLqh031B1U7xjPnXMxejEhh1CGKEy49wdGUR0OTAtMKF3BDWpp5SJ1xmrOCL1ZPJNbjDsdIpYYWhuev26DQd6SAiItw3gQdo_4yelk/s5184/IMG_0521.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9SU-2OL8B14Tj_5iPsBMCeHqRA0j1VKagBBUEvLqh031B1U7xjPnXMxejEhh1CGKEy49wdGUR0OTAtMKF3BDWpp5SJ1xmrOCL1ZPJNbjDsdIpYYWhuev26DQd6SAiItw3gQdo_4yelk/w400-h300/IMG_0521.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">King’s Lock is also unusual in
having this little low-carbon visitor centre attached. Its information boards
describe its experiments in environmentally-sustainable, energy-efficient
construction techniques to meet the challenges of a busy lock service in the
cold and remote open countryside.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Wytham Foothills</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">If you were wondering which king this
lock was named for, it in fact has nothing to do with kings. The name comes
from Middle English <i>kine</i>, meaning cattle (as seen earlier in </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Wallingford’s <i>kinecroft</i></span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">) – an animal whose ancestral
importance in this area, as reflected too in <i>Ox-ford</i>’s name, has not
entirely departed it yet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj08O5xDH0gk1lY8FyoYsVMy5MyNhB8beK02h_44c_P_6cthaGfol4MMeK6fog3sUbp1Yoa3eAQOj95XpLGp1YKabVPuttRZF3-KmT7N0g_6pWILt_j1VefCYMLJFQE0OutaKhZlQffc6Y/s5184/IMG_0525.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj08O5xDH0gk1lY8FyoYsVMy5MyNhB8beK02h_44c_P_6cthaGfol4MMeK6fog3sUbp1Yoa3eAQOj95XpLGp1YKabVPuttRZF3-KmT7N0g_6pWILt_j1VefCYMLJFQE0OutaKhZlQffc6Y/w640-h480/IMG_0525.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">West past King’s Lock – really
the <i>Cattle Lock</i>, then – Wytham Hill slopes down to the river.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7kG64TnZjJY7bLgFGPOMxwajGYDNdte-3oUWDt6cmh8-7JOHp5q8AtGbU2F5_4gynZxEDVol3EDvkyHmo6yMJFX_xqzAGfHXhSigwSw6ZoyWuCEf4g0KUXkM-JuOQUE29ej-70TU1jrc/s5184/IMG_0527.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7kG64TnZjJY7bLgFGPOMxwajGYDNdte-3oUWDt6cmh8-7JOHp5q8AtGbU2F5_4gynZxEDVol3EDvkyHmo6yMJFX_xqzAGfHXhSigwSw6ZoyWuCEf4g0KUXkM-JuOQUE29ej-70TU1jrc/w400-h300/IMG_0527.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Across the river this distant church
spire offers the only glimpse of Cassington. It’s a small village with a
familiar story of Norman manor lords, a period under the influence of the
Godstow abbey, eventual Enclosure, and brief connection to the canals and
railways.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhodr9DN1jbwIpe89szlb7ZD2N8oflchAYEAJKw0KOb2pAs6kg4F-9ItJFhaiW7tXXnHFzXwoE60ieB4SAZcIGg7vk5kEiO_xqk1bDmvRRcP7_7cQSzW0ip6E1jxYdkfRisTABVIbtraiI/s5184/IMG_0528.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhodr9DN1jbwIpe89szlb7ZD2N8oflchAYEAJKw0KOb2pAs6kg4F-9ItJFhaiW7tXXnHFzXwoE60ieB4SAZcIGg7vk5kEiO_xqk1bDmvRRcP7_7cQSzW0ip6E1jxYdkfRisTABVIbtraiI/w400-h300/IMG_0528.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The only settlement in the top
of this bend is this farm compound. It appears to house the John Krebs Field
Station, a research outpost of the Oxford University Department of Zoology.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWWJRf-kupc7Wjnz0PgfguYcJCSaPYxiDS0U7qFvjy-9_KCFZGixiW7bWtqi6HWxdusJPgFfZ8EfzeRAJUFN-fCuOf99VnHGYBMcXYP3a_j5PtxtaG6xjIHItAVrceYikZsm5d0MinJZA/s5184/IMG_0530.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWWJRf-kupc7Wjnz0PgfguYcJCSaPYxiDS0U7qFvjy-9_KCFZGixiW7bWtqi6HWxdusJPgFfZ8EfzeRAJUFN-fCuOf99VnHGYBMcXYP3a_j5PtxtaG6xjIHItAVrceYikZsm5d0MinJZA/w640-h480/IMG_0530.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Even up here it’s still the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/10/thames-prologue-dark-river.html"><u><i><span style="line-height: 107%;">Dark River</span></i></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Before we can meet the true masters
of this terrain we must reckon with the <b>Seacourt Stream</b>. This is the
western-most of Oxford’s maze of channels, which leaves the main river here and
flows south, through the rustic village of <b>Wytham</b>, then Binsey with its
‘treacle well’. After that it joins the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Bulstake and Hinksey streams</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigHdiC5hSlGkJQrTs-28KX7ifO1ZeAlvnSuzf4DQ2Z07_1J1ZKmsVle_ZyhAneWv4lqhW6Lu6bXeKC5l8yeQV4DGZb3PhzTE1Zf-O4c9EsncTJpje_BvtqsW4iAWPP7Bo70jnRCfETeLs/s5184/IMG_0532.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigHdiC5hSlGkJQrTs-28KX7ifO1ZeAlvnSuzf4DQ2Z07_1J1ZKmsVle_ZyhAneWv4lqhW6Lu6bXeKC5l8yeQV4DGZb3PhzTE1Zf-O4c9EsncTJpje_BvtqsW4iAWPP7Bo70jnRCfETeLs/w640-h480/IMG_0532.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The confluence with the
Seacourt Stream. It gets its name from the lost village of Seacourt, which used
to stand near its southern exit. The village of Wytham on the other hand still
exists, and offers the main entry to the hill and woods.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBVq4MVqBeuTWxVhf7TkXLYqztAlUeMJODY8wXTqxi0qT79y473fVeSIZ726sCmrM7jXqVdcpv2uPQC9CxRbfFHqf0sqJkGdW_gNd_ns54juFbVYwIXdiAqRdO9A_Pz-rgCGJDMlqqzSg/s5184/IMG_0533.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBVq4MVqBeuTWxVhf7TkXLYqztAlUeMJODY8wXTqxi0qT79y473fVeSIZ726sCmrM7jXqVdcpv2uPQC9CxRbfFHqf0sqJkGdW_gNd_ns54juFbVYwIXdiAqRdO9A_Pz-rgCGJDMlqqzSg/w640-h480/IMG_0533.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This red narrowboat might be
familiar from Godstow Lock. In fact we would cross paths all day, with it
puttering ahead on the open river only to be caught up with as it waited to get
through lock after lock.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Across the Seacourt Stream, a light
electric fence separates the field from the riverside. And in that field...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicD19D3kwPEhDk6BqMM1E83x5hql4JELW8s9iuUGAeb2b_nh3I0nHcXt5ZiEzGyCCYCzA5XlQd83LMb80d0O2hxf51riYHLuaFyx46M6yBMeIk2F98vZhL-j4rWU2QtUF08n5vv8rVNNY/s5184/IMG_0534.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicD19D3kwPEhDk6BqMM1E83x5hql4JELW8s9iuUGAeb2b_nh3I0nHcXt5ZiEzGyCCYCzA5XlQd83LMb80d0O2hxf51riYHLuaFyx46M6yBMeIk2F98vZhL-j4rWU2QtUF08n5vv8rVNNY/w400-h300/IMG_0534.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Nuuo.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZxaiOmh2geTqs7J0MBEkOB69F8IxgTYIbXPbE5qd2StKGomPrN_szIUJ7BaGe92IsoZpzXl6nrv9TkGlSocJhZU6j-uAIz9vSJXPOVqYykd3CMLyTlRA05MErGBxin-KvB4bUf60qf4/s5184/IMG_0535.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZxaiOmh2geTqs7J0MBEkOB69F8IxgTYIbXPbE5qd2StKGomPrN_szIUJ7BaGe92IsoZpzXl6nrv9TkGlSocJhZU6j-uAIz9vSJXPOVqYykd3CMLyTlRA05MErGBxin-KvB4bUf60qf4/w640-h480/IMG_0535.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Here they are.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">All these fields are flood-meadows
that spend a great deal of the year underwater. This poorly suits them to grow
crops, so instead they’re mostly used as grazing pastures with a herb-rich fare
much enjoyed by these fine fellows. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The fence keeps them in, but that
doesn’t stop them coming right up to the edge to inspect you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM4B-jHIxmdIn4qodNf4jdgYgqHlYwRZVmvj4OFJiJR9p2T_EWGb7zD-GrHEG3WLIFxcJw7ispVUrUs02im7MspwbHL4sa_CulbqL5D3-3pBPXULOrJPpPaqR1avLsrfETLBgZBqbl1QM/s5184/IMG_0537.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM4B-jHIxmdIn4qodNf4jdgYgqHlYwRZVmvj4OFJiJR9p2T_EWGb7zD-GrHEG3WLIFxcJw7ispVUrUs02im7MspwbHL4sa_CulbqL5D3-3pBPXULOrJPpPaqR1avLsrfETLBgZBqbl1QM/w400-h300/IMG_0537.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Like this.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDwyMW0RXU3oG6WQ3zYnLpQByNlXw_wHukJKLrpPOVBovtZLZroXtuOHYsg3_AhXrzhOjpmJb92qPVh7g20uAbd6kBA_oX-SEMxcsW2uzmOxtzY0wzKDB2Q223EAQs3Trpx5l_OhpsOoc/s5184/IMG_0538.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDwyMW0RXU3oG6WQ3zYnLpQByNlXw_wHukJKLrpPOVBovtZLZroXtuOHYsg3_AhXrzhOjpmJb92qPVh7g20uAbd6kBA_oX-SEMxcsW2uzmOxtzY0wzKDB2Q223EAQs3Trpx5l_OhpsOoc/w400-h300/IMG_0538.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And this.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHskpG7yTteItk4DO8IsBYiZu60yJrTS7-pUO3_7QHKY9F27XaFogGPBgTYQjeg__wIf_HPK95X5wjT_LzpyvTJzHLJC03yCxrETJOkh9OCwmiR_hUbCMs13Yz0je1AugU4zvYa0sm2hg/s5184/IMG_0539.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHskpG7yTteItk4DO8IsBYiZu60yJrTS7-pUO3_7QHKY9F27XaFogGPBgTYQjeg__wIf_HPK95X5wjT_LzpyvTJzHLJC03yCxrETJOkh9OCwmiR_hUbCMs13Yz0je1AugU4zvYa0sm2hg/w640-h480/IMG_0539.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Double trouble.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It is important to show these the
proper respect. None of the cows on this section showed the slightest sign of
aggression, but occasionally – if, say, they’re protecting small calves, or surprised,
or provoked, or aggravated by the English political situation – they are </span><a href="https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/16225872.second-summerton-cow-attack-injured-family-hit/"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">known to attack passers-by</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> and are quite capable of </span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/oxford-academic-don-trampled-cows-brian-bellhouse-accident-guestling-herd-field-a7789166.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">dealing serious injury or death</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> if they feel so inclined. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Always observe how an individual or
group is behaving and avoid entering a field with them if you feel concerned. If
you do find yourself menacingly stalked, charged, or otherwise approached, it’s
generally advised to walk away calmly. Never run (they’re faster), or panic
(their charges are often warning bluffs that stop before they reach you). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2TdF8L_6U95b9yZWsGhRXw6fXfnGHrB-pCyDLnye6p0XxY9m8EJpZawkKMfyfG-__Bqckp2vnYyqu-xVzl7LFCZCwhAnbOh33IrF2xm7_oathE1O8KjIq8KByHqrtZNIFeuw-kSHVKwg/s5184/IMG_0540.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2TdF8L_6U95b9yZWsGhRXw6fXfnGHrB-pCyDLnye6p0XxY9m8EJpZawkKMfyfG-__Bqckp2vnYyqu-xVzl7LFCZCwhAnbOh33IrF2xm7_oathE1O8KjIq8KByHqrtZNIFeuw-kSHVKwg/w640-h480/IMG_0540.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4wAhGEBGC5G8xs3EEsF64W0C_gtT-j797yjJCItEIwL2eNQ4ngZ0-XRfPTbSUMmgFfwDi9lOIVAfedJ8MQYVMDeccoPmH0dYkpAiOYQjlzb5flJQM2tX8L1R67ZK6eXHr8hr3IPy_sVg/s5184/IMG_0544.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4wAhGEBGC5G8xs3EEsF64W0C_gtT-j797yjJCItEIwL2eNQ4ngZ0-XRfPTbSUMmgFfwDi9lOIVAfedJ8MQYVMDeccoPmH0dYkpAiOYQjlzb5flJQM2tX8L1R67ZK6eXHr8hr3IPy_sVg/w640-h480/IMG_0544.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Once past the nuuo the thick
woods of Wytham Hill loom close.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Here another tributary river, the <b>Evenlode</b>,
arrives. Under that mysterious name it flows from the eastern Cotswolds in
Gloucester province, from where it passes the remnants of the equally
mysterious Wychwood, then the massive Blenheim Palace of Churchill fame, before
reaching the Thames here beneath Cassington.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvwJwFkRnznRLlEyGG_qr98fLCYpsoQjxj4Q4qNtbQZOmQxJm0Sf-cX_Lt9YYIubvGLIV7L0pZzuSdX8DXu3rJtTnwNQlYJ2hKv8Jkrycd4Ed-KamhbEdOjhnbkUgXxNAs-L1pSUugIYY/s5184/IMG_0543.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvwJwFkRnznRLlEyGG_qr98fLCYpsoQjxj4Q4qNtbQZOmQxJm0Sf-cX_Lt9YYIubvGLIV7L0pZzuSdX8DXu3rJtTnwNQlYJ2hKv8Jkrycd4Ed-KamhbEdOjhnbkUgXxNAs-L1pSUugIYY/w640-h480/IMG_0543.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The helpfully-labelled confluence
with the Evenlode. It is virtually unnavigable and has had serious problems
with sewage discharge and agricultural runoff.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTRnNSE56chzx15jYvC5wAsS6iscdRm1GdEG6FaLaV9myLccc_zyVaEyXlYyzEaCDnEjRua78uxHfazLBvU6SJj9qnK_4L4Po8M3FKooWKOAe9E7SkJz9wI78UxFSV_8_ZhYsjXb6m5M/s5184/IMG_0541.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTRnNSE56chzx15jYvC5wAsS6iscdRm1GdEG6FaLaV9myLccc_zyVaEyXlYyzEaCDnEjRua78uxHfazLBvU6SJj9qnK_4L4Po8M3FKooWKOAe9E7SkJz9wI78UxFSV_8_ZhYsjXb6m5M/w400-h300/IMG_0541.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It’s plain from this range
that the Wytham Woods are not messing around.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This is where the woods of Wytham
Hill roll down to the riverbank. By all accounts this is no ordinary woodland.
Formerly part of the Abingdon Abbey estate, then held by the powerful
German-Jewish Schumacher family, by the time <b>Wytham Great Wood</b> was
bequeathed to Oxford University in the 1940s it still harboured an ancient and
extraordinary diversity of plant and animal life whose oldest sections are
thought to date back to the last ice age. Under the University it has since
become one of the most thoroughly-researched woodlands in the world, whose
yield of decades of copious data has been instrumental to ecological and
climate science.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqhKrRq9Ux3BJwcg-73LwVnqMsI5zGi0U9dsqmBTz92ZZCsa01K0wXxyfYz0gMq7sK4orbHfwu6gD1_TqUSg4perPi3zjemYHrkuO_ZS4doU5Ymm1bVd1YpzEAwT9ZiMmefS67bCeDpKg/s5184/IMG_0542.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqhKrRq9Ux3BJwcg-73LwVnqMsI5zGi0U9dsqmBTz92ZZCsa01K0wXxyfYz0gMq7sK4orbHfwu6gD1_TqUSg4perPi3zjemYHrkuO_ZS4doU5Ymm1bVd1YpzEAwT9ZiMmefS67bCeDpKg/w400-h300/IMG_0542.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">From this side it presents
something of a darkly forbidding air. The clouds of cawing ravens circling
above its thick tree cover suggest strange rituals as old as some of the
ecology in question. Apparently it’s very nice though. You can enter the main
woods for free but </span><a href="https://www.wythamwoods.ox.ac.uk/permit"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">need to apply for a permit from the University</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivbw1UW8_KLCCefOsZL8xHMH6U84vr5KWx9OvO_Z4wnMBIIjjn1WQ3nGoQ4MtHIwYvU09_V0iAYUl6YcJ3P465-XAwNUS1RHYV2znhRXDVB46eToxfmKfTTHkR3cc1c8x1X4IkoQ6sQi8/s5184/IMG_0546.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivbw1UW8_KLCCefOsZL8xHMH6U84vr5KWx9OvO_Z4wnMBIIjjn1WQ3nGoQ4MtHIwYvU09_V0iAYUl6YcJ3P465-XAwNUS1RHYV2znhRXDVB46eToxfmKfTTHkR3cc1c8x1X4IkoQ6sQi8/w640-h480/IMG_0546.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Further pastures stretch away
on the north bank. They’re not as isolated as they look; beyond those trees is
the A40, the traditional trunk road between London and south Wales.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">A change of scenery follows as the
woods enswathe the riverbank.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWgaBsJ-X8RE0MUE5SMCxC6bzg0zhLZG-fSiHJSppcZoymf51MHSafgAyi6mr4paHhfKrsPSSLAVgY2PL6DDZpsEqSHrphzaJI0SGAR_yZaKvuDcxvNzz9JvD8er5zamZakJUKfa3f-f0/s5184/IMG_0552.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWgaBsJ-X8RE0MUE5SMCxC6bzg0zhLZG-fSiHJSppcZoymf51MHSafgAyi6mr4paHhfKrsPSSLAVgY2PL6DDZpsEqSHrphzaJI0SGAR_yZaKvuDcxvNzz9JvD8er5zamZakJUKfa3f-f0/w640-h480/IMG_0552.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Wytham Woods also feature in
the <i>Inspector Morse</i> series as a convenient place to hide bodies. Watch
where you walk in here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyU7AyvCJhCuPvAHnoWIFaPvUmJB3jdSiJXoDicmFyVPV8km9gSBUJ-P8h41mi8obC3JPxnijlicQKxkGLCW8XoXakPRWLKGUcRuZGZ2N_McAROK3euTNm-geSAwBCCcaNllW3bCYIaQ8/s5184/IMG_0554.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyU7AyvCJhCuPvAHnoWIFaPvUmJB3jdSiJXoDicmFyVPV8km9gSBUJ-P8h41mi8obC3JPxnijlicQKxkGLCW8XoXakPRWLKGUcRuZGZ2N_McAROK3euTNm-geSAwBCCcaNllW3bCYIaQ8/w640-h480/IMG_0554.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2G552p0Spc6lnwYA9OT5hKFW-gCD0r7nCwmULYxAi642OGZXrQ-UBY9J4iBY2p15nKWBjci58z8cx1n7IwLwATVP7LSQ6SW3EDEm3l4M02zJq_5od1plYy7soF8Rkz_MNPB06QIfIYts/s5184/IMG_0556.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2G552p0Spc6lnwYA9OT5hKFW-gCD0r7nCwmULYxAi642OGZXrQ-UBY9J4iBY2p15nKWBjci58z8cx1n7IwLwATVP7LSQ6SW3EDEm3l4M02zJq_5od1plYy7soF8Rkz_MNPB06QIfIYts/w400-h300/IMG_0556.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Somewhere around here, easily
missable behind the tree cover, is the mouth of an old canal built around 1800
that runs in parallel to the Evenlode up to Cassington. Known as the Cassington
Cut, it was added to give better barge access to Cassington’s mill and wharf,
but the railways drove it out of use by the 1870s and it was gradually forgotten.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The woods open up toward the
northwest corner of the loop, where the river draws closest to the largest settlement
in this area: <b>Eynsham</b>. It’s set back about a kilometre from the river,
with access not helped by the busy B4044 road onto which the foliage which
overhangs its tiny pavement does its best to push you. A visit is therefore a
little out of contention given the distance still left to cover today, but Eynsham’s
link to the river is well-signified by its lock, pub, and bridge at its connected
hamlet of <b>Swinford</b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimP1vJAQo_Dix4JuPJp577N422ITDxrrTj56lKegHaNeUCEhPpQVx4JqQGGAbgLL4jf-Xc5oh6auHtA1fMxamQS-TefdEtLsuGO6a9riU_0lGhZdCE7fcNgcjt3z2Fxtz_oCkmhNk9eQE/s5184/IMG_0558.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimP1vJAQo_Dix4JuPJp577N422ITDxrrTj56lKegHaNeUCEhPpQVx4JqQGGAbgLL4jf-Xc5oh6auHtA1fMxamQS-TefdEtLsuGO6a9riU_0lGhZdCE7fcNgcjt3z2Fxtz_oCkmhNk9eQE/w640-h480/IMG_0558.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The river splits briefly around
an island, with Eynsham Lock in the artificial south channel (left) and its
weir in the main flow (right). Say hello to ‘Tug No.2’ again, whose captain was
here spotted disembarking to resupply.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj09in4Ij7tlnXt2unEkx-SfYjRWG7Z64qiscJTOFE4PvMGku5BND4j05oFn4OaZeGJPb-Dc5N9O-pztkM29gQubraIVX0Jx6cD2OuWpnf05AcshR29eWcAR-G1_UGkfjn_TfLrWdA3S_o/s5184/IMG_0560.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj09in4Ij7tlnXt2unEkx-SfYjRWG7Z64qiscJTOFE4PvMGku5BND4j05oFn4OaZeGJPb-Dc5N9O-pztkM29gQubraIVX0Jx6cD2OuWpnf05AcshR29eWcAR-G1_UGkfjn_TfLrWdA3S_o/w640-h480/IMG_0560.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Eynsham Lock was another
latecomer, replacing more rudimentary weirs and flash locks in 1928.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Eynsham is an ancient market village,
almost a town, with an astronomical-for-these-parts population of over 5,000. Said
to have emerged in Roman or sub-Roman times, it grew up in the Anglo-Saxon
period (whence its likely name origin, ‘</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Æ</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">gen’s enclosure’) owing to its
control of this important <i>Swine-ford</i> – i.e. a place where it was
relatively safe for pigs to cross amidst these unpredictable currents on the
Mercia-Wessex frontier.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Around 1005 Eynsham got its own
Benedictine abbey. It answered initially to </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-14-settling-point.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Dorchester</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> but flourished in its own right as
it grew over the centuries till its eventual demise – yet again – at the hands
of Henry VIII in 1538. This one was demolished quickly to stop the monks coming
back, and its ruins cannibalised to build new houses; many of its stones can
still be found in the village’s cottages today. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKMXOgfbL-gx7gBDJyHIhyphenhyphenGmeV-z1qnyWsmea1CKU5Mr-v9j_6iKpee1ndQtVzATLdkRItcgQAtI7xLPRLIsl3Hq4t1pX7OHbwZuRgvD9yxnNGPCKFee50wCApox9pVGuD-qKfVBdMoRM/s5184/IMG_0566.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKMXOgfbL-gx7gBDJyHIhyphenhyphenGmeV-z1qnyWsmea1CKU5Mr-v9j_6iKpee1ndQtVzATLdkRItcgQAtI7xLPRLIsl3Hq4t1pX7OHbwZuRgvD9yxnNGPCKFee50wCApox9pVGuD-qKfVBdMoRM/w400-h300/IMG_0566.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">On the road between the river
and village is <i>The Talbot</i> pub, one of a handful that serves walkers and
boaters along these reaches.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO4iJDKYZOnzQoR67QpbSvFFeJIqmOqEZ1oUgUS8EaPSeUXgkSxZjRFuvQ_xe61ZUVFyE24UKu1XLW-kbQg7PzDRHNZ1GVyQ9godpazoiYswoSCOpmPt57usXNoTxQ_Choi7sq5d1MJro/s5184/IMG_0561.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO4iJDKYZOnzQoR67QpbSvFFeJIqmOqEZ1oUgUS8EaPSeUXgkSxZjRFuvQ_xe61ZUVFyE24UKu1XLW-kbQg7PzDRHNZ1GVyQ9godpazoiYswoSCOpmPt57usXNoTxQ_Choi7sq5d1MJro/w640-h480/IMG_0561.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Swinford Bridge, a Georgian
limestone construction from the 1770s.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The <i>Swine-ford</i> itself seems to
have taken the form of a ferry for most of this period, but in the eighteenth
century this bridge was built to replace it. It is distinct in being the only
bridge besides </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/07/thames-12-gap-in-chalk.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Whitchurch Bridge</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> to charge tolls to vehicle traffic
to this day (though pedestrians and cyclists cross for free since 1835). This
has apparently caused much contention: its private owners get to enjoy the
tax-free fleecing of local motorists, who often find themselves stuck in
congestion thanks to its toll queues and potholes. Attempts to get the 5p toll
abolished or bring the bridge into public ownership have so far come to
nothing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicIzPxDPCgW0LrbZNg_PrgCAgKZGJQO8QdYr3G9hh9U6zPnphZd5Rc-tdQXrLR58qp9Di-wqL_u17J4xXbO7WYKTpNuJEAN4Bdl7vinjM8YOk55qkksDY60E3Tsgn0fGX4q5QTsQdWD-A/s5184/IMG_0563.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicIzPxDPCgW0LrbZNg_PrgCAgKZGJQO8QdYr3G9hh9U6zPnphZd5Rc-tdQXrLR58qp9Di-wqL_u17J4xXbO7WYKTpNuJEAN4Bdl7vinjM8YOk55qkksDY60E3Tsgn0fGX4q5QTsQdWD-A/w640-h480/IMG_0563.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">On the other hand, the
COVID-19 pandemic appears to have achieved what the English’s long-suffering efforts
at democracy could not. At present the toll booth is unoccupied and cars drive across
with impunity.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi55aviTucrcbEgjhPv62HtWfcHjfcVVZuSooCaPb48SI_B464OZvQmC-hIKrxN3ZAFKebjQmY_CC4R4cVqq19It1zkCQswIE2QsnxcRHKJLeH_gXEUDnnsdQFYJXFUkgK9bbbkHG1TKIg/s5184/IMG_0562.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi55aviTucrcbEgjhPv62HtWfcHjfcVVZuSooCaPb48SI_B464OZvQmC-hIKrxN3ZAFKebjQmY_CC4R4cVqq19It1zkCQswIE2QsnxcRHKJLeH_gXEUDnnsdQFYJXFUkgK9bbbkHG1TKIg/w400-h300/IMG_0562.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">They’ll probably bring the
toll back as soon as they get the chance. The bridge was last sold in 2009, at
auction for over £1.08 million, and in the best traditions of English
transparency the present owners of this key piece of infrastructure have been
kept secret. It’d be a shame if anything happened – say, a collapse, or an
accident involving a huge lorry, or a brawl over tolls – that required public
accountability, no?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio9tw5vXGWnvbHp8Ocfs2kJ2PguHeSdaz1Qr7ClEV0R-5DVzuUbVxWzkOfxUCIr5vyX2ly3cejRQVgudtVQ3FnJsQdJWEBqiP12B3krs7KYIdSDD59-v4mfoR66zsOmSMwxHNUY11n9CQ/s5184/IMG_0567.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio9tw5vXGWnvbHp8Ocfs2kJ2PguHeSdaz1Qr7ClEV0R-5DVzuUbVxWzkOfxUCIr5vyX2ly3cejRQVgudtVQ3FnJsQdJWEBqiP12B3krs7KYIdSDD59-v4mfoR66zsOmSMwxHNUY11n9CQ/w640-h480/IMG_0567.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Anyway, nice bridge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">And with that we are clear of human
society and its instinct to casually oppress everything it touches, and now get
to proceed through some attractive landscapes down the west slopes of Wytham
Hill.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg584zQM0yKcVkqmNrX_PDEm84EwHFcu4dbURv9fYmJMQyQjfXmW2y_-Ai2IVukFgzeqRGFEbS9fELCSV1oAgCloEcuCRYx6bJZNmZorlnA3Uq8EtqxYSvWRawMQ-BSGfOdJPISwcB6rJE/s5184/IMG_0568.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg584zQM0yKcVkqmNrX_PDEm84EwHFcu4dbURv9fYmJMQyQjfXmW2y_-Ai2IVukFgzeqRGFEbS9fELCSV1oAgCloEcuCRYx6bJZNmZorlnA3Uq8EtqxYSvWRawMQ-BSGfOdJPISwcB6rJE/w640-h480/IMG_0568.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It can look pleasant out here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXkYqmjfxTRJwQS0zS0otZ9lSXA-DZzrB3Ml2ZF4RF0B_W7Xx0MLy-4QDFu-z3NZKcFMbX0cOHVD_bk-lDh25nYmAyhYqs2_fho_4UZsCP6aIqNv2C9-OqfN0hzeM6tU-GWm8b_tm8Drg/s5184/IMG_0572.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXkYqmjfxTRJwQS0zS0otZ9lSXA-DZzrB3Ml2ZF4RF0B_W7Xx0MLy-4QDFu-z3NZKcFMbX0cOHVD_bk-lDh25nYmAyhYqs2_fho_4UZsCP6aIqNv2C9-OqfN0hzeM6tU-GWm8b_tm8Drg/w640-h480/IMG_0572.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">So here’s something to ruin
it. The west bank here (opposite) falls under the parliamentary constituency of
Witney, West Oxfordshire’s largest town. If the name sounds familiar it’s
probably because it was the seat of David Cameron, the former Prime Minister
and Conservative Party leader who set off the Brexit referendum for no reason,
lost it, then walked off into the cover of his super-rich lifestyle to leave
everyone else to eat the consequences. (On a related note, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggate"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">those pigs that crossed at Swinford</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> – never mind.)</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJDmtkrqajw58CjWgtEg_YeTRTCWW2sq8TYmY09THAnRHr-nJQKGDPy-ERKXr3buSSBHusO9fzQxHCgi4PV5KB0B-lsYTo2WlUhNYtAUHOEhFrulLsQjcji1nbwGr3aRI00Zt-ZO72_Ts/s5184/IMG_0569.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJDmtkrqajw58CjWgtEg_YeTRTCWW2sq8TYmY09THAnRHr-nJQKGDPy-ERKXr3buSSBHusO9fzQxHCgi4PV5KB0B-lsYTo2WlUhNYtAUHOEhFrulLsQjcji1nbwGr3aRI00Zt-ZO72_Ts/w640-h480/IMG_0569.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It’s not these plants’ fault.
They wouldn’t have plunged a country into an abuse-pit of division and
disintegration while calling it democracy.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-fHq7VFwmjm0QDeoY-Tv6PxEpj3iHzprBMIhCMKpbDeQGcM72o1uhebaZkqA1rAZFpp-JE2yC2AmNLH3vcpZxZhWiF8DMVeOIsNhIPnPh1Qk8fx6Hy4iSV5jGBIgS3qp1Z5bTlO2IetQ/s5184/IMG_0571.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-fHq7VFwmjm0QDeoY-Tv6PxEpj3iHzprBMIhCMKpbDeQGcM72o1uhebaZkqA1rAZFpp-JE2yC2AmNLH3vcpZxZhWiF8DMVeOIsNhIPnPh1Qk8fx6Hy4iSV5jGBIgS3qp1Z5bTlO2IetQ/w400-h300/IMG_0571.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Here we are. This is more like
it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Now this time there’s no fence, and
the bovine community ranges hungrily right up to the river. Fortunately they’re
in peaceful if circumspective mood today, and will stand there watching you as
you cross their territory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCzDtLzZ1qwV3e6sfczkBxlBJtgIHKvITG7WbZSmEcvHjT-EIw69DXHNhnb3NxMuFy1109ig8IFk9tRw96T6FiBAzrvzx5CQgoIYGCo7Y2T83LEG8UdjE9Z5TmDMOBm7X7MXWV4rc20qs/s5184/IMG_0573.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCzDtLzZ1qwV3e6sfczkBxlBJtgIHKvITG7WbZSmEcvHjT-EIw69DXHNhnb3NxMuFy1109ig8IFk9tRw96T6FiBAzrvzx5CQgoIYGCo7Y2T83LEG8UdjE9Z5TmDMOBm7X7MXWV4rc20qs/w640-h480/IMG_0573.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">There’s no going around these
ones. You’ll just have to hope they’re not inclined to demand tribute.
Especially the chonky one at left.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0PAQTM5xqF_xRQuqNq-vytEeHhPfmoOz0TRbwvfV_prJIvc8FldaTcU6tbD7XgsBLaT3sN3H8C00oS38gy-vzNVRZrseF3G8b8q6acQOMPEbWpIKijhJyz8_P2zBX4vqES7gjM75WLI/s5184/IMG_0574.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0PAQTM5xqF_xRQuqNq-vytEeHhPfmoOz0TRbwvfV_prJIvc8FldaTcU6tbD7XgsBLaT3sN3H8C00oS38gy-vzNVRZrseF3G8b8q6acQOMPEbWpIKijhJyz8_P2zBX4vqES7gjM75WLI/w400-h300/IMG_0574.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj668xlGPgSOgZGOzjxsWT05XKA8wXaHbXTupYxG0bLNBLPBxm9c13cJWeQtk7TLB2WCt-6RVD4dfvFw9-AFeTF77MWrrXgTUnI0-Q8bl5Jxup6o_A4pXRiDM3isQ0hTXJtkt3DfPRgrFY/s5184/IMG_0575.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj668xlGPgSOgZGOzjxsWT05XKA8wXaHbXTupYxG0bLNBLPBxm9c13cJWeQtk7TLB2WCt-6RVD4dfvFw9-AFeTF77MWrrXgTUnI0-Q8bl5Jxup6o_A4pXRiDM3isQ0hTXJtkt3DfPRgrFY/w640-h480/IMG_0575.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Wytham Hill is less wooded on
this side and looks nice in the afternoon sun. Notice there’s another herd of
Holsteins in the hillside field.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYylf7_KNdltbHLXi1alxKi1O-TzvPh_VIrjp754YUvV0AQ6TQbhJWM4WHgiYHyCSlxOMrI2OKf3JouP6aX4vpd_51OL2hRnRRwP2497slSE14IXPuoRdI1iuQyEYFjAtqIC9-xRVTe_8/s5184/IMG_0576.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYylf7_KNdltbHLXi1alxKi1O-TzvPh_VIrjp754YUvV0AQ6TQbhJWM4WHgiYHyCSlxOMrI2OKf3JouP6aX4vpd_51OL2hRnRRwP2497slSE14IXPuoRdI1iuQyEYFjAtqIC9-xRVTe_8/w640-h480/IMG_0576.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb_qYnneFzlrYgtGHaUrWnN3Rb-g1jGPYSjXlyhvqWUuSfDdzRN6Cqc70_vEtEhBC_GfAjkjko_iGWf2erB4Y0zpML4vdslHzLgExX4X8nn5yVY7Sz3diwDpq9PaXGCT9errtmlzXV5aQ/s5184/IMG_0578.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb_qYnneFzlrYgtGHaUrWnN3Rb-g1jGPYSjXlyhvqWUuSfDdzRN6Cqc70_vEtEhBC_GfAjkjko_iGWf2erB4Y0zpML4vdslHzLgExX4X8nn5yVY7Sz3diwDpq9PaXGCT9errtmlzXV5aQ/w640-h480/IMG_0578.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The view back towards Swinford
Bridge, with one or two other walkers negotiating their way through the sovereign
herd.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">There’s another large boatyard ahead
here to help river-adventurers not get stranded after dark in the bovine
kingdoms. Oxford Cruisers Ltd. occupies a meander at the western end of the
village of <b>Farmoor</b> – a twentieth-century roadside settlement that takes
its name from an old common, now submerged beneath the reservoir ahead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFAl4f0IkBHGJiJrdgKt1ZUf2I6Yobz6rleVTZFX8W_4xVqEcy6qXuZlS6EuE-_sJskv24Tvigek5T-m1HAfdFriP5wlg4GOad0kz2Kp8Mxt_BdyRjIdj72TFJD9LZekUm4-0QtMe-Aq4/s5184/IMG_0580.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFAl4f0IkBHGJiJrdgKt1ZUf2I6Yobz6rleVTZFX8W_4xVqEcy6qXuZlS6EuE-_sJskv24Tvigek5T-m1HAfdFriP5wlg4GOad0kz2Kp8Mxt_BdyRjIdj72TFJD9LZekUm4-0QtMe-Aq4/w400-h300/IMG_0580.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The skies here suffer the
occasional rude intrusion of military aircraft, likely flying out of the major
Brize Norton RAF airbase upriver.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjczlA8CDxVAHLtodIN6RI5By-arTYfJ899Q5Lr7r9LJcGNmdefj-SKVNoxVe_iN7QKn073uA7FHVqvzXv3ikh_KXEMdM6bEsk3e_1ahIDfjUGopfwklv8TF_53q2L3nn-KUcZLroamsko/s5184/IMG_0582.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjczlA8CDxVAHLtodIN6RI5By-arTYfJ899Q5Lr7r9LJcGNmdefj-SKVNoxVe_iN7QKn073uA7FHVqvzXv3ikh_KXEMdM6bEsk3e_1ahIDfjUGopfwklv8TF_53q2L3nn-KUcZLroamsko/w640-h480/IMG_0582.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The family-run Oxford Cruisers
appears to specialise in the repair and restoration of narrowboats.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Here the wayfarer faces what at first
appears the unwelcome return of a menace that should have stayed behind on the
middle river: a string of residential properties which have seized the
riverbank for their private gardens, forcing an inland detour. Fortunately however
these ones appear forgivable. What actually seems to have happened is that their
claims did in fact stop at the towpath, only for it to crumble away over the
years due to erosion. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAU3HSLsmLdkjoygn-nkMFJB5xmRENocb3cVd1zQIlwiHtu03XS5mnZUFFx1A77K2pkBIquXwPVWVAgrzx-uffTSIpEyAWVLW0K9d4GMCfsiYUleYsC9Yn33SpnQj9S2m2s2VgtUe9cVM/s5184/IMG_0583.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAU3HSLsmLdkjoygn-nkMFJB5xmRENocb3cVd1zQIlwiHtu03XS5mnZUFFx1A77K2pkBIquXwPVWVAgrzx-uffTSIpEyAWVLW0K9d4GMCfsiYUleYsC9Yn33SpnQj9S2m2s2VgtUe9cVM/w400-h300/IMG_0583.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The detour is at any rate a
short one, up the side of the Oxford-Eynsham road.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCj_Jydg_UShhFPIy_BZBXZ4SJL_mf2JvUCFmNrz8mjC8QtoZ2GbpnqbdVUXeSZhzl9lQLCjfLtT6CdaQ1xI192gIxdZVX92JT5b11BBexvSJny7JRSUfWV2cp8rj1PZP3Ueb8ijaPsWY/s5184/IMG_0584.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCj_Jydg_UShhFPIy_BZBXZ4SJL_mf2JvUCFmNrz8mjC8QtoZ2GbpnqbdVUXeSZhzl9lQLCjfLtT6CdaQ1xI192gIxdZVX92JT5b11BBexvSJny7JRSUfWV2cp8rj1PZP3Ueb8ijaPsWY/w400-h300/IMG_0584.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">In the hatch must be a ladder
down to an interdimensional space, from where you can reach a parallel
Oxfordshire where the cows are in charge of government. Maybe one of them experienced
a political scandal for questionable actions involving its udder and David
Cameron.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Bablock Hythe and Northmoor</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">A trail between the houses leads back
to the towpath, which comes in short order to <b>Pinkhill Lock</b>. Built by
the Thames Navigation Commission in 1791 and named for a local farm, this one
is quite a bit older than those immediately downstream and cuts through the
neck of a large meander. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoym5aTxsTtabQtrQ7tBeT-ShO9yWh3UiLUpjtFU-LWn9Y93L3tHSEOg7FkabG2HWBE6tmTLQjl0ghC-WgXZOltDZneC29FWwSN8G5FMUJ0S4LkelQE0HcAu3ELQIeJMZeaZfvratYpjM/s5184/IMG_0585.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoym5aTxsTtabQtrQ7tBeT-ShO9yWh3UiLUpjtFU-LWn9Y93L3tHSEOg7FkabG2HWBE6tmTLQjl0ghC-WgXZOltDZneC29FWwSN8G5FMUJ0S4LkelQE0HcAu3ELQIeJMZeaZfvratYpjM/w640-h480/IMG_0585.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">For all the isolation of these
high reaches, or perhaps because of it, a great deal of work seems to have gone
into the equipping and presentation of the locks here. Pinkhill Lock was
notable on this journey as the first one which gave rise to a spontaneous
conversation with a lock-keeper. Help him close the gate and he will offer
advice about the Bablock Hythe ferry, whose disappearance presents the defining
problem of the reach ahead.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">From here the towpath continues some
three kilometres down the east bank, past the Farmoor Reservoir, till it
reaches Bablock Hythe, where travellers and barge-workers historically crossed
by ferry. So why is it rumoured that the ferry no longer exists? To reach Bablock Hythe to examine this mystery, and furthermore to avoid
getting stuck on this side when the towpath switches bank, it is now necessary
to cross the lock-gates and take an extended detour through the western
pastures.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB35pLUE0ASXho0h6n3E-7a-wznbaBsVTTVJt7r9vhP1lqAPGGqfKsPySUmXNtnOBY4Nzp0ibZab_qIYII31aLEIKFpwIiqXpbroiPzlWJ7mO2pcbuZeFscE9MQRupv1DQjgCYz4FNjKc/s5184/IMG_0588.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB35pLUE0ASXho0h6n3E-7a-wznbaBsVTTVJt7r9vhP1lqAPGGqfKsPySUmXNtnOBY4Nzp0ibZab_qIYII31aLEIKFpwIiqXpbroiPzlWJ7mO2pcbuZeFscE9MQRupv1DQjgCYz4FNjKc/w640-h480/IMG_0588.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">For a little further the river
comes and goes as the path cuts across a string of wooded meanders.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgyUvXZSv3nmr3IuFK0BS81OsGfh0vDH3QBGTGjIm6mXApK5-D0wI7_WAey-BfT23hd2cQrGnhKy_swb38gdxVtCQCVGQ0eM0t3KHmlwbJZ_wTEgIGjjZxvxpPzA2x2Rqb63PDmouPVy0/s5184/IMG_0589.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgyUvXZSv3nmr3IuFK0BS81OsGfh0vDH3QBGTGjIm6mXApK5-D0wI7_WAey-BfT23hd2cQrGnhKy_swb38gdxVtCQCVGQ0eM0t3KHmlwbJZ_wTEgIGjjZxvxpPzA2x2Rqb63PDmouPVy0/w400-h300/IMG_0589.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">If you get a Game Over by
being arrested and jailed by the cows then this is where you emerge when you
re-load your last save.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjam6NF4S1GSj7bntxRMM6WVgwIFTNg6vJZPHDVxKHCJL3F2wGnJQCq97ttNGtpiGx7efgyq2wSZlE6u8Ujxt4siQ_WFtj5j0ribzHjdEMblUSQY-ujVTFUEX2tFXVy_dgCpSTbB4payt8/s5184/IMG_0591.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjam6NF4S1GSj7bntxRMM6WVgwIFTNg6vJZPHDVxKHCJL3F2wGnJQCq97ttNGtpiGx7efgyq2wSZlE6u8Ujxt4siQ_WFtj5j0ribzHjdEMblUSQY-ujVTFUEX2tFXVy_dgCpSTbB4payt8/w400-h300/IMG_0591.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The western bank appears to
fall under a rather woollier authority.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This detour means we do not get a
view of the dominant landscape feature on this reach. <b>Farmoor Reservoir</b>,
the largest body of open water in Oxford Province, was dug out in two stages in
the 1960s and 70s and provides this region with its primary supply of drinking
water. It is also used for sports – fishing, sailing, windsurfing – and is very
popular with birdwatchers; its proximity to the Wytham Woods, along with other
local woodland and wetland reserves, draws in a wide range of seasonally-migrating
bird species.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKvSxfjSFUMF952YtYf6r19yt02vf6R-A9ceECGgISclm3qbGvSwjZvsZcSvFB3M4QUv5ajcb4I2OMDUOu8C7WfgX05xZ7QAQ85yfPDWI7jHTgNGp-psQAsQzm1_qXNBEu8EAARph2qDM/s5184/IMG_0593.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKvSxfjSFUMF952YtYf6r19yt02vf6R-A9ceECGgISclm3qbGvSwjZvsZcSvFB3M4QUv5ajcb4I2OMDUOu8C7WfgX05xZ7QAQ85yfPDWI7jHTgNGp-psQAsQzm1_qXNBEu8EAARph2qDM/w640-h480/IMG_0593.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Most of the islands and
east-bank peninsulas in the meanders here are nature reserves with
bird-watching hides installed.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBGMKHxShArW8E4d1pUx6gpn4gOynmaJkxj-venkiPgFV33VY4-ELHOsxe5TEi0hIZUS-s4iM-EX5N188TlpHhnA92xhTKZyy-ZSMhBUUgjfRci_5ELFhpcYnojaarwc2wgYCrgcjPZyA/s5184/IMG_0594.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBGMKHxShArW8E4d1pUx6gpn4gOynmaJkxj-venkiPgFV33VY4-ELHOsxe5TEi0hIZUS-s4iM-EX5N188TlpHhnA92xhTKZyy-ZSMhBUUgjfRci_5ELFhpcYnojaarwc2wgYCrgcjPZyA/w640-h480/IMG_0594.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">There used to be a footbridge
around here too. <i>Skinner’s Bridge</i> was said to have been attached to a
picturesque old weir and inn, likely descended from a mill, run by an old
landlord called Joe Skinner. By the twentieth century the buildings had all
disappeared, and the bridge appears to have burnt down in the 1940s.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwGEDsvUeS92lFY4akK1ZdcOmT3L0H9I1wzDyyBnD2rNRqs46_qo1UOyGyZx2wdr-7P0BFnTAX2b3C2Q0OwUNsd-VUxwZpxZR3x79fU3zxhtNVUvEbdmJWwnO8kmqTGQJ9GcUgzV4W_s8/s5184/IMG_0595.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwGEDsvUeS92lFY4akK1ZdcOmT3L0H9I1wzDyyBnD2rNRqs46_qo1UOyGyZx2wdr-7P0BFnTAX2b3C2Q0OwUNsd-VUxwZpxZR3x79fU3zxhtNVUvEbdmJWwnO8kmqTGQJ9GcUgzV4W_s8/w400-h300/IMG_0595.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A distant glimpse of the
Farmoor Reservoir embankment.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Here we must seek the river’s pardon
in leaving it for a time, in order to circumvent the Bablock Hythe Caravan Park
which sprawls with grasping incorrectness up the riverbank ahead. The diversion
takes us into the sphere of influence of <b>Stanton Harcourt</b> – or
specifically, the fields after fields of sheep that together are many times
larger than the village itself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivnN5iIF0_t242u8Pq_tWWbb0sEYOHCgVC3CvMLx2ods1ML7_gMpiecIAYK6zehaFaLUB4QXOVBA517vhPOX0CHsZ-n-naQIzF5OWvYWUBpIvwf-T1HtXnjVMFd3HJvGZfcT9u01V9lGc/s5184/IMG_0597.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivnN5iIF0_t242u8Pq_tWWbb0sEYOHCgVC3CvMLx2ods1ML7_gMpiecIAYK6zehaFaLUB4QXOVBA517vhPOX0CHsZ-n-naQIzF5OWvYWUBpIvwf-T1HtXnjVMFd3HJvGZfcT9u01V9lGc/w400-h300/IMG_0597.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Stanton Harcourt itself is a
way up the road to the west here; this is the tower of its St. Michael’s
Church. <i>Stanton</i> means ‘farmstead by the stones’, and likely refers to a
nearby Neolithic stone circle now known as the <i>Devil’s Quoits</i>, sadly too
far to reach on this journey. <i>Harcourt</i> is another ownership-tag on the
part of the Norman nobility, added by the same family that later produced the
Simon Harcourt who </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">forced a whole village to move so he
could build his riverside mansion</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqcBjKAdeMS9UOMHSahGOcD5cZdnEKIefATeL_5xkmSpovnmGnqu42pB11lTS9qA-Z232sAdh6VEXE4bH9qRCLfepqpAjNHR8C4C5kiNi05JkHLpIfJ11aWU6OxZydYQo30Hr8VWTqvFc/s5184/IMG_0598.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqcBjKAdeMS9UOMHSahGOcD5cZdnEKIefATeL_5xkmSpovnmGnqu42pB11lTS9qA-Z232sAdh6VEXE4bH9qRCLfepqpAjNHR8C4C5kiNi05JkHLpIfJ11aWU6OxZydYQo30Hr8VWTqvFc/w640-h480/IMG_0598.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The village is too far to visit
on foot if we want to safely complete today’s stretch before the sun goes down.
So instead we get another bunch of pastures, this time with regular fleecy
company.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">These fields are full of sheep. They
are a lot more skittish than the earlier cattle and tend to scoot away as soon
as they notice you coming, although a small minority will stand there
staring at you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji4S2UicyxOSXfVh8J1dJ4e8gBrQYqWuJwo-l6kSwGpy017aJX1puW_7KVRPQFPVrgN1KTHBbiWOIJDKgl0mhyx0jjLJ8wu2Oe92p33HMyHD7pNyzNjN1aa0cgaV9mvnYmXKevXbAsFrw/s5184/IMG_0599.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji4S2UicyxOSXfVh8J1dJ4e8gBrQYqWuJwo-l6kSwGpy017aJX1puW_7KVRPQFPVrgN1KTHBbiWOIJDKgl0mhyx0jjLJ8wu2Oe92p33HMyHD7pNyzNjN1aa0cgaV9mvnYmXKevXbAsFrw/w640-h480/IMG_0599.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This individual is the lone
exception, and will give you a neeh before taking tentative steps in your
direction.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_3Jgwt8CAuvTW02VEs3gqWzYKPPUSIofdSIYT-1YyldH0kx20lzMTtE-qfU9SYISF5fmvNpj1gNcargcQzbMalKokaTexX-KBPrBNOFt27gGKttWhxFB2Q5KDNdHfzHPhbcsm9J1Tk5U/s5184/IMG_0602.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_3Jgwt8CAuvTW02VEs3gqWzYKPPUSIofdSIYT-1YyldH0kx20lzMTtE-qfU9SYISF5fmvNpj1gNcargcQzbMalKokaTexX-KBPrBNOFt27gGKttWhxFB2Q5KDNdHfzHPhbcsm9J1Tk5U/w640-h480/IMG_0602.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">They run off as soon as you
touch the gate. It’s best to show them respect too, by treading gently and
letting them know in a soft voice that you’re not here to make trouble for
them.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcOK7ofpYdNgYgj21PjJZaTYX1zAD9hlp1kUik42i6AMnp7y1Cc4vcMxxBC6pmhISm5nc-hURjwJv4W830fPe3D9m_9UDdSmCckEPJRwQ5amLK07XxG2RqUlhJDz7T8Nl8Cf6nW5TbOE/s5184/IMG_0605.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcOK7ofpYdNgYgj21PjJZaTYX1zAD9hlp1kUik42i6AMnp7y1Cc4vcMxxBC6pmhISm5nc-hURjwJv4W830fPe3D9m_9UDdSmCckEPJRwQ5amLK07XxG2RqUlhJDz7T8Nl8Cf6nW5TbOE/w640-h480/IMG_0605.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It’s chilly out here now, but still
gets quite warm when the sun breaks through. Flexible clothing is sensible when
walking in this season.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s have a closer look.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3ylnGcXlYj8cLStOHFG38zwslvkU4fskTg77AD8-p8fbbkexcSK7mbWdfhmjf7KqOMMjgr6adnImggzEUmPDK_xoa3RAEOktuxFmzCOyoFiPTqcHKHT8eulFYG2F4ZlrI_KQb1iTwaM/s5184/IMG_0607.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3ylnGcXlYj8cLStOHFG38zwslvkU4fskTg77AD8-p8fbbkexcSK7mbWdfhmjf7KqOMMjgr6adnImggzEUmPDK_xoa3RAEOktuxFmzCOyoFiPTqcHKHT8eulFYG2F4ZlrI_KQb1iTwaM/w400-h300/IMG_0607.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Neeh.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFAqtAzt0Z16iCjzjcUgbaLn1FH-Q7D269goZv0AVUQ20245a6Oun1EaPgJIGyW83W1Kd6-IIAG1YaPM9bhNwupfWP3je11WKxYfeevcYQbf70o0Ua32B5ym1FM-MK0tZnbnXa-xAOZec/s5184/IMG_0609.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFAqtAzt0Z16iCjzjcUgbaLn1FH-Q7D269goZv0AVUQ20245a6Oun1EaPgJIGyW83W1Kd6-IIAG1YaPM9bhNwupfWP3je11WKxYfeevcYQbf70o0Ua32B5ym1FM-MK0tZnbnXa-xAOZec/w400-h300/IMG_0609.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO9XYavPFgl6tMy8LdhcLcHpxqyD7pZWKIlqYRRGWW4DxJOHvBIXsR1JRkYTBLz0m2IMkp0nly4JkdJe95YcsObR7rLr89QkvB4Je870fpzxWbPGb-iTidcHfdLwoYfw_PHhRw7cFhHaQ/s5184/IMG_0611.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO9XYavPFgl6tMy8LdhcLcHpxqyD7pZWKIlqYRRGWW4DxJOHvBIXsR1JRkYTBLz0m2IMkp0nly4JkdJe95YcsObR7rLr89QkvB4Je870fpzxWbPGb-iTidcHfdLwoYfw_PHhRw7cFhHaQ/w400-h300/IMG_0611.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">More rectangularity.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh3dfncQBzEt5NsUX6CNKxV5zGbn6FGI5osnn3QkDFmsZc_mKbeXuzJoaEJ4wyfjkQY54XFpDd1tz6-cjIclyjnuS62PuU5zavPf_dIEd-OiKa49y7UqElbhsj7ypVGkcP3Epe3Nr3qk0/s5184/IMG_0612.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh3dfncQBzEt5NsUX6CNKxV5zGbn6FGI5osnn3QkDFmsZc_mKbeXuzJoaEJ4wyfjkQY54XFpDd1tz6-cjIclyjnuS62PuU5zavPf_dIEd-OiKa49y7UqElbhsj7ypVGkcP3Epe3Nr3qk0/w640-h480/IMG_0612.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">As far as detours go, these
fluffy friends make this one not too bad.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Make it across six or seven fields’
worth of sheep territory and you reach a tarmac lane: the main access road to
the river at <b>Bablock Hythe</b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnHj9Z9EBhV3OJZNMvH7BtaWkUqTRh_k9tM1DeEe2MdSoWFJfzkc9TbgmA2q9Mn4_3gBroqGRfK5JIpIz8JdTjF8Ef-HJz3xNF3Mb9kY0IgY1mRGvl7D_qBV1X-lQBvRxSWv8AA2KJhhQ/s5184/IMG_0613.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnHj9Z9EBhV3OJZNMvH7BtaWkUqTRh_k9tM1DeEe2MdSoWFJfzkc9TbgmA2q9Mn4_3gBroqGRfK5JIpIz8JdTjF8Ef-HJz3xNF3Mb9kY0IgY1mRGvl7D_qBV1X-lQBvRxSWv8AA2KJhhQ/w400-h300/IMG_0613.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Bablock Hythe road.
Another spontaneous encounter with the locals took place here, this time with an
elderly fellow on a mobility scooter. He introduced himself by the nickname
everyone around here apparently calls him – ‘Jolly’ – and had apparently lived
in these parts since the 1940s, rarely travelling beyond. He too had much to
say on the disappearance of the fabled Bablock Hythe ferry.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV3KzhEviYXqS3XRoKRwnHu7r37qBMu3FDTwF8J_yrPfVtbc4Th0JgWdoe4sz_qkp0VeUJ5uNQ3UUu6aIDE9_qq5yEWeT8QNY2kjOP1l6vc5QxJu0Vf6eK8rRNntpZfOyLjb4SE9OLbZw/s5184/IMG_0614.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV3KzhEviYXqS3XRoKRwnHu7r37qBMu3FDTwF8J_yrPfVtbc4Th0JgWdoe4sz_qkp0VeUJ5uNQ3UUu6aIDE9_qq5yEWeT8QNY2kjOP1l6vc5QxJu0Vf6eK8rRNntpZfOyLjb4SE9OLbZw/w400-h300/IMG_0614.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The most visible manifestation
of Bablock Hythe today is this sizeable caravan park.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitgmgn4D6zFOg3kKBL9KUtb7LJ20cXinIrH86VAC47BDJYls8Ofvp9AuV7LtZMNpXqESc5ZF3WtHXNj7YXLNnFIaHE_fBOW8Md2K1lmvKs9Si-OcRl8yYsqLlfvHY6oa2Mop-VhhZxXL4/s5184/IMG_0615.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitgmgn4D6zFOg3kKBL9KUtb7LJ20cXinIrH86VAC47BDJYls8Ofvp9AuV7LtZMNpXqESc5ZF3WtHXNj7YXLNnFIaHE_fBOW8Md2K1lmvKs9Si-OcRl8yYsqLlfvHY6oa2Mop-VhhZxXL4/w400-h300/IMG_0615.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">‘Polite’ in English culture
means ‘people at the bottom of power hierarchies are to be punished for each
failure to say <i>please</i> or <i>thank you</i>, while people who own property
are entitled to speak however the fuck they want’.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif2XrbIVWYwO-z4VJbTKw0Yog3Ws1eNTwrLoR0jc7f5_nO9sG2Uzh2b4VSRYj1uNC2vONZJPrf-sJ75KfgwV5XUTV8tE7uRuZ9jCNGfAz3AIfWQ_k95AKU2naUuorU8GU1s3zvub8gUOQ/s5184/IMG_0616.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif2XrbIVWYwO-z4VJbTKw0Yog3Ws1eNTwrLoR0jc7f5_nO9sG2Uzh2b4VSRYj1uNC2vONZJPrf-sJ75KfgwV5XUTV8tE7uRuZ9jCNGfAz3AIfWQ_k95AKU2naUuorU8GU1s3zvub8gUOQ/w400-h300/IMG_0616.JPG" width="400" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Bablock Hythe is a tiny hamlet,
composed mainly of <i>The</i> <i>Ferryman Inn</i> and now vastly overshadowed
by the holiday caravan park that’s taken up residence along its road and
riverside. This place’s importance was in its ferry, both practical and </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">mythic (as of course all ferries are)</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">; all the more so for being some
thousand years old as well as supposedly the Thames’s first <i>cable ferry</i>,
drawn across the water along a large rope or chain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt0c_iYYkpZ4qtL1NQMgWmjgL3hErxpQCD9sb31dP2h-0PIehWdN1RAzQM4T-ymRjfxxld6Z7VbuEgbWvZwMgSqRi-DltbJeHUTX7pozeW5NR6zr6PwRhkIAdPP-yVQpd-885pG5mjgik/s892/Bablock+Hythe+ferry.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="657" data-original-width="892" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt0c_iYYkpZ4qtL1NQMgWmjgL3hErxpQCD9sb31dP2h-0PIehWdN1RAzQM4T-ymRjfxxld6Z7VbuEgbWvZwMgSqRi-DltbJeHUTX7pozeW5NR6zr6PwRhkIAdPP-yVQpd-885pG5mjgik/w400-h295/Bablock+Hythe+ferry.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Bablock Hythe ferry as it
appears in an 1859 woodcut. It was a substantial vessel, much relied-upon by
these pasturelands’ farmers to take their large animals across. By the late
twentieth century it could even take cars, up to three at a time according to
Mr. ‘Jolly’.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPmM1524reVjc_XHRgSCPZfblnkCVEBXjs4E0uxsxKbHIo9FSv2ozQvj-jYKpcs6RO5I6H9ex-Fz8tw2-Zp9uhR3vJvnNu3KhI-8FlimFOD6H7E-gQE7RGWEybHi82T2P-ryoEwzSJI8/s5184/IMG_0617.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPmM1524reVjc_XHRgSCPZfblnkCVEBXjs4E0uxsxKbHIo9FSv2ozQvj-jYKpcs6RO5I6H9ex-Fz8tw2-Zp9uhR3vJvnNu3KhI-8FlimFOD6H7E-gQE7RGWEybHi82T2P-ryoEwzSJI8/w400-h300/IMG_0617.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"><i>The Ferryman Inn</i>, known
in these parts for its not-at-all-pub-like exterior, replaced an older inn
called <i>The Chequers</i> during the twentieth century and is said to have
operated the ferry till its disappearance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">So what happened to it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In what seems a sadly typical
reflection of English modernity, after a millennium of service the ferry closed
down in hazy circumstances during the post-World War II decades. Efforts were
apparently made to revive it, with <i>The Ferryman Inn</i> running a new
passenger boat towards the close of the century, but that too has now vanished.
Some say it was washed ashore by floods and too damaged to resume service;
others suggest that someone stole it. Signs persist of strong local interest in
getting the ferry restored, but obtaining the funding to do so looks ever less
likely in the shadows of violent austerity and COVID-19.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Till they do so, the weighty whispers
of Bablock Hythe are left largely to a fading imagination. It’s an annoyance
for walkers, cyclists and local residents, who are forced to go all the way
down to Swinford or just as far up to Newbridge in order to cross. But perhaps
its real casualty is the centuries of cultural heritage invested in this site,
as another repository of Thames memories sinks into the mire of an age that
seems to regard such things as expendable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihc40o6axPO78G44eNvv06egaG3K0ilrAgE0IkmQvdHgDtRcugAXSy0U83w_RAVy8r5HLz17LT89O9_0Qciw1EX1u6mY7G-0qZuslVntmUfY23Zjw2RWiXpIBVyswlrkiavIyWUYFFTp0/s5184/IMG_0618.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihc40o6axPO78G44eNvv06egaG3K0ilrAgE0IkmQvdHgDtRcugAXSy0U83w_RAVy8r5HLz17LT89O9_0Qciw1EX1u6mY7G-0qZuslVntmUfY23Zjw2RWiXpIBVyswlrkiavIyWUYFFTp0/w640-h480/IMG_0618.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The site of the Bablock Hythe
ferry. It would surely cost no more than a few thousand pounds to get it back
up and running, no? Would that not be a drop in the ocean for this country’s
multi-millionaire landowners, such as, say, a certain former MP for the
constituency this riverbank is in?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVdSIZcL6H9GdMxDWy82Yrpa_uVIPOlRBp6EG_y-qBNnP13SRE4zd3VyTY4KCYvQPJeaI0tiLDka9W3XO0DEW1qhvbeWE0YrQcbkHVM8Ma_rU0AaOAIiNMcogB_a3zGxHjIgAgJjeV5kA/s5184/IMG_0621.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVdSIZcL6H9GdMxDWy82Yrpa_uVIPOlRBp6EG_y-qBNnP13SRE4zd3VyTY4KCYvQPJeaI0tiLDka9W3XO0DEW1qhvbeWE0YrQcbkHVM8Ma_rU0AaOAIiNMcogB_a3zGxHjIgAgJjeV5kA/w400-h300/IMG_0621.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The next meadow along appears
to have been privatised by the caravan park for the leisure of its customers.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiandnRUn-lfhWq77i9QRpQaa-2liOixxhbUks1sHIe6ygO7VIhG88rQLdF16lgdDOez7boGEzLC3U2T2435f1C0bsfxd0J4FA__aHUSzCmEBptT-cZgmdh1sh3RrO2DHPUCrAQvPNlmlw/s5184/IMG_0622.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiandnRUn-lfhWq77i9QRpQaa-2liOixxhbUks1sHIe6ygO7VIhG88rQLdF16lgdDOez7boGEzLC3U2T2435f1C0bsfxd0J4FA__aHUSzCmEBptT-cZgmdh1sh3RrO2DHPUCrAQvPNlmlw/w300-h400/IMG_0622.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">They’re quite a long way out
here, still reliant on instruments you’d usually have to go to a museum to
see.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Northmoor Meadows</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The last four or so kilometres for
today cross the pastures of <b>Northmoor</b>, another tiny farming village
whose name means what it sounds (in reference to <i>Southmoor</i> on the other
side). These fields occupy this final corner of the great Wytham bend, beyond
which sits the historic Newbridge crossing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzEUoDlu4OxSGXJ29A1j7pwJDdRhG_sZlY2xfmlRATjPZj_ZHr994sB46QosXajDuFmGI8NR8atAr7e3UIxMFwpZwsSBy_YpdplhcsPljv8Dm4OK4TeN76thO6vJkI7w3m7AgmBq_SMIY/s5184/IMG_0624.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzEUoDlu4OxSGXJ29A1j7pwJDdRhG_sZlY2xfmlRATjPZj_ZHr994sB46QosXajDuFmGI8NR8atAr7e3UIxMFwpZwsSBy_YpdplhcsPljv8Dm4OK4TeN76thO6vJkI7w3m7AgmBq_SMIY/w640-h480/IMG_0624.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Look who’s reappeared.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjur3dRrVuelJzWQe2ZFQk8dQmVeHSWnPZR0UJG7MIxlrNJtR2E5xU45X9kJ0Ab3fcl9x8z-JnBCTTBFR1QpxFyH4ARwsYway3fk3T9KcZbU8yT5Ms3-fzDKjDQvxx9ziTnOhG-ZOO_cu8/s5184/IMG_0625.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjur3dRrVuelJzWQe2ZFQk8dQmVeHSWnPZR0UJG7MIxlrNJtR2E5xU45X9kJ0Ab3fcl9x8z-JnBCTTBFR1QpxFyH4ARwsYway3fk3T9KcZbU8yT5Ms3-fzDKjDQvxx9ziTnOhG-ZOO_cu8/w640-h480/IMG_0625.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It’s narrow enough to swim
across now. Still, don’t underestimate it. You’d see its true character if the
locks in these parts stopped working.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsgVFFl0Qas3lchz6xlUBi5bgzr5ne04_tzZcsHG_pqfLAgojVM1dM0UDjhyEooJoLI_yXe-ulAxDciqoDXsUPIKdIAakLxVRAcTK72-I4p5v80DI0QbtxXoQ-oPCFh1mM3cR47Q0rGlc/s5184/IMG_0629.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsgVFFl0Qas3lchz6xlUBi5bgzr5ne04_tzZcsHG_pqfLAgojVM1dM0UDjhyEooJoLI_yXe-ulAxDciqoDXsUPIKdIAakLxVRAcTK72-I4p5v80DI0QbtxXoQ-oPCFh1mM3cR47Q0rGlc/w400-h300/IMG_0629.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Some thick woods known as the
Eaton Plantation coat the east bank on the approach to the final curve. Eaton
is a tiny hamlet beyond them whose manor has traditionally been held by
Oxford’s St. John’s College, which </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/10/thames-16-nightmares-of-spires.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">used it as a refuge in times of
plague</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTW7odBwhNsQR8vwV7edrwV_IL-1pgYt05O66KFSN4VLmS_fEtzm6TUyHWvTkJmCiFmm8clyjhBWlEV9jYoU4UWsFAJ3dzi4OWySkNpc0F_aBiusRXrby7rF06B5GbIHB3y9DPRcknVvs/s5184/IMG_0630.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTW7odBwhNsQR8vwV7edrwV_IL-1pgYt05O66KFSN4VLmS_fEtzm6TUyHWvTkJmCiFmm8clyjhBWlEV9jYoU4UWsFAJ3dzi4OWySkNpc0F_aBiusRXrby7rF06B5GbIHB3y9DPRcknVvs/w640-h480/IMG_0630.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Possibly the wood’s tallest
resident.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">These fields too are sheep pastures. These
ones’ inhabitants appear recently sheared.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheYss7sxepD7ohf61RuOwpYCcqUe2OsNBWe-aVXXmUiUjB0r-_T71Vo-lsqO03nFKKdFEGC26CqpCKn68PdDutI0ugmFl2P2Vidyo38cLaMby2W1v63ahQY_CVWy_v5MtLXeDNw-ctqFA/s5184/IMG_0631.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheYss7sxepD7ohf61RuOwpYCcqUe2OsNBWe-aVXXmUiUjB0r-_T71Vo-lsqO03nFKKdFEGC26CqpCKn68PdDutI0ugmFl2P2Vidyo38cLaMby2W1v63ahQY_CVWy_v5MtLXeDNw-ctqFA/w640-h480/IMG_0631.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">These sheep look considerably
more naked than their fellows in the fields downstream.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mCUdugECYWaWIcg-yIyXZf_tvgp1J9ZmzrVGM-x61GbO56xdF-naLUh20O7kXOP5bQMh4Vp-GH-K0r9GbU934kg0rnMk7yqqK-B5iW9Qz-NEyPoxgfFYX0rxGZxHU5eSV_ptiunrh3o/s5184/IMG_0632.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mCUdugECYWaWIcg-yIyXZf_tvgp1J9ZmzrVGM-x61GbO56xdF-naLUh20O7kXOP5bQMh4Vp-GH-K0r9GbU934kg0rnMk7yqqK-B5iW9Qz-NEyPoxgfFYX0rxGZxHU5eSV_ptiunrh3o/w640-h480/IMG_0632.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The riverside fence here is poorly-maintained,
and one sheep got into a bit of a panic as it got its leg stuck in the fallen
string while trying to run off. Fortunately it got free. In case the
responsible farmer is wondering, I kicked the loose fencing into the bush to
stop it happening again.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAqqnZO3ZrEo_9jO78tNY0Ocz-GJOmW5fs8gZab_gnmnfKHuuSG09daOOfmtOvuJtgf58X8JFUM-tblW8ocqawNv6_qS_9KMVQaB2FE2kV8sdnyky-GPBTi1q0mGIo16ga-B6min0nBE/s5184/IMG_0633.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAqqnZO3ZrEo_9jO78tNY0Ocz-GJOmW5fs8gZab_gnmnfKHuuSG09daOOfmtOvuJtgf58X8JFUM-tblW8ocqawNv6_qS_9KMVQaB2FE2kV8sdnyky-GPBTi1q0mGIo16ga-B6min0nBE/w640-h480/IMG_0633.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The sun sets over Northmoor
Lock after a long day of trekking through the pasturelands.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Northmoor Lock</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> was built in 1896 by the Thames
Conservancy, successor to the Thames Navigation Commission. One of the river’s
remotest locks of all, it is distinguished by its weir, thought to be one of
the last paddle-and-rymer weirs (requiring manual operation using paddles) in
the world. These are considered dangerous under present-day legislation, with
most surviving examples on the Thames removed in recent years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiTepVisxWdraMZXksDBNqqvZPLyGdHjI1rnK8Lyp1DGrZAEbwr9QRP6zWwLYzK2MobwaGrrO_gwS6qz7IRT3BDkTP7Xy1I4nI6wE_wwkJxxPJauzJstx8b1yNsifr7601TOGxTdE7cvM/s5184/IMG_0634.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiTepVisxWdraMZXksDBNqqvZPLyGdHjI1rnK8Lyp1DGrZAEbwr9QRP6zWwLYzK2MobwaGrrO_gwS6qz7IRT3BDkTP7Xy1I4nI6wE_wwkJxxPJauzJstx8b1yNsifr7601TOGxTdE7cvM/w640-h480/IMG_0634.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Northmoor Lock. It was here
that the crew of ‘Tug No.2’ finally realised with great mirth that we’d been
inadvertently following each other all day.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR0LQzpsxkNoMv_qCia3toePraBiwn_5EnaVzajyDlLUdnQcnVfoNroGACvcnQHkmHIUUw9KasRV4Tr-gGZIp0d5k-N7JMEg8_p07a2s6-q_ZXoHgbV-TY3dWhjiGFOtjCepHqCoKvEig/s5184/IMG_0635.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR0LQzpsxkNoMv_qCia3toePraBiwn_5EnaVzajyDlLUdnQcnVfoNroGACvcnQHkmHIUUw9KasRV4Tr-gGZIp0d5k-N7JMEg8_p07a2s6-q_ZXoHgbV-TY3dWhjiGFOtjCepHqCoKvEig/w400-h300/IMG_0635.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The lock-keeper’s cottage,
largely unchanged since it was built.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">On the final stretch a short sequence
of residences take their late-day revenge with private-property claims to the
riverbank opposite. But they’re considerably humbler than those we put up with
in the middle river, and wisely do nothing to obstruct this final progress up
the north side.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOk4kshH0NoxU7JqKapGcmG21XLXDG-LXRfvwKAyIntn7VOgAbfMAh6rkitat0ooQ8q24bCJKEQSgYaH69VTMT1PLmJbOn-oSyZl_e-Zc7ngWL6CyfM2CkkoDD52TnKw6WRIPsI_t0d0/s5184/IMG_0637.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOk4kshH0NoxU7JqKapGcmG21XLXDG-LXRfvwKAyIntn7VOgAbfMAh6rkitat0ooQ8q24bCJKEQSgYaH69VTMT1PLmJbOn-oSyZl_e-Zc7ngWL6CyfM2CkkoDD52TnKw6WRIPsI_t0d0/w640-h480/IMG_0637.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The typical character of the
last length of river to Newbridge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7TgbIGOAg5TUlSwqLbKoc3yyL63FRK75kIUOcxX0PtVmaR-EyFqaC547quaYQuKB7VpZMbMj86wQRJBEn46k07vzGwbsX2drydl3AxpwIfRecaRGW004F8pT3mzItybNqtD7QJLQCCU/s5184/IMG_0638.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7TgbIGOAg5TUlSwqLbKoc3yyL63FRK75kIUOcxX0PtVmaR-EyFqaC547quaYQuKB7VpZMbMj86wQRJBEn46k07vzGwbsX2drydl3AxpwIfRecaRGW004F8pT3mzItybNqtD7QJLQCCU/w400-h300/IMG_0638.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Less unaffordably ostentatious
mansion, more holiday cottage, one might think.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMRmFHy3xeIQV6K2q1WdCF6P6xVqPR_hHsuPalDjYSfbba6YbQn646PB181rQfQJC3BMbNHNR5sq_yJ_XRy188A9NhWL83mSvfuawjt8o7fVfYB_zQXaom17i7erVtNTjbEeeZ8UkiAtk/s5184/IMG_0639.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMRmFHy3xeIQV6K2q1WdCF6P6xVqPR_hHsuPalDjYSfbba6YbQn646PB181rQfQJC3BMbNHNR5sq_yJ_XRy188A9NhWL83mSvfuawjt8o7fVfYB_zQXaom17i7erVtNTjbEeeZ8UkiAtk/w400-h300/IMG_0639.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The most showy of those
houses...</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSwjgtrZ1I4nqZK1PQdLzvAHTx3IZv-8P-8D2FYSncsDg02hPEzK1KruYfdSxBacB48UxIf-Gr5cPggM-GZ3HeDVCigsm9DAWXzSktC932gsKdr_gjFg-kAHIsuoeDBWuLwe52f44wLj8/s5184/IMG_0640.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSwjgtrZ1I4nqZK1PQdLzvAHTx3IZv-8P-8D2FYSncsDg02hPEzK1KruYfdSxBacB48UxIf-Gr5cPggM-GZ3HeDVCigsm9DAWXzSktC932gsKdr_gjFg-kAHIsuoeDBWuLwe52f44wLj8/w400-h300/IMG_0640.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">...and its boathouse, whose
slanted posture suggests it’s trying to exist in mismatching
timelines simultaneously.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZ0qE3NC0wbiT7xN4o_pHYZxwk0iIqRek6AAtK-Js4i5ofJC_klGey3E8FmaIVlbtkUhvTP7bFDWKDsOG3U3kuy_b0spUmLxcKmbsZH79Eml8KV9rQZCRn8c3ZvcbRbVVl6YjEq5_Utk/s5184/IMG_0641.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZ0qE3NC0wbiT7xN4o_pHYZxwk0iIqRek6AAtK-Js4i5ofJC_klGey3E8FmaIVlbtkUhvTP7bFDWKDsOG3U3kuy_b0spUmLxcKmbsZH79Eml8KV9rQZCRn8c3ZvcbRbVVl6YjEq5_Utk/w640-h480/IMG_0641.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><b>Northmoor Lock replaced a set
of flash locks and weirs nearby. One of them stood here by the name of <i>Hart’s
Weir</i>, hence this <i>Hart’s Weir Footbridge</i>. The bridge was built in
1879, a year before the weir was removed.</b></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">And at last, the fences and thickets
close in on the approach to a key strategic crossing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB6wlcEQTah1hUp9qZOLLEvUQEHm7lWrRogD7Mg5JN63usZ1rbvLmfEY8b0oW2-RcrWqQNSEN-P7XZGC5QZ-SJnJmKNtQCNWyIyR8bnwTByDCc5iXFstxUlGDzi_6N7L24ECapN0EGjeI/s5184/IMG_0643.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB6wlcEQTah1hUp9qZOLLEvUQEHm7lWrRogD7Mg5JN63usZ1rbvLmfEY8b0oW2-RcrWqQNSEN-P7XZGC5QZ-SJnJmKNtQCNWyIyR8bnwTByDCc5iXFstxUlGDzi_6N7L24ECapN0EGjeI/w400-h300/IMG_0643.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Look at that. Just when we’d
thought they’d stopped. Newbridge is strategic, yes, but steady on.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYnCCfZpyR6N8gxD7XX5wB_ylJYJiBI8eyk-vlJ_DE2LMZCahuLKOU-PMtAab7kOrblbvpFnbdwsgxhNfkMmkAyhXgmFA15Wa5K1WiQP3iruNJ_qzsmO2ld8_GmMWIm_R0XAtf2QYMLok/s5184/IMG_0644.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYnCCfZpyR6N8gxD7XX5wB_ylJYJiBI8eyk-vlJ_DE2LMZCahuLKOU-PMtAab7kOrblbvpFnbdwsgxhNfkMmkAyhXgmFA15Wa5K1WiQP3iruNJ_qzsmO2ld8_GmMWIm_R0XAtf2QYMLok/w640-h480/IMG_0644.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAevJl0WeCl5f848or8aLmXhNIp9cwF7NC7OBSyK8dhA4uKBTg62m7i2p8Fyhky-MwSiHDg4L4Ad1EnOfo143dQj4Jb0DflynNzr-at5_wgidZuiaO1OwG4Hvyp6QX3-S-D-e7FDSGDHI/s5184/IMG_0647.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAevJl0WeCl5f848or8aLmXhNIp9cwF7NC7OBSyK8dhA4uKBTg62m7i2p8Fyhky-MwSiHDg4L4Ad1EnOfo143dQj4Jb0DflynNzr-at5_wgidZuiaO1OwG4Hvyp6QX3-S-D-e7FDSGDHI/w640-h480/IMG_0647.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The <i>New Bridge</i> appears,
by whose pubs the river-travellers have pulled in their boats for the night.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNjCMJEpbj7yNC0rpLiLYbYIAnJ4x3LUBw4nUqcp2qPbI71bvlldbMph8ptCqLgyp4NXQoeQa9LogdQ9pEsckfAaQ-huxAQJENuWnwGefvXFOzZurgiAiGxlvKOxJ7HAuLg0B_wFhF-9Q/s5184/IMG_0648.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNjCMJEpbj7yNC0rpLiLYbYIAnJ4x3LUBw4nUqcp2qPbI71bvlldbMph8ptCqLgyp4NXQoeQa9LogdQ9pEsckfAaQ-huxAQJENuWnwGefvXFOzZurgiAiGxlvKOxJ7HAuLg0B_wFhF-9Q/w640-h480/IMG_0648.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The final approach passes
through the gardens of <i>The Rose Revived</i>, one of the two pubs that face
each other across the bridge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Newbridge</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This doesn’t really qualify as a
settlement. <b>Newbridge</b> is literally a bridge with a pub at each end – <i>The
Rose Revived</i> on the north side, <i>The Maybush</i> on the south – standing
together out in the open countryside. That said, it’s a hearty sight at the end
of eight hours’ slogging through said countryside, and does moreover hold a few
features of great significance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The most obvious is the bridge
itself. Despite its name, the <i>New Bridge</i>, which carries the A415
Abingdon-Witney road, is the oldest surviving bridge on the Thames. (It
competes for this status with Radcot Bridge upriver, which pre-dates it but got
wrecked in multiple conflicts and required extensive rebuilding). This bridge
has stood continuously since the early thirteenth century, when it is thought
to have been one of </span><a href="https://thames.me.uk/NewBridge.pdf"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">a set of bridges in this area built by
Norman monks</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> on the
orders of </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">King John</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. The likely context was the growth
of the Cotswold wool trade at that time, with its rising demand for access to
southern markets.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeru81fxlvZpmi71LGq92HuCvM8Ymm5C7SkqJkmpInlaJe6sTzrs29pS_Pf4GV7coD33mygFpnLiH-ZWKsY1M5GWyYylYiivmjQRPHh_HznYHs02_EPMVovG7X7WcPyu7RbC2uiicpPfg/s5184/IMG_0649.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeru81fxlvZpmi71LGq92HuCvM8Ymm5C7SkqJkmpInlaJe6sTzrs29pS_Pf4GV7coD33mygFpnLiH-ZWKsY1M5GWyYylYiivmjQRPHh_HznYHs02_EPMVovG7X7WcPyu7RbC2uiicpPfg/w640-h480/IMG_0649.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Supposedly it was a <i>new
bridge</i> in that context, i.e. built after the others in that set. Its
distinct honey-grey stone (on which more in a moment), pointy archways, and
projecting piers offering both structural strength and shelter for crossers,
make it a highly treasured piece of local heritage.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">For all its isolation, Newbridge sits
at a strategically important location equidistant from the urban nuclei of
Oxford, Abingdon and Witney. This got it threatened during the Civil Wars, in
particular in 1644 when the Parliamentary army got into a skirmish with
Royalist defenders as they attempted to cross to encircle the king’s Oxford
headquarters. They did not succeed – it was too soon – and it was this,
supposedly, that put them in such a bad mood as to </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/09/thames-15-thames-or-isis.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">take it out on Abingdon’s market
cross as they retreated there</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The bridge itself survived however,
and has continued to do so through all the trials of industrialisation, the car
and road revolution, and the contempt for heritage of a market fundamentalist
age. It has perhaps come closest to trouble in the last couple of decades as
its eight-hundred-year-old arches and elm-beam foundations noticeably struggle
to cope with present-day traffic loads, regulated as they are by traffic lights
and an eighteen-tonne weight limit. A new (that is, Newer) bridge close by
looks the likeliest of answers, yet for the moment local opposition and a lack
of funds seem to have put the matter on hold.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHlpeTgW84VUtOtmStcebksAvdeyxLWYP8cx0h1SeK0OD896Y3q6nk894_rQrbMmoIdRhWcJYU37gdu7N43fUsQPWEaHEDKFN98E-5shJVPcJJYxyYBjSAACXe7btHESOsTfgu2jGiato/s5184/IMG_0650.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHlpeTgW84VUtOtmStcebksAvdeyxLWYP8cx0h1SeK0OD896Y3q6nk894_rQrbMmoIdRhWcJYU37gdu7N43fUsQPWEaHEDKFN98E-5shJVPcJJYxyYBjSAACXe7btHESOsTfgu2jGiato/w640-h480/IMG_0650.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"><i>The Rose Revived</i> at the
north end of the bridge is possibly about as old as the bridge itself, although
its name seems to have changed several times. A legend, likely apocryphal, has
Oliver Cromwell drinking here during the Civil War and placing a drooping rose
from his attire into his ale tankard, which, it is said, revived and so gave
the pub its name. In the centuries since then it’s also been known as the <i>Fayre
Inn</i>, <i>The</i> <i>Rose and Crown</i>, and simply <i>The Rose</i>.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqv05mqkgKD4TYFlcbErnbkJQOOFlhGZ9Pzxlcc0krSmKVmZPhFBn_yxacIo_7CUyF1IkVfYmEQhv0heRlqU8tl966_ZkW-95wwRc-D5PBCSB1U_9_3hrY9oPpaQhB19AxhBEe5KqrB5w/s5184/IMG_0651.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqv05mqkgKD4TYFlcbErnbkJQOOFlhGZ9Pzxlcc0krSmKVmZPhFBn_yxacIo_7CUyF1IkVfYmEQhv0heRlqU8tl966_ZkW-95wwRc-D5PBCSB1U_9_3hrY9oPpaQhB19AxhBEe5KqrB5w/w640-h480/IMG_0651.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">At the south end stands <i>The
Maybush</i>, rumoured to occupy the house where the hermit charged by the monks
to care for the bridge once lived. Both pubs were severely damaged during the devastating
floods of summer 2007 but have since been repaired.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Why here then? What was the
underlying significance of this site? As always it is the water that must have
the final word, and that word is one which as of now should send caterpillars
of shame down every English spine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqdLgU2NxFkWBDlxHal0adJxEtp-R7JzpohBNAcyER6YMe6mzrTIklBSBTqCQd7LqGL0fMQWzI_4Su-eVpxXVJk_dPyqWJi72tbHBppY8QYAtk4ik38oeJK2y-MkRvD4-8FDYhhmGGe5U/s5184/IMG_0652.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqdLgU2NxFkWBDlxHal0adJxEtp-R7JzpohBNAcyER6YMe6mzrTIklBSBTqCQd7LqGL0fMQWzI_4Su-eVpxXVJk_dPyqWJi72tbHBppY8QYAtk4ik38oeJK2y-MkRvD4-8FDYhhmGGe5U/w640-h480/IMG_0652.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Windrush.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The tranquil <b>Windrush</b>, with a
name thought to come from the ancient Celtic for ‘white fen’, rises in the East
Gloucestershire Cotswolds and glides a gentle path down through West
Oxfordshire, via Witney, to arrive at the Thames here. It is up this waterway
that stands the famed ancient quarries of Taynton, whose Cotswold limestone it
brought forth to build this <i>New Bridge</i> as well as the grandiose
dreamscape of the Oxford colleges.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet the Windrush is best known for
another signature it left in this country’s history. After the German cruise
ship MV <i>Monte Rosa</i> was repurposed as a transport and prison ship by the
Nazis, it was seized by the British in northern Germany in the closing months
of World War II. Following the pattern of giving captured ships the names of
rivers, it was this here tributary that rebirthed that vessel under the new
name of <b>HMT <i>Empire Windrush</i></b>. Three years later, in 1948, it would
sail into Tilbury harbour on its most famous journey: that which brought
several hundred migrants from the then-British colony of Jamaica, who along
with other colonial ‘subjects’ had all just been granted British citizenship. Many were responding to British adverts in Jamaican newspapers to
come and work in the ‘mother country’ as it staggered from the bombed-out
wreckage of the war.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">These passengers were the first in a
generation of Caribbean immigrants who took up the call to come here, helped this country rebuild, made critical contributions from public transport
to the fledgling National Health Service (NHS) in a time of labour shortage,
and together with those who arrived after them earned an esteemed place in
national memory under the name of the ship on which they first arrived, and by
extension the river for which it was named: the <b>Windrush Generation</b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">But of course, everyone knows the hellish
descent of this story. These people received racist hostility from the start,
not least from a government whose extension of citizenship to the colonies had
been aimed at light-skinned people from, say, Canada or Australia – and who
when they realised also included dark-skinned people, turned heaven and earth
upside down to stop more coming. Decades of violence, prejudice and
discrimination followed, much of it orchestrated by racist (when not explicitly
neo-fascist) politicians and popular movements. And in the 2010s their successors
in the Conservative Party government completed a horrific revenge by illegally
deporting hundreds of citizens from the Windrush Generation, many of whom had
lived and worked in this country for almost their entire lives, as part of the <i>Hostile
Environment</i> programme of racial persecution.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This <b>Windrush Scandal</b>, as it
became known, only broke in 2017 after committed efforts by investigative
journalists to expose it. It temporarily unbalanced the government, most
notably forcing the resignation of Home Secretary Amber Rudd. But the damage
was done: huge numbers of Windrush citizens had had their lives destroyed,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>losing their jobs, homes, communities, loved
ones, physical and mental health, and in some cases dying in trauma without
ever receiving redress. Since then the scandal has largely been overtaken in
the news by disasters like Brexit and COVID-19, with the result that its
victims continue to suffer the consequences unaided by a risibly ineffective
compensation scheme. Moreover, no-one has been criminally charged for the
cruelties inflicted upon them, and far from being discouraged, the wanton
forced deportations continue to worsen, with total impunity, upon a surging
tide of government-led culture-war-infused popular xenophobia. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Fitting then that the Windrush river
is where we end this day’s journey. Lest the broad expanse of green and blue lead
us to believe we can ever escape this country’s descent, we are
washed back to reality by this river of tears, which laments into the Thames
the atrocities committed unto its name.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWJ3ev2aWl_R_YmxVdM8J6S1ntKqvs4gSrgbLM3Yh6PAbzAD1AVK_Ne1K3i354dqU7zxmHcbpgO-VKh6P_d-08tmtznO-In9_jGusMMbvTHMzaGEuS9rc6JZZ37kTnNkn0uu4KCGREF1A/s5184/Windrush+%2528inverted%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWJ3ev2aWl_R_YmxVdM8J6S1ntKqvs4gSrgbLM3Yh6PAbzAD1AVK_Ne1K3i354dqU7zxmHcbpgO-VKh6P_d-08tmtznO-In9_jGusMMbvTHMzaGEuS9rc6JZZ37kTnNkn0uu4KCGREF1A/w640-h480/Windrush+%2528inverted%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">After the
Empire Windrush, the Windrush Generation and the Windrush Scandal, will there
be a <i>Windrush Tribunal</i> in which the architects of the racist persecutions
of the 2010s, many of whom still occupy the highest offices of English
government, are finally held to account for the wrongs they have inflicted?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span></b></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Newbridge, Witney OX29 7QD, UK51.710811 -1.41767930.440232045631852 -36.573928999999985 72.981389954368154 33.738570999999986tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-2197693761777222332021-10-01T15:37:00.001+01:002021-10-12T11:15:32.521+01:00THAMES: 16) Nightmares of the Spires<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">A <i>crossing for oxen</i>, they
called it. Good enough, right? Who doesn’t like oxen? They go nuuo. Watch them
mooch across the river. Touch them, if you really want. Build your civilisation
around all the stuff they do for you. Was that not enough?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Apparently not, because then they
just had to go and do this.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHcICY-_GLkv1tqu9B7ZvnSmTH1n2trxE6UBXiXD7lbND2L7rztbePod3mJFh2r4b33zs41kx_Sbg-7LOd1LN0tMzLnm3Jgb12f6xbkHT5z3sLiZzzej_-Eigr4CmFHo5nFsXqZ3sU2XA/s5184/IMG_0427.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHcICY-_GLkv1tqu9B7ZvnSmTH1n2trxE6UBXiXD7lbND2L7rztbePod3mJFh2r4b33zs41kx_Sbg-7LOd1LN0tMzLnm3Jgb12f6xbkHT5z3sLiZzzej_-Eigr4CmFHo5nFsXqZ3sU2XA/w640-h480/IMG_0427.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNGkpLBTfryCcFT3Ic8BE7_gysVmCIG8rr9BmtCxt5NaoRAP-Gg-VnoBGmzMVg4CDlyoHGOMTg7z1E7RW-i_mC6dXCVo-TXHJaay0QFCNECvMFk4zcmQK0NtHL0sHw-xP7PECF_C7lIBs/s5184/IMG_0424.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNGkpLBTfryCcFT3Ic8BE7_gysVmCIG8rr9BmtCxt5NaoRAP-Gg-VnoBGmzMVg4CDlyoHGOMTg7z1E7RW-i_mC6dXCVo-TXHJaay0QFCNECvMFk4zcmQK0NtHL0sHw-xP7PECF_C7lIBs/w640-h480/IMG_0424.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">“I have an idea, let’s pack
our settlement with as many limestone <s>phalluses</s> sticky-up bits as we
possibly can. Wouldn’t that be cool?”</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIcWDLMGQanlUtuRXed9ecCK9I2nYsnbTXZTAd6YjBh-YL8z8GmyGvQ2d-jw7xbz2ohPKYpMI4Cf58W_6C7WkHiaXX4PphrZ0u_vgCTCKPi4wXEAwI5ca9sgcXwZepdi335x2qHDjbCQU/s5184/IMG_0417.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIcWDLMGQanlUtuRXed9ecCK9I2nYsnbTXZTAd6YjBh-YL8z8GmyGvQ2d-jw7xbz2ohPKYpMI4Cf58W_6C7WkHiaXX4PphrZ0u_vgCTCKPi4wXEAwI5ca9sgcXwZepdi335x2qHDjbCQU/w640-h480/IMG_0417.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">So they did, and now everyone
thinks they’re special.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">So rose the <i>dreaming spires</i>,
as they were so irritatingly immortalised in the poetry of Matthew Arnold, and
in their image the oxen-ford – one of so many – became the den of one of the oldest
and most prestigious institutions of all humankind. To this day the crackling
magnetism of its erudite pinnacles strikes awe into throngs of aspiring
participants and visitors from all the inhabited corners of this world...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">...for most of whom its name, with its scholarly romance, is all but synonymous with that of the
settlement which hosts it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Here, then, is <b>Oxford</b>: principal city
– <i>only</i> city – of the upper Thames, and capital both of its wealthy shire
and of the English literary imagination.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYx34SljMcyNf7OZr4_drfx9RB6ob7ya9Pi9HDXy2V9zTgLnsr1tqAM7L1IlpHN7MibxLv2hEhgjiUUTEDlidM3gP-xiN256Ui_erZBy3cR5wlr0bbQH7RMZic-AD3aL3GnSy3pwB-OoY/s5184/IMG_0429.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYx34SljMcyNf7OZr4_drfx9RB6ob7ya9Pi9HDXy2V9zTgLnsr1tqAM7L1IlpHN7MibxLv2hEhgjiUUTEDlidM3gP-xiN256Ui_erZBy3cR5wlr0bbQH7RMZic-AD3aL3GnSy3pwB-OoY/w640-h480/IMG_0429.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Has anyone actually counted the
spikes in this place? Is it possible within one lifetime?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">But we aren’t here for the romance.
This <i>critical</i> expedition up the Thames (</span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/09/thames-15-thames-or-isis.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">‘or Isis’, as they call it here</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">) has proceeded upon the principle
that the more highly a place’s power pierces the sky, the heavier the anvil of
scrutiny onto which its ear must be brought down. And here, at the very peak of
the procession of the Privilege Forts of the middle Thames, we confront – just
look at it – the most practised and proficient sky-shredders of all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">What is Oxford, really? Is there not,
beneath the glamour and fancy masonry, a Thames town like any other? An Oxford
of wars and riots, of massacres and plagues, of industrial hope and ruination,
of brutal exclusion and injustice? The people of this city would be the first
to tell you that the university is not all that Oxford is, and has in fact been
an almighty pain in the arse for its mere mortal populace at times. And as for
that university, for all its polished dialects and lengthy bibliographies, should
we not expect that it is but one more creation of the English, with all the
dreadful tendencies they have displayed when they get their hands on power?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcw6-pZZ48t2S_oEEzULNukZS7zqp9jNc4pwlkt8g8MyAbuWW8Td9ADUQt6H_S41tMjUO0os1I0QLTY_YNkrafevDExus_jQrCyq-J7c0eFuOFAuiXm_cS37RJuca0TDBEkd3DygEgwgU/s5184/IMG_0426.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcw6-pZZ48t2S_oEEzULNukZS7zqp9jNc4pwlkt8g8MyAbuWW8Td9ADUQt6H_S41tMjUO0os1I0QLTY_YNkrafevDExus_jQrCyq-J7c0eFuOFAuiXm_cS37RJuca0TDBEkd3DygEgwgU/w400-h300/IMG_0426.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">As the palaces and castles on
the way up here have well demonstrated, you don’t typically make it this big in
this country without perpetrating some awful level of colonial, gendered and/or
class-based violence. Do the spires stand shameless in that pattern? Or dare
they claim exemption from it?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYaIoXM9djdQhmvxEKo1kzCOmgxHX-a6Lt6sAd_lWJCygnu8sPC_liFarZ2HoT42QmiUENScY9rBV-o7xLKDemV2OQU1mmrO2v9n_dvu9o816qi9qiBH9OrCmGwkjg-nTlM56iEgv9Wq0/s5184/IMG_0253.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYaIoXM9djdQhmvxEKo1kzCOmgxHX-a6Lt6sAd_lWJCygnu8sPC_liFarZ2HoT42QmiUENScY9rBV-o7xLKDemV2OQU1mmrO2v9n_dvu9o816qi9qiBH9OrCmGwkjg-nTlM56iEgv9Wq0/w640-h480/IMG_0253.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The river downstream near Abingdon. A world away from the spires, yet ever in their shadow.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">With its enormous weight in books,
films and other popular media, Oxford projects the expectation of its atmosphere
of enchantment across its surrounding countryside. But the length of river that
links it to Abingdon, though never far on the map from the grand city or its
satellites, feels like the remotest reach so far on this journey. Perhaps its
magic has deteriorated along with its country? Or was it always more illusion
than reality? Either way it is time to traverse it, and so complete the middle Thames passage.<br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIUQzJERQUqMe7bxg0XNBKVC1pYLY3j-zOyIuNQCm2orEfl4i8H2qV_by1ap_GDBCWb49CDpakYiJLT21hf1hozwzkEFVAIOmoghUkVJSTaMY9SNaNu6fGhSRhvIshXMDNIjrEhOEWWYY/s5184/IMG_0228.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIUQzJERQUqMe7bxg0XNBKVC1pYLY3j-zOyIuNQCm2orEfl4i8H2qV_by1ap_GDBCWb49CDpakYiJLT21hf1hozwzkEFVAIOmoghUkVJSTaMY9SNaNu6fGhSRhvIshXMDNIjrEhOEWWYY/w640-h480/IMG_0228.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Upstream from Abingdon Bridge,
the start of today’s section, on a fog-filled late summer’s morning. At right
is the <i>Nag’s Head</i> pub on its namesake river island.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPTwY4bKIzhnWVuZ_ChyZSet4qNGu-lTdr6VRALWCvq6Wdegkl39ahFDTDjuWRqSEKjV63PYq_4KoBAx6cG7fq8Pq0P6vP3f4oo6aFm4bJ9ZC6ZRiytgWxrVN2xfVIK3K4zY2GFaq6FhA/s697/16%2529+Abingdon+to+Oxford.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="697" data-original-width="445" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPTwY4bKIzhnWVuZ_ChyZSet4qNGu-lTdr6VRALWCvq6Wdegkl39ahFDTDjuWRqSEKjV63PYq_4KoBAx6cG7fq8Pq0P6vP3f4oo6aFm4bJ9ZC6ZRiytgWxrVN2xfVIK3K4zY2GFaq6FhA/w408-h640/16%2529+Abingdon+to+Oxford.png" width="408" /></a></div><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Start:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Abingdon Bridge (<i>nearest station:
miles away, take the bus to Stratton Way from Oxford or Didcot Parkway instead</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">End:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Osney Bridge (<i>nearest station: Oxford</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Length: 15.2km/9.5 miles</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Location: Oxfordshire – South Oxfordshire,
Vale of White Horse, City of Oxford</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Topics</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">: Abingdon outskirts, Nuneham
Courtenay (with Lewis Carroll, and the forced removal of an entire village),
Radley (with Radley College), Sandford-on-Thames (with the ‘Sandford Lasher’),
Oxford suburbs, <b>Oxford – City and University</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span><a name='more'></a></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Abingdon outskirts</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The lay of Abingdon’s surroundings was
</span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/09/thames-15-thames-or-isis.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">shaped long ago by its monastery</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. Across the two-part Abingdon Bridge
the island of Andersey, now the town’s recreational green space, was formed by
the ‘Swift Ditch’ which the monks cut through this corner a millennium ago. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh56-9FgWdd9tt7d3juhpIQWGYJ5O8ClkfA11d7vzkcMmoH9njYfmmrVI2Njx8xE-IcDKUTRH7iUpY6Dl-9DrhVqPlt1zZbJoweO1uaMfij292jiL4WP7ESFmQP1umxrZy8Povp3KnYOzM/s5184/IMG_0231.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh56-9FgWdd9tt7d3juhpIQWGYJ5O8ClkfA11d7vzkcMmoH9njYfmmrVI2Njx8xE-IcDKUTRH7iUpY6Dl-9DrhVqPlt1zZbJoweO1uaMfij292jiL4WP7ESFmQP1umxrZy8Povp3KnYOzM/w640-h480/IMG_0231.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">On the north side are the
Abbey Meadows: once the grounds of Abingdon Abbey, now a public park and play
area with outdoor pool. The southern Andersey banks are more open, less
done-up, and a fun place for dogs to run around.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVqIVYRzilWKibdPODU1CtVBdy9gbvR2-Mt6wwBSXoiBT1meuSnbcXdfhugV31sSsZYma_ChWl76zN1xgaw_UlQjT_uVDwrt2CM2J-0eFPn-Ozv8qKMPCrtYLzHnFKU9RwuxbGAWbH9SA/s5184/IMG_0232.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVqIVYRzilWKibdPODU1CtVBdy9gbvR2-Mt6wwBSXoiBT1meuSnbcXdfhugV31sSsZYma_ChWl76zN1xgaw_UlQjT_uVDwrt2CM2J-0eFPn-Ozv8qKMPCrtYLzHnFKU9RwuxbGAWbH9SA/w640-h480/IMG_0232.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Then the bush packs in, a
preliminary taste of green density to come.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3iB59jikRTGhuJn2fT7E2ypO_gf5G0vXtarZQXUqQXelh_ApvgjPd7AszM2imtfeKsLvx1_zUrPBX5oMuegdOVZ7tadbhdQOFx2QmcMKRm8NG2wPSe42R4qu9zax62uaI1VulpwQ-Tg/s5184/IMG_0233.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3iB59jikRTGhuJn2fT7E2ypO_gf5G0vXtarZQXUqQXelh_ApvgjPd7AszM2imtfeKsLvx1_zUrPBX5oMuegdOVZ7tadbhdQOFx2QmcMKRm8NG2wPSe42R4qu9zax62uaI1VulpwQ-Tg/w400-h300/IMG_0233.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A few thoughtfully-positioned
spiderwebs have revived this withered bush as a natural art installation.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAGuLj9FqC10GoWYZ7tf7G76Rn4yQ_RoWj8HHnlpiobhBWFRHG_8TRmRX096CpesVvTPQKEeQujFBfXW_K9aRNzasyI_qp_0R_4O1cNzlMosORGXFB34BOADG4NDLAQ5IQ8dhhyphenhyphenk086YU/s5184/IMG_0234.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAGuLj9FqC10GoWYZ7tf7G76Rn4yQ_RoWj8HHnlpiobhBWFRHG_8TRmRX096CpesVvTPQKEeQujFBfXW_K9aRNzasyI_qp_0R_4O1cNzlMosORGXFB34BOADG4NDLAQ5IQ8dhhyphenhyphenk086YU/w400-h300/IMG_0234.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And here’s the food court, doing
hearty custom this morning.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Just upstream of the town sits <b>Abingdon
Lock</b>. At first glance a 1790 Thames Navigation Commission job like many of
the others, this lock is in fact a creature of the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/09/thames-15-thames-or-isis.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">long hydropolitical story of this
bend</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. For most of
the preceding centuries the Abbey’s ‘Swift Ditch’ had functioned as the main
channel for river traffic. But with the coming of industrial times, Abingdon’s
mercantile interests, likely eyeing the imminent arrival of the Wilts and Berks
Canal, managed to revert the main route to this natural channel and got this
lock constructed as part of that process.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWZsQ9wiUi_jaCwKC0Za6TX1XGJG_sZ_d7iXm5a13oA7A2EMgUzbxgGraZ7gDDeSt87V542aVUgmJvFub41fT9iySFo4vY5VgsEo2h21mDqMVqjOc8VbWQfadqeKe2LUuacLQIXSvA3Ao/s5184/IMG_0236.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWZsQ9wiUi_jaCwKC0Za6TX1XGJG_sZ_d7iXm5a13oA7A2EMgUzbxgGraZ7gDDeSt87V542aVUgmJvFub41fT9iySFo4vY5VgsEo2h21mDqMVqjOc8VbWQfadqeKe2LUuacLQIXSvA3Ao/w640-h480/IMG_0236.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Abingdon Lock.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkpQPgXER2CaIF4XtSn8kFcfDm58QnxW_Jm6-ShI-aNQP9XdbkBOOQxhuYj14On20JVKnHWMSXjC26UlWBaj7CF0bpIsxC5Bz9EGGoTzxf1HkqNnNa7Fqc9azpNe75u6mmdI983wq8fCg/s5184/IMG_0238.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkpQPgXER2CaIF4XtSn8kFcfDm58QnxW_Jm6-ShI-aNQP9XdbkBOOQxhuYj14On20JVKnHWMSXjC26UlWBaj7CF0bpIsxC5Bz9EGGoTzxf1HkqNnNa7Fqc9azpNe75u6mmdI983wq8fCg/w400-h300/IMG_0238.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The weir is thought to descend
from one the monks built in the tenth century. Walkers can cross it to the
north bank, as the south has impassably steep woods ahead.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5fQpE20xVrFZI-9elLX0WgcgFBJNuSfcyNZG46EgwOFm5SIU4avcobak_kKt0BjwKD1nbCZpl85UmizgE2WkXK4W508o7uZDUpQ0S_GXTd8oyB46bfeFH17p2kSmW1NhVG-DTJU8Xig/s5184/IMG_0240.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5fQpE20xVrFZI-9elLX0WgcgFBJNuSfcyNZG46EgwOFm5SIU4avcobak_kKt0BjwKD1nbCZpl85UmizgE2WkXK4W508o7uZDUpQ0S_GXTd8oyB46bfeFH17p2kSmW1NhVG-DTJU8Xig/w400-h300/IMG_0240.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A more exotic breed of cattle
than those more regularly encountered on these stretches.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The north bank now provides an escape
from Abingdon through the <i>Barton Fields</i>. This former infrastructural
land has been converted to a rich little nature reserve, designated in 2003 and
managed by local volunteers to promote biodiversity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyhQfBXGiVcrziwJKkOuXs5NiM6CnXpxzYJmX0fW3_zgQq7V5jfOFsyY7OAw-qmpPwRAgOYW7NGbdwQPcFk8UIh3ohlCaxpI8h3QcS9y_S_4TWz3j3xBmyYFRhSkIRMulHZgbqC9XFFvg/s5184/IMG_0241.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyhQfBXGiVcrziwJKkOuXs5NiM6CnXpxzYJmX0fW3_zgQq7V5jfOFsyY7OAw-qmpPwRAgOYW7NGbdwQPcFk8UIh3ohlCaxpI8h3QcS9y_S_4TWz3j3xBmyYFRhSkIRMulHZgbqC9XFFvg/w400-h300/IMG_0241.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The thick growths push roamers
off the river for a while, but you are still in regular company of its inlets
and ditches. The Abbey used to leverage these local waterways as fisheries and an
energy source for its mills.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihaaSwNDgS5ivKAgitDMQU4vn3XcErhjkNsEhYX7By6ZaVKtNYwpUKvn5oMfV2EAEqZjIWsS2PBJ7dnPdO90goRquNq2BZCcI1K4j67xYZ2zUSf3U_D7jgPYiq37MnaEKETvnVPNH51hw/s5184/IMG_0245.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihaaSwNDgS5ivKAgitDMQU4vn3XcErhjkNsEhYX7By6ZaVKtNYwpUKvn5oMfV2EAEqZjIWsS2PBJ7dnPdO90goRquNq2BZCcI1K4j67xYZ2zUSf3U_D7jgPYiq37MnaEKETvnVPNH51hw/w400-h300/IMG_0245.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Barton Fields has been arranged
to shelter a range of habitat types. Abingdon’s railway station used to stand
on this side of the town, connected via a branch line through here to Radley
upriver. Most of the track was pulled up after its closure in the 1980s during
Abingdon’s industrial decline.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This being a nature reserve, it’s
worth keeping an eye out for early morning friends.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5wZtungVGrARPYQmDn8fRn6Bd7_QVBD3HkSylzviQoREZgtKcb6FfjeooDi34aWm2OC0PcQ2A5Rw5ZS_VPe8DIwZYRWuShVk0oV9JZZMx-OIi6FsHBFsBdJqC3-X-JFaEKsdKwvtRR20/s5184/IMG_0244.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5wZtungVGrARPYQmDn8fRn6Bd7_QVBD3HkSylzviQoREZgtKcb6FfjeooDi34aWm2OC0PcQ2A5Rw5ZS_VPe8DIwZYRWuShVk0oV9JZZMx-OIi6FsHBFsBdJqC3-X-JFaEKsdKwvtRR20/w400-h300/IMG_0244.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1BZwYdbuaeBAZ-lFTG3hTdz2e09gpqrvynWTT-CQOpiooQY6njjjmd7efppObCqegxnIxh4IV-PajDj4_gc3ukSY0tbJhl0fNRPetogKS-Ll4WwUYVHkkZ0blDCmiyNdG-XUaFtxnBv0/s5184/IMG_0248.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1BZwYdbuaeBAZ-lFTG3hTdz2e09gpqrvynWTT-CQOpiooQY6njjjmd7efppObCqegxnIxh4IV-PajDj4_gc3ukSY0tbJhl0fNRPetogKS-Ll4WwUYVHkkZ0blDCmiyNdG-XUaFtxnBv0/w400-h300/IMG_0248.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRvgupIgQophdapWEcz-cLvBdgENmnOhYsfYGlkF7pVuf0WqA8GDx9WP0A9-uExds022me-aNcidY6bwkLPtwgKG_USXlutCr3ZZeoayfJ28ivz8OuLhB812sLJ5Z_lUsDFZKbWyoG1I8/s5184/IMG_0246.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRvgupIgQophdapWEcz-cLvBdgENmnOhYsfYGlkF7pVuf0WqA8GDx9WP0A9-uExds022me-aNcidY6bwkLPtwgKG_USXlutCr3ZZeoayfJ28ivz8OuLhB812sLJ5Z_lUsDFZKbWyoG1I8/w300-h400/IMG_0246.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Today was one of the last
blasts of summer, with the cooling nights coating the plant life in dew.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge33gUi7G6Xik2OyQsd6S4AXUnx-OlTOMqsPcZjzwr23-cmY2VYoKiNo09uiLi3nl33SJLOUM0zD3DR5sHGTBhfFvlOc-KasU-Jjhn-xqsXuYEnKLWRbYLAC55TqJyI9cbC7gDfnJX-B0/s5184/IMG_0249.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge33gUi7G6Xik2OyQsd6S4AXUnx-OlTOMqsPcZjzwr23-cmY2VYoKiNo09uiLi3nl33SJLOUM0zD3DR5sHGTBhfFvlOc-KasU-Jjhn-xqsXuYEnKLWRbYLAC55TqJyI9cbC7gDfnJX-B0/w400-h300/IMG_0249.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">These would appear to be
Raging Red Furyberries, which derive their colouration from how each berry has
political opinions in radical conflict with the berries next to it. Lacking the
armaments or locomotion to smash each other up, they can only seethe in crimson
frustration.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The upper entrance to the ‘Swift
Ditch’ marks the effective limit of Abingdon’s control of the river, and the
entry in earnest to Oxford’s inner envelope.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZV4uEdaRpNIx4cXi8CdSDyKg3ovtxjL_IJeuR7OdmGm61dtzjcerTo1fpmUxpL_L7q5jIvmO1mwb1j0dJRR090xiKveoUJQz42zjSLawCFfMnumjGaiT3MfaeUDN25BSFSFgNipHCjMg/s5184/IMG_0250.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZV4uEdaRpNIx4cXi8CdSDyKg3ovtxjL_IJeuR7OdmGm61dtzjcerTo1fpmUxpL_L7q5jIvmO1mwb1j0dJRR090xiKveoUJQz42zjSLawCFfMnumjGaiT3MfaeUDN25BSFSFgNipHCjMg/w640-h480/IMG_0250.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Provoked past its patience by
the manifold misdeeds of this society, the grass here seems to have risen up
and devoured whole the users of this picnic site. No-one has dared go near it
since.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguaYDkeCMjMCdMLonNlTeLea4uc9BuksJ7Y_D-NZeVTuCdB64JLB9rOtturB7yBJMf4T1EiTJRzxZRlMzSziVjpaNROv21cdVlV4ySZk5-vIvVkEtRSDhTM7DGIy__iLU6AxrmCXFNjGU/s5184/IMG_0251.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguaYDkeCMjMCdMLonNlTeLea4uc9BuksJ7Y_D-NZeVTuCdB64JLB9rOtturB7yBJMf4T1EiTJRzxZRlMzSziVjpaNROv21cdVlV4ySZk5-vIvVkEtRSDhTM7DGIy__iLU6AxrmCXFNjGU/w400-h300/IMG_0251.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And here’s one of the two
adjacent entries to the ‘Swift Ditch’. The land at right (with boat) is the
northeastern corner of Andersey island. Imagine how many monks must have
trudged out here, robes rolled up and toting picks and shovels, to dig out this
channel one thousand years ago.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtFhE6Ue5rHvKuYCsHkaQk_OAqNXC6UJ33TP12gqM5UVVoaMpeVl3CnLCoQVtuF9pQzLtAKn-H0dU8PICrNRaqy9nNtGiH8vXgepTg1WW72LvjPtdWpnYCfZxWdG_cPB9yn8z6b5nMoDg/s5184/IMG_0252.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtFhE6Ue5rHvKuYCsHkaQk_OAqNXC6UJ33TP12gqM5UVVoaMpeVl3CnLCoQVtuF9pQzLtAKn-H0dU8PICrNRaqy9nNtGiH8vXgepTg1WW72LvjPtdWpnYCfZxWdG_cPB9yn8z6b5nMoDg/w640-h480/IMG_0252.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Out of sight beyond the
northern fields are more </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-14-settling-point.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">gravel pits</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, abandoned decades ago and since
flooded to form the <i>Radley Lakes</i>. Originally numbering over a dozen and
spreading all the way up the banks ahead, about half were obliterated when the
electrical authorities and corporations began dumping waste ash from Didcot
Power Station into them. This provoked a frantic community campaign, which in
the 2000s managed to stop the destruction and preserve what was left of the
lakes as a recreational space and wildlife reserve.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_lSAamzqJEw0XcSo51m0YLFF-HfNmdzBmIP1NYB0GapUILGbFk01RFCWwix9xr5nBfpA4mdvU80WArunuWk-ANhzn_Jo7B0JL-PeJ5bP2VfhdPqYp-8B6OQWdcY5Q76h3od5qQJuJHkE/s5184/IMG_0254.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_lSAamzqJEw0XcSo51m0YLFF-HfNmdzBmIP1NYB0GapUILGbFk01RFCWwix9xr5nBfpA4mdvU80WArunuWk-ANhzn_Jo7B0JL-PeJ5bP2VfhdPqYp-8B6OQWdcY5Q76h3od5qQJuJHkE/w400-h300/IMG_0254.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Is the water magic because of
Oxford? Does drinking it make you more knowledgeable? Want to try it? (Hint:
don’t try it.)</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This then is the <b>Oxford Green Belt</b>:
a doughnut of land, some five miles in radius, where since 1975 planning and
development have been heavily constrained by the local authorities to limit
Oxford’s urban sprawl.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In an English context Green Belts
became an established notion in the twentieth century, championed especially by
Labour Party administrations against the harms of rampant urbanisation and now
in place around some dozen towns and cities. They are resented by the priests
of the free market, whose go-to argument seems to be that Green Belts reduce
space for building houses, thus pushing up house prices and contributing to the
English housing crisis (a far from theoretical problem in this particular
region). In fact Green Belts are a red (or perhaps green) herring on this matter.
The housing crisis has less to do with land scarcity and more to do with the
English class system – specifically, the policy-driven disappearance of
affordable social housing, and a housing sector configured not for those who
need somewhere to live but rather for bankers, housing speculators and rampant
landlordism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwvuPo0vbMgdAuDFf89WHU1hH_z6HFP4FED7jwBcyJWg2Ya6Prfw350TJxKZoWeAm7F4zkDXrDmcojDWouRUhC_yZZjclPDsDPP-_9MrhkKgz5l3bzhi5CybfaWHxopf59MaOUHENikpk/s5184/IMG_0255.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwvuPo0vbMgdAuDFf89WHU1hH_z6HFP4FED7jwBcyJWg2Ya6Prfw350TJxKZoWeAm7F4zkDXrDmcojDWouRUhC_yZZjclPDsDPP-_9MrhkKgz5l3bzhi5CybfaWHxopf59MaOUHENikpk/w640-h480/IMG_0255.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">White and purple daisies like
these are in abundance up this riverbank. They’re not to blame for this
country’s homelessness disaster.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOp-5Lxx9BO3unMUDifxFAKNFKpLaXzbsU8wQq0qNuFh7wtB0D8dK3R43S_yKs8I3hyN2pw-Rgp2d4Pv4CAuH5Ih1EgnuyD7kI2q3zJ8p_TDX1pcxlOo4s7s9tvjCfwN2dBWq-D20WQN8/s5184/IMG_0257.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOp-5Lxx9BO3unMUDifxFAKNFKpLaXzbsU8wQq0qNuFh7wtB0D8dK3R43S_yKs8I3hyN2pw-Rgp2d4Pv4CAuH5Ih1EgnuyD7kI2q3zJ8p_TDX1pcxlOo4s7s9tvjCfwN2dBWq-D20WQN8/w400-h300/IMG_0257.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">To the south, the bush has
started to gobble up this forgotten agricultural concern.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMf9HtUpEqQNJjMzAeHcjZaJXQ595IwTRqk3BYd0oZMk7ua74x7-7bpD96Mld-puv9cPTEgbENopUK-AsbzrNSEg76zpE7u9ez9WNHLJuNJ3bl_It1eqyf5zs4lhMnOTIm3m12Dk4-4HU/s5184/IMG_0258.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMf9HtUpEqQNJjMzAeHcjZaJXQ595IwTRqk3BYd0oZMk7ua74x7-7bpD96Mld-puv9cPTEgbENopUK-AsbzrNSEg76zpE7u9ez9WNHLJuNJ3bl_It1eqyf5zs4lhMnOTIm3m12Dk4-4HU/w400-h300/IMG_0258.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">More earthworks to the south.
A tradition </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-14-settling-point.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">stretching back thousands of years in this region</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> was added
to by these more recent works to build the Culham off-road motorcycle
(‘motocross’) racetrack. This prestigious course in the motocross world is
currently a battleground in the Green Belt war; property developers are hungering
to overwhelm it with an estate of over 3,000 new (and no doubt unaffordable)
houses that would be several times larger than most of the surrounding villages.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Here the Nuneham Railway Bridge –
colloquially the <i>Black Bridge</i> – brings the Great Western Railway’s
Oxford branch back across the river, with which it now runs in parallel the
rest of the way to Oxford. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh58Y568_bVum9EehM092SPrBw-N2dMuk2vqfp8J8q5my6J8aJymd3VjHB8R_yaiVo9XF-2JeHKZ5FS4Jq_uhyphenhyphenvmuSUn30OXZE_MhatsNRHiAHKUfnEiskYrN7XGyVTGcR5_YTEEODnSXk/s5184/IMG_0259.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh58Y568_bVum9EehM092SPrBw-N2dMuk2vqfp8J8q5my6J8aJymd3VjHB8R_yaiVo9XF-2JeHKZ5FS4Jq_uhyphenhyphenvmuSUn30OXZE_MhatsNRHiAHKUfnEiskYrN7XGyVTGcR5_YTEEODnSXk/w400-h300/IMG_0259.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The original Nuneham Bridge
was an 1844 timber Brunel design, but was replaced in iron the following
decade. The present steel bridge replaced that in turn in 1929.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqUInoLJSTnRzjdLFk8lqPDTx8TJQCiFvHnA3xk1d91ZFLi06NfVfQ_N1psOI6fks1EAU7Rf4Q5fsI-WEYVKfpAUx1MnDWlibliU5Dz_AiodoVV96nruUq0PsCV5FN7bsGeGUoTiGk-8/s5184/IMG_0261.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqUInoLJSTnRzjdLFk8lqPDTx8TJQCiFvHnA3xk1d91ZFLi06NfVfQ_N1psOI6fks1EAU7Rf4Q5fsI-WEYVKfpAUx1MnDWlibliU5Dz_AiodoVV96nruUq0PsCV5FN7bsGeGUoTiGk-8/w400-h300/IMG_0261.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">As if to show arrivals
that they are not to be messed with, the Oxford sorcerers have captured some
superhero and imprisoned his soul in the brickwork beneath the bridge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Nuneham Courtenay</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The bridge gets its name from a
village which ought to be just ahead on the east bank. <b>Nuneham</b> derives
from <i>New Ham</i>, simply “new farmstead/settlement, and its riverbanks offer
the prettiest hints so far of the postulated Oxford enchantment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizraFtRi5ddZp-plUAx-s-m9uVkcpIVfrEolRA9UEeTK49p1FxZQVU6XLj8jmcWQ462m_7m6cu_i8KqWHB5R2Z3zyde1buVZqLgFJqtlY1oKlpHsX_wzXrRZiTXY_qkYwvzdYt_cSomuQ/s5184/IMG_0265.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizraFtRi5ddZp-plUAx-s-m9uVkcpIVfrEolRA9UEeTK49p1FxZQVU6XLj8jmcWQ462m_7m6cu_i8KqWHB5R2Z3zyde1buVZqLgFJqtlY1oKlpHsX_wzXrRZiTXY_qkYwvzdYt_cSomuQ/w640-h480/IMG_0265.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The thick tree cover of Lock
Wood packs the south bank slope here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj76Dfx2sVtTMwn9oGTf7FkW7akVrX4-3qSFuwqbAXKFQCTqC-N9yUjyWSxCk7ql-I8kdXc2JP0RHiypoYVe1wIS34Kc1OmllWI7wwimHeXI-yphYazPVbQhIJsbSy3syo02jX02oXgviY/s5184/IMG_0262.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj76Dfx2sVtTMwn9oGTf7FkW7akVrX4-3qSFuwqbAXKFQCTqC-N9yUjyWSxCk7ql-I8kdXc2JP0RHiypoYVe1wIS34Kc1OmllWI7wwimHeXI-yphYazPVbQhIJsbSy3syo02jX02oXgviY/w400-h300/IMG_0262.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Evidence of a methodical
approach. Much of this land isn’t so much left green as <i>kept</i> green.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-aM4Bk-DCYsOmLYlBERow7fwX1ce30WBjQGhBGORRhoEuHEa7-pvG8F9f3WHApQQWhmnfjjzzfw2HTeUBy4YGYMGDQgEuT-eczYzyY17Ig4dEn92PlWFvbAqUVREIHZfQWAf-Yw1uRrE/s5184/IMG_0263.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-aM4Bk-DCYsOmLYlBERow7fwX1ce30WBjQGhBGORRhoEuHEa7-pvG8F9f3WHApQQWhmnfjjzzfw2HTeUBy4YGYMGDQgEuT-eczYzyY17Ig4dEn92PlWFvbAqUVREIHZfQWAf-Yw1uRrE/w400-h300/IMG_0263.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifC8JrwwdpULgj5fZCn3b2fI0b360UmsnSEHEHMyoP_NZdBSOZ86aLCJ27HfqVTmD3KeBVIxnUN5hkvfrXSW7W_V6Crr4YItIeN32pFlh_Vl6cTT7d72ayRZdsw7i_Bfm5VRDMUyTh5P0/s5184/IMG_0267.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifC8JrwwdpULgj5fZCn3b2fI0b360UmsnSEHEHMyoP_NZdBSOZ86aLCJ27HfqVTmD3KeBVIxnUN5hkvfrXSW7W_V6Crr4YItIeN32pFlh_Vl6cTT7d72ayRZdsw7i_Bfm5VRDMUyTh5P0/w640-h480/IMG_0267.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">There we go – a tunnel to
another world. Watch out for suspicious rabbits.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Of all the stories soaked in these
woods and reeds, none is so redolent as the excursions of Oxford mathematician and
cleric Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) – better known as <b>Lewis Carroll</b>,
author of <i>Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</i> (1865) and <i>Through the
Looking-Glass</i> (1871). Weaving together extraordinary otherworlds and logical
puzzles and paradoxes with a comically absurd cast of characters (anthropomorphic
animals, political caricatures, megalomaniacal playing cards and chess pieces
all included) along with some quite renowned body-altering food, the <i>Alice</i>
stories have been among the most phenomenally influential works in all of
English literature. Accessibly presented yet deeply profound, their tropes so trouble
the margins between reality and imagination that they have not only seeded their
way into cultural consciousnesses worldwide (<i>Alice</i> is enormous in Japan
for instance) but also spawned an entire field of study whose devotees, known
as <i>Carrollians</i>, have dedicated breathtaking time and ink to unpacking
the mysteries of these texts and their oftentimes bewildering author.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEJBeK1_LJNt0cZBC0aHmD5cvyb6NZiiBfOYhgL6x7XrppAa3U82EFSoiGj06pN-dHH59InP3Srd5BNpcxpTue4nQSjAg8Gp_yi8ZOJfKGvGCa4iy10UCa-Mocg_YuqRoLWsD9EpXkam0/s5184/IMG_0268.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEJBeK1_LJNt0cZBC0aHmD5cvyb6NZiiBfOYhgL6x7XrppAa3U82EFSoiGj06pN-dHH59InP3Srd5BNpcxpTue4nQSjAg8Gp_yi8ZOJfKGvGCa4iy10UCa-Mocg_YuqRoLWsD9EpXkam0/w300-h400/IMG_0268.JPG" width="300" /></a></div></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">What is not in doubt is how
fundamentally the Oxford Thames (‘or Isis’, they’ll remind us) provided the
seedbed for what Carroll nurtured forth. The people, buildings and ways of life
that surrounded him at Oxford University’s Christ Church College inspired many
of the characters, structures and motifs of these tales, whose main content he
appears to have come up with spontaneously during boat trips with friends up or
down the river.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Famously <i>friends</i> for Carroll
often meant little girls, whose company he preferred and with whom his
fascination regularly comes through in his writing. Such a character would
likely not have survived the baying mobs of today, who are inclined to scream
<i>pedophile</i> at non-conforming individuals, harmless artistic subcultures, or otherised groups with marginalised sexualities or darker skin pigmentations, but have little to say </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> or rather, blame the victims –</span></span></span></span> when <i>actual</i>
sexual abuse is committed, within their structurally abusive society, by established power such as
celebrities, rich businessmen, priests, sports coaches, police officers, mainstream
authoritarian parents, or certain members of the royal family.<br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In fact no evidence has been found of
any erotic dimension to Carroll’s much-studied interest in young girls. His sexuality is
rather one of his many eccentric mysteries which, along with those of his
mental health and attitude to religion, invite perhaps more pertinent questions
into how far his Oxford privilege made a life of such idiosyncrasy supportable
at a time when the judgemental and punitive Victorian norms of his country </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span> <i>certainly </i>abusive to children in the extreme </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span> wrecked
so many misfits who lacked his class protection.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The main inspiration for <i>Alice</i>
is thought to have been one of the girls in question: Alice Liddell, also of an
Oxford University family. It was to her and her sisters during one such boat
trip up to Godstow that Carroll came up with the earliest version of what, on them
enjoying his telling and asking him to write it down, eventually grew into the
manuscript for <i>Wonderland</i>. Frequently his rowing parties also came down
here to Nuneham, whose setting is thought to have heavily influenced its <i>Looking-Glass</i>
sequel. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLxyWqWQQjI2AguCmVT5pFTUSy9elIbdNRDb7x-LNVOAwL1q145I03Jl7bqFB9Kn2i4XZD6G8fpseKsGw4kqHqpHO9MzFglzfpSGXhfncCL5z6QNJmQ3RmgXxpNjwrhXu8ZMT7onsHseQ/s5184/IMG_0271.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLxyWqWQQjI2AguCmVT5pFTUSy9elIbdNRDb7x-LNVOAwL1q145I03Jl7bqFB9Kn2i4XZD6G8fpseKsGw4kqHqpHO9MzFglzfpSGXhfncCL5z6QNJmQ3RmgXxpNjwrhXu8ZMT7onsHseQ/w640-h480/IMG_0271.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Lock Wood Island, here at
right, is coated in trees but used to have a lock, bridge, and thatched-roof
cottage. As a popular picnic spot in the nineteenth century it was a favourite
for Lewis Carroll’s boat trips, with its heavily wooded surroundings suggestive
of those that stretch through much of <i>Through the Looking-Glass</i>.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHixBkLgE4bUGFi4TGuT8pP7mu4Mi_RA0YKoF3NPWxBd2YufsX_O-h7o84-uLu7PJoE5xnOpNtPqD-5T66p-bVoLurotMyzHdy16PilNB4UEtiRvPBT2sfPHmvzatXe3cY5-mHWC9buE4/s5184/IMG_0273.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHixBkLgE4bUGFi4TGuT8pP7mu4Mi_RA0YKoF3NPWxBd2YufsX_O-h7o84-uLu7PJoE5xnOpNtPqD-5T66p-bVoLurotMyzHdy16PilNB4UEtiRvPBT2sfPHmvzatXe3cY5-mHWC9buE4/w400-h300/IMG_0273.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Alone in a riverside clearing
– but not looking particularly put out by its solitude – is what appears to
have been Radley College’s old boathouse, now re-done into some unaffordable
private mansion.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">So far so enchanted then? Let’s ruin
that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The question all this raises is where
this village of Nuneham, which is supposed to be right there on the east riverbank,
actually went. Like </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/09/thames-15-thames-or-isis.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Sutton Courtenay</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> downstream it got the name of the de
Courtenay family of Norman nobility attached to it. In this case it happened
later, around the fourteenth century, as part of a merry-go-round of titled
big-named families who got hold of the manor when their predecessors died
without heirs or fell from political favour. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This revolving door spun on till Nuneham
fell into the hands of the Harcourt family (another Norman hangover, now
extinct). More specifically it was bought by their first earl, the diplomat
Simon Harcourt, and at his will something extremely English happened.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxf7RVBHZrP38N3UMBVk0_G3f5tGGdiEY__ass3csEXRXfH0Kt0nzuDHr5POg2xhyYiQrionQS_HaNTLSZeKa984cRSaVxpQI6corIAqg5kow5MWBhogR5Fa11OrJxLgw8ju4WveShZt4/s5184/IMG_0274.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxf7RVBHZrP38N3UMBVk0_G3f5tGGdiEY__ass3csEXRXfH0Kt0nzuDHr5POg2xhyYiQrionQS_HaNTLSZeKa984cRSaVxpQI6corIAqg5kow5MWBhogR5Fa11OrJxLgw8ju4WveShZt4/w640-h480/IMG_0274.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Where Nuneham village once
stood, there is now this opulent Palladian villa in 470 hectares of landscaped
pleasure-gardens.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Simon Harcourt decided that he wanted
a residence in Nuneham with lavish gardens, a sweeping view of the river, and
all other such luxuries as befitted his noble caste. The only problem of course
was Nuneham itself. The village, and the people living in it, were in the way. And
so he had it demolished – manor house, cottages, church, the lot – and rebuilt
a mile and a half to the east to make way for <b>Nuneham House</b>, his new riverside
villa, with a vast park that would later receive the attentions of Lancelot
‘Capability’ Brown, England’s landscape-artist-in-chief. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">As for the impact on the people who
lived there, let alone the question of their consent – well, these of course
are not recorded. This was a period in which the broader Enclosure movement to
which this act belonged was laying waste to the rural communities of England,
who for the whim and profit of rich landowners, were thrown off their
traditional land into poverty, starvation, and a growing regime of laws, courts
and sadistically violent punishments to stop them ever getting it back. Quite
typically, since the winners of this process were the ones who wrote the
history, all readily available information today on what happened here seems to
be about how spectacular Citizen Harcourt’s amazing new villa was, with not one
word on the feelings or fates of the villagers it displaced.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">One of the most cutting contemporary critics
of this decimation of the English peasantry – its customs, folklore and knowledge
as well as its livelihoods and bodies – was the Irish poet Oliver Goldsmith.
His long poem <i>The Deserted Village</i> (1770) lamented the death of a hamlet
named ‘Auburn’: its buildings dilapidated, its fields seized for the villas and
parks of the ‘man of wealth and pride’, its inhabitants lost to the cruelties
and corruptions of the cities or to overseas emigration. ‘Auburn’ is fictional,
but Goldsmith is known to have personally witnessed and condemned the
destruction of a certain village near London to make way for a landscaped villa.
This was almost certainly Nuneham Courtenay, which so closely resembled the
poem’s details that it is thought to have been its main inspiration.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Alas then, this landscape is not some
magically-enriched Oxford romance after all, but a direct result of this most
consequential yet still so poorly-acknowledged phenomenon of systemic mass
abuse in English history. Needless to say, its main current then – the
destruction of the vulnerable for the arrogance and pleasure of the privileged
– is still the main current now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNZOR81Qg1vpaI9X2X1H2D2RD4qzAgsQIhjFlIIjF1jYQzCSIKfUqpeGu7Ea41CCRn7KMUrcQsasYATQswBel_YwbiuWLFrn9NgOc8xmxD1K2DfRYOp33KDC2l-btkTYgiCWuPJh0cYOM/s5184/IMG_0275.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNZOR81Qg1vpaI9X2X1H2D2RD4qzAgsQIhjFlIIjF1jYQzCSIKfUqpeGu7Ea41CCRn7KMUrcQsasYATQswBel_YwbiuWLFrn9NgOc8xmxD1K2DfRYOp33KDC2l-btkTYgiCWuPJh0cYOM/w400-h300/IMG_0275.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Once you’re aware of it, no
glistening water will wash the taste of that callous legacy out of your mouth.
What happened to the people of Nuneham? Where do you go if you want to find
out? The soil of the green and pleasant land is soaked in blood and angry
ghosts.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5NN_nQmJ4REokr6OFM6zZvWXQmSffPDVLLmT1OwD8UAWcw_UMDFmvfAaFrEoeZc4bxaD5SONn4P0eHeP6-jtUDIRkqwt4mJlnMnpwiZBLN2f8_36KsUhq1EEm11JKQnXKHPGRpZFWTww/s5184/IMG_0276.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5NN_nQmJ4REokr6OFM6zZvWXQmSffPDVLLmT1OwD8UAWcw_UMDFmvfAaFrEoeZc4bxaD5SONn4P0eHeP6-jtUDIRkqwt4mJlnMnpwiZBLN2f8_36KsUhq1EEm11JKQnXKHPGRpZFWTww/w400-h300/IMG_0276.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">In World War II Harcourt’s villa
was requisitioned by the RAF as a place to interpret air surveillance photographs.
Afterwards the family sold it to Oxford University, who since the 1990s have
leased it to an Indian spiritual foundation, and in recent years are rumoured
to have sold it again, for £22 million, to a secretive buyer.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Radley</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Meanwhile here on the western bank
the fields nest a better-known settlement. <b>Radley</b> appears to derive from
the Anglo-Saxon <i>read leah</i>, for ‘red clearing’, on a site settled on and
off for thousands of years. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The main village is a kilometre and a
half inland, clustered between its thirteenth-century church and its train
station. Closer to the river it has also sprouted the satellite hamlet of Lower
Radley, from where a road connects to this boating facility.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj22H_mI0kM4z0l67upyZ9zPlyFXd-zR5YrVKTpgLNtOEDfh5Xu-xj6u8smBiHQvmtUd3jFVUI7wKsburpLt2Wxz0McqHQ9iBxnobBhMPHGAnJHWxMmENOhzTw_rDYYuxW0N8UPltW-Gzo/s5184/IMG_0278.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj22H_mI0kM4z0l67upyZ9zPlyFXd-zR5YrVKTpgLNtOEDfh5Xu-xj6u8smBiHQvmtUd3jFVUI7wKsburpLt2Wxz0McqHQ9iBxnobBhMPHGAnJHWxMmENOhzTw_rDYYuxW0N8UPltW-Gzo/w400-h300/IMG_0278.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Radley College Boathouse – the
base for that school’s river training.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSNJPZXQIJMLPWuNUOuRlCg_HUTcoHf9jv-LjeFz6wpJwT2oeBjzuzRC2DEfEFTrqcv7ieOZNlTRIJt1VqLt-H_csj5E0CnpTYW23OY0aGJ7GH7FPhqKH1JM-xtkYpR7hSoRV0oTl-PtE/s5184/IMG_0279.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSNJPZXQIJMLPWuNUOuRlCg_HUTcoHf9jv-LjeFz6wpJwT2oeBjzuzRC2DEfEFTrqcv7ieOZNlTRIJt1VqLt-H_csj5E0CnpTYW23OY0aGJ7GH7FPhqKH1JM-xtkYpR7hSoRV0oTl-PtE/w400-h300/IMG_0279.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This is not a small
installation.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The school in question is what
elevates Radley’s name, for <b>Radley College</b> is no less than another piece
of this country’s infamously influential </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">‘public school’ tradition which we
took apart at length in Eton</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. Founded in 1847 as part of a wave of Victorian
school-building, Radley College’s 320-hectare compound is about as large as the
village itself. Soon it even proved it had such clout as to get Radley its
own railway station, built specially for its pupils in the 1870s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj314-16ppSYH0lmpkOYYgXoNdm1CSJR-RZHhVyiFxObkulQwVG2Af3Luh85q9o7kRF7kNY-FVDjVzBJjy5fC69NqKz7fr6EOtT-yxj-p753znJoWwTU-HkWIj2j-_SJQf59tY8mPpkXGY/s5184/IMG_0280.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj314-16ppSYH0lmpkOYYgXoNdm1CSJR-RZHhVyiFxObkulQwVG2Af3Luh85q9o7kRF7kNY-FVDjVzBJjy5fC69NqKz7fr6EOtT-yxj-p753znJoWwTU-HkWIj2j-_SJQf59tY8mPpkXGY/w640-h480/IMG_0280.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Radley College’s pupils are
all boarders, and the school continues the inexcusable tradition of being boys-only,
thereby reserving the privilege of elite education for men. This is an ugly
heritage to be caught carrying at a time when the Afghan Taliban’s atrocious attempts
to exclude girls from it are under scrutiny.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Recalling that a militaristic
dedication to sports – especially rowing – is at the core of these schools’
ethos, one might imagine that the river here gets quite rowdy when the students
of Radley descend on these facilities along with their megaphone-toting
coach-totalitarians. Yet for now, they aren’t here, and beside the occasional
walker the village of Radley seems to make no further imprint on this
landscape.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinX93GxWbAZgtaRog0gStkiAy-U3U1EOrCKvN5AXRbykiW2G2eXRSuR6LMSTXvkooNO4ZCnI5RM84Kj8BIIr-o5Pb99XqMSH6Oz23AyOFJzGDXHZCF5v0OPjKJ5_KCJJb-5D9Qji72RRU/s5184/IMG_0282.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinX93GxWbAZgtaRog0gStkiAy-U3U1EOrCKvN5AXRbykiW2G2eXRSuR6LMSTXvkooNO4ZCnI5RM84Kj8BIIr-o5Pb99XqMSH6Oz23AyOFJzGDXHZCF5v0OPjKJ5_KCJJb-5D9Qji72RRU/w640-h480/IMG_0282.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Meadows, woods and farm fields
cover the inland side, shielding the village from view.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoqFP-CX7GUYBJP7JNyQpsfSGu2NTvLW6XvrJxW9Qh-YC8Tbvrv-eJHjduY5Alx8NU31yGjVlc75aBLZe3kk15H5Hroe4Y5_Y7uX-Uim81jRsidBcJ72ueingofNtC5sTUpjTIQ2YInaQ/s5184/IMG_0286.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoqFP-CX7GUYBJP7JNyQpsfSGu2NTvLW6XvrJxW9Qh-YC8Tbvrv-eJHjduY5Alx8NU31yGjVlc75aBLZe3kk15H5Hroe4Y5_Y7uX-Uim81jRsidBcJ72ueingofNtC5sTUpjTIQ2YInaQ/w640-h480/IMG_0286.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The east is much the same: a wide
spread of farms with little in the way of settlement.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlvoSiZnUYTfqK7_sE9fI7ronkVe7QQ7o1jysBB6woHr9kezBm6OYxvij02pFg13MxFqCLza3NRSCE69f1L9QjULU_HK5f-NuKIrO87Ywb368CPofSBr3ojxVzwtWxYODt4TYNIr38ivQ/s5184/IMG_0287.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlvoSiZnUYTfqK7_sE9fI7ronkVe7QQ7o1jysBB6woHr9kezBm6OYxvij02pFg13MxFqCLza3NRSCE69f1L9QjULU_HK5f-NuKIrO87Ywb368CPofSBr3ojxVzwtWxYODt4TYNIr38ivQ/w640-h480/IMG_0287.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It’s pretty, that much can be
conceded.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxu0M-qQ-WmkF56uRpHa60wbr2zJ-0VmrSv34UbZHzws7sWST0vQxPUGRHO_x-ZbkiFuFxfutdEtJXR7WxnAhep28cniZ3I-CqS8T4PPGy_iIalduCneMzs2QyP5DXjXWRmfjvX0yIJUo/s5184/IMG_0289.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxu0M-qQ-WmkF56uRpHa60wbr2zJ-0VmrSv34UbZHzws7sWST0vQxPUGRHO_x-ZbkiFuFxfutdEtJXR7WxnAhep28cniZ3I-CqS8T4PPGy_iIalduCneMzs2QyP5DXjXWRmfjvX0yIJUo/w640-h480/IMG_0289.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Look carefully and you might
spot the occasional native hunter-gatherer attempting to catch fish.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKmKcZL-tGkXIW96sTybcxx_lA6FK2cj-937phLRyPJZ3jE8KI1wisFlPwCNmQ6lOG76nVX1guSRT6RBCAI60Q73ixxCuPQAQxSDdMgfhWBZSltiVNiavARv6xGTwIPov1lVHXdUqzdiI/s5184/IMG_0290.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKmKcZL-tGkXIW96sTybcxx_lA6FK2cj-937phLRyPJZ3jE8KI1wisFlPwCNmQ6lOG76nVX1guSRT6RBCAI60Q73ixxCuPQAQxSDdMgfhWBZSltiVNiavARv6xGTwIPov1lVHXdUqzdiI/w400-h300/IMG_0290.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">These Forbearing Pinkberries must
be relatives of the irate red ones seen earlier, only having evolved slightly
more multi-dimensional perspectives – as evidenced by their four-lobed shapes –
which leave them not quite so incandescent with rage at their neighbours.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">And then, after another kilometre or
two in this vein, signs of human activity trickle back in, for ahead is the outer
tip of Oxford’s urban constellation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY2xSe7E9CxZ8HJx_0kAyH1euYIfekuUMpB8fUcEiIkj9EMpgMgKVUqlgsVev4P6Tfglo4CB34EtucDT6dwTh1pajEb6HpR1ukVOIoly26SsTJrcc4YCKuRK786MOi_DUfG2gBdtibgWM/s5184/IMG_0291.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY2xSe7E9CxZ8HJx_0kAyH1euYIfekuUMpB8fUcEiIkj9EMpgMgKVUqlgsVev4P6Tfglo4CB34EtucDT6dwTh1pajEb6HpR1ukVOIoly26SsTJrcc4YCKuRK786MOi_DUfG2gBdtibgWM/w640-h480/IMG_0291.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhxv9V-OBZbSwPNdRii0x94lDuLHATf9udSam-GciqE2CINX5EO4sjLjxvgxW7n-Ab7ZzHOcVa05WrxHW4uGqXUwcM0pdysyZhdT_20CUlKdEKuEhpTfgvdUsPExXKgHHlROo5tO2fOE/s5184/IMG_0292.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhxv9V-OBZbSwPNdRii0x94lDuLHATf9udSam-GciqE2CINX5EO4sjLjxvgxW7n-Ab7ZzHOcVa05WrxHW4uGqXUwcM0pdysyZhdT_20CUlKdEKuEhpTfgvdUsPExXKgHHlROo5tO2fOE/w640-h480/IMG_0292.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And because it’s Oxford it
doesn’t do to fish like the mortals fish, does it? No, you need a fishing <i>turret</i>
bristling with poles and nets and equipment boxes and possibly an unfolding
fish-cleaning hut, stove and dishwasher built in there too.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmgrcbXmvmGQI1QB-cM7jDpki-4jICN4EGZ0rn_SqhRJRU-5Kcc24N5_zmskEb82NTdbzPZKnuSuJVgIW13Zw9JXBDcFxv3RFNsjqAg9z-P241w3ozlWBtUHoP99c9nZA6t-bte999vL4/s5184/IMG_0294.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmgrcbXmvmGQI1QB-cM7jDpki-4jICN4EGZ0rn_SqhRJRU-5Kcc24N5_zmskEb82NTdbzPZKnuSuJVgIW13Zw9JXBDcFxv3RFNsjqAg9z-P241w3ozlWBtUHoP99c9nZA6t-bte999vL4/w400-h300/IMG_0294.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Sightings of large rural
creatures are less common on this section than those preceding it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Sandford-on-Thames</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The <i>sandy ford</i> – <b>Sandford</b>
– has spent most of its life since the Domesday survey as a tiny agricultural
river hamlet, although it did host the Knights Templar for a time. Its main activity
centred on a mill next to where Sandford Lock is now, whose labour-intensive work
would likely have employed most of the one or two hundred people who lived
here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDYKwcw9WgKYNIkZ3tSX-3vtDG2BZJxEy3UBpCwgbCEUpw8jQ9dnzxGFSK9Ul572ooKC0GIZ1ufQm1431NcH4A1Rc_uQmKYLy0aeEntTTSzWrTbnV1a3AAzRTe5yR2KHWGj47dEfUq3dU/s5184/IMG_0296.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDYKwcw9WgKYNIkZ3tSX-3vtDG2BZJxEy3UBpCwgbCEUpw8jQ9dnzxGFSK9Ul572ooKC0GIZ1ufQm1431NcH4A1Rc_uQmKYLy0aeEntTTSzWrTbnV1a3AAzRTe5yR2KHWGj47dEfUq3dU/w640-h480/IMG_0296.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The thousand-year-old Sandford
Mill originally produced corn, first for Abingdon Abbey and then for the
Knights Templar, but in the industrial nineteenth century it converted to paper
production to feed Oxford’s insatiable demands. It lasted until 1982 and is now
this housing development.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlCmQ_xVAAjCZ8hzTzbC_9taSIemg7DxqS7LCrfkiRKCSJhyphenhyphenJUt2aRVqOALiY3pEx-4ZHbB8KZHUT9YXwfWwrrBXDw0sRZY3CQSq1TCe3zehsXpm6jnyIzZWvZQ0VTMzwfoRONG7O3tWw/s5184/IMG_0297.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlCmQ_xVAAjCZ8hzTzbC_9taSIemg7DxqS7LCrfkiRKCSJhyphenhyphenJUt2aRVqOALiY3pEx-4ZHbB8KZHUT9YXwfWwrrBXDw0sRZY3CQSq1TCe3zehsXpm6jnyIzZWvZQ0VTMzwfoRONG7O3tWw/w640-h480/IMG_0297.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Sandford Lock is the deepest
of all the Thames’s pound locks and also one of its oldest, built as far back
as 1631 by the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/09/thames-15-thames-or-isis.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Oxford-Burcot Commission</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. It links Sandford on the east bank
with a couple of elongated river islands, of which the northern is known for
its shape as ‘Fiddler’s Elbow’.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWIO5nhOhdP5pOmDMPqouTC1__fLtM-VEEJB9F994D5U4QS22f5ev8BV1rqhkSV-e2zEVUNSFgxd0tmPfGsaB-trTy7mAKlZE_5e9MAnAfJ7YE6THNuUtacU29NY8NqTJPMrHKZgVNOBQ/s5184/IMG_0299.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWIO5nhOhdP5pOmDMPqouTC1__fLtM-VEEJB9F994D5U4QS22f5ev8BV1rqhkSV-e2zEVUNSFgxd0tmPfGsaB-trTy7mAKlZE_5e9MAnAfJ7YE6THNuUtacU29NY8NqTJPMrHKZgVNOBQ/w400-h300/IMG_0299.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"><i>The King’s Arms</i> pub was
converted from the mill’s malthouse in the nineteenth century. It sits on what used
to be a very busy wharf, where the mill’s raw materials were shipped in and its
products sent to their markets.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Major redevelopment in the last
century has since pushed Sandford’s population to over one thousand and joined
it to the very tip of the Oxford conurbation. Socio-economically it has been
integrated closer still. Its neighbourhood now includes the hulking <i>Oxford
Science Park</i>, built in 1991, owned by the university’s Magdalen College and
host to over sixty science and technology companies; and the <i>Kassam Stadium</i>,
opened in 2001 as the base for Oxford United Football Club and named for its
dodgy billionaire owner.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRFIXoe-t8d4OQgG6k5pDeM_-jXggO2h7IUsWK2hQ7CGmTxstkaaiDscSpdFZwYY7Jf_TKA16KlqrRuvv45cSLyUynhFLY0sME06lEp5pDHzOrqR_hjIv2N6n09rH_SIlqFtjzLDUoC94/s5184/IMG_0300.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRFIXoe-t8d4OQgG6k5pDeM_-jXggO2h7IUsWK2hQ7CGmTxstkaaiDscSpdFZwYY7Jf_TKA16KlqrRuvv45cSLyUynhFLY0sME06lEp5pDHzOrqR_hjIv2N6n09rH_SIlqFtjzLDUoC94/w640-h480/IMG_0300.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The lock islands are a popular
little green space for the locals’ recreations.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHLTsLxYx9IvtDlNcjKr60-7nuOh8rn_GlkRnxLV8n2jzItvCuCawyVxamlGo6CdVweDEZQvGaw47Od1VrlHAh09zftoLxQolxDWdYO8IjAx6RO6fzHC9vohFX2JG-glWyQOcLEeZMpj8/s5184/IMG_0301.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHLTsLxYx9IvtDlNcjKr60-7nuOh8rn_GlkRnxLV8n2jzItvCuCawyVxamlGo6CdVweDEZQvGaw47Od1VrlHAh09zftoLxQolxDWdYO8IjAx6RO6fzHC9vohFX2JG-glWyQOcLEeZMpj8/w400-h300/IMG_0301.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This would appear to be a
private time machine, so when they get to the part where the English start
eating each other the property-holders can jump back a few decades and enjoy
their quiet greenery all over again.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHM0bRJPMqq_SfNZUygy2gwrg7MGOpLpn6T_8OEZQfl7EiX8eytGQ68XvSDM6PmXQQA0WgbKjdgSNvKs3DrD0DefJuZNSQjxiQVDipwL-WpoVDLyoI2Ao8V2Y6RbGK4X50Aku3dNyXlg/s5184/IMG_0302.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHM0bRJPMqq_SfNZUygy2gwrg7MGOpLpn6T_8OEZQfl7EiX8eytGQ68XvSDM6PmXQQA0WgbKjdgSNvKs3DrD0DefJuZNSQjxiQVDipwL-WpoVDLyoI2Ao8V2Y6RbGK4X50Aku3dNyXlg/w400-h300/IMG_0302.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This one cares a great deal. The eyebrows and moustache make it apparent.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The Sandford islands’ west channel
harbours a dark secret. It is there that they built the weir for Sandford Lock,
known as <i>Lasher’s Weir</i>. It created a pool which harbours deceptively
powerful sub-surface currents, and by the late nineteenth century these were dragging
down and drowning so many boaters and swimmers as to raise the <b><i>Sandford
Lasher</i></b>, as it became known, to national infamy. Warnings about it were
soon cropping up through the literature of the time, with Thomas Hughes’s <i>Tom
Brown</i> series, Charles Dickens Jr.’s <i>Dictionary of the Thames</i>, and
Jerome K. Jerome’s <i>Three Men in a Boat</i> all referring to its dangers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Many of the Lasher’s victims were
Oxford students, whose names are now inscribed on a memorial obelisk atop the
weir. Perhaps the most famous of these casualties was a certain Michael
Llewelyn Davies – ward of novelist J. M. Barrie, the author of <i>Peter Pan</i>.
Davies was the inspiration for that story’s main character, the ‘boy who
wouldn’t grow up’, which only added a further tragic twist to his drowning here
in 1921, aged twenty, together with his close friend and fellow Oxford student
Rupert Buxton.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet this wouldn’t be England without
a further, more socially abusive twist to the tale. On their recovery the two
young friends’ bodies were </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110814070514/http:/www.jmbarrie.co.uk/allscans/fullsize/1921-05-27-DX-MLD-death-Oxford_Chronicle.jpg"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">found clasped together</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, such that the inquest concluded
that Davies had got into difficulties and Buxton had drowned trying to rescue
him. But speculation by Davies’s brothers, friends, and Barrie himself has ever
since kept open a different possibility: that the two friends were romantically
and/or sexually close and drowned here in a suicide pact. Though impossible now
to prove, there is no doubt as to this country’s malicious hostility to
same-sex affection, then and in many quarters now; not least when its </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">destruction of Oscar Wilde</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> would have been fresh in memory, and
less still when the (likewise persisting) violent masculinism from which that
hostility springs, with its hatred for Davies’s softer Peter Pan model of
manhood, had just fed a million of its people, mostly young men, into the blood-spattered
meat-grinders of World War I. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Were Davies and Buxton murdered not
by the Sandford Lasher, then, but by an English atmosphere of alienation and
prejudice? We cannot know for sure, but the girders of the Oxford Wonderland
look brittler for every step we take.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3-VsIizyMYeshPl0zqufvgc142LGpdZAxTgOKVot8rYPwkzcxmQ1cM3gSraMEfk8iCoV7zJWV7n1qEPrH-v4daBfbzjPfXazbqjUpOodrIZvLWb9jCLFAB7OMi4V_b9ZZ-qNKuazmjg4/s5184/IMG_0304.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3-VsIizyMYeshPl0zqufvgc142LGpdZAxTgOKVot8rYPwkzcxmQ1cM3gSraMEfk8iCoV7zJWV7n1qEPrH-v4daBfbzjPfXazbqjUpOodrIZvLWb9jCLFAB7OMi4V_b9ZZ-qNKuazmjg4/w640-h480/IMG_0304.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This stream cuts between the islands
to the Sandford Lasher on the west channel. The memorial to the Lasher’s
victims is no longer accessible: the local community, perhaps with an eye to
the place’s dark reputation, have recently installed the ‘Sandford Hydro’
hydroelectric plant in hopes of transforming the weir into a hearty source of
clean energy. Its three big blue Archimedes Screws – a pump device whose design
goes back to ancient Egypt – </span><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.7115144,-1.2360012,104m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">stand out clearly on satellite maps</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkAd9C0-HucdO4_dy1Xs-9pUd_1WyAwry7ReX6JRNuVf3x8iskjN4yfXZw2SuIW1EyY-8fx4GGFUWGMhrq3HmvJAJt3LOXNQnOjF6kiO2X0ZyHVbTihuVMATXyf1-dsPFrheJfvLAQqp4/s5184/IMG_0307.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkAd9C0-HucdO4_dy1Xs-9pUd_1WyAwry7ReX6JRNuVf3x8iskjN4yfXZw2SuIW1EyY-8fx4GGFUWGMhrq3HmvJAJt3LOXNQnOjF6kiO2X0ZyHVbTihuVMATXyf1-dsPFrheJfvLAQqp4/w400-h300/IMG_0307.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This most vocal squadron noisily
circles the skies above the ‘Fiddler’s Elbow’.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDFpOUrEkaO0bbkEsdgPvps1eUSEtx_saIxrhvs_Gfs7_Bbg0r7HgVQ1e7u7WLnO66BFJI4Snvc6b2-qxdyaTdKH8J-PJYIa8_YGhPOoPcmDn-9SBMp5_LZY-hmiU7lnp-ZfhRGBwzgks/s5184/IMG_0309.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDFpOUrEkaO0bbkEsdgPvps1eUSEtx_saIxrhvs_Gfs7_Bbg0r7HgVQ1e7u7WLnO66BFJI4Snvc6b2-qxdyaTdKH8J-PJYIa8_YGhPOoPcmDn-9SBMp5_LZY-hmiU7lnp-ZfhRGBwzgks/w400-h300/IMG_0309.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This bridge connects the
island’s north tip with the western bank, where the towpath resumes its
approach to Oxford.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibmY5fEG8U9t0GTsuLYgEhxrZ40dyPYV_MIeSBeAsG3x7RsAwUyweb1DUi6yu19pZJZ1mDv7U1AUacgVgavpGECIrz7A4V2xOQxFlJkSqFvPdd6N5lIHTL96GsbqGOtWR92eYNOsBXkdY/s5184/IMG_0310.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibmY5fEG8U9t0GTsuLYgEhxrZ40dyPYV_MIeSBeAsG3x7RsAwUyweb1DUi6yu19pZJZ1mDv7U1AUacgVgavpGECIrz7A4V2xOQxFlJkSqFvPdd6N5lIHTL96GsbqGOtWR92eYNOsBXkdY/w300-h400/IMG_0310.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The rather specific choice of
languages on this sign might bear consideration.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Oxford suburbs</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Likely in the same spirit as the
Oxford Green Belt, the city’s southward expansion has preserved a leafy
corridor for the river itself. It now threads a way into the heart of Oxford
between a cluster of villages absorbed as residential suburbs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoZcPuiAnAeCPKeyHu7Ru2XiCHlZfAZZMUWGFHmSlpIcuC_Qx1HDGZhjXEpryd7BHYX07CDbfzXXufVdj98Oijz6Kqoenuy2ed3EPgBudK1BfbET-TqgxvXLytEwADAqS6fmLrqfR-TTc/s5184/IMG_0313.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoZcPuiAnAeCPKeyHu7Ru2XiCHlZfAZZMUWGFHmSlpIcuC_Qx1HDGZhjXEpryd7BHYX07CDbfzXXufVdj98Oijz6Kqoenuy2ed3EPgBudK1BfbET-TqgxvXLytEwADAqS6fmLrqfR-TTc/w640-h480/IMG_0313.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The small Rose Isle sits in a
kink in the river. This was another popular stopping point for river-trippers
in the Carrollian manner; its <i>Swan Hotel</i> was converted to this private
house in 1929. The island was also known as <i>Kennington Isle</i> after the
nearby village.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">To the west, <b>Kennington</b>
stretches north to south along the old Abingdon Road. Like Sandford it has spent
most of its days as a tiny agricultural hamlet, most likely growing up in service
to the Abingdon monastery. It submerged in the records after the Abbey’s
destruction, but eventually resurfaced with its life squarely oriented towards
Oxford. Its present-day shape and identity is largely a product of the last
hundred years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh32gGoVzGJtS7plD8ToL7kPKgujuCJ0Ps2oPXeuxcSv4-Pqc8yWGg7bbwvIF8Eo0Wbqw7T2Vaz7hEFjte1Wh72ZgcvdceaGwOQNzC35kSKvDKdobGzOdMgdx7_6BjLEJcIc-o_uz7VGyw/s5184/IMG_0314.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh32gGoVzGJtS7plD8ToL7kPKgujuCJ0Ps2oPXeuxcSv4-Pqc8yWGg7bbwvIF8Eo0Wbqw7T2Vaz7hEFjte1Wh72ZgcvdceaGwOQNzC35kSKvDKdobGzOdMgdx7_6BjLEJcIc-o_uz7VGyw/w400-h300/IMG_0314.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Mysterious stone remnants sit
about the Kennington riverbank. What might this have been?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY20jS7LU1FPRotKyCKAK8iLuHGgzuBsP1sIroktz3y__6koN17wyrKAg0C94xhyphenhyphenUCD3d8hlWeEckTkZP7k-QKeSsG0JHq5yfENUD6kwOYnPYWebh_gNZgE_idwefxdz8vQs7cT-glbWY/s5184/IMG_0317.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY20jS7LU1FPRotKyCKAK8iLuHGgzuBsP1sIroktz3y__6koN17wyrKAg0C94xhyphenhyphenUCD3d8hlWeEckTkZP7k-QKeSsG0JHq5yfENUD6kwOYnPYWebh_gNZgE_idwefxdz8vQs7cT-glbWY/w640-h480/IMG_0317.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Kennington Railway Bridge is a
1923 steel replacement for a bridge first built in 1864, connecting trains
between Oxford and High Wycombe in the Buckinghamshire Chilterns. The railway
was closed in the 1960s, but this northern bit survives to carry freight to the
BMW Mini car factory in Cowley.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdKqBIICfgY5k64vLeK5icSQUIlBIzw64SC1ZusQYjwj86mFk_QfGcWot4nf5GfDOgDbiWkVMBfLeSPyJ5NhPK41FJxH6NJZ13-wjEBE4kDioeitilnrSV5FddMX9PnzaBOPZqyCsZO7E/s5184/IMG_0320.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdKqBIICfgY5k64vLeK5icSQUIlBIzw64SC1ZusQYjwj86mFk_QfGcWot4nf5GfDOgDbiWkVMBfLeSPyJ5NhPK41FJxH6NJZ13-wjEBE4kDioeitilnrSV5FddMX9PnzaBOPZqyCsZO7E/w400-h300/IMG_0320.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Kennington Meadows are
also where the Hinksey Stream, which splits off from the Thames some way upriver,
rejoins the main channel. A border between the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex in
Anglo-Saxon times, then between the English provinces of Oxfordshire and
Berkshire till 1974, this side-channel is the first sign of the river’s breaking
into many channels in and around Oxford.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23ruFtEAYPFR05VSPsIqBaw-XshEdmsATylgbReKKqwHXGoxBzTwfzPbQQlsj9v_DfvnEijpI3ECbBd49klr5b9oE5EZ3FMEwIfAm8stWSY6J-RL0jEtnIA7dOEO0vFdWuOy-niGCZ4M/s5184/IMG_0321.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23ruFtEAYPFR05VSPsIqBaw-XshEdmsATylgbReKKqwHXGoxBzTwfzPbQQlsj9v_DfvnEijpI3ECbBd49klr5b9oE5EZ3FMEwIfAm8stWSY6J-RL0jEtnIA7dOEO0vFdWuOy-niGCZ4M/w640-h480/IMG_0321.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And here the towpath turns to
tarmac, signalling its entry to the Thames’s highest city.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">To the east rises a small plateau
known as <i>Rose Hill</i>, a key patch of flood-safe high ground on Oxford’s
shoulder which for the last thousand years has been controlled by the manor
village of <b>Iffley</b>. The origin of that name is unclear – some kind of
clearing (<i>ley</i>) – but over the centuries the power in this village,
especially over its highly productive mill, transitioned from the Norman
nobility (specifically the St. Remy family) to numerous Oxford concerns. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Like Kennington, Iffley has done its
best to preserve its independent sense of village life. Nonetheless by the
eighteenth century it was metamorphosing into a residential appendage of Oxford,
all the more so following the industrialisation of the city’s east side – most
of all the car factories of <b>Cowley </b>– from the 1920s on. With the arrival both
of middle-class urban escapees (typically to its nicer suburban housing), as
well as immigrant factory workers and poorer people cleared from Oxford’s slums
(typically to council estates like that which now occupies the top of Rose
Hill), Iffley has transformed dramatically and now stands on that difficult
margin between urban and rural, wealthy and downtrodden, dream and nightmare.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVaTxahOyNf_kNLBuvkKM2GSWdxpwsWB4rBmLxPOmc577jZHq29SyryEsTm0Vvq4PHMldMWz9NwKUeAtqAtxklVmKHB79aZKqSRqqejfyTY4wy5tbsNGk4Ml9m60jS3nekhu_QqjOtbvs/s5184/IMG_0323.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVaTxahOyNf_kNLBuvkKM2GSWdxpwsWB4rBmLxPOmc577jZHq29SyryEsTm0Vvq4PHMldMWz9NwKUeAtqAtxklVmKHB79aZKqSRqqejfyTY4wy5tbsNGk4Ml9m60jS3nekhu_QqjOtbvs/w640-h480/IMG_0323.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHU0ELZoU3QYklrjTJW9fME4WpS_1U1iArM9Tm-tJ29r9ePPpxW7ZzYWKMZaqgD9UWSwik6H8Ydpg_aAdeCIgBJRVXvwPGQknGItNQtDq8QVCEUhySqgOyOiEIxQDW-l8KUGEL8E5edkg/s5184/IMG_0324.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHU0ELZoU3QYklrjTJW9fME4WpS_1U1iArM9Tm-tJ29r9ePPpxW7ZzYWKMZaqgD9UWSwik6H8Ydpg_aAdeCIgBJRVXvwPGQknGItNQtDq8QVCEUhySqgOyOiEIxQDW-l8KUGEL8E5edkg/w300-h400/IMG_0324.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another member of the local angry
berry family, this species appears to have got over its internal quarrels and
developed apertures to fire plasma at passers-by instead.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqLlX0A-Rp7wWd7cDbk4gUECieguUfm7QqQCnK7nz-z4zcKcKzdCIGFZGz17N8ECPo79SEqVhd8isR6jNxtR9yXS_g65BCCXAp9p1d-CbIn_1phyphenhyphen4NwKhW_jsH1WAEQZoFsRIbVp6pCFY/s5184/IMG_0325.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqLlX0A-Rp7wWd7cDbk4gUECieguUfm7QqQCnK7nz-z4zcKcKzdCIGFZGz17N8ECPo79SEqVhd8isR6jNxtR9yXS_g65BCCXAp9p1d-CbIn_1phyphenhyphen4NwKhW_jsH1WAEQZoFsRIbVp6pCFY/w400-h300/IMG_0325.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Isis Bridge takes the
Oxford Ring Road over the river. This dual carriageway, which emerged in
segments in the post-World War II decades, is a particularly beleaguered piece
of England’s long-distance infrastructure. Its role as the only route for cars
around inner Oxford’s strict traffic restrictions (whose congestion problems it
was built to solve in the first place), together with the out-of-control growth
in traffic-lighted intersections for all the new housing developments around
it, make it well-known among motorists as a horrendous regional bottleneck.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhtEZqAGxOXoh1-t8ntsFOqrky1H2_RuLoll4-CmGxoj02dqztc8gKF7g8ESPkCzCimTAgvRn3O5rnI421VXeChF4oG1UVS0eyxem0yTc6QmRijn2szS0d7zAT-lhBGzzArEYDPRKqohU/s5184/IMG_0326.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhtEZqAGxOXoh1-t8ntsFOqrky1H2_RuLoll4-CmGxoj02dqztc8gKF7g8ESPkCzCimTAgvRn3O5rnI421VXeChF4oG1UVS0eyxem0yTc6QmRijn2szS0d7zAT-lhBGzzArEYDPRKqohU/w400-h300/IMG_0326.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Meanwhile Oxford appears under
invasion by an independent crocodile army from this direction. The attackers
have already seized this entrance and plastered their colours over its walls.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Iffley has its own lock, another
early 1630s Oxford-Burcot Commission piece (although frequently repaired and
upgraded, most recently in 1927). The final lock on the approach to Oxford, it
exhibits a few unique quirks that bind it to the life of that city.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirQMTITJJA_I81KCJcv7qb9W0wQuzENgGW6LQS_4vuBLundxfaYKkLOheVpmibeGSz9gtAfcf6S_75FHK4pPSBmd-H-EesFdugDmwqi2KRSpUMjrSlyLOjVXGh5LseiLd7sSyI3dHgT9o/s5184/IMG_0329.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirQMTITJJA_I81KCJcv7qb9W0wQuzENgGW6LQS_4vuBLundxfaYKkLOheVpmibeGSz9gtAfcf6S_75FHK4pPSBmd-H-EesFdugDmwqi2KRSpUMjrSlyLOjVXGh5LseiLd7sSyI3dHgT9o/w400-h300/IMG_0329.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Somewhere in here there’s a
metaphor for the English’s struggles at <i>saving their history</i>.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRCGxydCz2SE6a659TdqtiMaHFbOXz7FBNu2UqJzUsFm9WXIGvYX0TlCEmtognqxy9zf31XNyNrOG2X1b-tx-paOZ79d4F13cxh1u0Q6RxPfGin67tw-XjTKCMJqgrTYYHdI0mwyQG9WM/s5184/IMG_0327.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRCGxydCz2SE6a659TdqtiMaHFbOXz7FBNu2UqJzUsFm9WXIGvYX0TlCEmtognqxy9zf31XNyNrOG2X1b-tx-paOZ79d4F13cxh1u0Q6RxPfGin67tw-XjTKCMJqgrTYYHdI0mwyQG9WM/w400-h300/IMG_0327.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Oxford’s rigorous wisdom tradition is here on glorious display.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpJdiuFpBpLcUt0Pnlp1mcAEFz1v3ml_O7zAbWecyAqbY9LRjlt8yns-zKjg6XOqcO6K2j9w8B6x0H3LwU7hVJWQWN2Q5GAmFYvMLS-Gr_-jNxaDfw9fuGhzWlRlpcggLxncVaDeluj9s/s5184/IMG_0330.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpJdiuFpBpLcUt0Pnlp1mcAEFz1v3ml_O7zAbWecyAqbY9LRjlt8yns-zKjg6XOqcO6K2j9w8B6x0H3LwU7hVJWQWN2Q5GAmFYvMLS-Gr_-jNxaDfw9fuGhzWlRlpcggLxncVaDeluj9s/w640-h480/IMG_0330.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Iffley Lock, with its weir
stream at right. Iffley’s mighty mill, prolific in both woollen cloth and a
range of agricultural foodstuffs, stood about this site till it went down in a
fire in 1908.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8o_9itgYbM8CVo9KS78aIR_czkuo7lO3IhXJ-g30OqRkg79m7_qUEwq2vol5Cx43fHg7fXS_szUG-Mp_LIhl0kDk1r0cFGjJILjvO3dbOdpu2HntJzAB7YdgdLjQqevGN6yBjVMLzqOQ/s5184/IMG_0331.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8o_9itgYbM8CVo9KS78aIR_czkuo7lO3IhXJ-g30OqRkg79m7_qUEwq2vol5Cx43fHg7fXS_szUG-Mp_LIhl0kDk1r0cFGjJILjvO3dbOdpu2HntJzAB7YdgdLjQqevGN6yBjVMLzqOQ/w640-h480/IMG_0331.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The lock used to take tolls
for all the punts, skiffs and assorted little pleasure-boats that ply the
Oxford zone of the ‘Thames or Isis’. More ominously, it is here that we enter the
proving grounds of its university’s fearsome rowing establishment.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgABrt-Pioa-OyGYY1HdMWWO4P0wz4L-_BsLpDjEu2jNmpMHREEPsquVpem9CalHZFLx8ny3eIS-E1oUYbk-RJk5ed_c417gvmQ7rOolje9Yc8Pc9l2ONZScBXxXGg7hpPGt0jXaUpcP6M/s5184/IMG_0333.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgABrt-Pioa-OyGYY1HdMWWO4P0wz4L-_BsLpDjEu2jNmpMHREEPsquVpem9CalHZFLx8ny3eIS-E1oUYbk-RJk5ed_c417gvmQ7rOolje9Yc8Pc9l2ONZScBXxXGg7hpPGt0jXaUpcP6M/w400-h300/IMG_0333.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Unique among the locks on this
journey, Iffley’s has installed these rollers on a side-stream for the easy
passage of </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">punts</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. The ducks here come up to you
expecting food.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Here then is the point of no return. To
pass through this lock is to commit to braving the terrors of the university
city, whose fiercest statements of outward force-projection – its boathouses –
stamp their claim on the riverbanks ahead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWEBU60IVAsHeAaFlGCbsHazdClOqrFWYFTp6XjH98BO8YOEDcCdHgD5Zlx84V0UzowdAq-48olQD7hhSKpInSHasVt-mIY0WbCfRx0wW7entRn_8EuG2hM0AjjjyTbCv3Oj-ybPfM1gw/s5184/IMG_0336.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWEBU60IVAsHeAaFlGCbsHazdClOqrFWYFTp6XjH98BO8YOEDcCdHgD5Zlx84V0UzowdAq-48olQD7hhSKpInSHasVt-mIY0WbCfRx0wW7entRn_8EuG2hM0AjjjyTbCv3Oj-ybPfM1gw/w400-h300/IMG_0336.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The <i>Isis Farmhouse</i> is a
nineteenth-century pub, seemingly once an actual farmhouse, whose advantageous
riverside situation can only be reached on foot, bike or boat.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaQUBdLegdA6SdF1lyr4iA9yQoXlZGe9alu3i3FPxls4k08sVmDjFa2ebowo7byQaxcnRVMuAlvPSvTli4ntRjmDtyEK8L3KhhhgOu9sowcmaG-FB2v6CnTkgzfNynUXcXbO99wB6PVz8/s5184/IMG_0338.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaQUBdLegdA6SdF1lyr4iA9yQoXlZGe9alu3i3FPxls4k08sVmDjFa2ebowo7byQaxcnRVMuAlvPSvTli4ntRjmDtyEK8L3KhhhgOu9sowcmaG-FB2v6CnTkgzfNynUXcXbO99wB6PVz8/w400-h300/IMG_0338.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Scary at first, but a false
alarm: this is just an ordinary public boat hire, not an outpost of the
University navy.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM_5K8kps-njS6Xm8p23kyefci2HKFvzN8Oj2N0rtngJwno7ciXcwAHv35bprqvxxDsLb_Jn-ioQITP16tvbSnPAzQqmI4g1mNbvKsUYXByJ-P42qXmzpekdgLJd1n8fV2MRdvfY1mJdQ/s5184/IMG_0339.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM_5K8kps-njS6Xm8p23kyefci2HKFvzN8Oj2N0rtngJwno7ciXcwAHv35bprqvxxDsLb_Jn-ioQITP16tvbSnPAzQqmI4g1mNbvKsUYXByJ-P42qXmzpekdgLJd1n8fV2MRdvfY1mJdQ/w400-h300/IMG_0339.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Typically of this country,
the one place on the middle Thames actually named for cattle is the one where we
hardly encounter any.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj83vrhSxI__Xhi52ZLckiZye98op9oSTYX5AupaefA8HYaB2pMV-Q8jWa_wFXxMoQ6h8pLA3uJQjL_utqJ3DtJGoujCVwJT51xUn7uBuPMfMHzYTb1dLA95qzfBimrpvLO6n6MklhXWD8/s5184/IMG_0340.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj83vrhSxI__Xhi52ZLckiZye98op9oSTYX5AupaefA8HYaB2pMV-Q8jWa_wFXxMoQ6h8pLA3uJQjL_utqJ3DtJGoujCVwJT51xUn7uBuPMfMHzYTb1dLA95qzfBimrpvLO6n6MklhXWD8/w640-h480/IMG_0340.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">In the distance here is
Donnington Bridge, one of the Oxford Thames’s few available vehicle crossings. Its
position makes it a popular site to watch the University’s rowing commotions.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The pair of suburbs on either side
here, <b>Donnington</b> to the east and <b>New Hinksey</b> to the west, are
largely nineteenth- and/or twentieth-century housing developments. These too
keep their watchful distance from the river, because here, now, we are in rower
territory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8-UU9_Ld2E1BGh0WcT4i68-IXOU7SNf73RmZNeVrGMDZFNiLftYPT_9S6MgqDDMmaVNU8YcHfpmkrvoty-XCNIvsgut99ZsMbWel0DXn8L7qIQpq9Fq6m70TWLBQrz_pNmoqqmP_iFnI/s5184/IMG_0341.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8-UU9_Ld2E1BGh0WcT4i68-IXOU7SNf73RmZNeVrGMDZFNiLftYPT_9S6MgqDDMmaVNU8YcHfpmkrvoty-XCNIvsgut99ZsMbWel0DXn8L7qIQpq9Fq6m70TWLBQrz_pNmoqqmP_iFnI/w640-h480/IMG_0341.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Territory which expands with
every passing day.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhATvlLvnQNAG4J6cXQn_0APhhz5QnOtkv6zm2ZVuxTP5ukCBqV7O32N42la7nFf_q3APyS73mMSk9i56B1iiMu_PPVVM7a1aIe5O7C1eivf_3hW-HibxyOqn_DC4e-CXanhxoqzHgq494/s5184/IMG_0342.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhATvlLvnQNAG4J6cXQn_0APhhz5QnOtkv6zm2ZVuxTP5ukCBqV7O32N42la7nFf_q3APyS73mMSk9i56B1iiMu_PPVVM7a1aIe5O7C1eivf_3hW-HibxyOqn_DC4e-CXanhxoqzHgq494/w400-h300/IMG_0342.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Once more the university
city’s intellectual pedigree is proudly on show. ‘THE MEDIA IS THE VIRUS’ and
‘COVID IS A LIE’ have here been graffitied onto this emergency life-ring
holder.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViHGl69YktFx-3IUQDxpdnvvkcJOOud2dhjLLkr01c8juY93w4wAjnTyKgYu4zrp6ql62n7Z996pgRyYAQrvvSbLlotn0Fqrq59ioUTbIAL4D8eqL_MxFQvrlW0rKUYGBXHEe_dyEDAw/s5184/IMG_0343.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViHGl69YktFx-3IUQDxpdnvvkcJOOud2dhjLLkr01c8juY93w4wAjnTyKgYu4zrp6ql62n7Z996pgRyYAQrvvSbLlotn0Fqrq59ioUTbIAL4D8eqL_MxFQvrlW0rKUYGBXHEe_dyEDAw/w400-h300/IMG_0343.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This would appear to be the marker
stone for the City of Oxford’s southern limit. Of course, boundaries are imaginary,
and the city's imagination seems to have swelled since this was placed here for its
frontier today is drawn as far south as the orbital road bridge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi54J4AkRi035pcMISb9GAOd8btpKPs4mq3wI04tOJZ-c39QZVx0TuVH8TeNOjtcdCMBBwOKUvoBQpW1zyT8XyqmGU-tLnl_ql8rsAWIRUeWPG5ChfSHcWhBe3ofZ60w8n5EAkiNEqS3vU/s5184/IMG_0344.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi54J4AkRi035pcMISb9GAOd8btpKPs4mq3wI04tOJZ-c39QZVx0TuVH8TeNOjtcdCMBBwOKUvoBQpW1zyT8XyqmGU-tLnl_ql8rsAWIRUeWPG5ChfSHcWhBe3ofZ60w8n5EAkiNEqS3vU/w640-h480/IMG_0344.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">At left are another couple of
backwaters. These ones trickle off through the Longbridges nature reserve
before rejoining the river via the Hinksey Stream.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The river widens at this kink, known
in Oxford rowing parlance as <i>The Gut</i>. This is likely to indicate that in
rowing culture this is considered a reasonable place to eat passers-by.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0M2vObzzqDR0xEckZK3YG45el6kCY3oQPvucAC7nBLWchvrhOdRkEqPK6T3TLXu57sxGyT2K09QJb3iP94EVyMhaJE81sgH6enMExea0PmRiziZi92sZqyex2WjuvCVWIub23E2lxtc/s5184/IMG_0345.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0M2vObzzqDR0xEckZK3YG45el6kCY3oQPvucAC7nBLWchvrhOdRkEqPK6T3TLXu57sxGyT2K09QJb3iP94EVyMhaJE81sgH6enMExea0PmRiziZi92sZqyex2WjuvCVWIub23E2lxtc/w400-h300/IMG_0345.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This battery of
boathouses belongs to Oxford University’s Hertford College. The University is
divided into many Colleges, each with its own strong identity and political self-governance.
Each likewise commands its own rowing division which makes its independent
claims on the river.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU2j9FJrLSKn5ry_4hMf3-gVdxLdScAk7bIRWUDURybuZ5irRacR7RfOXrceN15kkCpuZ2kxfuw8z8-iz84pnS2ajzdkN1FYtfJdjC-1SgqZX1k3Pu4CLRls5MlHbguhHGMnFT4Y7RX0U/s5184/IMG_0347.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU2j9FJrLSKn5ry_4hMf3-gVdxLdScAk7bIRWUDURybuZ5irRacR7RfOXrceN15kkCpuZ2kxfuw8z8-iz84pnS2ajzdkN1FYtfJdjC-1SgqZX1k3Pu4CLRls5MlHbguhHGMnFT4Y7RX0U/w400-h300/IMG_0347.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The unified Oxford University
Boat Club, which coordinates the colleges when they come together to fight
their Cambridge rivals in the annual </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Boat Race</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, also stood here till it burnt down
in 1999 with the devastating loss of its historical archives. They have since
built </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">a new headquarters downstream of
Wallingford</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3PO-CLbgz1iLRILspgGW0l2L3Y1vWsxaX-uG00kE9EMxMHLqJ3t4KzoUIaoqoyy_3zYP0MsNtSi1CL2LA0yMnhmPiB_kWt1wlFm8GCkaqIeigvWLVnVyFIGvbI0CchO33lVgeaaaAX8k/s5184/IMG_0349.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3PO-CLbgz1iLRILspgGW0l2L3Y1vWsxaX-uG00kE9EMxMHLqJ3t4KzoUIaoqoyy_3zYP0MsNtSi1CL2LA0yMnhmPiB_kWt1wlFm8GCkaqIeigvWLVnVyFIGvbI0CchO33lVgeaaaAX8k/w640-h480/IMG_0349.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And here’s the main compound.
On this triangular island are concentrated the war machines of two dozen colleges
or so, forming between them the bulk of the Oxford University navy. Do not
under any circumstances attempt to land on this island with anything less than
a fully-trained professional force and the skills to properly deploy it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The <b>River Cherwell</b>, Oxford’s
defining tributary, arrives at the Thames in two channels that draw the sides
of this fearsome nest of oars. Journeying far to get here from
the hills of Northampton province, it feeds the larger river the northernmost
water in its drainage basin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The serene glide of the Cherwell is
at the core of the university’s cultural identity, hosting the majority of its
summer leisure-punting and lending its name to its principal student
newspaper. That said, its name origin appears an utter mystery, and its true
character is said to be ferociously bad-tempered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy47qUR8ryT0VdxNrRxuy5iWhk6bKVgEvJ-vxMAp62tgOBu8MqNHHb26ij5uID2c6KqaXbUsleiC5_ZTii59GAhTsHVWslycweP_4E2DPl4Amz5i3fb9DXLhFEHVk1QXUOxbUuoK6pL8g/s5184/IMG_0348.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy47qUR8ryT0VdxNrRxuy5iWhk6bKVgEvJ-vxMAp62tgOBu8MqNHHb26ij5uID2c6KqaXbUsleiC5_ZTii59GAhTsHVWslycweP_4E2DPl4Amz5i3fb9DXLhFEHVk1QXUOxbUuoK6pL8g/w400-h300/IMG_0348.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Take its double confluence for
instance. This lower one is artificial. Known as the New Cut, it was dug out to
relieve the Cherwell in 1884...</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTmLTRhsU4EC6y7LJtyS5O-CsGqwIGmcAvCpdYcOU4vQ6P3ZxtoxCqcpC5EVoyRR2Df9tf0SbIYGsUXTXdNvLg-JITHzU1so8M3X-6IabWnI1mXOEayT_yvYytwCnJF5ZlWgGbgpWdUsU/s5184/IMG_0353.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTmLTRhsU4EC6y7LJtyS5O-CsGqwIGmcAvCpdYcOU4vQ6P3ZxtoxCqcpC5EVoyRR2Df9tf0SbIYGsUXTXdNvLg-JITHzU1so8M3X-6IabWnI1mXOEayT_yvYytwCnJF5ZlWgGbgpWdUsU/w640-h480/IMG_0353.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">...because the Cherwell’s
natural channel, here on the boathouse island’s upstream side, enters the
Thames from the exact opposite direction to the main river's flow. In temperamental conditions
the two rivers used to be easily capable of shunting each other into reverse,
threatening Oxford’s development with disastrous flooding.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4jJMy35qGatkJskCjc9HqzMxrHca5QznShdOh7nwQsGkz0dxQFQcjFfcLKVbhuvco1XoyWzNuIbHRzu6-xZ8WVhb-8ZjaoiWtQ4BPQDcDv07OCp4o_Ho1fP7pYsozIc4OocflDCJzcYY/s5184/IMG_0352.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4jJMy35qGatkJskCjc9HqzMxrHca5QznShdOh7nwQsGkz0dxQFQcjFfcLKVbhuvco1XoyWzNuIbHRzu6-xZ8WVhb-8ZjaoiWtQ4BPQDcDv07OCp4o_Ho1fP7pYsozIc4OocflDCJzcYY/w400-h300/IMG_0352.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another fine offering from England’s
most hallowed centre of scholarship.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6YHuxMaJQfP3V-YBkdWSOZJwusuQ-0iM_LU5dgb0p5xcWH-O5fq3qfHVKOUgy1FxOoeC7Zon1Y5eShf7BJvQRAxbzm3p8rZuuJdn5Q4Gv06gl7c-cjpERgook5HB52yapagggyIRrVu8/s5184/IMG_0354.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6YHuxMaJQfP3V-YBkdWSOZJwusuQ-0iM_LU5dgb0p5xcWH-O5fq3qfHVKOUgy1FxOoeC7Zon1Y5eShf7BJvQRAxbzm3p8rZuuJdn5Q4Gv06gl7c-cjpERgook5HB52yapagggyIRrVu8/w640-h480/IMG_0354.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And here at last, the first of
those vaunted spires makes its appearance. The tower of Oxford University’s
Magdalen College overlooks the riverside Christ Church Meadow, itself named for
another college. The meadow covers the peninsula between the Thames and the
Cherwell and serves as one of Oxford’s main recreational spaces, as well as
providing access for civilian (punting) and military (rowing) river
activities.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">One final suburb perches over
Oxford’s front door. The Abingdon Road, which here enters the city, historically
came in over a Norman-engineered stone causeway, possibly of earlier Saxon
origin. Still buried somewhere beneath the present-day road, the memory of this
‘Great Bridge’ survives in the south bank suburb’s Norman French name of <b>Grandpont</b>.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI50XcBiCCHIpfFkJTa-GZZla8vWCOKE3f1sRx0f5okjitb8CVQxYS1jzuC3iER8bFJRi4yyUHg29TcAzTHMEC39gFelNq4ErM47R_5Y4ZoIVc7PWadHDF6AWIImWJu8d0MZ24fmVRjv8/s5184/IMG_0358.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI50XcBiCCHIpfFkJTa-GZZla8vWCOKE3f1sRx0f5okjitb8CVQxYS1jzuC3iER8bFJRi4yyUHg29TcAzTHMEC39gFelNq4ErM47R_5Y4ZoIVc7PWadHDF6AWIImWJu8d0MZ24fmVRjv8/w400-h300/IMG_0358.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Like the other outlying
villages, Grandpont was tiny, but in 1785 it acquired this grand-ish house for
Oxford’s town clerk, William Taunton. His family held it for just over half a
century before selling it to the university’s Brasenose College, which has leased
it out since. A tailor and town councillor who lived here around the 1860s, and
whose attempt to restrict pub opening hours got the house attacked by an angry
crowd, is thought to have inspired the Mad Hatter character in Lewis Carroll’s <i>Alice
in Wonderland</i>. The house now hosts a range of the university’s
para-academic activities.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In Grandpont’s case it was the coming
of the railways in 1844 that set off its growth into a suburb. And it is here
that we arrive, at last, in Oxford proper: for this, it is said, is the site of
the original <i>oxen ford</i>, and hence, if the name is accurate, this city’s
birthplace.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjc9mNi_km8JeU_YE7L1IZNAMB2CDkEAupdRkpABvXzObY8s8QcDCxBNKD_QrRB38j3NBCShVfudJ2BnQMn7YoVsncFEflsC2N2lzFHSAPPX2iB_hB73RGDSa-hUbV0GjbCgul6FZ6DIc/s5184/IMG_0359.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjc9mNi_km8JeU_YE7L1IZNAMB2CDkEAupdRkpABvXzObY8s8QcDCxBNKD_QrRB38j3NBCShVfudJ2BnQMn7YoVsncFEflsC2N2lzFHSAPPX2iB_hB73RGDSa-hUbV0GjbCgul6FZ6DIc/w640-h480/IMG_0359.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">At Oxford’s threshold, the
river splits round a small island whose buildings include a restaurant and
steam boat hire service. There’s no going back now.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ujDeVGeuIEux3QRaguGtLReSoZYHcPR1NnWk64To3UcQwjLq57MzB08Us6S4mIwa-ImuSR_URXfS917l5x3QIx11f9STVihzj-AODSlVRMZ5YbzpRJjswVP_XJ963a3HTUqOxSr-xmg/s5184/IMG_0360.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ujDeVGeuIEux3QRaguGtLReSoZYHcPR1NnWk64To3UcQwjLq57MzB08Us6S4mIwa-ImuSR_URXfS917l5x3QIx11f9STVihzj-AODSlVRMZ5YbzpRJjswVP_XJ963a3HTUqOxSr-xmg/w640-h480/IMG_0360.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It was here, beneath the St.
Aldate’s Yard warehouses that are now <i>The Head of the River</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> pub, that Carroll’s famous </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wonderland</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">-spawning boat trip up to Godstow is said to have embarked on a ‘golden
afternoon’ in 1862. In the foreground another boat trip embarks from this city
of ancient wisdom with exemplary caution for the spread of COVID-19.</span></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCrW79G1gh_1_8Q8JXJncyqdgbOGAbec27hTUxUEzXj5wrb3bkZzFybr2gfVMFF05rjd3_LsbCwGyAY-xtPvlHeSAwgim5JFvEnLB_lJixHhNplxm98nrvAGrBZpotonXwji761ZW9qZk/s5184/IMG_0361.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCrW79G1gh_1_8Q8JXJncyqdgbOGAbec27hTUxUEzXj5wrb3bkZzFybr2gfVMFF05rjd3_LsbCwGyAY-xtPvlHeSAwgim5JFvEnLB_lJixHhNplxm98nrvAGrBZpotonXwji761ZW9qZk/w400-h300/IMG_0361.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Every
single life ring box on the way up this reach has been defaced with the slogans
of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. And then, right here, to welcome arrivals
through the gates of Oxford, there’s this one. Did you know that the city’s
motto is apparently </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">fortis est veritas</span></i><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> – ‘the
truth is strong’?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnuqFeMHpKO8xSfT-LylabPg_XSB4wQSFYINw6zumCWi5iwdwnj_2gIveP3yySPCSouF9bFo0lBQuqNvvLkBjuaRuKzQhnwhYc0eyw8yHxa_TjfjDio3JWo1BeZaNwzMawsvOTiNiqzuk/s5184/IMG_0363.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnuqFeMHpKO8xSfT-LylabPg_XSB4wQSFYINw6zumCWi5iwdwnj_2gIveP3yySPCSouF9bFo0lBQuqNvvLkBjuaRuKzQhnwhYc0eyw8yHxa_TjfjDio3JWo1BeZaNwzMawsvOTiNiqzuk/w400-h300/IMG_0363.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The
Folly Bridge at Oxford’s south entrance dates back only to the 1820s, by when
the folly tower they named it for had been demolished. But it replaced an
earlier South Bridge, which in turn was built upon the old Grandpont causeway
and the </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">oxen ford</span></i><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> before it. This peculiar
structure on its island is the 1849 ‘Cauldwell’s Castle’, built for an Oxford
accountant in the 1840s. The site is thought to have once housed the studies of
thirteenth-century friar, empiricist, and possibly wizard Roger Bacon.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Here, then,
are the spires, the boss stage, the Privilege Fort of Privilege Forts, the
grandest imaginative exercise of all to conclude the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">valley of
imagination</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> that is the central Thames.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXbIL4FDrdp7DTHHeGMgKh0XhlK01NnKdtBTlPfzEtp9vk-t8TniicTJ37y6N920j1uUi_0StMcFh75r5okCGj0SS8auYw5tDV3KqmfUcwFhSgso4AVhMoIMR_23xzp7aC5RdalE-BnuQ/s1553/16a%2529+Abingdon+to+Oxford+2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="717" data-original-width="1553" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXbIL4FDrdp7DTHHeGMgKh0XhlK01NnKdtBTlPfzEtp9vk-t8TniicTJ37y6N920j1uUi_0StMcFh75r5okCGj0SS8auYw5tDV3KqmfUcwFhSgso4AVhMoIMR_23xzp7aC5RdalE-BnuQ/w640-h295/16a%2529+Abingdon+to+Oxford+2.png" width="640" /></a></div> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Oxford – the City</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Thus far it is the fabled University
of Oxford which has done most to advertise its city unto the river. Are we to
suppose, then, that the water now leads us straight to the feet of its glistening
towers of power?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV7UBhn4tJWsRUNwEegdKOqY_rqRWMi8lB9_IT5aDwn4SnaoK_vyC2KuWFdpi74ZLirc_hsBw3yRI8ikZ8E-A5BeyUXRO8uK4QiOUeMAj8TWrr3PdHJNi0FpaM38iIcvzsD0N6LV7PjDE/s5184/IMG_0365.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV7UBhn4tJWsRUNwEegdKOqY_rqRWMi8lB9_IT5aDwn4SnaoK_vyC2KuWFdpi74ZLirc_hsBw3yRI8ikZ8E-A5BeyUXRO8uK4QiOUeMAj8TWrr3PdHJNi0FpaM38iIcvzsD0N6LV7PjDE/w640-h480/IMG_0365.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Actually, no. In fact the
Thames curves off west, away from the spires and round the city’s backside.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtFyO41BpkfSxG4FEicB3q-wUym4aZPwVyY18Q-lJEtKK-nZ2CB4zR2xoYv4ORUXQbGtHAJViFaVZCrWqigkmwzeN_04K0nd3qpKmpiUYmvCDdUpwy7HoX9hUpk3oKCzal62UnIXmjo6M/s5184/IMG_0367.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtFyO41BpkfSxG4FEicB3q-wUym4aZPwVyY18Q-lJEtKK-nZ2CB4zR2xoYv4ORUXQbGtHAJViFaVZCrWqigkmwzeN_04K0nd3qpKmpiUYmvCDdUpwy7HoX9hUpk3oKCzal62UnIXmjo6M/w640-h480/IMG_0367.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This would have been packed with industrial labourers, cargo barges and tow-horses, to say nothing of the noise, sweat, shit, coal-smog, filthy water and life-altering accidents. Not the scenery that Oxford’s
name brings first to mind, is it?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Suddenly the University might as well
not exist. The river winds unglamorous through a post-industrial green sleeve amidst
backstage bridges and graffiti-strewn pieces of yesterday. Breaking what’s left
of the reverie, they sink us back to the question of reality. Is there, then, an
actual Oxford – that is, a settlement – behind, or beneath, the soaring
diorama?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGIPTmfuYSq-OAiCj-MgQ59F3WlbpC1XT2c2dJwX_l9uht57IkB_xa88ppqVAP29nQvZLBxbL83q0dJXH4qIdkCTJVP2HeHbBv3jHcQQpcl4yWkslK5keHkgZjA9B5pc8l7C0laTvONiA/s5184/IMG_0366.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGIPTmfuYSq-OAiCj-MgQ59F3WlbpC1XT2c2dJwX_l9uht57IkB_xa88ppqVAP29nQvZLBxbL83q0dJXH4qIdkCTJVP2HeHbBv3jHcQQpcl4yWkslK5keHkgZjA9B5pc8l7C0laTvONiA/w400-h300/IMG_0366.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Oxford’s famous Bridge of
Sighs is not on the river, but if it’s actual sighs you want then it offers
good candidates. This forgotten footbridge was built to carry pipes for the
huge St. Ebbes gasworks which sprawled across both sides here in industrial
times.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw2vQHMQi6kehW0EcVxE9HDDdoPnNgZqtszevTsDaoTo7cbR38Gh5kfUQkszBcAV2HIppNblgFpMlG-B9jCj73zmhWXMhoFA0ADrzZmi0T3Nzgbl0iCKJG04LFPTH8926cnfPivcDvpkI/s5184/IMG_0368.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw2vQHMQi6kehW0EcVxE9HDDdoPnNgZqtszevTsDaoTo7cbR38Gh5kfUQkszBcAV2HIppNblgFpMlG-B9jCj73zmhWXMhoFA0ADrzZmi0T3Nzgbl0iCKJG04LFPTH8926cnfPivcDvpkI/w400-h300/IMG_0368.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And here’s the 1866 railway bridge,
whose track branched off the main Oxford line to supply the gasworks with coal.
Since the gasworks were demolished in 1960 it too has entered retirement as a
footbridge. The St. Ebbes quarter is now largely residential and has unleashed
the monstrous Westgate Shopping Centre onto Oxford’s city centre.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-FZpDpaea3Utk7BMuMDJgG8JA6U1h240UesXl4xvf6o7xNl_zwqFgBKkPiAvh-oLEBzvqDVeWF4JokDCFR7SIEQuUSx2asDPh3krZi66S4ynAhYPdo97DjyVDZXGfpmbsf8TZXZ6xzTU/s5184/IMG_0370.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-FZpDpaea3Utk7BMuMDJgG8JA6U1h240UesXl4xvf6o7xNl_zwqFgBKkPiAvh-oLEBzvqDVeWF4JokDCFR7SIEQuUSx2asDPh3krZi66S4ynAhYPdo97DjyVDZXGfpmbsf8TZXZ6xzTU/w400-h300/IMG_0370.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">More evidence of two different
Oxfords. Can the city which did so much to develop the AstraZeneca COVID-19
vaccine be the same city that exhorts you to ‘TAKE YOUR FACE NAPPIES OFF’?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Oxford began as they all did: with
the river. Here, sandwiched in the centre of the broad clay vale between the
Cotswolds and </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/07/thames-12-gap-in-chalk.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">the chalk</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, its water is bottlenecked through a
cluster of low hills and breaks into a tangled web of backwaters and
side-channels. These, along with its aggressive rendezvous with the Cherwell,
would have made these marshes a flood-prone deterrent to any aspiring settlers.
Perhaps this explain why, though plenty of evidence for ancient activity has
been dug up here – Neolithic arrowheads, Bronze Age barrows, Roman pottery
kilns – this seems to have been generally rejected as a site for long-term
settlement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It was only after the coming of the
Anglo-Saxon immigrants that a permanent community took root here, encouraged most
likely by its opportune position for trade on the Mercia-Wessex frontier. Bolstered
as one of </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">King Alfred’s defensive <i>burhs</i></span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, the new settlement’s name makes its
first known written appearance as <i>Oxnaford</i> in the entry for year 911 in
the <i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i>. A regular pivot for the long-term
Saxon-Viking struggle in these centuries, the town was sacked multiple times
and gained lasting notoriety as early as 1002 when, according to the <i>Chronicle</i>,
some of the worst mass killings of the St. Brice’s Day massacre</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> of Danish people took place here under orders
from one of the most poorly-reputed leaders in this island’s history, King Æthelred
Unræd (“the ill-advised”).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKgfxV0t5FGatAsc-HboEcZUZIUF6K1BCCTcZoYNILyk0I20spySSUNu8gQXOAB0MdpktU1Ye_McsiM7zSmwdnB2TNwYLt-VZJfYvzVdKgZ0_BICY8oEzAWNpjx1R9lNit6jPsFY4if1M/s5184/IMG_0374.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKgfxV0t5FGatAsc-HboEcZUZIUF6K1BCCTcZoYNILyk0I20spySSUNu8gQXOAB0MdpktU1Ye_McsiM7zSmwdnB2TNwYLt-VZJfYvzVdKgZ0_BICY8oEzAWNpjx1R9lNit6jPsFY4if1M/w400-h300/IMG_0374.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">If it’s ill advice you want
then it does look like you’ve come to the right place. There’s not much moral
high ground on show here when it comes to not causing massacres with ill
advice.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4UAFCcJIBpJLny-WKce8EOHLbRfMO9bqa_inquGx3ikfZ-2t1kqBVMVkOiYjARatipJa_QdL4YCwRZWKdNcaT-mY6BvF_irhQKwPrEUCvGcihKIxyVoj0QNIQt84qIfk9f1yEASxhyjI/s5184/IMG_0372.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4UAFCcJIBpJLny-WKce8EOHLbRfMO9bqa_inquGx3ikfZ-2t1kqBVMVkOiYjARatipJa_QdL4YCwRZWKdNcaT-mY6BvF_irhQKwPrEUCvGcihKIxyVoj0QNIQt84qIfk9f1yEASxhyjI/w640-h480/IMG_0372.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A footbridge over the Bulstake
Stream, yet another side-channel which goes off on its own journey above Oxford
before returning here to the river. This one however carries a big secret: it
is believed to have been the main Thames channel till it was relegated by the
construction of Osney Lock upstream.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Æthelred’s bloodbath only provoked the Danes
into a further round of conflicts, whose eventual upshot was his kingdom’s transfer
to the Danish prince Cnut – who, notably, was also this land’s first king to
have his coronation here at Oxford. Clearly the <i>oxen ford</i> was growing in
importance. But then again, the same could be said for many of the Thames towns
downstream and there was little as yet to specially distinguish this one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">When the Normans took over William the
Conqueror parked a minion from the Norman nobility called Robert D’Oyly here. Under
D’Oyly’s governance it got a castle (like </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Wallingford</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">),
and later on acquired some monasteries too (like </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Reading</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">,
</span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-5-cross-purposes.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Chertsey</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">,<u>
</u></span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Syon</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
and a string of others along this river). Once again, so far so Thames.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaAJu8DLHrW0xaIa1btSdoUjw93WcnpWgv_l67NJta3XDpTGhCvNrsJgPdTU9OYGoJpW6y8wFLV70fsLu0MjEJdanrzJQ-i110zERbFRYdsum_PNl6CgjyW4s9rPW5Yoy5qM1EQxb3IrI/s5184/IMG_0386.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaAJu8DLHrW0xaIa1btSdoUjw93WcnpWgv_l67NJta3XDpTGhCvNrsJgPdTU9OYGoJpW6y8wFLV70fsLu0MjEJdanrzJQ-i110zERbFRYdsum_PNl6CgjyW4s9rPW5Yoy5qM1EQxb3IrI/w400-h300/IMG_0386.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Oxford Castle, built in the 1070s, saw
some action in England’s various nasty little medieval conflicts, most of all
during </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Matilda’s and Stephen’s power struggle</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">, but it never reached the physical or
strategic magnitude of, say, Wallingford’s. Falling into disrepair, most of it
was demolished during and after the civil wars, with its remainder used as an
infamously brutal prison till 1996. It’s now a museum, but they’ve also </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/09/thames-15-thames-or-isis.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">followed Abingdon’s distasteful example</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> in burying its abusive memories under a hotel
and office complex.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhltoT9aHlKq5mGtle8gotj2PebIXGNHT4x0hBNgS3kjVW0ZE1z-FgOcNZRUxnouDGgs5tHND2Nc41jG2ME5cxmo_Dm-e6_87JYFIaAlolu63gK-esjDICsfGY-g7pW3VRCMaevzOrAl-k/s5184/IMG_0385.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhltoT9aHlKq5mGtle8gotj2PebIXGNHT4x0hBNgS3kjVW0ZE1z-FgOcNZRUxnouDGgs5tHND2Nc41jG2ME5cxmo_Dm-e6_87JYFIaAlolu63gK-esjDICsfGY-g7pW3VRCMaevzOrAl-k/w400-h300/IMG_0385.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The castle keep’s earthwork
mound still stands, a prominent landmark for anyone walking into the city from
the train station. Pay the museum £1 and you can go up and walk around on it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBkykNockjsUEDgE2xP8qYOdscUU6sYPpL2lL5njHYujBzUpyr88W9uKGJYNJhx5JS1n9lJiXYwpjcngMjf5Kn6lYJtm1GiEq1GIJVW0DE5WZFucZohBupcs7xNpzIP-IUushTvZ_4Rw/s5184/IMG_0388.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBkykNockjsUEDgE2xP8qYOdscUU6sYPpL2lL5njHYujBzUpyr88W9uKGJYNJhx5JS1n9lJiXYwpjcngMjf5Kn6lYJtm1GiEq1GIJVW0DE5WZFucZohBupcs7xNpzIP-IUushTvZ_4Rw/w640-h480/IMG_0388.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The mound offers this view of
Oxford city centre. A little underwhelming if you’re in mind of the skyline
conjured up by Matthew Arnold’s <i>dreaming spires</i>.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHSliVMA75ePSh6qjy0obDiYw7Kvf5CJlKUyT8UvCuIlYAz8_0gyQH_Bo8gAzFwrHcqv8CFQyiXDcClh6kb9UDWY2zNPxydMKLmecgkyMTtxfjC9JAL1V43mG4fH8PjELl7_PByycpZWg/s5184/IMG_0389.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHSliVMA75ePSh6qjy0obDiYw7Kvf5CJlKUyT8UvCuIlYAz8_0gyQH_Bo8gAzFwrHcqv8CFQyiXDcClh6kb9UDWY2zNPxydMKLmecgkyMTtxfjC9JAL1V43mG4fH8PjELl7_PByycpZWg/w640-h480/IMG_0389.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The views north and west,
towards the outlying districts of Jericho and Osney respectively, offer a
somewhat different vision of what Oxford means.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The community of <b>Osney</b> on
Oxford’s west flank is our next concern, because it was here, where the river
(and later the railway) comes in, that Oxford’s main monastery appeared in the
1150s. Founded by Robert D’Oyly’s nephew, another Robert, <b>Osney Abbey</b> grew
rich by setting up mills and fiddled with the river’s flow to power them, again
like so many big monasteries we’ve seen. These works were some of the first in
a long tradition of hydro-engineering that further complicated the flow of
water through this marshy plain, including the Oxford Canal in industrial times
and the ‘New Cut’ at the mouth of the Cherwell.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5FJgkV841UKGbQxT1EURoFHO1WAM3dSQ2Uh9Y0oR0rIkjeKINzoYURPZG25hiRUoi6BMBkTdJpAxL99vSWGWVJUH2nqcsWwtr5BseuLG_piXvbis3AHllDCdABpLHsUJXa8Kftr_KQys/s5184/IMG_0369.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5FJgkV841UKGbQxT1EURoFHO1WAM3dSQ2Uh9Y0oR0rIkjeKINzoYURPZG25hiRUoi6BMBkTdJpAxL99vSWGWVJUH2nqcsWwtr5BseuLG_piXvbis3AHllDCdABpLHsUJXa8Kftr_KQys/w400-h300/IMG_0369.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Yet another side-channel is
the Castle Mill Stream, here arriving in the Thames after flowing down in
parallel to its east. Traditionally the boundary between Osney and Oxford
proper, this is the stream that wonder-addled students and tourists cross soon
after exiting the train station, injecting a preliminary dash of Venetian romance
to prime their nerves for the beige-spire rhapsody ahead.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Osney Abbey lasted till it got Henry
VIII’d in 1539, though its buildings impressed him enough to gain a temporary afterlife
as Oxford’s cathedral. Only a few years later that status, along with the
Abbey’s bell and much of its treasure, was transferred to the main beneficiary
of its demise, the University’s new college of Christ Church. With the
monastery ruins ransacked for stone during the civil wars, virtually nothing
but its echoes linger today.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiBjpIJL4WFnwAk24UyMaIXzIjGjR5o2Q86XQWKaLtFvjtHN6ERToaYjpUMP9YTFRBNs_SL8lZyVhg9O1E8A-RKH8o9nMP2CwZhZ6m10MonsPCAWwkNcbCoNSWcxJuvp5217zp5Z6gqQQ/s5184/IMG_0375.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiBjpIJL4WFnwAk24UyMaIXzIjGjR5o2Q86XQWKaLtFvjtHN6ERToaYjpUMP9YTFRBNs_SL8lZyVhg9O1E8A-RKH8o9nMP2CwZhZ6m10MonsPCAWwkNcbCoNSWcxJuvp5217zp5Z6gqQQ/w640-h480/IMG_0375.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The approach round the bend to
Osney. The former meadows at left were developed into a large industrial
estate, <i>Osney Mead</i>, in the 1960s. It has since gained a neglected
reputation and the University is making noises about transforming it further.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjME66hGGC8Ywl7GY74lujulnSdSgNVCe_QNLI3iJy_NDH3-Y4hulz1b6VV5a2ZFrS1ybRhcHfozkaqBMI43K1B4liF4f8up7GDYoCUwn_9lwWNwxl1werb4vxLjSgD4bBqOWOkN6QT6i0/s5184/IMG_0376.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjME66hGGC8Ywl7GY74lujulnSdSgNVCe_QNLI3iJy_NDH3-Y4hulz1b6VV5a2ZFrS1ybRhcHfozkaqBMI43K1B4liF4f8up7GDYoCUwn_9lwWNwxl1werb4vxLjSgD4bBqOWOkN6QT6i0/w640-h480/IMG_0376.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">For the river’s purposes the
Abbey’s most important echo was its millstream, which the construction of Osney
Lock in 1790 turned into the Thames’s primary channel. The old main course is
now the Bulstake Stream. Nastily, they minimised costs by getting inmates from
the prison to build this lock. The current structure is a 1905 rebuild, and in
the last few years it’s also sprouted a community-owned hydroelectric station with
an Archimedes Screw like at Sandford.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0YmhlceZgrItot64gU5LiCXWvWPbG_GwDfngbXkNYrhmMsM_x_PgqhC5R3kZILvQ950Gm6cIBsXzyz88prnnHzecKdYdn5amnMuG9yrtwkz0XnM0xLQlx9itWSVMxlEr3WHimlq08jl0/s5184/IMG_0382.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0YmhlceZgrItot64gU5LiCXWvWPbG_GwDfngbXkNYrhmMsM_x_PgqhC5R3kZILvQ950Gm6cIBsXzyz88prnnHzecKdYdn5amnMuG9yrtwkz0XnM0xLQlx9itWSVMxlEr3WHimlq08jl0/w400-h300/IMG_0382.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The original Osney Bridge, at
Oxford’s west entrance, was likely built by the Osney Abbey monks over what was
then their millstream. A later stone bridge collapsed in 1885 after heavy
rains, drowning an eleven-year-old girl. This replacement, opened in 1889, is
distinct for having the lowest headroom of any bridge on the navigable Thames –
thus putting an end to those chugging white pleasure-cruisers of the middle
river, and marking the start of the quieter upper reaches.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Osney Abbey was only the most
prominent of a smattering of Christian houses which set up in Oxford in the
Norman period, which included the Cistercian order’s Rewley Abbey, the
Augustinian priory of <b>Frideswide</b> (Oxford’s patron saint who earlier founded
a nunnery on the site, destroyed during the 1002 St. Brice’s Day violence), as
well as a community of monks within the castle itself. Drawn perhaps by each
other’s successes, as well as Henry II’s granting of a charter of privileges to
the town in the 1150s and the frequent meetings here of the nascent English
parliament, such religious gatherings were this society’s main engine of scholarly
inquiry at the time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This, then, was the soil from which the pointy tips of the
University spires sprouted, and so precipitously do they overwhelm the records from
then on that any further account risks becoming all about it, the University. It
is here then that it becomes all the more necessary to remember that there was
still a town struggling on beneath it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0OQbaSs4yRufDQTAFWOjwhMnbF-Ou_rnH4Itrt4dV5ag8PON_ZBOwQ05CtwHPZ4ULcMsogYKLfkegowmvjTTudwGNb8XXs-jzLWC354btp35JzePYHoyP4Y_hXWcJ-HW8Ol7nvEv2aC0/s5184/IMG_0394.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0OQbaSs4yRufDQTAFWOjwhMnbF-Ou_rnH4Itrt4dV5ag8PON_ZBOwQ05CtwHPZ4ULcMsogYKLfkegowmvjTTudwGNb8XXs-jzLWC354btp35JzePYHoyP4Y_hXWcJ-HW8Ol7nvEv2aC0/w300-h400/IMG_0394.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This crossroads – <i>quadrifurcus</i>
in Latin, whence its present name <i>Carfax</i> – is the formal centre of
Oxford. The stone Carfax Tower is all that remains of the city’s principal
church, built in Norman times but demolished in 1896 to open up the centre for
road traffic.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEM8Q3HkNjFChFFwlogsHLJxEb0GB6SbEnIR0JqTvAzw75Oif_gugS1kebWO3LYhM-DziZT3yYZWLIY6anyEs5O8gPJ_LschOzhXuX5JCo6wOXPbi60dvfZ8u0UOQVS3V7r71qxIwZ_0A/s5184/IMG_0395.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEM8Q3HkNjFChFFwlogsHLJxEb0GB6SbEnIR0JqTvAzw75Oif_gugS1kebWO3LYhM-DziZT3yYZWLIY6anyEs5O8gPJ_LschOzhXuX5JCo6wOXPbi60dvfZ8u0UOQVS3V7r71qxIwZ_0A/w640-h480/IMG_0395.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">To its north, the tower of an
extant church, <i>St. Michael at the North Gate</i>, is an Anglo-Saxon survival
from the 1050s and believed to be the oldest building in Oxford.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Much as in the other Thames
settlements, the English journey gave Oxford’s inhabitants a bitterly rough
ride. Then as now their increasingly connected market town grew vulnerable to infectious
disease; it was devastated, for example, by the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-9-death-in-willows.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">fourteenth-century bubonic plague pandemic</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> and, more
mysteriously, the still-unidentified ‘sweating sickness’ outbreak of the 1510s.
As a hotbed of religious criticism it also suffered during the long-drawn-out
horror of the English Reformation. Indeed it was here, two centuries before the
main upheaval even started, that the priest and professor John Wycliffe
criticised the dogma and corruption of the Christian authorities and undermined
their power by translating the Bible into vernacular English. For this he was thrown
out of the University and declared a heretic after his death (the Church even
dug up and burnt his body out of spite), but not before sparking the much-persecuted
Lollard movement which foreshadowed the Protestant revolution.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEro8a6Ztx6iYmAlKF2ViguI4uxXMvk_z2tyalqd2RAUgFjgqIddxrvcLX9TiGQn0AtFRuqBo_c5ohkSSvZXitNBMhZEUDDGtxnzLBgworHlJC96h1AusfShJOW6-plbJbJu76ZVunMeI/s5184/IMG_0396.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEro8a6Ztx6iYmAlKF2ViguI4uxXMvk_z2tyalqd2RAUgFjgqIddxrvcLX9TiGQn0AtFRuqBo_c5ohkSSvZXitNBMhZEUDDGtxnzLBgworHlJC96h1AusfShJOW6-plbJbJu76ZVunMeI/w300-h400/IMG_0396.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Oxford’s 1843 <i>Martyrs’
Memorial</i> commemorates perhaps the town’s single most notorious incident of
religious violence: the ceremonial burning to death of Protestant bishops Hugh
Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer – together known as
the ‘Oxford Martyrs’ –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>during the
Catholic resurgence under Henry VIII’s daughter Mary in the 1550s.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Oxford then became central to the
bloodiest episode of this political and religious identity crisis, the
seventeenth-century </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">civil wars</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, when the king requisitioned it as his
alternative capital after Parliament drove him from London – the decision
which, as we have seen so often on this exploration, got the Thames’s
downstream settlements stuck on the terrible front lines of their contestation.
While the royal court lived it up at their Christ Church College headquarters,
the townspeople got the complete misery of a wartime climate: the regular din
of boots and gunpowder; soldiers who bullied, abused and stole from them and
brawled and drank themselves out in their taverns; and constant special taxes,
food shortages, and outbreaks of smallpox and typhus, along with perpetual
anxiety at the coming parliamentary siege. Ironic then the siege itself spared
Oxford serious damage, as the war was in effect lost for the Royalists by the
time it arrived. The real damage came when its ageing heritage – the castle,
the walls, the abbey ruins – were first cannibalised for defensive materials,
then demolished by the victorious Parliamentary forces in the years that
followed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Nonetheless the market town straggled
on, increasingly in the shadow of the University whose grandiose architecture
was now well and truly swamping its landscape. It is on account of that shadow
that when these people industrialised – once more, as so many others did –
it comes across here as something like a parallel timeline.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Manufacturing was in fact hardly new
in Oxford. Its printing and publishing sector in particular, with the renowned <b>Oxford
University Press</b> as its jewel, went right back to the fifteenth-century
printing revolution. But once linked to raw materials and markets by the Oxford
Canal in the 1790s, then moreso by the railways from the 1840s on, a network of
paper and textile mills grew up along this infrastructure together with the (typically
poor-quality) working-class housing to support their staff – in the Jericho
ward north up the canal, for example, or Osney, now revived into a railway district.<br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5diBIXSlxu4DDUeE3rQAwUmFXag9D5S8EBtZsYqWP-R12jJiGNgqovR-6O-n-tvcdHBZT5F8FyFiQfJ6BMQ7QdiK4wSO96ipBlqBQhL81kAnbWwc5BcK4lgOey4O6VAie5JNsl6ffPrY/s5184/IMG_0380.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5diBIXSlxu4DDUeE3rQAwUmFXag9D5S8EBtZsYqWP-R12jJiGNgqovR-6O-n-tvcdHBZT5F8FyFiQfJ6BMQ7QdiK4wSO96ipBlqBQhL81kAnbWwc5BcK4lgOey4O6VAie5JNsl6ffPrY/w640-h480/IMG_0380.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Osney Abbey’s old stomping
grounds retain something of an old industrial feel, quite distinct from the
university-dominated city centre.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">A handful of totemic producers stood
at the top of this heap, like the Eagle Ironworks in Jericho, or Frank Cooper’s
marmalade near the train station. But as far as heaps went, it was never the
highest by the standards of the region. Industrial Oxford only really took off
in the twentieth century, when its population growth and urban expansion were
sent rocketing by a single driver: car manufacturing on its eastern outskirts
in <b>Cowley</b>. The appearance of Morris Motors there in the 1910s, with its
Ford-style production lines and supporting sub-sectors such as steel-pressing,
drew hundreds of workers and their families to Oxford each year, from a broad
range of ethno-cultural backgrounds, until the company’s decline in the 1970s.
Most of these factories have since closed down, but rather astonishingly, one
plant still survives under the control of BMW, whose production of Minis
remains one of Oxford’s largest employers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">These peripheralised zones, then,
give the most visible face to the <i>other</i> (or if you like, the <i>real</i>)
Oxford, whose scattered but substantial physical presence on the map contrasts
against the University’s nucleus of nests. Actual working people do still live in
this settlement, and face the same problems of English decline as the rest of
their country’s modern underclass – in particular the poverty, hunger and
homelessness which, in one of the proudest and most expensive of English
cities, manifests in shocking in-your-face inequalities.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguO_k3WlMa0iERzbE0cWURhBl9BtnY8KLXWzG2gJKKQr2FprIegsc8x9sqJfL0nqSJp5daRhAqUZE0eaaJA3cmCE8aGp3J3-YGz0aJFuELoVulUEuos353oncvhAN0_SYXXWd2JlDhDeQ/s5184/IMG_0393.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguO_k3WlMa0iERzbE0cWURhBl9BtnY8KLXWzG2gJKKQr2FprIegsc8x9sqJfL0nqSJp5daRhAqUZE0eaaJA3cmCE8aGp3J3-YGz0aJFuELoVulUEuos353oncvhAN0_SYXXWd2JlDhDeQ/w300-h400/IMG_0393.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The spires might glisten up
top, but homelessness, deprivation and decay are common round their bases.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">But what then of the spires
themselves? The intellectual hub, the city in the clouds, the beige-limestone
behemoth of English culture and imagination? What has the University of Oxford
to say for itself? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Oxford – the University</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The <b>University of Oxford</b> has
no official founding date or great pioneer, rather emerging from the miasma of
scholastically-inclined religious houses gathering in this town by the twelfth
century. Numerous intellectuals, most prominently Gerald of Wales, are on
record as teaching and studying here at that time, generating a magnetic pull
which was further boosted by an influx of English students returning from the
University of Paris in the 1160s under the acrimony of a worsening Anglo-French
relationship.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">By around the 1230s an organised body
of higher instruction seems to have coalesced in Oxford. It had its own
Chancellor, official recognition as a singular organisation (<i>universitas</i>,
literally ‘turned into one’), and a teaching structure and curriculum modelled
on the European paragon of its kind, the University of Paris. Following the continental
trend of the time it taught theology, philosophy and the humanities (or
‘liberal arts’) to male-only students (this being a sexist country), as well as
the rudiments of what would now be recognised as science, at a pivotal moment
in the growth of European learning in general. This after all was when the foundational
philosophies of Ancient Greece, long lost to Europe after the post-Roman Empire
upheavals, were trickling in thanks to their preservation in Arabic by Muslim
scholars.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Relations with the town were tense
from the beginning. The University had no separate buildings as such; teaching
took place in churches or hired halls, mostly in lectures prior to the arrival
of the printed word, while both students and teachers lived scattered about the
town. At the same time they were independent of it, being functions of the
religious houses – which placed them outside its civil regime, beyond the reach
of its laws, and free to make trouble for its people as they pleased. Oxford’s
split into a two-tier town, in other words, with a privileged caste above and
an underclass below, was already underway, and an early flashpoint proved
particularly fateful. When a student allegedly murdered a townswoman in 1209, an
angry mob caught and lynched two or three students – likely not including the
correct one – resulting in riots which sent many students and teachers fleeing.
A core of them set up an alternative centre of learning out in the eastern fens,
which would grow into Oxford’s rival and mirror image, the University of
Cambridge. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The same upheaval demanded new
regulations on lodging, with students, their numbers on the rise with the
University’s prestige, now required to live in approved communal boarding halls.
It was these which would eventually develop into the University’s <b>college
system</b>, whereby its operations – and the city geography – are partitioned
up into Oxford’s distinct walled quadrangles, each a self-contained and
semi-autonomous principality beneath the University umbrella.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0jKPKQGEOwOKMskA6I07KuxiX-pVhWIeGw8fQpgH1OJK7i71c4E0d9m-96KY62J5KfEsW8LUlfRprx7Q_NOk4cRlMgyRq-QvqivPV58NvcED775Mp0wbhF00MkDgMekVtvQgTohm9Zw/s5184/IMG_0398.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK0jKPKQGEOwOKMskA6I07KuxiX-pVhWIeGw8fQpgH1OJK7i71c4E0d9m-96KY62J5KfEsW8LUlfRprx7Q_NOk4cRlMgyRq-QvqivPV58NvcED775Mp0wbhF00MkDgMekVtvQgTohm9Zw/w640-h480/IMG_0398.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Balliol College, one of the
first three Oxford colleges to emerge. It was founded in the 1260s by John de
Balliol, Norman counsellor and father of the John Balliol who as king of
Scotland had a very bad time. Another John-son and specialist in bad times,
Boris Johnson, came through here too. Proud of yourselves Balliol?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyIJm4jg7UU-YDbw7hUZQZqnNuzPFEcXfTaecg0UkUUsoCgmOf0VeiI_Bbk0hmceNMpB2bKPHPunPySsxbiw4BGPSOwjR-LmyCwTaf3bN2RSYbJOW1VQCQrJmTvrzEdfFT1mj_279eHo/s5184/IMG_0422.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyIJm4jg7UU-YDbw7hUZQZqnNuzPFEcXfTaecg0UkUUsoCgmOf0VeiI_Bbk0hmceNMpB2bKPHPunPySsxbiw4BGPSOwjR-LmyCwTaf3bN2RSYbJOW1VQCQrJmTvrzEdfFT1mj_279eHo/w640-h480/IMG_0422.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Merton College, another in
this initial set. Its founder was Walter de Merton: Lord Chancellor, Bishop of
Rochester, and effectively regent for King Edward I while the latter was off
giving John Balliol and other Scottish people a very bad time in violent
colonial ways. The third member of this set, University College, also dates
from this period despite its claim to have been founded by King Alfred.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">By the fourteenth century Oxford’s
and Cambridge’s prestige had so swelled as to let them successfully petition
King Edward III to block construction of any new universities in England – a
decision which guaranteed the pair’s duopoly over English higher education for
centuries to come. In the meantime the new housing arrangements did little to
ease the scholars’ relationship with the townsfolk. The students rioted against
the merchants, rioted against the monks and friars, rioted against the Pope’s ambassadors,
and rioted against each other, being divisively organised along lines of
geographic origin at this time. When disputes got out of hand the authorities tended
to step in, imposing a peace that more often than not advantaged the University
over the town. The scholarly community’s better ability to flee to rural
holdings during the Black Death when the townsfolk could not – and worse, to
take advantage of it by buying up large pieces of plague-vacated land – could
have done the people’s resentment few favours either.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It was under that atmosphere of
plague-ravaged decline that these hostilities came to a head in their worst
ever round of bloodletting, memorialised as the <b>St. Scholastica Day Massacre</b>
of 1355. It began with a tiny incident: a quarrel between two students and a
Carfax tavernkeeper over the quality of his wine. Arguments came to blows,
customers picked a side and jumped in, and from there the fighting spilt onto
the streets where bells clanged and fresh mobs reinforced both sides. The
University’s refusal to hold its students to account only stoked the populace’s
pent-up rage, and soon improvised bludgeons like pots and tankards had given
way to swords, shields and bows. The three days of murdering, sacking, burning
and mutilating that followed left some thirty townspeople and twice that number
of students and masters dead and much of the town a smoking ruin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">At this point King Edward III sent commissioners
to bring blood-crazed Oxford under control. Their judgement was devastating for
the townspeople: huge fines and prohibitions, the imprisonment of civic
leaders, and the guarantee of a whole range of privileges for the fully-pardoned
University such as over property, taxes, weights and measures, and arbitration
of legal disputes. It was as harsh a signal as any that the University’s
dominance over this town – its rise as a Privilege Fort – was confirmed, and as
though to make it real clear, the mayor and sixty townspeople were forced to do
public penance for the 1355 violence each year from then on, parading in shame
for the scholars killed and paying a further symbolic fine till as late as
1825.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpoa-GMOWwuKHW4JBHTH58EoI1zR1kMl4YKdZgwNJbMfHV6PXit7TJqtEONKr1Sl_GJRmvrF_jWPJ-SHas7xpgF2EczWTLlWy_9d-rpYImRl3GxGS-KJNpcG2yokYJtFKkemWup0Rwx3M/s5184/IMG_0408.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpoa-GMOWwuKHW4JBHTH58EoI1zR1kMl4YKdZgwNJbMfHV6PXit7TJqtEONKr1Sl_GJRmvrF_jWPJ-SHas7xpgF2EczWTLlWy_9d-rpYImRl3GxGS-KJNpcG2yokYJtFKkemWup0Rwx3M/w640-h480/IMG_0408.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Several new Colleges emerged as
the University expanded on this burst of power. This one, New College, was
founded in 1379 by William, Bishop of Winchester (who also founded that city’s big
public school). It sits on a large piece of Black Death burial ground just within
the town’s east wall, where it was intended to train replacements for the
staggering number of priests who fell to the plague. The town set a condition
that New College look after that piece of wall in return for the purchase; it
remains in its care to this day. It’s also got some of the more popular
architecture for films and TV series like <i>Harry Potter</i> and <i>His Dark
Materials</i>.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfCu-0Hqo-unCCRS4EdySzzkZ7HmbU2EaXlSxLNZZvHsICPQz62Y5-73mfBSZznXfba-fzsDy4jH2C4XUC3mYdMsB1yw8OW99gcdIjOAVE8jqhSH1Z56z6mny3Yl9xwBWF03oVPGvBjfc/s5184/IMG_0412.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfCu-0Hqo-unCCRS4EdySzzkZ7HmbU2EaXlSxLNZZvHsICPQz62Y5-73mfBSZznXfba-fzsDy4jH2C4XUC3mYdMsB1yw8OW99gcdIjOAVE8jqhSH1Z56z6mny3Yl9xwBWF03oVPGvBjfc/w640-h480/IMG_0412.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">All Souls College was founded
by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, together with scholarly king </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Henry VI</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in 1438 (just before </span><u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html"><span style="line-height: 107%;">the latter’s school at Eton</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">)</span></u><span style="line-height: 107%;"> to commemorate the victims of the Hundred Years’ War
– hence its actual name, <i>College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed</i>.
It was and is distinct in not taking undergraduates, being more a research
institution for those with prior academic experience. Behind it here is the
Church of St. Mary the Virgin, long the centre of the University’s
administration and academic ceremonies.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLltoBPH3PsylqsX0FxhpanZJqa5Hvso4zPjMavav7bhkC02p4nfXdtlv8nluX-ydODKd54OXaaVa6k3495JhByfwibI_CDHhNXHxT8wnluDNN29RPgnlvQL1l6snWaUiUZRNy7MKscI/s5184/IMG_0425.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLltoBPH3PsylqsX0FxhpanZJqa5Hvso4zPjMavav7bhkC02p4nfXdtlv8nluX-ydODKd54OXaaVa6k3495JhByfwibI_CDHhNXHxT8wnluDNN29RPgnlvQL1l6snWaUiUZRNy7MKscI/w640-h480/IMG_0425.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Magdalen College, with its
landmark tower, was formed in 1458 by a different William, Bishop of Winchester,
during the turmoil of the Wars of the Roses. Named for Mary Magdalene (close
friend and follower of Jesus but eroded in the records because the Christian
authorities were and are misogynistic), it is best known for the locals’
peculiar pronunciation of its name as <i>moh-dalin</i>, supposedly preserving
the fifteenth-century accent.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Favoured as it was for its learned
contributions, the University grew charged on Europe’s now-flourishing
classical and Renaissance learning. These critical perspectives were further
advantaged when it started accepting tuition payments from students themselves,
thus no longer relying on endowments, typically with strings attached, from the
church or rich patrons. This placed the University at the centre of the vicious
religious disputes in this period, with the John Wycliffe controversy a case in
point. It survived Henry VIII’s sledgehammer – though not without heavy state intrusion
and the fleeing of dissident scholars – even as the abbeys, convents and
religious foundations that had produced it in the first place were brought to
ruin around it. It could not, however, escape the generations of revolving persecution
this violence set off: for example the ransacking of its libraries, statues and
windows by the commissioners of Henry’s Protestant son Edward VI; then the live
burning of Protestant dissidents by Catholic Queen Mary, as we have seen; then yet
another round of expulsions when Elizabeth I’s Protestant henchmen came to clear
out Catholics again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEMmawXMwDVfoDpRqkutCvpcernYSC4vZBiinYfEuok-XVd0lVYVmf0S869Choz8LyweSqjksQdeZKJmUpt5xFh_vaeYqsSbHoUXrxZk0iMuMzhmB87pl3BdSZ9suJ0En7KtLGqtcJWos/s5184/IMG_0428.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEMmawXMwDVfoDpRqkutCvpcernYSC4vZBiinYfEuok-XVd0lVYVmf0S869Choz8LyweSqjksQdeZKJmUpt5xFh_vaeYqsSbHoUXrxZk0iMuMzhmB87pl3BdSZ9suJ0En7KtLGqtcJWos/w640-h480/IMG_0428.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Christ Church College, now one
of the University’s largest, was a creature of Henry VIII’s political tempest. Set
up by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525 as the humbly-named <i>Cardinal College</i> on
the grounds of the old St. Frideswide Priory, which he suppressed, it was
seized by the king after Wolsey’s fall and re-named, equally humbly, as <i>King
Henry VIII’s College</i>. He later changed its name again, this time to its
present form, and made it the city cathedral; a status it inherited, along with
much treasure, from the suppressed Osney Abbey.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8qc91sRUgiRzAIHKczoxhwAJQYOMu_kOKiY4eoV2Kz6wjRAhaDqpQCCfwkCWKR-Qubx_Zuj4YExnSCI3LfarXdwY-qqR-E-Izcc3fMEv8Ty92hdy2i5Dij7Oy3fugMnrRSox5QMIim3o/s5184/IMG_0422.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8qc91sRUgiRzAIHKczoxhwAJQYOMu_kOKiY4eoV2Kz6wjRAhaDqpQCCfwkCWKR-Qubx_Zuj4YExnSCI3LfarXdwY-qqR-E-Izcc3fMEv8Ty92hdy2i5Dij7Oy3fugMnrRSox5QMIim3o/w640-h480/IMG_0422.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Corpus Christi College was
founded in 1517 by Richard Foxe, another Bishop of Winchester, as a centre for
Renaissance learning. This college’s scholars laid many foundations of the
emerging English Protestantism, including the English translation of the Bible
into the King James Version.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1XpowndtXmEzp3TMExtahQ6Eeh1zeJMExf6iyBb5vAu6fxzR6y1lL05lOW4zDg0APoNC66JCakFaR_5_ACnDyXNbv70jE3kEo9HjlCx1oCLLG5XNbDh5Rzbhqp_Ts_egEDzlu3y6kRcA/s5184/IMG_0399.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1XpowndtXmEzp3TMExtahQ6Eeh1zeJMExf6iyBb5vAu6fxzR6y1lL05lOW4zDg0APoNC66JCakFaR_5_ACnDyXNbv70jE3kEo9HjlCx1oCLLG5XNbDh5Rzbhqp_Ts_egEDzlu3y6kRcA/w640-h480/IMG_0399.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Henry VIII’s rampage also
claimed this college of Benedictine monks from Durham. In 1555 after the rise
of Queen Mary its buildings were revived by Thomas Pope, a Catholic civil
servant, under the name of Trinity College. But the flames of its Catholic
torch sputtered when both founder and queen died soon after, leaving it
isolated and cash-strapped in the face of Elizabethan Protestant revenge,
especially from its neighbour and rival Balliol. Pragmatic leadership steered
it through and it is now one of Oxford’s most prominent Colleges; more sadly it
also bears some responsibility for Jacob Rees-Mogg.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1YGFuw0ZkUocDo5wF0hG3rYsxNFiVvT9Rz2n92t0YNY61NqyltG10ZQuK9drYL-nyg9yLjy5TOFAabHofr0Oaw5Z0uZWed2G4Wa6w2wPSG9f2jBDe42n1E0mSD_6OFZi8r1QAqSWNAdA/s5184/IMG_0416.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1YGFuw0ZkUocDo5wF0hG3rYsxNFiVvT9Rz2n92t0YNY61NqyltG10ZQuK9drYL-nyg9yLjy5TOFAabHofr0Oaw5Z0uZWed2G4Wa6w2wPSG9f2jBDe42n1E0mSD_6OFZi8r1QAqSWNAdA/w640-h480/IMG_0416.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another victim of the
back-and-forth religious violence of these years was the University’s library,
which was purged for dissident texts and had many of its books burnt. Only in
1598 did rich Elizabethan diplomat Thomas Bodley set about restoring it, since when the
growth in its buildings and collections has made the <i>Bodleian
Library</i> the second-largest library in England. It has huge underground
storage space, continues to hungrily acquire new books, and maintains a
tradition that none of them may be borrowed or removed from its rooms.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Privilege becomes less comfortable at
such times when the tables keep turning, as the University’s civil war experience
would further teach it. Its closeness to the Royalists came perhaps in part
because it owed the codification of its lasting statues, including reinforced
powers to bully the town, to its new chancellor as of 1630: William Laud, the
authoritarian Archbishop of Canterbury and hated enemy (and eventually victim)
of Parliament. As such, it was the University’s support for King Charles I –
not the townspeople’s – that got the Royalists setting up Oxford as their
wartime capital.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">While the Parliament-sympathising
townspeople suffered under occupation by the Royalist war machine, the
University happily gave over its colleges to the king’s cause: that is, to his
residence and royal court (Christ Church); his Privy Council (Oriel); his barracks
and officers’ living quarters (Jesus, Pembroke, St. John’s); and even to his arsenals
(All Souls) and gunpowder magazines (New). It was equally obliging with its
coffers and treasure, much of which it relinquished to fund the king’s army. So
it was that when the Royalists lost, it was the University, more than the town,
which suffered punishment at the hands of Oliver Cromwell’s vengeful Parliamentary
junta. This time of course it was Royalist staff who were kicked out in another
round of purges, and into their posts Cromwell plugged his own supporters,
having taken the grand prize of Chancellorship for himself. And of course, no
sooner had the carousel settled than it spun into reverse yet again, with the Puritans
removed and Royalists reinstated after the monarchy’s return to power in 1660.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet for all the distress that
professors and students must have suffered on this hellish ride of revolution
and counter-revolution, none of their political mistreatment went deep enough
to shake the University’s structural privilege as an institution. Whether under
hard-nosed Puritan pragmatism or the new coffee-drinking scientific bent of the
Restorationists, its established potential as an engine of scholarship was deemed
too beneficial to state and church alike to simply trash.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDCKjNe-KywUqHAPPBR4ddEa2tAOy38_2rTMjqRw1VcHU1JZyafmgKWJ9dkqoVp_AqZmULqUfMaj_na58svkVgQ0Gnjg66jbkHdAyXG-D5iESobl9WlQ6-UFY7f4gt6Pooy-mE5gV2Ovs/s5184/IMG_0403.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDCKjNe-KywUqHAPPBR4ddEa2tAOy38_2rTMjqRw1VcHU1JZyafmgKWJ9dkqoVp_AqZmULqUfMaj_na58svkVgQ0Gnjg66jbkHdAyXG-D5iESobl9WlQ6-UFY7f4gt6Pooy-mE5gV2Ovs/w640-h480/IMG_0403.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Wadham College, founded in
1610 by Dorothy Wadham on the will and funds of her late husband Nicholas, the
Sheriff of Somerset, was an early glimmer of Oxford’s scientific turn. In the midst
of the civil war upheaval its students included both England’s architect-hero
Christopher Wren and the scientific polymath Robert Hooke, from whose milieu emerged
this country’s national science academy, the Royal Society, in 1660.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Though Oxford would never again get
so invested in political conflicts as to become a military battlefield, the
political turmoils of England’s rising empire –
the Jacobite wars, the loss of the American colonies – brought it still more irreconcilable
divisions, purges and censorships. These continued to seriously hamper its
scholarly pursuits, which, along with antiquated teaching standards and a
stagnant curriculum, now dragged the University into an intellectual decline
that was only really checked by the far-reaching (and much-resisted) reforms of
the nineteenth century, especially under the Royal Commission of 1850. The
gradual settling of the intolerance of the English Reformation; the decline of
religious power itself against earth-shaking scientific breakthroughs (geology, dinosaurs, Darwin); the
growing consciousness of English society’s oppressive treatment of anyone who
wasn’t a rich white man; each of these made their mark on the University with
changes such as administrative secularisation and the admission of religious
dissidents; the teaching of the more rigorous new science, with lustrous facilities
and museums built to its glory; and at long last, the prising open of its doors
to women, on which more in a moment. This was perhaps the period when Oxford
University, as an institution of learning, most took on the shapes it carries
on in present-day imagination.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2eTRrg47j5zukNHsvyV0jNdgmrMoZqOMYjqvbjvi8JgfGRy9tl4-32HfyCmTRWyPTgCmQjc-GRx3gqlAs_D1Qli99Moq5RYO8w-L_Vz3QrhV-4SH-VebRaKhizEXwcvCAjU7fv2y2atA/s5184/IMG_0413.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2eTRrg47j5zukNHsvyV0jNdgmrMoZqOMYjqvbjvi8JgfGRy9tl4-32HfyCmTRWyPTgCmQjc-GRx3gqlAs_D1Qli99Moq5RYO8w-L_Vz3QrhV-4SH-VebRaKhizEXwcvCAjU7fv2y2atA/w640-h480/IMG_0413.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Radcliffe Camera, perhaps
the University’s most iconic building for being a rare circular object in a sea
of squares. Built as a library in the 1740s under the bequest of physician John
Radcliffe, its collection came to focus heavily on medical science and natural
history. Eventually it was acquired by the Bodleian Library next door, which moved its
books to other buildings and now uses it as a reading room.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAXS4tsAjJXBOMPPBlStoidIVkim3Ufmug5AxxGQOKr7bgNk2fKMNFLsjZHX-Q-II2FMkW_ihl_5f0ZKiWZaLepErlLVrCAMsvDQNRLSXQenNOOWEEstI0UWJJGnJ0JK31m64KyqNX0fw/s5184/IMG_0397.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAXS4tsAjJXBOMPPBlStoidIVkim3Ufmug5AxxGQOKr7bgNk2fKMNFLsjZHX-Q-II2FMkW_ihl_5f0ZKiWZaLepErlLVrCAMsvDQNRLSXQenNOOWEEstI0UWJJGnJ0JK31m64KyqNX0fw/w400-h300/IMG_0397.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Oxford’s famed Ashmolean
Museum originated with a gift of curiosities from the antiquary Elias Ashmole
in the 1680s, but after two centuries of dreadful decay it was revived in the
Victorian period as this massive museum of art and archaeology. Ashmole’s
original building and collections meanwhile went on to become the Museum of the
History of Science.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcGRA2qnbfR6Xoo9GAN8NZ2Q0d1tHjZfTS5KJhGo7Z8gtzVGfvv-B6wKDF8drnqOQxrAERZI7IhD_FFF1Ta5NHyBSyDqb_d1ufoTp2gi7Ngkretcb9PfAfiB83NXf3PJcOAOdcnUaaBwM/s5184/IMG_0404.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcGRA2qnbfR6Xoo9GAN8NZ2Q0d1tHjZfTS5KJhGo7Z8gtzVGfvv-B6wKDF8drnqOQxrAERZI7IhD_FFF1Ta5NHyBSyDqb_d1ufoTp2gi7Ngkretcb9PfAfiB83NXf3PJcOAOdcnUaaBwM/w400-h300/IMG_0404.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The University’s other huge
museum, the Museum of Natural History, rode in on the crest of the 1850s and
60s wave of scientific discoveries. In the
1880s it further gained the Pitt Rivers Museum of anthropology, named for </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-14-settling-point.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">the archaeologist encountered at
Dorchester</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> who
donated his collection. The latter museum, in particular its famous Shuar
shrunken heads from Ecuador, is currently a focus for critical interrogation of
the violent legacies of British colonialism in Oxford.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgngArnJfK52PiRWOXuLPM3VANEfH0vurIHPTcPyILG-_6eJbrRNZg6IK7YTaSeLQ-zNMqUG34Db-7OdxnqR0QEUajzG4U34j7m8_GZJjWpkxPTbq9m56vWBFb5eSc84DyibXi-sHhHNuw/s5184/IMG_0401.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgngArnJfK52PiRWOXuLPM3VANEfH0vurIHPTcPyILG-_6eJbrRNZg6IK7YTaSeLQ-zNMqUG34Db-7OdxnqR0QEUajzG4U34j7m8_GZJjWpkxPTbq9m56vWBFb5eSc84DyibXi-sHhHNuw/w400-h300/IMG_0401.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another emergent from this
period was Blackwell’s bookshop. It was founded in 1879 by librarian’s son
Benjamin Blackwell, who lacked formal education and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>developed a passion for helping people educate
themselves through books. It’s still run by his descendants, and despite its
ye-olde facade, its near-1,000m<sup>2</sup> underground room with more than 5km
of shelving makes it one of the largest bookshops in the world.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Such was the revitalised Oxford
University that entered the twentieth century to face England’s and Europe’s
supreme calamities. World War I was a horror for the University: thousands of
staff and students enlisted for its bloodbaths and a great many never came
back. In World War II however Oxford was entirely spared the <i>Luftwaffe</i>
bombings that wrecked so many other British cities, for reasons still not
entirely clear (theories range from Hitler’s plan to use it as an occupation
capital, to secret Anglo-German backroom deals to spare certain cities on
either side). In the meantime the University has continued its attempts to
catch the winds of change, as reflected in an ongoing wave of new colleges –
from Nuffield, founded just before World War II to specialise in political
science and economics; to its most recent college, Reuben, emerging right now
in 2021-2 with an explicit focus on pressing problems such as climate
change and artificial intelligence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhiaJPrHsZMOrjfrQG9VENHXQYk2rQC2-dOLtlF2ry_1Cn4J_HMY5309JYWuhXN06e9PawR0ddx7VwGYy6Bag-989eungkHAxFponBi7Ckw9h7tV1HgGz8A6ld1zdttHjYudtbhwcA1Y/s5184/IMG_0407.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhiaJPrHsZMOrjfrQG9VENHXQYk2rQC2-dOLtlF2ry_1Cn4J_HMY5309JYWuhXN06e9PawR0ddx7VwGYy6Bag-989eungkHAxFponBi7Ckw9h7tV1HgGz8A6ld1zdttHjYudtbhwcA1Y/w640-h480/IMG_0407.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another Oxford landmark: the
Bridge of Sighs, built in 1914 to link two bits of Hertford College. It was named
after a similar bridge in Venice for the apparent sighs of people being marched
through it to prison.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtZbZgImlCDHtOnO1CgUqFKN9gshLCXT4ESYV5zhxuwvBR_qCB70ftVeXWoCqRZ6hc6p6NPoDS2yY2fw9XuwWutNN9XMFwYkX1iZ3QHLukKqbdrRDuZPVHQj4wGxNCGWWn6LOU3_o4b2M/s5184/IMG_0436.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtZbZgImlCDHtOnO1CgUqFKN9gshLCXT4ESYV5zhxuwvBR_qCB70ftVeXWoCqRZ6hc6p6NPoDS2yY2fw9XuwWutNN9XMFwYkX1iZ3QHLukKqbdrRDuZPVHQj4wGxNCGWWn6LOU3_o4b2M/w640-h480/IMG_0436.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And another new college for
this troubled modernity</span><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">: the Oxford
School of Management Studies, re-branded in 1996 as the Saïd Business School on
a £20 million donation from a dodgy Syrian businessman of that name. Less a
dreaming spire than a stop-dreaming-and-work spire perhaps, but beneath the
noise of its site’s regularly gridlocked traffic – on Frideswide Square, near
Oxford railway station – the religious and industrial echoes of old Osney
linger still.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">At this point the story blurs. It can
only blur, because it blends into such a thick sea of contrasting views and
visions – the Oxford of the otherworlds of Carroll, Tolkien and Pullman; the
Oxford of dignified limestone fortresses and of people reduced to sleeping on
streets; the Oxford of the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Oxford that scrawls
‘COVID IS A LIE’ on public works; <s>the Oxford I didn’t get into but might not
have survived if I did</s> </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">– </span>through which any attempt at a single coherent narrative of
what Oxford means today becomes, for the passing stranger at least, completely
impossible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Better, then, to do it fairness by
subjecting it to the same critical treatment as all the Privilege Forts of this
valley by identifying a few areas which, in participating in the English
heritage of exclusion and oppression, it really ought to have done better. For
the University of Oxford, unlike the myriad palaces and castles on this
journey, roots its privilege in a claim to the sincere and meritocratic pursuit
of the truth. For all its history as a foundry for the cream of this country’s
political, scientific and cultural elite, whose power is built at least as much
on its rubbing their noses together as what they actually learn in its
lecture halls, this here organisation makes a great deal of effort to advertise
its hallowed halls as, in fact, open to <i>anyone</i> who would join it in that
pursuit of truth – regardless of background, wealth, or other such
considerations in a country where class is usually everything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In that capacity, one offence is so shocking as to be abominable. That is, of course, how for almost its entire
history Oxford University, suffused with <b>misogyny</b>, has totally and
uncompromisingly excluded women. It was only in 1879 that, with much struggle
and in the face of fierce resistance, colleges for women began to open; only in
1920 that it grudgingly assented to offer women full membership and academic degrees;
only in 1974 that the traditional colleges began admitting female students; and
only in 2016 – yes – that all its colleges and halls became open to students
regardless of gender.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It is unpardonable enough that such
exclusion, based on perhaps humankind’s most baseless and catastrophic
long-term system of lies and prejudices, was and still is widespread in English
society. But for a <i>university</i>, whose very existence is supposed to be
predicated on a concern for truth, this one’s eager participation in the English
disempowerment of women, entitling of men, and in their myths and disasters of gender more
broadly – <i>especially</i> once those claims to rational and objective science
came in – was and is reprehensible in the extreme. And there’s no avoiding it, even
now. It drips on you at street level from those very spires, these silos of
phallic supremacy, which with every step you take, rain on you the architectural
reminder that Oxford University was designed by and for the masculinist power fantasy.<br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvEO9GzovAP32AV04Zs5DNt7g1UtiYbwJVJX7b8c8aXBoGyMJDoBGxeZCCzACMk_PdlDeJghJS5cjM_BciZZVqeLb-ndmrBcOiboc_bxrtHgPiJ6r15r0hB7wd-8b57g7No76jD8mS2vk/s5184/IMG_0415.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvEO9GzovAP32AV04Zs5DNt7g1UtiYbwJVJX7b8c8aXBoGyMJDoBGxeZCCzACMk_PdlDeJghJS5cjM_BciZZVqeLb-ndmrBcOiboc_bxrtHgPiJ6r15r0hB7wd-8b57g7No76jD8mS2vk/w640-h480/IMG_0415.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Oxford’s student intake might
belatedly be close to 50-50 male-female now, but what about nonbinary people?
What about persisting myths of masculinity, femininity, relationship
structures, and the ways these have poisoned its entire heritage of scholarship?
What about English university culture’s sexual violence and harassment, which
surely plagues this one just as it does all the others in this country and only
now grows to public acknowledgement? Is it not time that something, just perhaps, be done to
all those bloody spires?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">How different might this city look –
how different might its academic output have looked, how much healthier its
impact on the world? – if not for this crime against humanity? How long will it
take this society to recover – <i>will it ever recover?</i> – from the
exclusion of women from, and dominance of gendered myths in, the cockpits of
its search for truth for almost as long as it has existed?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Perhaps such corruption also explains
why the University so struggles with another huge plank of English
oppression: that of <b>racism </b>and <b>violent colonial legacies</b>. Only in recent years
has it been forced to begin acknowledging how the atrocities of the British
Empire, and the pseudo-scientific lies of racial hierarchy invented to justify them, are embedded into the structures of its supposed temple of truth. But its bitter public
rows over names, buildings, and endowments from slavers and colonisers – Oriel
College’s Cecil Rhodes statue, All Souls’s Codrington Library, the Pitt Rivers
Museum’s plundered and mis-represented items – are only mass-media lightning
rods for the deeper, more pervasive problem of how the racist inheritance
affects everything from course content and admissions (only about 20% of its present
intake are black or ethnic minority students) to administrative violence and casual
racist attitudes among students or staff.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It has little helped that the
Conservative Party government has seized on such strife to promote its nationalist
crusade of noisily feeding on trauma for the sake of sensational news headline.
Feckless posturing such as attempts to legally guarantee “free speech” (i.e. of
people who agree with its lies and bigotries, while threatening and abusing
those who don’t) or the recent row over a photo of the Queen in a Magdalen
College common room might seem – indeed are – pathetic, but risk doing real damage to
marginalised students already alienated, when not downright violated, by a
learning environment built over so many generations to justify and enable white
supremacy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Doubtless there are those at the
University making wholehearted efforts to rectify these monumental wrongs. As
an institution it certainly wants to be seen to be making a great effort, that
much is clear. But the sincerity or true reach of those efforts is beyond the
judgement of the wayfarer who, like the majority of those who behold the
University’s limestone cliffs, walks only past them, forever foreign to the secrets at their heart. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">And so we end on the question where
we began. What is Oxford – really? What is its role in the story of the English,
their sordid problems with power, and the ongoing desperate struggle (of some of
them at least) to overcome them?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8u1_SuCubCYzZBHFyDluimb5xJ1F1pr9DE4qfSSql0SAqyaM_5tEJXtwZyqBPFcN23r-YKpG4VFtM2vACuL5XuBzcFMxKd3GOG9Yd8zQqZSzdrX9FADmLrE7vc4kULOR1mK6T9XcDM3k/s5184/IMG_0433.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8u1_SuCubCYzZBHFyDluimb5xJ1F1pr9DE4qfSSql0SAqyaM_5tEJXtwZyqBPFcN23r-YKpG4VFtM2vACuL5XuBzcFMxKd3GOG9Yd8zQqZSzdrX9FADmLrE7vc4kULOR1mK6T9XcDM3k/w640-h480/IMG_0433.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">If Oxford’s journey has made one
thing clear, it is surely that its spires do not reach the heavens. They are,
at the end of the day, a Privilege Fort: a bastion of resources, of status and
mystique that built itself up by treading down a settlement much like any other
on the middle Thames. Even atop that two-tier system its journey has not, for
all its claims to its sacrosanct scholarly calling, been some safe and sombre
procession down gilded corridors in the clouds, but rather a gauntlet of riots
and bloodshed, of plagues and prejudices and perpetual political purges and
pressures and punishments. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">If there is a lesson there, it is perhaps
that no matter how high you build those spires, they will never lift you to
some detached higher world of truth; can never free you of the subjectivities
of this troubled surface, nor of your link to – and thus responsibility within – its chains of
causes and consequence. Oxford – the city, the university – is, like everything
the river has shown us, a creature of that river just like the oxen which once,
in the simple act of crossing it, gave it its name. It too is an output, and a reflection, of the unresolved cultural and political conflicts of the people along its banks.<br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">At a time when they tear themselves between crazed nativist dreams and altogether more wretched realities,
Oxford’s high magical air, which one still witnesses dewing the skyward eyes of
tourists and aspirants on these streets, begins to taste akin to bad coffee. Its
sand-gold cliffs of timeless wisdom, darkened above by soot and pollution,
bleached below by the everywhere-brands of a hollow consumerism, appear ever
more like a Potemkin village or open-air museum. The crowds, still so busy but
difficult now to call lively, make one wonder if the real life of this place is
in its ghosts. Romance wafts apart in the air as reality subsides into the
clay; for this, too, is England, and here no less than anywhere else is England
in trouble.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The nationalist cult, among so many
others, has well demonstrated that dreams are serious. It is reality that
carries the consequences of dreams, and sufficiently twisted dreams are quite
capable of devouring it. If Oxford’s spires truly dream, then they above all
should be sensitive to the English nightmare. Their dreams in the past have
contributed to that nightmare. England needs better dreams now. It needs
responsible dreams. Can the spires complete the necessary turn and apply their
full dream-power into waking this land from its nightmare? Or will the
nightmare, in its authoritarian hatred of critical inquiry, coil to their tips and drag even these illustrious pinnacles, once and for
all, into the abyss of inherited ignorance and deception?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">There were days when my path might
have led through these halls of stone, but that ship sailed long ago. It means
I have come to Oxford still a stranger (thanks Wadham, perhaps it was just as
well), and now leave it a stranger too and head for the hills. For
this, at last, is the end of the valley of imagination of the central Thames, and from here the high reaches beckon: a place, perhaps, before the English, above the
English, where each drop of water begins its journey anew.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuF5mj1htTVLTRdAKlLYoeC89OWr9WArQTpA9uKxkAHI8hPMY4sFYxI4nPk7JfRqNQbosTDDSEIoUY6Lmlvxd4iDZlnFXJFeAV655P3SVMaUmdgmZnu8lTKELzK2WJIcBha74ymbphrw8/s5184/IMG_0384.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuF5mj1htTVLTRdAKlLYoeC89OWr9WArQTpA9uKxkAHI8hPMY4sFYxI4nPk7JfRqNQbosTDDSEIoUY6Lmlvxd4iDZlnFXJFeAV655P3SVMaUmdgmZnu8lTKELzK2WJIcBha74ymbphrw8/w640-h480/IMG_0384.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">People, goods, and stories
real or imagined – the river brings them in, and the river washes them away.
For all that the stories make up the bulk of Oxford’s cargo, it is, after all,
no different.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Oxford, UK51.7520209 -1.257726323.441787063821153 -36.4139763 80.062254736178843 33.8985237tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-26706743149910360112021-09-06T16:21:00.001+01:002021-09-08T09:22:42.646+01:00THAMES: 15) 'Thames or Isis'<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">River Thames or Isis</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, the maps read now. What does it
mean? Two names at once? Or are you expected to choose one or the other, like,
say, chocolate or pistachio ice cream, or a red suitcase or a blue suitcase?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Is it the <i>Isis</i> now? Or still
the <i>Thames</i>? <i>Is this still the same river?</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The river itself is silent on this matter. What the names really tell us about are the
humans who come up with them, and here they tell us that there is a set of humans who do things differently from the rest. So
differently, at that, that even the water, the source of all that they are,
takes on an alternate meaning in their presence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">River Thames or Isis</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. They tell us, in other words, that we encroach
on the core domains of the Oxford English. And that, the Oxfordese tribes would
have us believe, is <i>special</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Fs3P9JhZs3SHFwzrWLyMke9uWW-m_QCUN6gPO4OrqRXxobiIEjI9wKFZTB5yD36hEBTmOG7VE2tm7XhwPAe0HSTOuD49lKINp5288SMNfjZtwVepR_Yqy2eIYHFB59FrYv7_3Ac63T0/s5184/IMG_0211.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Fs3P9JhZs3SHFwzrWLyMke9uWW-m_QCUN6gPO4OrqRXxobiIEjI9wKFZTB5yD36hEBTmOG7VE2tm7XhwPAe0HSTOuD49lKINp5288SMNfjZtwVepR_Yqy2eIYHFB59FrYv7_3Ac63T0/w640-h480/IMG_0211.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Abingdon. At population
40,000, this largest of Oxford’s moons has achieved stable orbit – for now – by
drawing on that city’s economic and intellectual atmosphere while exerting one
very much its own.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSEl289Tk3LtJwLaaI1vKECcH81LHlRtnySx18r7pC31CSGnGZ76NORAQSw8SrXqTzSu8HltGsV4KqPdjPT9qFbrj66PUTXGSd_AKXGMAPYmUYkSreWBjZrKZJn9XSnGGzZyZsIwp6kfU/s5184/IMG_0071.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSEl289Tk3LtJwLaaI1vKECcH81LHlRtnySx18r7pC31CSGnGZ76NORAQSw8SrXqTzSu8HltGsV4KqPdjPT9qFbrj66PUTXGSd_AKXGMAPYmUYkSreWBjZrKZJn9XSnGGzZyZsIwp6kfU/w640-h480/IMG_0071.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The river at Clifton Hampden,
one of several villages that shelter in the bush along the Thames's-or-Isis's meanders.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Is that difference substantial, as
far as the river is concerned? As we draw into Lewis Carroll and Philip Pullman
territory, should we expect to find people nosing around in colourful boats
that aren’t from around here, no doubt garbed in suspicious hats and coats? Are
there glimpses of rabbits darting into holes in the undergrowth, pocket-watch
in one paw and bottle of dubious fluids in the other? What is this mystique
about the Oxfordshire leisurelands? By what high otherworldly air are they
supposedly set apart from the long procession of downstream Privilege Forts
which, in flowing through them hereafter, the river must find merely mundane? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Or is it all a magic show, a masquerade
of dialect and illusion? Might it be mere disguise for what’s really just a
continuation of this valley’s nests of wealth and power, here as there seeking
creative ways to write the suffering of those they exclude out of the
story?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWaEsTARRyLpWnIj7Ft342AHgcHW6JETuVZkA0eD7Z86RVNGanZQqab-b4MlfuSF2bX4bvV3YvOYe04W-hk1O_0ZoJQZf7Fo4o6J3h_SbbB5IMskHLspxxbUp0Ak2ob6pXdv6glqBDPkk/s5184/IMG_0093.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWaEsTARRyLpWnIj7Ft342AHgcHW6JETuVZkA0eD7Z86RVNGanZQqab-b4MlfuSF2bX4bvV3YvOYe04W-hk1O_0ZoJQZf7Fo4o6J3h_SbbB5IMskHLspxxbUp0Ak2ob6pXdv6glqBDPkk/w640-h480/IMG_0093.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">How different is it, really?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG_YpzF3tW5GhGL-Rpkmp7jURrU_Xt0dxJvzGgq-isuZgGjGxP3CN9PgKhyphenhyphen6iFQMW_YmumLcjF-gjDYErjT3tR1ZDBu7-zpL2OFmNSEEinGM4-3nZbaWfiibUXf_DBwmokkQGrDAuZSWc/s5184/IMG_0135.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG_YpzF3tW5GhGL-Rpkmp7jURrU_Xt0dxJvzGgq-isuZgGjGxP3CN9PgKhyphenhyphen6iFQMW_YmumLcjF-gjDYErjT3tR1ZDBu7-zpL2OFmNSEEinGM4-3nZbaWfiibUXf_DBwmokkQGrDAuZSWc/w640-h480/IMG_0135.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">At one level the Oxfordshire Thames would
seem to bear much in common with the fare so far. There are lengthening slogs
across farm fields; white pleasure-cruisers, lazing past with invariably white passengers; and no fewer than three straight cuts, dug through where they
– their monks, their merchants – couldn’t be bothered to put up with the
water’s wilful twists and bends.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">But at another level, perhaps one
does begin to detect a few kinks in the cosmic fabric. The settlements here are
secretive, hidden behind farm fields or curtains of bush. As at their </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-14-settling-point.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Dorchester concentration point</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, the fields in question have been
especially fertile in their yield of clues to thousands of years of habitation
gone by. The long progress through these agrarian margins is intermittently disturbed
by the metallic sheen of cutting-edge science and technology: the satellite
belt of research and development installations that swirl in close orbit of Oxford
University. And in the spaces in between you stumble through a field of much smaller asteroids,
each unique in shape. Those are the bizarre native rituals peculiar to each village
or sub-tribe, the likes of <i>Poohsticks</i> and <i>Bun-Throwing</i> and <i>Morris
Dancing</i> which, just perhaps, can only be made sense of under a Carrollian
suspension of the limits of everyday belief.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbcMMjTr7vY6fvnOT0A0bMCBC_9WFuMLma96nIiC2TNDvbEi_P9MqyZb47iJteof6y8m7loojVVsw-wu1yFHNrj6VAIpMgBuIHuSUTvZkEjYnt0Mxshe-fOhPGl_NUpIly7ImAOTkv2kU/s5184/IMG_0023.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbcMMjTr7vY6fvnOT0A0bMCBC_9WFuMLma96nIiC2TNDvbEi_P9MqyZb47iJteof6y8m7loojVVsw-wu1yFHNrj6VAIpMgBuIHuSUTvZkEjYnt0Mxshe-fOhPGl_NUpIly7ImAOTkv2kU/w640-h480/IMG_0023.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Little Wittenham Bridge. This
unassuming footbridge held international significance as the site of the World
Poohsticks Championships until 2015.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSv3LE5B7mSCeDvGse2H0mtNDN_ohBhjo8h3YkfUC7QZVZ0ybfKYL57GLlmlq6JJAWhDPMcnFiedtZqy0Ma5HOSgMzISjHnC63aQA9CtymIzpC7BPLWfNU7peURQAMFbCY9RvOk3ZLAS0/s5184/IMG_0084.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSv3LE5B7mSCeDvGse2H0mtNDN_ohBhjo8h3YkfUC7QZVZ0ybfKYL57GLlmlq6JJAWhDPMcnFiedtZqy0Ma5HOSgMzISjHnC63aQA9CtymIzpC7BPLWfNU7peURQAMFbCY9RvOk3ZLAS0/w400-h300/IMG_0084.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A suspicious tree arrangement
spotted in the rustic middle distance between the Didcot power station and the
Culham nuclear fusion research centre. You can’t be too sure of anything in a
landscape like this.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">A world unto itself then? A place
where the imaginary is real, and the real – that is, COVID-19 failure, Brexit-induced
food shortages, and most lately this country’s monstrous and agonising betrayal
of the Afghans – is all consigned to rude imagination?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">At times like these regular attention
is drawn to the warnings of one who offered some of the clearest visions on how
truth and reality wither in the authoritarian shadow. It so happens that this
bit of floodplain is also where George Orwell – who it might be noted, took a
river’s name as his own – at last had his bones laid to rest. It’s doubtful his
less corporeal parts get much rest these days, whatever the enchantments called
up by such nomemancy as <i>Thames or Isis</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMFs0VEMgxtUjjOFiSTDgtkRxOjzFKNba5Zcz4owfbhReYqp_K0dJ7IVsPndEjDvzy3_8meiI94n20JcRwYpTDm_Bsk4-dUOOedjVc5wlD7vYOZWY9kOhKfJrltl4eIb5IenXbbgRwR5g/s5184/IMG_0010.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMFs0VEMgxtUjjOFiSTDgtkRxOjzFKNba5Zcz4owfbhReYqp_K0dJ7IVsPndEjDvzy3_8meiI94n20JcRwYpTDm_Bsk4-dUOOedjVc5wlD7vYOZWY9kOhKfJrltl4eIb5IenXbbgRwR5g/w640-h480/IMG_0010.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-14-settling-point.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">confluence with the River Thame</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> is the start of today’s progress,
and the lower extent of the <i>River Thames or Isis</i> naming convention.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0-9sEL5dhLaXAXPcR1lmwUjyfjgEFFDXoMX3kpVR9_FvFIrV4oltdSMx6qTLRHLbCJz0xIkdt1pMerx-8lAilOiaNxfx4SVFspC9qFE33JEUHXtKE4twvoK8kzOtMdwKYrX1OtEHTcI4/s1496/15%2529+Dorchester+to+Abingdon.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="782" data-original-width="1496" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0-9sEL5dhLaXAXPcR1lmwUjyfjgEFFDXoMX3kpVR9_FvFIrV4oltdSMx6qTLRHLbCJz0xIkdt1pMerx-8lAilOiaNxfx4SVFspC9qFE33JEUHXtKE4twvoK8kzOtMdwKYrX1OtEHTcI4/w640-h334/15%2529+Dorchester+to+Abingdon.png" width="640" /></a></div> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Start:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Confluence with the River Thame,
near Dorchester-on-Thames (<i>nearest station: miles away, take the X39 or X40
bus from Reading or Oxford instead and walk in from the stop on the Dorchester
Bypass</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">End:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Abingdon Bridge (<i>nearest station:
miles away, take the X3 or X13 bus from Stratton Way to Oxford or Didcot
Parkway instead</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Length: 14.5km/9 miles</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Location: Oxfordshire – South
Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Topics</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">: Little Wittenham, Clifton Hampden,
Sutton Courtney and Culham, and Abingdon. <b>Is it special?</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><b> </b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><b><span><a name='more'></a></span> </b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><b> </b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Little Wittenham</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">West of the peninsula between the
Thames and the Thame, a sweeping U-shaped loop in
the larger river creates an even broader peninsula. This one is spread with farm fields and flood meadows and
guarded by sibling hamlets at its neck: <b>Little Wittenham</b> on one side, <b>Long
Wittenham</b> on the other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmOA4pq83LerrUnTla6_yknBaBxL4sXKNZqbr2Zxg0O5KnLNQuARibrljj8f7ZSlvcRMYGYQJD4WUQJkNY0drM4tz0N2RmYo15SPAjfDws3YAPOkjb1d133KGC_oa2KOL4q9xd8K1I4N4/s5184/IMG_0007.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmOA4pq83LerrUnTla6_yknBaBxL4sXKNZqbr2Zxg0O5KnLNQuARibrljj8f7ZSlvcRMYGYQJD4WUQJkNY0drM4tz0N2RmYo15SPAjfDws3YAPOkjb1d133KGC_oa2KOL4q9xd8K1I4N4/w640-h480/IMG_0007.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Wittenham Clumps as seen
from the Dorchester outskirts. As the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-14-settling-point.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">only high ground for miles around</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, those ancient hills look out over
much of today’s section. The Dyke Hills, former rampart of a late Iron Age
trading and crafting centre, run across the foreground.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTFGA3jK912ZvEPaJzASmieAd52Gvq3J-38zkwT2fyU3vcFZ9UlNhqTHCJERAyh9RunyIANcIPsd3rFx6GkH4NdKryR94Ie78aSMWqmcT3EQtwwPzUpGRDRxqAtQbc6Vh6_4AQvjwTyhk/s5184/IMG_0008.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTFGA3jK912ZvEPaJzASmieAd52Gvq3J-38zkwT2fyU3vcFZ9UlNhqTHCJERAyh9RunyIANcIPsd3rFx6GkH4NdKryR94Ie78aSMWqmcT3EQtwwPzUpGRDRxqAtQbc6Vh6_4AQvjwTyhk/w400-h300/IMG_0008.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Where once stood that ancient
settlement you are now more likely to find these fellows.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin_EBNyz7uf-dLh0qAvIVcQm0oPwtzKlwZ4NulYDJDeLZjoYcASKgeCThpPOhYc7kADmE3xUzADog8KZOvAU4iN1-14PMnQTASArNxCKi04lszRMdpqTnNBJRCKmBtWOik7mnoECsJ9qA/s5184/IMG_0009.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin_EBNyz7uf-dLh0qAvIVcQm0oPwtzKlwZ4NulYDJDeLZjoYcASKgeCThpPOhYc7kADmE3xUzADog8KZOvAU4iN1-14PMnQTASArNxCKi04lszRMdpqTnNBJRCKmBtWOik7mnoECsJ9qA/w300-h400/IMG_0009.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">What reflection does it make
on this country, that so significant a threshold as the confluence with the
Thame has been defaced with COVID-19 conspiracy theories?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">A large pasture holds the bottom of
the Dorchester peninsula, with woolly inhabitants to offer wholesome company round
the first of today’s many riverbends.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinxa-0Zy1vUVdy9l-tkYqcxo2oZszlisAbbWZnmblCBefAtp6jz-fbuvjI0qU1fT6ASAffHU5rneDPcBORHOPDGqyMjaXBocTBAN4Q5gYHaZQ4DgHz3V4Ilixvic-teiiYWxLckL4oqPw/s5184/IMG_0013.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinxa-0Zy1vUVdy9l-tkYqcxo2oZszlisAbbWZnmblCBefAtp6jz-fbuvjI0qU1fT6ASAffHU5rneDPcBORHOPDGqyMjaXBocTBAN4Q5gYHaZQ4DgHz3V4Ilixvic-teiiYWxLckL4oqPw/w400-h300/IMG_0013.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Much breakfast is had on this
field.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXL3fFHfKJI60WpIXPCEhN1mr6EbQcl4FmHcMHVdDQ6sejieT8mBpkxfR5SBcId4FY6jGUV7P2_11kaKJqQi2pbOeQ4GJKUN-CqrGQnVvIQHcqu04l4rodq1vdmJDsdWdcITCc_bt82j8/s5184/IMG_0014.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXL3fFHfKJI60WpIXPCEhN1mr6EbQcl4FmHcMHVdDQ6sejieT8mBpkxfR5SBcId4FY6jGUV7P2_11kaKJqQi2pbOeQ4GJKUN-CqrGQnVvIQHcqu04l4rodq1vdmJDsdWdcITCc_bt82j8/w300-h400/IMG_0014.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKnJ3TVlSf5MS2Vk32LI2pfMZPVWQ9XiYPpGW-2fd5X6GQKXgiDhD3NpK_zuu1B-MPR4-M91B3ytlbTny7X9Uzfm8txXn7ZfhLV2QKCgKVqwXjrAWpyDzA555kWbXHa0LvQQ35ITYN8hg/s5184/IMG_0015.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKnJ3TVlSf5MS2Vk32LI2pfMZPVWQ9XiYPpGW-2fd5X6GQKXgiDhD3NpK_zuu1B-MPR4-M91B3ytlbTny7X9Uzfm8txXn7ZfhLV2QKCgKVqwXjrAWpyDzA555kWbXHa0LvQQ35ITYN8hg/w640-h480/IMG_0015.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The black-fleeced and
white-fleeced populations are about fifty-fifty here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju_lP-j8WlzVZYB0d95IGGJAjiL2LkblNSRa4HDmWPuHkWsGKCLaa0v476xUIdWFTlaueG_OEQckfbNB4Sel4l2rBVkFxCh9W74vijtQERPx2Nu7tgmW9KX0hFaxFWdQHYzb1yDM5yAss/s5184/IMG_0019.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju_lP-j8WlzVZYB0d95IGGJAjiL2LkblNSRa4HDmWPuHkWsGKCLaa0v476xUIdWFTlaueG_OEQckfbNB4Sel4l2rBVkFxCh9W74vijtQERPx2Nu7tgmW9KX0hFaxFWdQHYzb1yDM5yAss/w640-h480/IMG_0019.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Regrettably they tend to
shuffle away in shyness after a few moments, providing no opportunity to touch
the fluff about their heads.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">There are impressively large trees to
be found here at the foot of the Wittenham Clumps.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwpljOmhYNclMFF4N5zJ10m4I_q26jOHuzLCtyBsbSfNvkKQgTv3uhRdYLy-auTZyijnwzqg4U1MrZ6lBSOuP1jMWh9uM8yZQAuzfVn1oP6n4SVH52oiZpgU9l3b3uEchG-tMNk4rHSI8/s5184/IMG_0017.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwpljOmhYNclMFF4N5zJ10m4I_q26jOHuzLCtyBsbSfNvkKQgTv3uhRdYLy-auTZyijnwzqg4U1MrZ6lBSOuP1jMWh9uM8yZQAuzfVn1oP6n4SVH52oiZpgU9l3b3uEchG-tMNk4rHSI8/w400-h300/IMG_0017.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitTJKOdvrg68MvWuwUKDEPN6ooSMb8veFNz8KI2T2fhZzYST6c0K5bx47fSrYDuAceawuGPVQecQAw0ivAHhDPFZtzDB0_DvR4bRKcSOpWdWKkf3pwrWZPQZvDKsbx27crf2MA_CdHYLo/s5184/IMG_0020.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitTJKOdvrg68MvWuwUKDEPN6ooSMb8veFNz8KI2T2fhZzYST6c0K5bx47fSrYDuAceawuGPVQecQAw0ivAHhDPFZtzDB0_DvR4bRKcSOpWdWKkf3pwrWZPQZvDKsbx27crf2MA_CdHYLo/w400-h300/IMG_0020.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Watch out – this one’s armed.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcvdL-lWhISQTjIYwSmCwlK0rvYYpCaR5qO24g5IzRxXuCSPjHLB6yav7uy2ZR189a_PFVHoahLAvRUDNWasLsaCuCpSNHK6s2D3L4QRbteml7mUpOyCVHkVKxA_2usaLZL-IgQPUCujs/s5184/IMG_0021.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcvdL-lWhISQTjIYwSmCwlK0rvYYpCaR5qO24g5IzRxXuCSPjHLB6yav7uy2ZR189a_PFVHoahLAvRUDNWasLsaCuCpSNHK6s2D3L4QRbteml7mUpOyCVHkVKxA_2usaLZL-IgQPUCujs/w400-h300/IMG_0021.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">These would appear to be horse
chestnuts, known colloquially as <i>conkers</i>. In earlier generations when it
was still safe for young people to go out in this country without getting
stabbed, records speak of a popular competitive pastime by which they would
thread string through the smooth, hard seeds in these shells and swing them
into each other’s, scoring points if they managed to break their opponents’. At
higher degrees of professionalism they were said to harden their own conkers by
aging them or soaking them in varnish.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Round the corner is <b>Day’s Lock</b>,
whose lock-keeper’s cottage adjoins the footbridge to Little Wittenham. The
bridge might appear a simple white-coated iron and wood affair, but it holds a
special place in English sporting consciousness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9d2DTPq_0ERlCK-v8pejf3YA-igN6kbrFdybB163EZ233xrzAEqSRt-zVSoCG5tyih0KcvwImhbrsIcvyKb69cpQXyeLaPedF0LYgwhWXOQVqBADkV3GjgQxkf621Fm9hxsxTUf4lx0U/s5184/IMG_0022.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9d2DTPq_0ERlCK-v8pejf3YA-igN6kbrFdybB163EZ233xrzAEqSRt-zVSoCG5tyih0KcvwImhbrsIcvyKb69cpQXyeLaPedF0LYgwhWXOQVqBADkV3GjgQxkf621Fm9hxsxTUf4lx0U/w640-h480/IMG_0022.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Little Wittenham Bridge, with
the Day’s Lock cottage on the western bank and a rich white moneyboat shaving narrowly
beneath the bridge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In the much-beloved Winnie-the-Pooh
stories of A. A. Milne, the eponymous friendly bear and his companions play a
game in which, while stood on a bridge and facing upstream, each simultaneously
drops a stick into the river. They then wait to see whose stick emerges first on
the downstream side, with that individual considered the winner. <i>Poohsticks</i>,
as this game became known, rose to broad popularity with the success of the
Pooh books and occasionally attained practice as a professional sport, with
detailed stratagems devised around the shape and composition of the stick, the
method of its release, and the identification of the fastest channel of river
current, along with severe penalties for any participant deemed to have thrown
their stick rather than dropped it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In 1984 the late Lynn David, resident
lock-keeper here at Day’s Lock, had the idea to hold a Poohsticks fundraising
event on this bridge for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) – a
venerable charity devoted to saving lives at sea (and </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/28/rnli-hits-out-migrant-taxi-service-accusations"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">lately vilified by the English
nationalists for rescuing refugees</span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> rather than letting them drown</span></span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">). The Poohsticks tournament took off
as an annual event, attracting ever larger crowds to this spot and eventually reaching
a international television audience.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Such was its popularity that by 2015
the crowds had outgrown this little bridge, and the World Poohsticks
Championship was moved for safety to a bridge on the River Windrush further up
the Thames. It was last held in 2018, with the COVID-19 pandemic regrettably
forcing its cancellation for several years running.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKPUGPIkpUVkq2Yfr7B7Ue1Dvl5FWqudwZQGt3npk1eAVItOAvFaLgUqygESdIIuUCNmgzVHaknQ88QErMX_prD0ifLWCgFa-DVEVVre8xWmfgd4jOAn3Pbrcb7aC04o93hh-CsID6MOk/s5184/IMG_0025.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKPUGPIkpUVkq2Yfr7B7Ue1Dvl5FWqudwZQGt3npk1eAVItOAvFaLgUqygESdIIuUCNmgzVHaknQ88QErMX_prD0ifLWCgFa-DVEVVre8xWmfgd4jOAn3Pbrcb7aC04o93hh-CsID6MOk/w640-h480/IMG_0025.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Day’s Lock in action – notice
the two cheerful lock-keepers operating it on behalf of boaters. Built in 1789
by the Thames Navigation Commission, it was apparently </span><a href="https://ia801603.us.archive.org/17/items/historyofpostref00stap/historyofpostref00stap.pdf"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">named for a family of local Catholic
yeomen</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> – though under
what circumstances is an interesting question given this country’s violent
hostility to Catholics at that time. The lock gradually fell into ruin but was thoroughly
rebuilt in the late nineteenth century.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi51UANOejOT-MpMuyuJnLHm6Z5fLJ7tAPm7ki42e4-Y-AgrDHLRtxKfj3e7nqEVbK__xw-hPCA7VwHa_h5dqpm0-JR_IcyP0LgVF3trSChxC2Op88Rx6CqstfcgBDqbL7xzZA7X2vTM1A/s5184/IMG_0027.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi51UANOejOT-MpMuyuJnLHm6Z5fLJ7tAPm7ki42e4-Y-AgrDHLRtxKfj3e7nqEVbK__xw-hPCA7VwHa_h5dqpm0-JR_IcyP0LgVF3trSChxC2Op88Rx6CqstfcgBDqbL7xzZA7X2vTM1A/w400-h300/IMG_0027.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Walking upon the lock’s gates
and weir gets you across the river, but if vessels are passing through then you’ll
need to wait till they shut the gates after them.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjthHcY77oie0WW5l4AU8dgkWKLUa-mtDeTR_1yOEvb1TP-smZiyx-Oran2i6raFAVUOhWADZNTLSRU1oQE5Q3gw9gHw__QLSCWo5edTPuRZkp8cX6-NHjiJ1fJxr5-5jHizKWkp5kJe-0/s5184/IMG_0028.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjthHcY77oie0WW5l4AU8dgkWKLUa-mtDeTR_1yOEvb1TP-smZiyx-Oran2i6raFAVUOhWADZNTLSRU1oQE5Q3gw9gHw__QLSCWo5edTPuRZkp8cX6-NHjiJ1fJxr5-5jHizKWkp5kJe-0/w400-h300/IMG_0028.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Upstream from atop the weir.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzm15TKWHXJDgQkVe95RJTdEmpKOGOuhqmHslpgbw1kT0eX6OjaAQmGWz0Q5yUzRzWcAmxsBZn-a2ct6nf67Qy25ZXRvMfCqlDR9jg3oFJqqgDYW5NnT43r2QD8n5JCtmQaF1Yy1hTnXU/s5184/IMG_0029.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzm15TKWHXJDgQkVe95RJTdEmpKOGOuhqmHslpgbw1kT0eX6OjaAQmGWz0Q5yUzRzWcAmxsBZn-a2ct6nf67Qy25ZXRvMfCqlDR9jg3oFJqqgDYW5NnT43r2QD8n5JCtmQaF1Yy1hTnXU/w400-h300/IMG_0029.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The fourteenth-century bell
tower of Little Wittenham’s St. Peter’s Church peeks over the treeline. This
tiny village at the foot of the Wittenham Clumps was once held by the abbey up
in Abingdon, which surrendered it under suppression by Henry VIII in the 1530s.
Little Wittenham ended up in the hands of the powerful Dunch family, with the
evidently sizeable hindquarters of one of its female notables – supposedly
Oliver Cromwell’s aunt – </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-14-settling-point.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">producing the hills’ local nickname</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">There follows a trek of some four
kilometres round the top of this loop. These low-lying flood meadows make for
easy walking when dry, but likely grow treacherous, sometimes impassably so,
after heavy rains or during the harsh English winter.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJU3VNV1Sy8M12vSImYuxWmwHtj8Z46Gx_8GfZbHXYbNUzTXallDzyI2Bolycw0jmunmZwudx44THnwhCxLuo-YtuO5rKAt2ffjyr_1EgB7DEf3TSvSEWHckZJqKm7qpY5qdgWOZVCVy0/s5184/IMG_0030.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJU3VNV1Sy8M12vSImYuxWmwHtj8Z46Gx_8GfZbHXYbNUzTXallDzyI2Bolycw0jmunmZwudx44THnwhCxLuo-YtuO5rKAt2ffjyr_1EgB7DEf3TSvSEWHckZJqKm7qpY5qdgWOZVCVy0/w640-h480/IMG_0030.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQWG7Y4ThFisoHuE11D8H2hZayeTc5pu2k10gvX6876wJQD9jT9S2E3m3oBaoyAnIwd0x_Com7j5uLOh5O2oko6Wrkn2x6KrIxubkz2O1uyvT47YtoJk0hBsL4Ay5Gq2jm4RuZd3_CO18/s5184/IMG_0032.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQWG7Y4ThFisoHuE11D8H2hZayeTc5pu2k10gvX6876wJQD9jT9S2E3m3oBaoyAnIwd0x_Com7j5uLOh5O2oko6Wrkn2x6KrIxubkz2O1uyvT47YtoJk0hBsL4Ay5Gq2jm4RuZd3_CO18/w400-h300/IMG_0032.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Could the transition from
stone pillboxes to brick ones be another representation of the Oxford glamour?
While the former merely provide a defensible firing position, no doubt these
ones work by disgorging otherworldly magical forces out of portals. Alas their
cunning plan was not thought through: this one’s been defeated by a single
sheep.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBCTc-Ww4vXCSk8OS03Zsdj6a2TlIeiNjPlo2aQTeabLCD5EdWlzxcZSD0kExivE9uROceDpXmZVbgRI6QEQekyaGwbZlR0HtcwOW7uo7G4KPgMhoYM93Gpo-Xqckz3J1zm_mU2zc7hpI/s5184/IMG_0033.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBCTc-Ww4vXCSk8OS03Zsdj6a2TlIeiNjPlo2aQTeabLCD5EdWlzxcZSD0kExivE9uROceDpXmZVbgRI6QEQekyaGwbZlR0HtcwOW7uo7G4KPgMhoYM93Gpo-Xqckz3J1zm_mU2zc7hpI/w640-h480/IMG_0033.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">From here it’s easy to
appreciate the flatness of the river valley in the lower Oxford Plain. The sky
is broad and the horizons are far away.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijAQYaienA8GdTIYI4rcRajM2tGUhnaNJ64bRbyMWNlbYLF47dFqLWJSO5nUBIsx3xBYpJn8qI0vGYy8QgxDD_gXXPe__BxOgv42yQSl-pUGGuE64sCvHs8wiqY4hmg6wc2V07p4-Xzoo/s5184/IMG_0037.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijAQYaienA8GdTIYI4rcRajM2tGUhnaNJ64bRbyMWNlbYLF47dFqLWJSO5nUBIsx3xBYpJn8qI0vGYy8QgxDD_gXXPe__BxOgv42yQSl-pUGGuE64sCvHs8wiqY4hmg6wc2V07p4-Xzoo/w400-h300/IMG_0037.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Across to the east on the
Dorchester side the meadows and their fleecy inhabitants stretch on. The
latter’s bleats provide a chorus along here as they keep up their
correspondence over a great distance. No doubt they are exchanging grievances
over the filled in-gravel quarries over there, which </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-14-settling-point.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">demolished the remains of one of this country’s most important Neolithic ceremonial sites</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLDylYwClJn7h-M0wPIOJ0QjUT5DXsrlAyBcuuNK6KAR6ojd4tUVmz8T8lEn5e79kxVjG2hn8ShnQ8KyS09T4T8IMFcbfcUdi6ecf7Ii35NSMSpLVOP5uzNGBycf6AQsPr0P7cKpJahmk/s5184/IMG_0039.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLDylYwClJn7h-M0wPIOJ0QjUT5DXsrlAyBcuuNK6KAR6ojd4tUVmz8T8lEn5e79kxVjG2hn8ShnQ8KyS09T4T8IMFcbfcUdi6ecf7Ii35NSMSpLVOP5uzNGBycf6AQsPr0P7cKpJahmk/w640-h480/IMG_0039.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Even in dry conditions these
fields retain water, to the advantage of gregarious congregations like these.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYnLzL80jLA79DptnVl-49sllGOPRRXWk7QrCrQYmiTZoI0X_xuDPWLewwtVcibOf7STadtNE3xjoas-BLQSWRgf337E5XToQyeMbibbUxfurJCL24c3XYXRe_iyV5u_V1eg0FMSMVznU/s5184/IMG_0040.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYnLzL80jLA79DptnVl-49sllGOPRRXWk7QrCrQYmiTZoI0X_xuDPWLewwtVcibOf7STadtNE3xjoas-BLQSWRgf337E5XToQyeMbibbUxfurJCL24c3XYXRe_iyV5u_V1eg0FMSMVznU/w400-h300/IMG_0040.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Suddenly, a floof.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Near the top of the loop the back
gardens of affluent houses line up across the water. These are the residences
of <b>Burcot</b>, a tiny hamlet traditionally in the orbit of Dorchester. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Despite a present population of only
about five hundred people, Burcot carried enormous importance as far as the
river is concerned. The hard sandstone river bed and low natural water levels
here meant that till the last two hundred years or so, the river became
unnavigable to boats here. Travellers heading upstream were thus forced to
disembark and continue their journeys by land. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Eventually successive regimes tried
to do something about this. Their first effort, the<i> Oxford-Burcot Commission</i>
appointed by James I in 1605, represented this country’s first government
commission into the management of the Thames. Nonetheless they struggled, and
the problem was really only solved when the Thames Navigation Commission’s
locks and weirs raised the water level at the end of the following century.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJO0vVmd53VLzc6gzXfjtim2hpS8o6rhlnYqCYcUqKNMxW15Ae-S3HBm0o9JcH0i_bu-1O9LwrqJ4P9ZhmlWmWttkNl_wOi5HtdBATOScSyzHz_NzZq8lmDzA1m2n84qOYGAZfB__3IB4/s5184/IMG_0044.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJO0vVmd53VLzc6gzXfjtim2hpS8o6rhlnYqCYcUqKNMxW15Ae-S3HBm0o9JcH0i_bu-1O9LwrqJ4P9ZhmlWmWttkNl_wOi5HtdBATOScSyzHz_NzZq8lmDzA1m2n84qOYGAZfB__3IB4/w400-h300/IMG_0044.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Burcot lost its traditional
importance after that, but from the Victorian period on it revived as an
attractive place to live for the tiny minority of people who could afford it. Almost
all its houses appear to date to within the last hundred and twenty years or
so.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2pdXfKxQ3WhcA69uH06EbhAommNnP9wGifdpPlMe0pTcPCMCkPtnHdnw5KBClLwnvnXTS7CVaKpss7YaNMqIvwOArgNbWBE9vTSgxeMOI_jpJUQdt25s55LTux-uU5qx6EThUzZbccGw/s5184/IMG_0042.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2pdXfKxQ3WhcA69uH06EbhAommNnP9wGifdpPlMe0pTcPCMCkPtnHdnw5KBClLwnvnXTS7CVaKpss7YaNMqIvwOArgNbWBE9vTSgxeMOI_jpJUQdt25s55LTux-uU5qx6EThUzZbccGw/w400-h300/IMG_0042.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Chinese goddess Nüwā is
said to have created humans by scooping earth out of a riverbank and shaping
them by hand. This appears a candidate for where she created the
English, though one might ought to question her sobriety at the time.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzoTuGqgXBI7qmsikTra7d6G-Xh5jmYoyIb_rWt-4mqU1WUeOqQ1LhKl02kbDkv-MILaHwNXZ0o4_pzIjwu24qtbCD_H0aMcsfZfWXMp9ihceOLWR4LDb9eu3Q7ijYj1y-5Y-lw9k6MAE/s5184/IMG_0045.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzoTuGqgXBI7qmsikTra7d6G-Xh5jmYoyIb_rWt-4mqU1WUeOqQ1LhKl02kbDkv-MILaHwNXZ0o4_pzIjwu24qtbCD_H0aMcsfZfWXMp9ihceOLWR4LDb9eu3Q7ijYj1y-5Y-lw9k6MAE/w640-h480/IMG_0045.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Wittenham Clumps are in
plain sight to the south. You can bet that out here you’re in plain sight of
them too.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioucvrbkmhU-2jOumkpJdwMKgbNSvlw6PR4OXdNBh3wcG5PlE8eTwI507u8vuoULfZ_-iwuXJfznS7lVNUD-nTPUvoTsBtMjJr4j-oktrk1G_rwhijE0OMtInMtfTphITaK0SquZ3KERM/s5184/IMG_0046.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioucvrbkmhU-2jOumkpJdwMKgbNSvlw6PR4OXdNBh3wcG5PlE8eTwI507u8vuoULfZ_-iwuXJfznS7lVNUD-nTPUvoTsBtMjJr4j-oktrk1G_rwhijE0OMtInMtfTphITaK0SquZ3KERM/w400-h300/IMG_0046.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This looks like a newer
creation. If you row across to its lawn in a canoe and place your fingertip on
a blade of grass, how many seconds till the alarms go off and automated turrets
pop from the ground to kill you?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In hushed whispers, it’s also
suggested that Burcot, along with some of these other villages in the
Dorchester cluster, were a hotbed of religious dissidence during the height of repressive
English Protestantism in the eighteenth century. There is evidence that adherence
to Catholicism or non-conforming Protestant branches bubbled on in these parts,
perhaps explaining how a Catholic family could stay prominent enough to got a
lock named after them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Here on the west side meanwhile,
human habitation is limited to clumps of farmhouses in the distance. The fields
along the river belong to a bulkier populace.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoUjcZ78JlqIoQmJ572k8MhBO0waAz6FactcIB33nYXRapqiUzbKSuO2pwIRo40diQaBJlfWW4yw4xd497h8DJvGAONfPwi0RSLLIJNJKoz_c0uQjZ26gS9ZmDtt5IInJ3ppYKZoHBwcE/s5184/IMG_0049.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoUjcZ78JlqIoQmJ572k8MhBO0waAz6FactcIB33nYXRapqiUzbKSuO2pwIRo40diQaBJlfWW4yw4xd497h8DJvGAONfPwi0RSLLIJNJKoz_c0uQjZ26gS9ZmDtt5IInJ3ppYKZoHBwcE/w400-h300/IMG_0049.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Specifically – Nuuo. These
don’t care what religion you are. They’ll moo at you regardless.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBcyUyS1FUN2sWeBdl2iX3tBqWbcBgtnqyMIBTfktwwndz1j636frAAbIIqT73pfn1z5ZF1pZk3Dfc7rjl9ik5EXysQcSHc8H8zUPi8dDXzsyWz_Eoc-mUUw19UwDnun84aILjxbk1R68/s5184/IMG_0050.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBcyUyS1FUN2sWeBdl2iX3tBqWbcBgtnqyMIBTfktwwndz1j636frAAbIIqT73pfn1z5ZF1pZk3Dfc7rjl9ik5EXysQcSHc8H8zUPi8dDXzsyWz_Eoc-mUUw19UwDnun84aILjxbk1R68/w640-h480/IMG_0050.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A certain rectangularity might
warrant inquiry here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCWmBFELzsnUQxZb6rUSFym33t8Yiz2Fa7eqjS9Jgf4yxA3dMtklmcWpoVNXTcqS_ohP3bahrD9leau0kgOALBEocYrzMPZ84mitl02Cp958JQ05PiDcvqKVzxYEQp42CYhbCEYjwgyvU/s5184/IMG_0052.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCWmBFELzsnUQxZb6rUSFym33t8Yiz2Fa7eqjS9Jgf4yxA3dMtklmcWpoVNXTcqS_ohP3bahrD9leau0kgOALBEocYrzMPZ84mitl02Cp958JQ05PiDcvqKVzxYEQp42CYhbCEYjwgyvU/w400-h300/IMG_0052.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Then there are works.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Temporary fences and signs of digging
materialise along the northern arc. They are part of a project to transform some
of these water meadows into a full-fledged wetland, as organised by an alliance
of local trusts under the name <i>River of Life</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXTriXeziqD1wDfmX6OIxX6wzxA_KpJ_ygwi4Myaxfz54ts0c7Io3qvVuCc8ZOlwj8eLAd8SG7hNGjDdIuZrm7o4dZw-SmmaFEWj30MUMsYtDSExXdkYue5C_Rjzkclh91xctl2iR-G6k/s5184/IMG_0056.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXTriXeziqD1wDfmX6OIxX6wzxA_KpJ_ygwi4Myaxfz54ts0c7Io3qvVuCc8ZOlwj8eLAd8SG7hNGjDdIuZrm7o4dZw-SmmaFEWj30MUMsYtDSExXdkYue5C_Rjzkclh91xctl2iR-G6k/w400-h300/IMG_0056.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The goal appears to be to
improve flood flows into these meadows, thus creating valuable wildlife
habitats – fish, newts, waterfowl and so forth – as well as improving water
retention so as to alleviate the risk of downstream flooding.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheMsW2S4vqkTbYddVYCi8HouYOmb8vDQ5MxsansUizrMJQE3bm1MVNdjMALAcs3mn03Nvp6wL1cBc9WOL1UTekUrhpDoF7xdOksbGDYevQulO2lMUG20FmBCOrCPyAaqXWUmiFHFKHP3A/s5184/IMG_0059.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheMsW2S4vqkTbYddVYCi8HouYOmb8vDQ5MxsansUizrMJQE3bm1MVNdjMALAcs3mn03Nvp6wL1cBc9WOL1UTekUrhpDoF7xdOksbGDYevQulO2lMUG20FmBCOrCPyAaqXWUmiFHFKHP3A/w400-h300/IMG_0059.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">COVID-19 has slowed the
project but it appears to be getting back underway; a couple of surveyors were
spotted assessing one of the worksites. Notably it’s funded by a European Union
agricultural development grant, making it one of a species of project facing
imminent extinction due to Brexit.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtpu2TIixlJTsY5Kc9Tkwl4Db0isTgiCCcki0OPwroxJJfxTDYL8ErYerQ1lmForyOYE7D0K-FSNL87I2YdjLJZiNnIZAHnwftHRH3q64NOomDXmtg9UDlo4AQ_tDMjlbzjhBNE-IOH_I/s5184/IMG_0054.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtpu2TIixlJTsY5Kc9Tkwl4Db0isTgiCCcki0OPwroxJJfxTDYL8ErYerQ1lmForyOYE7D0K-FSNL87I2YdjLJZiNnIZAHnwftHRH3q64NOomDXmtg9UDlo4AQ_tDMjlbzjhBNE-IOH_I/w640-h480/IMG_0054.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Burcot lounges expensively
on.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQPnyoJvHvLKC96EWimYxkYNbvN79Psp7w4eXQVPY1lCpVeyE7YxgceXF1TYHR7q05ltV4ePKUFE5jogBqos0b0CzXkxqJDc1ipQ1KyWUAMaaxSVtp-e9py8ZVe18vpVkT-jx8t6M9xM8/s5184/IMG_0055.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQPnyoJvHvLKC96EWimYxkYNbvN79Psp7w4eXQVPY1lCpVeyE7YxgceXF1TYHR7q05ltV4ePKUFE5jogBqos0b0CzXkxqJDc1ipQ1KyWUAMaaxSVtp-e9py8ZVe18vpVkT-jx8t6M9xM8/w400-h300/IMG_0055.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Plenty of dogs come out this
way, with much excitement thrown off by their encounters. Here such an
encounter is unfortunately deferred by the intervening body of water.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8C72LvPA1-XxNjWHW3F7GyU3gvBQ3ZnsAnIta3mzhf2OmI51molnZJEwESV5APv_Cikt564dZMfK9qB4QCsapFHea_i-cCwFq032atSs4hd4XZ90B3ilGIVGq9TQRhKCvip_lw_Nn3Q/s5184/IMG_0057.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8C72LvPA1-XxNjWHW3F7GyU3gvBQ3ZnsAnIta3mzhf2OmI51molnZJEwESV5APv_Cikt564dZMfK9qB4QCsapFHea_i-cCwFq032atSs4hd4XZ90B3ilGIVGq9TQRhKCvip_lw_Nn3Q/w400-h300/IMG_0057.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Not so much the Cheshire Cat as the Oxfordshire Dog.<br /></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Cross a few more fields from here and
you reach another curious little settlement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidFFST28a_OIdmHLzWTBRdBsP-nfcRYbrD3rj4o0-lYMLOID3X6BJ0u3E0_t2MTTIscqhBqwplH88rANr0uaOiRdGZNR__r1R6pIMkcz-YW5Vggf24_LI659yl-Z1XZKE7dwDoCoHFZnc/s5184/IMG_0060.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidFFST28a_OIdmHLzWTBRdBsP-nfcRYbrD3rj4o0-lYMLOID3X6BJ0u3E0_t2MTTIscqhBqwplH88rANr0uaOiRdGZNR__r1R6pIMkcz-YW5Vggf24_LI659yl-Z1XZKE7dwDoCoHFZnc/w400-h300/IMG_0060.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Look. They’re storing dubious concealed
objects in this one.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvblGL4omo_o0NchwwbExmlAFVhtZbvEIpWXs24jy1ivQKMJ6T02lwdoNlqjvxPBaYPlXkpjXQ7mDm6pDnoU6Zp_j-MvaUrNvkp6VpcvpAS7Olx59VVw4u3t83HGh_g56HmopuMaE4dU/s5184/IMG_0061.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvblGL4omo_o0NchwwbExmlAFVhtZbvEIpWXs24jy1ivQKMJ6T02lwdoNlqjvxPBaYPlXkpjXQ7mDm6pDnoU6Zp_j-MvaUrNvkp6VpcvpAS7Olx59VVw4u3t83HGh_g56HmopuMaE4dU/w400-h300/IMG_0061.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It’s about the right size and
shape for a crate. Doubtless it contains weapons to do oppressive colonial wrong
things with.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEise9iIOeWH05gwftNXmfCSfoJ-8woa1CtAaMxwyL213IYTTzrmm1v_IYvj9XTGfLF2fdOcqW7UNRK7esD9rR-kFv6lve1vtHFmCGPqWGV-dzFlunF9XK1Iz70BTyWC_N56mJAFAfQEWQo/s5184/IMG_0062.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEise9iIOeWH05gwftNXmfCSfoJ-8woa1CtAaMxwyL213IYTTzrmm1v_IYvj9XTGfLF2fdOcqW7UNRK7esD9rR-kFv6lve1vtHFmCGPqWGV-dzFlunF9XK1Iz70BTyWC_N56mJAFAfQEWQo/w640-h480/IMG_0062.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Boathouses like these are
common along here, but in general come attached to posh houses. That this one emerges
straight from bush can only mean it’s a gateway to an alternate Earth where
this is part of South Scotland Province.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip0ak72pTzGpkLBKRxZKqLe01yA-3O27NB0731xESLu-Mxy3YgRD0-P6zv9T8L5dcLd6tALxW9b0TAHxUe3drZwLPhnjkeIru9X5jFisI4PxWqX0CYFn2qF9uG7wkFabGxC6YqU6DxC8s/s5184/IMG_0064.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip0ak72pTzGpkLBKRxZKqLe01yA-3O27NB0731xESLu-Mxy3YgRD0-P6zv9T8L5dcLd6tALxW9b0TAHxUe3drZwLPhnjkeIru9X5jFisI4PxWqX0CYFn2qF9uG7wkFabGxC6YqU6DxC8s/w400-h300/IMG_0064.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjkCvK3Nw-F078qqHhFE-yPCR79KBsqPNSHZ5rpdpqBd9E49d2pCc112FpZIIiVj2Bfzx9nKxhfeOuMIM1B6O9enMaO8pM7pEnEpXpyLcHemfrfxIy3-139A_iko200j0Emqr75Nd6seY/s5184/IMG_0065.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjkCvK3Nw-F078qqHhFE-yPCR79KBsqPNSHZ5rpdpqBd9E49d2pCc112FpZIIiVj2Bfzx9nKxhfeOuMIM1B6O9enMaO8pM7pEnEpXpyLcHemfrfxIy3-139A_iko200j0Emqr75Nd6seY/w640-h480/IMG_0065.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Soon the roofs of Clifton
Hampden emerge on high.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Clifton
Hampden</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The operative part of this village’s
name is brusquely pragmatic: <i>village/farmstead</i> (Anglo-Saxon <i>-tun</i>)
<i>on top of a cliff</i>. Historically a tiny rural outpost of Dorchester
supported by the Abingdon road on a fordable spot on the river, its profile
grew with the turnpiking of that road in the 1730s (it’s now the A415),
followed by the coming of the Thames Navigation Commission to fight the
turbulent meanders just upstream.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">By then its name had got a <i>Hampden</i>
attached. How is not clear, although the lord of the manor in the 1530s was
apparently a Miles Hampden, whose family must therefore be the prime suspects
as to why this place has inherited the rather less pragmatic – you might say
positively unwieldly – title of <b>Clifton Hampden</b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHLMVqyb1Embw5d0cVJNResTFDZw5Aa0p_4PQ8CaSjaev7Cqda7SvMsQ1AFzzF8Ila590f_E3xi-3p4sZ0L39XBgqLajBvD9SUFw99HP03NZY516DqBEqw1hPFonEnhEnUgCWjJZ9FZpI/s5184/IMG_0066.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHLMVqyb1Embw5d0cVJNResTFDZw5Aa0p_4PQ8CaSjaev7Cqda7SvMsQ1AFzzF8Ila590f_E3xi-3p4sZ0L39XBgqLajBvD9SUFw99HP03NZY516DqBEqw1hPFonEnhEnUgCWjJZ9FZpI/w400-h300/IMG_0066.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Clifton Hampden’s St. Michael
and All Angels Church: an 1840s Gothic Revival restoration job, albeit
allegedly with bits inside that date back to the twelfth century. Till the
nineteenth it was a satellite chapel of Dorchester.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8faqfgpbgkaW-w1j9t7XIqtcaz81oRMuQVo_Ol8t318tcaiuV_1c80mLuM27KylIKZdA1LbhgSl6Mo8rEulYh_gsA3LenlScGvcfx8FbH6xQm4Azu19E3l_fwIgOwQ-6bDybkDB0DGFA/s5184/IMG_0070.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8faqfgpbgkaW-w1j9t7XIqtcaz81oRMuQVo_Ol8t318tcaiuV_1c80mLuM27KylIKZdA1LbhgSl6Mo8rEulYh_gsA3LenlScGvcfx8FbH6xQm4Azu19E3l_fwIgOwQ-6bDybkDB0DGFA/w640-h480/IMG_0070.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The highlight of
present-day Clifton Hampden is its bridge. Its architect was George Gilbert
Scott, better known as a prolific redesigner of public buildings and churches
(including the above), hence perhaps this bridge’s picturesque idiosyncrasy.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The village got a new breath of life
in the Victorian period, when it fell into the control of Henry Hucks Gibbs
(a.k.a. Lord Aldenham), governor of the Bank of England, who commissioned many
upgrades and restorations. With the water level raised by the upstream lock, to
the relief of river traffic but the consternation of people trying to take
cattle across the river, it received this charming bridge made from local red
brick in 1867 to placate the angry latter. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJQUYwu8Yi6OsXk32AVcRlg9tBVXNUpvJbWSBGQf2v2XZly7kl9WwbrUEykwkA9pE6zYgTRDJa6eVdhTSywDvccz5bMlya5OWyZg_-dQ0R7LpgBdhg-er5Xt6Xlfml6OAEb-PQbHE6yhs/s5184/IMG_0069.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJQUYwu8Yi6OsXk32AVcRlg9tBVXNUpvJbWSBGQf2v2XZly7kl9WwbrUEykwkA9pE6zYgTRDJa6eVdhTSywDvccz5bMlya5OWyZg_-dQ0R7LpgBdhg-er5Xt6Xlfml6OAEb-PQbHE6yhs/w640-h480/IMG_0069.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The bridge was built with
these triangular bulwarks to provide pedestrian refuges, a convenience which
has come into its own in the age of motor traffic. It charged tolls to
cross till the Oxfordshire and Berkshire government councils bought it off
Gibbs’s descendants in 1946.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhocUSeMzBNlsvbHTgHU_-brt1eDfFhBu_ML_CUj2jrd2-kPK4xy4zRH_7MUmCS2Lpkr-LV5i8-EImZtADdBZhC7ZeOEd5bBxE564Iqz2xtibjQ82QprIbNmlfXQE5Nrqfw7bbrDrb9Uos/s5184/IMG_0072.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhocUSeMzBNlsvbHTgHU_-brt1eDfFhBu_ML_CUj2jrd2-kPK4xy4zRH_7MUmCS2Lpkr-LV5i8-EImZtADdBZhC7ZeOEd5bBxE564Iqz2xtibjQ82QprIbNmlfXQE5Nrqfw7bbrDrb9Uos/w400-h300/IMG_0072.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small; line-height: 107%;">Leisure-craft sit parked along
the riverbank on the approach to Clifton Hampden’s lock and river cut.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUqNkKOfAFHvMit-u9AYwwkOiJCnjX9gCFRphtssnBGRi3w2oKaF42WXol1Bt1iwwFoM4KYgprQxTXE_b8x3SAXErd5PXfztHpB1E-liVG_OiVMHYu0PSa-u4x_HR9IZf5hhP8_ZAF_yk/s5184/IMG_0073.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUqNkKOfAFHvMit-u9AYwwkOiJCnjX9gCFRphtssnBGRi3w2oKaF42WXol1Bt1iwwFoM4KYgprQxTXE_b8x3SAXErd5PXfztHpB1E-liVG_OiVMHYu0PSa-u4x_HR9IZf5hhP8_ZAF_yk/w400-h300/IMG_0073.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small; line-height: 107%;">An extremely suspicious piece
of cargo is spotted being smuggled downstream. Likely it’s something from the
nearby Culham nuclear fusion research centre, getting sneaked away for military
adaptation.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Across the bridge we descend the west
flank of the flood-meadow peninsula. On its lower corner sits the village of <b>Long
Wittenham</b>, but it is too much of a trouble to reach on account of the
river’s sudden rambles next to it – or rather, the decision of the Thames
Navigation Commissioners to engineer their way through them after getting fed
up of endless accidents, disasters and delays.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The product of their efforts, after
decades of abortive schemes and suggestions, was <b>Clifton Lock</b> – which
was then further delayed for reasons described in the sources in no greater
detail than that ‘the owner of the land was a lunatic’. It was finally
completed in 1822 at the head of the <b>Clifton Cut</b>: a trench they carved
straight through the neck of these meanders to bypass them altogether.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBObQXTXlqm8oP6ORITcRqyvBorpmtjMHknG0QDW1XZR6C4bGF4fdcCEgg6Hxt2OUawTOrv_j4jfgiqYwKUo0QTpe7_KSSX4_CQVsznNw6Rg1-BKT9zWtp3-QGSo-YwbnKinaG2N7-r7U/s5184/IMG_0074.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBObQXTXlqm8oP6ORITcRqyvBorpmtjMHknG0QDW1XZR6C4bGF4fdcCEgg6Hxt2OUawTOrv_j4jfgiqYwKUo0QTpe7_KSSX4_CQVsznNw6Rg1-BKT9zWtp3-QGSo-YwbnKinaG2N7-r7U/w640-h480/IMG_0074.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Clifton Lock, also in action. The
cheerful lockkeeper will shout a greeting to you as you pass.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1jRwt8pN7iTaKaqYFM8KylLKvPkbC_kC6BYsrXDIhfIFhq42BiUs8kSFzTrIJkQtcPeE1MyvDT6sk5q95Dw79MDk0UEI2glhrvz7canXFYGLGPf6ZGGZRnUieiRW7c5VTYRYfyeD9rTs/s5184/IMG_0075.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1jRwt8pN7iTaKaqYFM8KylLKvPkbC_kC6BYsrXDIhfIFhq42BiUs8kSFzTrIJkQtcPeE1MyvDT6sk5q95Dw79MDk0UEI2glhrvz7canXFYGLGPf6ZGGZRnUieiRW7c5VTYRYfyeD9rTs/w400-h300/IMG_0075.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Clifton Cut: dead straight
and flat all the way along. Long Wittenham along the river’s natural course is
a long detour followed by a <i>very</i> long distance to the next crossing
point (which is maybe why it’s <i>Long</i> Wittenham), so let’s grudgingly forego
it and take the simpler track along the cut.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBXBGcjQ9s7JVsAWU7mEZFIax8IWNkuPVdd8jdZaAUg1nup6ReQihB1HZ4_pvIb43LCEVd4gfbLWOpZzNK5H5pfVon-C7IAXh4xAGyW3O9z1VoCecTWC0aVm1BaAs9q7VvAQTg4otkqog/s5184/IMG_0079.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBXBGcjQ9s7JVsAWU7mEZFIax8IWNkuPVdd8jdZaAUg1nup6ReQihB1HZ4_pvIb43LCEVd4gfbLWOpZzNK5H5pfVon-C7IAXh4xAGyW3O9z1VoCecTWC0aVm1BaAs9q7VvAQTg4otkqog/w640-h480/IMG_0079.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Here at least is one advantage
in doing so.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0mVwYroNMm8ytIQoF6O1OANqZu0vjbUH_8SKSH6pg07q-ZlW0XKe3q-wYAKBLMIoTYm9cFtE6IwylAskLt-sU_24wZf4oHvl3Xw9y0SKHkJYzwQ9SjR_gWvFZW6nu7DxGUWsOA4shqQw/s5184/IMG_0080.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0mVwYroNMm8ytIQoF6O1OANqZu0vjbUH_8SKSH6pg07q-ZlW0XKe3q-wYAKBLMIoTYm9cFtE6IwylAskLt-sU_24wZf4oHvl3Xw9y0SKHkJYzwQ9SjR_gWvFZW6nu7DxGUWsOA4shqQw/w400-h300/IMG_0080.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It’s a variegated crowd, this
one.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcrdUnUjGLO0VmkI0U5xY4UX3TrU1TirWzUJryiGkBK7_HpPZuq88qOCqrOIWJyZBze5dkreanNwyd21OiYVODR_gA5s989ix-nSGLZJESZacnREGdIQs7fvPhF7W0PcIGxeJg9tM9Myk/s5184/IMG_0081.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcrdUnUjGLO0VmkI0U5xY4UX3TrU1TirWzUJryiGkBK7_HpPZuq88qOCqrOIWJyZBze5dkreanNwyd21OiYVODR_gA5s989ix-nSGLZJESZacnREGdIQs7fvPhF7W0PcIGxeJg9tM9Myk/w400-h300/IMG_0081.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The weir at the head of the
Clifton Cut, where it first diverges from the river (and where you rejoin it if
travelling upstream).</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">There follows one of the longest
slogs so far through open farmland, with little in the way of settlements or
installations to distinguish it – or so it appears. In fact the river threads
this marginal band between two serious high-energy particles in orbit of the
Oxford nucleus: the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy to the north, and the
railway junction town of Didcot with its great big power station to the south.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieCosLOq8RdRDcoaruqaW3AivvR3EXQm_a1XcWE2Qll69YL7YeqC5TTbzSigXknQI_HvWKldJNdqUDMeE0p3WIUgwaHPcajknSeqlmaky8-JBlwfj64jvgjltr9SSqReBn770Lk2JB5Ps/s5184/IMG_0085.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieCosLOq8RdRDcoaruqaW3AivvR3EXQm_a1XcWE2Qll69YL7YeqC5TTbzSigXknQI_HvWKldJNdqUDMeE0p3WIUgwaHPcajknSeqlmaky8-JBlwfj64jvgjltr9SSqReBn770Lk2JB5Ps/w400-h300/IMG_0085.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">You wouldn’t think it, looking
at this. Miles of agrarian back-of-beyond, side by side with marvels or monsters
(depending on your point of view) of science and technology. Perhaps that manner
of amalgam is an Oxfordshire thing too.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-QypC2WUDszoOoCdV1zMWKbwUqQ1igVxhdBAxOkIBmt2aRnpsyjF1o_qj_KrU1RqB1gU4a2sFzunUX8DnkwNghF9Unb5XdC1IjVKSPcL3GLF5ZscLyfx1sOKo9FWw1ltIS79xzXhcb0/s5184/IMG_0083.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-QypC2WUDszoOoCdV1zMWKbwUqQ1igVxhdBAxOkIBmt2aRnpsyjF1o_qj_KrU1RqB1gU4a2sFzunUX8DnkwNghF9Unb5XdC1IjVKSPcL3GLF5ZscLyfx1sOKo9FWw1ltIS79xzXhcb0/w400-h300/IMG_0083.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This has to be the aftermath
of some esoteric ritual. What unimaginable entities might they have called
forth here on a starlit summer’s night?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Halfway up this long reach, the
village of <b>Appleford</b> peeks out from the growths across to the south.
This is an old settlement which appears in Anglo-Saxon land grant records, although
farmers and gravel extractors in the 1950s and 60s discovered large hoards of
Roman coins and pewter artifacts here. The village’s name likely indicates a
traditional role as a crossing point to bring the produce of the orchards to
its south – still Berkshire back then – into Oxfordshire.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9z3tr22Nh5kGOIZRxou7Tbl4_Wo5DWMCwQnwOSHnTcC7Fjvm762p8aHSzN_Aki4NjJG4hAp-WamCUxN1nKIuY14vEXHyf3f_6TN7mkf_0unxI4pvGbckCzQ-omtq_ODtYZnNHIREco7E/s5184/IMG_0086.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9z3tr22Nh5kGOIZRxou7Tbl4_Wo5DWMCwQnwOSHnTcC7Fjvm762p8aHSzN_Aki4NjJG4hAp-WamCUxN1nKIuY14vEXHyf3f_6TN7mkf_0unxI4pvGbckCzQ-omtq_ODtYZnNHIREco7E/w640-h480/IMG_0086.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The oldest parts of Appleford’s
church, whose spire pokes out here, go back to the Norman period. Like Little
Wittenham it existed as an appendage of Abingdon Abbey till that monastery’s
destruction by Henry VIII.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTYx0hf09gFiqQkBFuDF-c8iVPT3AHI8cFPl-JggsTnZB7eBtHdbaSR_PoEt6sfqPq-kgPRuZ4b9DZRvfc9oMKZ-qzdH5nQLPTwM7j0bUSwaNs38PsdFjAMQ72z4U-E_ln9xFlzQEBgkY/s5184/IMG_0087.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTYx0hf09gFiqQkBFuDF-c8iVPT3AHI8cFPl-JggsTnZB7eBtHdbaSR_PoEt6sfqPq-kgPRuZ4b9DZRvfc9oMKZ-qzdH5nQLPTwM7j0bUSwaNs38PsdFjAMQ72z4U-E_ln9xFlzQEBgkY/w400-h300/IMG_0087.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAOpmn-CSIsQpX8KJL0vILa-Zn2GtG42FX4g3p1Lb4ETQa40GptH5Vz-9S428DDRr0eUOPmqYQVpGIXQadHfpc6nyvIOPhuU_UqzVDmtfHuLE4Gh3DzCxOjzuJui-DxysEvoqNMApk4ak/s5184/IMG_0090.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAOpmn-CSIsQpX8KJL0vILa-Zn2GtG42FX4g3p1Lb4ETQa40GptH5Vz-9S428DDRr0eUOPmqYQVpGIXQadHfpc6nyvIOPhuU_UqzVDmtfHuLE4Gh3DzCxOjzuJui-DxysEvoqNMApk4ak/w400-h300/IMG_0090.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">More nuuo.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcMAvKb3LXSqAJDfMQRW0RwDyK0cOcg-CMWwGE7JgeB7GZ0RJr1-41cH10CR_y1B8574qLn_hYvv3u5JB502luea2EDsxPElQtGgHMuErbK8k94rF0xb68QNqGXBoC1Us-xCyIeKzE0TY/s5184/IMG_0091.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcMAvKb3LXSqAJDfMQRW0RwDyK0cOcg-CMWwGE7JgeB7GZ0RJr1-41cH10CR_y1B8574qLn_hYvv3u5JB502luea2EDsxPElQtGgHMuErbK8k94rF0xb68QNqGXBoC1Us-xCyIeKzE0TY/w400-h300/IMG_0091.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And more of this, too. How far
up do we suppose they go?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Appleford also comes with a railway
bridge – and with it the return of the Great Western Railway, which here has
put out a branch from Didcot for the final leg of its linkage to Oxford.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqO5kPFn1VYHv9YBdMN1RqX2Rs9vCyhgVlKTieyG7AcI0LP04C7-2Oh_h2LzGNodti7dsMBwf00WOH2KlE5S1nM7ByfVxW7dgYYd2UeXnZeyyS9KCogn_s4ECn27d06NWhYH6U1dyDoVc/s5184/IMG_0094.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqO5kPFn1VYHv9YBdMN1RqX2Rs9vCyhgVlKTieyG7AcI0LP04C7-2Oh_h2LzGNodti7dsMBwf00WOH2KlE5S1nM7ByfVxW7dgYYd2UeXnZeyyS9KCogn_s4ECn27d06NWhYH6U1dyDoVc/w400-h300/IMG_0094.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Both sides of the bridge are
thick with vegetation such that you only get much of a view of it from beneath. Compared with Brunel’s mantlepiece-quality pieces down in the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/07/thames-12-gap-in-chalk.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Goring Gap</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> this bridge is a more hard-headed
affair, built first in timber in 1844, replaced with wrought iron in the 1850s,
and finally done up in steel in 1927.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfh4SX8lZHhz5mCus775TdznuCf2TOtP1XCNJGQDK51BQxGf4Bie6UNqlxgTm00XXgu-SCJQzF_Kr7HVDmlReF8C25FeTpGNSHL5nzqgq3WbrgPyNuqed5tLKFRWuoanqk5hTVTxkJK0U/s5184/IMG_0095.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfh4SX8lZHhz5mCus775TdznuCf2TOtP1XCNJGQDK51BQxGf4Bie6UNqlxgTm00XXgu-SCJQzF_Kr7HVDmlReF8C25FeTpGNSHL5nzqgq3WbrgPyNuqed5tLKFRWuoanqk5hTVTxkJK0U/w400-h300/IMG_0095.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9PpW1KnELIAc6bgY8SjhZqRm9VymrpD-g0VhX_2VZlZRillbCfOCBi4R72feYMyDkcWSkCXGGCIrQbrqs7qEjku0E4EKRIkkpgvW9w1nuEMtCMLGI7FJmF-xKDYv0m_X5xyboB-kSsmM/s5184/IMG_0096.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9PpW1KnELIAc6bgY8SjhZqRm9VymrpD-g0VhX_2VZlZRillbCfOCBi4R72feYMyDkcWSkCXGGCIrQbrqs7qEjku0E4EKRIkkpgvW9w1nuEMtCMLGI7FJmF-xKDYv0m_X5xyboB-kSsmM/w640-h480/IMG_0096.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The chimneys of the Didcot B
gas power station stand as one of the most recognisable landmarks of this
region and by this point are ubiquitous on the southern horizon.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">After further lengthy trekking
through farms the trail at last dives into a tight riverside thicket – on
emergence from which, after long kilometres with no settlements in sight, two
suddenly crop up at once.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiabNIBxMXDZEWBoGAIpSvUVj3Ei0GtKbY-Ae1BmK7splpt-hZTm_-5oAZWVTLStoMIf0MHtC2WXqlg-EKvRcno4nP-KwfNJVsTBZ8sEyR9blfzhffUD4yJo3KpieNgo4bSQeTEk5v03gs/s5184/IMG_0101.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiabNIBxMXDZEWBoGAIpSvUVj3Ei0GtKbY-Ae1BmK7splpt-hZTm_-5oAZWVTLStoMIf0MHtC2WXqlg-EKvRcno4nP-KwfNJVsTBZ8sEyR9blfzhffUD4yJo3KpieNgo4bSQeTEk5v03gs/w400-h300/IMG_0101.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Enchanted?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjTFSfLcqbAtHWHz9K9T-8llpYReZsi-UcxckshODtpPOU1Idu3moXsy7dNJuhMWbASwD3XRgOtImpDyf_0uWbmmdIe0EB6MQXmFSMh1dNuprcehgoBPdg7CfmWXg8oy5QkuFy7fqTsfE/s5184/IMG_0099.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjTFSfLcqbAtHWHz9K9T-8llpYReZsi-UcxckshODtpPOU1Idu3moXsy7dNJuhMWbASwD3XRgOtImpDyf_0uWbmmdIe0EB6MQXmFSMh1dNuprcehgoBPdg7CfmWXg8oy5QkuFy7fqTsfE/w300-h400/IMG_0099.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Yes. There are trees with
faces here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8o1gewOmHi0jGeCEhi8Y6jvnZ0NqL6yehO2rbsPj-2vfn_dEkofuLe6CeLIHFY24ZmkqxMwwxC2Me0FsODCxDg6rjpi61OSV568yn03BIRsu965cYDp6k0PuWoC5DJyz5KxFpCd_uWSA/s5184/IMG_0100.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8o1gewOmHi0jGeCEhi8Y6jvnZ0NqL6yehO2rbsPj-2vfn_dEkofuLe6CeLIHFY24ZmkqxMwwxC2Me0FsODCxDg6rjpi61OSV568yn03BIRsu965cYDp6k0PuWoC5DJyz5KxFpCd_uWSA/w480-h640/IMG_0100.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Come here at night and see
what happens.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Sutton
Courtenay and Culham</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Between Sutton Courtenay to the south
and Culham to the north we have another round of hydro-engineering. When the <b>Culham
Cut</b> opened in 1809 it was one of the longest artificial cuts yet made on
the Thames to that date, and served as a proof of concept on which they based the
Clifton one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The village of <b>Sutton Courtenay</b>,
cumbersome double-barrel name and all, streaks away along the river’s original
course before skewing off down the Harwell Road to make contact with the Didcot
Power Station complex, which no doubt supports a large proportion of its
livelihoods. Wayfarers are once again encouraged to follow the Cut, but the
village harbours secrets not many people know and is well worth a quick
diversion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZK6R8_2wLA1PfN2IfQ0QuU4RgwVXokLl_qAQ10wcTVIcUHq3omSKjAHpQxrAjEpsLLoOU6tS8ba-IJci4EQgZ8JwMLLnNlfs2XgibgjQOC1g5razgCEqyUI0J94PtjynJVVS33w-5EU0/s5184/IMG_0102.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZK6R8_2wLA1PfN2IfQ0QuU4RgwVXokLl_qAQ10wcTVIcUHq3omSKjAHpQxrAjEpsLLoOU6tS8ba-IJci4EQgZ8JwMLLnNlfs2XgibgjQOC1g5razgCEqyUI0J94PtjynJVVS33w-5EU0/w640-h480/IMG_0102.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Sutton Bridge, an 1807 stone
crossing with a humongous purple thing trying to squeeze through it. The bridge
gained an extension two years later, so that it crosses both the main river and
the Cut to provide access to Sutton Courtenay. It replaced earlier bridges and
ferries and as at Clifton Hampden used to charge tolls.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgopTbabmhDEJPDnFPXsu-heOD7QitmDN-C71SUKSiqII27kfCzZ7k3-gkoDmao2-6w1xBNWJrNdH3feFgShUA8zHQSF2_0hDKBSNyJVofInjDxnuurmxEHUKjiT-dLEh8vxzchKp3doBs/s5184/IMG_0103.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgopTbabmhDEJPDnFPXsu-heOD7QitmDN-C71SUKSiqII27kfCzZ7k3-gkoDmao2-6w1xBNWJrNdH3feFgShUA8zHQSF2_0hDKBSNyJVofInjDxnuurmxEHUKjiT-dLEh8vxzchKp3doBs/w400-h300/IMG_0103.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Culham Lock – named for the
village on the north side – was built out of stone at the foot of the Cut.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTO6AX0rGEQPLhyrS2_wwyOIDoalr7bl7PI70OQD_5vLP16gbkiMKUtRCoTb4oDPEyPFkAPPxQfNCfy8YyOYAlvqfirVaJikRZ81VAWuJHDBZmgVvUIuVqVVsybWwaWwd51hDzzck6aWY/s5184/IMG_0106.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTO6AX0rGEQPLhyrS2_wwyOIDoalr7bl7PI70OQD_5vLP16gbkiMKUtRCoTb4oDPEyPFkAPPxQfNCfy8YyOYAlvqfirVaJikRZ81VAWuJHDBZmgVvUIuVqVVsybWwaWwd51hDzzck6aWY/w640-h480/IMG_0106.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Sutton Courtenay. This
northern hub around the river and church would appear to be the oldest part of
the village.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This bend has been inhabited since
very ancient times, but the present village seems to be Anglo-Saxon in origin.
Its initial name of Sutton, meaning <i>south village/farmstead</i>, was named
in apparent reference to Abingdon, of whose abbey it became another satellite
under the Kingdom of Wessex.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Sutton was a pretty major centre in
its own right if we judge by the hints of massive installations </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyB06SbynFw"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">found here by <i>Time Team</i></span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> among others. These include not only
one of the largest Saxon timber halls in the country but also an enormous
causeway, which together with the weirs, bridges and islands that emerged over later
centuries, have split the river’s flow into a leafy backwater known as the <i>Sutton
Pools</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxB1lGx8e8kCL4W8mANAwdRbvD0xGTN6M3-UDnPd8U0idBIzZe7MPy5ivKfsR-FcxwMvod_HH3LbyYfjVNfmB8wJsPX634PGV9xIi308-Hz0kzE1YH2dbaYPifk7Gwqrl4ALC4l_Z44Fw/s5184/IMG_0124.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxB1lGx8e8kCL4W8mANAwdRbvD0xGTN6M3-UDnPd8U0idBIzZe7MPy5ivKfsR-FcxwMvod_HH3LbyYfjVNfmB8wJsPX634PGV9xIi308-Hz0kzE1YH2dbaYPifk7Gwqrl4ALC4l_Z44Fw/w400-h300/IMG_0124.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A trail crosses a series of
weirs along the Sutton Pools to rejoin the Cut halfway down. Sutton Courtenay
was big on paper-milling, though the mills have long since disappeared. The
separation of the water flow into no fewer than three channels makes this one
of the more complex segments of the river.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK3KHm64OJEopRRO7rFzLXOz5BdEVLfoiT-QkcM_PM_kDpugNqfKhxZXeCueydqkj21yCyxyaywUOwV-vIT114LOVip8mUDWhV0hPZ2VfqTxyJuPO6wtxzJdPi9tTs49_ZffU0Y9qiSrM/s5184/IMG_0123.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK3KHm64OJEopRRO7rFzLXOz5BdEVLfoiT-QkcM_PM_kDpugNqfKhxZXeCueydqkj21yCyxyaywUOwV-vIT114LOVip8mUDWhV0hPZ2VfqTxyJuPO6wtxzJdPi9tTs49_ZffU0Y9qiSrM/w400-h300/IMG_0123.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">As for why it’s called Sutton <i>Courtenay</i>,
the culprits were the de Courtenay family from France, a bunch of Crusaders who
developed an English branch in the twelfth century. Specifically, Reginald de
Courtenay is said to have been given this village by Henry II, supposedly for
assisting him in </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">securing his kingship out of the shambolic and bloody power struggle between Matilda and Stephen</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. Reginald’s family later became
Earls of Devon, where they live in a huge castle and still have a guy in the
House of Lords today.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBjRMuiWmFwDUJcAH2-YvdhL94DqIwwJVD0X3TWSXgcGlZ-dpCegmV2sCii8FlDiBzCgKMEitphJIkPw6aRsq_p-pKEt8hHewcHGxJMZdjOZ7sI5XbSd2-KTMoqHhW1ASs_gA-E3-61Y/s5184/IMG_0115.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBjRMuiWmFwDUJcAH2-YvdhL94DqIwwJVD0X3TWSXgcGlZ-dpCegmV2sCii8FlDiBzCgKMEitphJIkPw6aRsq_p-pKEt8hHewcHGxJMZdjOZ7sI5XbSd2-KTMoqHhW1ASs_gA-E3-61Y/w640-h480/IMG_0115.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Sutton Courtenay’s All Saints
Church, with a twelfth-century Norman tower and a brick porch conspicuously
stuck on in the fifteenth. It narrowly survived the civil war when the vicar at
the time, a supporter of Parliament here under the nose of the king’s Oxford
stronghold, carelessly stored ammunition inside it which of course blew up.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiSLUbS3RpYSCX8-itiAzSDKrX54OV6Lys5GUjxooZXpGrXkxeFRpg99p17RapMzS9DNwazgbTVXTyy_-ERAJ0W7MNFo4AgFy5nnUt8C1c5UsbReGFFiyIcAtHarkeqJFWeHNsn-cT3RM/s5184/IMG_0116.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiSLUbS3RpYSCX8-itiAzSDKrX54OV6Lys5GUjxooZXpGrXkxeFRpg99p17RapMzS9DNwazgbTVXTyy_-ERAJ0W7MNFo4AgFy5nnUt8C1c5UsbReGFFiyIcAtHarkeqJFWeHNsn-cT3RM/w400-h300/IMG_0116.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small; line-height: 107%;">Another in the recent trend of
local churches sitting open for anyone to poke around inside. This was rarely
the case downriver.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisK1XY4PNS0YhStLmiXlz7IGDo50TujAqNrup0rn9Wio0YvLCHw209q99XmOOr2eEaTqH2HjgXxqSVvbmNVQEkdkGjlw-HyulLdo5hECV5JoWVbYdD8AQvQmPnMXU-NM6V7MXugWeSOTo/s5184/IMG_0108.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisK1XY4PNS0YhStLmiXlz7IGDo50TujAqNrup0rn9Wio0YvLCHw209q99XmOOr2eEaTqH2HjgXxqSVvbmNVQEkdkGjlw-HyulLdo5hECV5JoWVbYdD8AQvQmPnMXU-NM6V7MXugWeSOTo/w400-h300/IMG_0108.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This feathery pair has taken
up residence at the top of the tower.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">There’s more to the church. How about
a look in its cemetery?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNjh_dbE5NLy8aRUljnCt9szknM2wL5Vs43zFlbRwOMGi-a9WVx1ft2pp86f_cOop95TFNrZtJAxMpY6pbom55yOgaj3V7v4N2gK8bDPw2V9-c5ddLh_70iOFRc2pJw2VDlrywQAb0DeM/s5184/IMG_0112.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNjh_dbE5NLy8aRUljnCt9szknM2wL5Vs43zFlbRwOMGi-a9WVx1ft2pp86f_cOop95TFNrZtJAxMpY6pbom55yOgaj3V7v4N2gK8bDPw2V9-c5ddLh_70iOFRc2pJw2VDlrywQAb0DeM/w400-h300/IMG_0112.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Herbert Henry Asquith of the
Liberal Party was prime minister of this country from 1908 to 1916 and
introduced its first major set of social welfare reforms, including the minimum
wage and free school meals. This cultural seed would blossom in the post-WWII
welfare settlement, then get torn out (or worse, poisoned into a system of
abuse) by the Conservative Party in the present. However Asquith got himself
stuck on the wrong side of the women’s suffrage struggle and was found
ineffective as a war leader in the opening years of World War I, leading to his
eventual replacement. He spent his final years at his country house here in
Sutton Courtenay.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Asquith’s great granite block is this
cemetery’s obvious centrepiece. Yet there’s another quite considerable name in
here, and this one keeps quietly to itself in one of the rear corners.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAC1B28Kv03VU3_0DOwE18thm5uBptbjcxp6BWJJmpsX7MhEhHOaD7yWn-cDxpmpauu8feVA-4_Tr8AUeQZhLfNTpzmSb1nPY5mDTVG6xJQRMyXAJwGB1SM6yUVcINl7nZ-Jf33OM4gU8/s5184/IMG_0114.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAC1B28Kv03VU3_0DOwE18thm5uBptbjcxp6BWJJmpsX7MhEhHOaD7yWn-cDxpmpauu8feVA-4_Tr8AUeQZhLfNTpzmSb1nPY5mDTVG6xJQRMyXAJwGB1SM6yUVcINl7nZ-Jf33OM4gU8/w640-h480/IMG_0114.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Eric Arthur Blair – better
known as George Orwell. Beyond the church’s information board there are no
signposts or other indications that he is buried here, and his unassuming
headstone can take some searching for even if you know that he is.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">George Orwell, author of such impactful
works as <i>Animal Farm</i> and <i>Nineteen Eighty-Four</i>, had no particular
connection to this village. Rather before his death in London in 1950 at age
forty-six, he’d stipulated in his will that he wished to be buried ‘in the
nearest convenient cemetery’. With London’s cemeteries apparently lacking space
for him, his friend David Astor, editor of the <i>Observer</i> newspaper and
resident of Sutton Courtenay at the time, managed to get a place for him here
instead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYlVE_ZiHrrf6BlCoTiJ84AvX9LIqUcRIY2KsJziBvFYStWM-O2D_onwVF1s1oUTYHwHSDsIQAFlO3djqcl-eBPkLN3id8y2-6w4FixKqwJ-460Sum7FVMSwrpcRZr4zgwcQBwSXyizOE/s5184/IMG_0113.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYlVE_ZiHrrf6BlCoTiJ84AvX9LIqUcRIY2KsJziBvFYStWM-O2D_onwVF1s1oUTYHwHSDsIQAFlO3djqcl-eBPkLN3id8y2-6w4FixKqwJ-460Sum7FVMSwrpcRZr4zgwcQBwSXyizOE/w640-h480/IMG_0113.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And this is the point where you
check over your shoulder.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPrjMoJFsZ_M-0v9kCYO5xPfzN79aQv9kjxUrHrXnSTRY8NHat7xvOH8CwVFbtfHKl0TfmYvKMPCHsa7Lpr3B9-BI_BY77eZiEBnTXEnY-l7VGUb0uwbk184VQ_88FtEFbNbk7gsbP3F8/s5184/IMG_0120.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPrjMoJFsZ_M-0v9kCYO5xPfzN79aQv9kjxUrHrXnSTRY8NHat7xvOH8CwVFbtfHKl0TfmYvKMPCHsa7Lpr3B9-BI_BY77eZiEBnTXEnY-l7VGUb0uwbk184VQ_88FtEFbNbk7gsbP3F8/w400-h300/IMG_0120.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">In the church’s entryway is a
collection box for the Abingdon foodbank, launched by an alliance of local
churches in 2009. Oxfordshire is one of the wealthiest provinces in England, but
it too has created clusters of appalling poverty.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8-Kueat5J4Og1iZsAbC_lS0sViS1OBosllNl82ex29-YPbTY2-wF80g-twcupsx8M2-1R-YS3zSjkZd-1Ie9fM-oV9cFawssBOYuQU_2MX3sDeb7nLS1ITVw8daN7W0R2JsD-r1_8YzI/s5184/IMG_0122.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8-Kueat5J4Og1iZsAbC_lS0sViS1OBosllNl82ex29-YPbTY2-wF80g-twcupsx8M2-1R-YS3zSjkZd-1Ie9fM-oV9cFawssBOYuQU_2MX3sDeb7nLS1ITVw8daN7W0R2JsD-r1_8YzI/w400-h300/IMG_0122.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">It at first appears this might
be some exciting <i>Alice in Wonderland </i>potion for changing the physical
properties of whoever drinks it. Alas, on closer inspection it turns out to be
Trump Juice, no doubt left over from the American king’s ill-advised state
visit in 2019.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Beyond the church the village pulls
away from the river, necessitating a return across the backwater weirs to the
Culham Cut. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghbN_TeFkmUvML7eOaw03DxEtJhEHkro3619z0ECQFeTIrRr2rLmch9jOmazyX65pptjCKb8Zl9eZAjp2GH97d_5N0fNTRQTscTgeHh4DDms3hbVkWh2sAJRNjBA-O475O23OrpSzo5sE/s5184/IMG_0126.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghbN_TeFkmUvML7eOaw03DxEtJhEHkro3619z0ECQFeTIrRr2rLmch9jOmazyX65pptjCKb8Zl9eZAjp2GH97d_5N0fNTRQTscTgeHh4DDms3hbVkWh2sAJRNjBA-O475O23OrpSzo5sE/w400-h300/IMG_0126.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPwNrlx-_CfBGpCp-g7TdioP2ogF4-C1kcsvlugr2eRIgYTFppzAIynA9jnP5adHeGEAJCYs9DovtT4BUL2fIjIMRslxImPwnskQg9Saonoduf8OkzHf80e5iZXlHIEtR4H-v3IJRvCq4/s5184/IMG_0128.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPwNrlx-_CfBGpCp-g7TdioP2ogF4-C1kcsvlugr2eRIgYTFppzAIynA9jnP5adHeGEAJCYs9DovtT4BUL2fIjIMRslxImPwnskQg9Saonoduf8OkzHf80e5iZXlHIEtR4H-v3IJRvCq4/w300-h400/IMG_0128.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Looking back down the Cut from
atop a footbridge, heavy river traffic is seen accumulating at Culham Lock.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0VNmfR0Kq4y1MBdX4RHgj4GFTlYhCfKQ5yVkl72NJ_ymlIcxC-k6JL9BEsuKu-HfH21UYQVPvfZCNFjuzYJjqmAodmZG2B6AGRDQsVQJnq_os3vr1ci7S1h5OzvQ6qWz63puK58Wl1f0/s5184/IMG_0130.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0VNmfR0Kq4y1MBdX4RHgj4GFTlYhCfKQ5yVkl72NJ_ymlIcxC-k6JL9BEsuKu-HfH21UYQVPvfZCNFjuzYJjqmAodmZG2B6AGRDQsVQJnq_os3vr1ci7S1h5OzvQ6qWz63puK58Wl1f0/w400-h300/IMG_0130.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This is water sausage
territory.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Culham</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> is the other village in this pair, another
Anglo-Saxon settlement (<i>Cula’s homestead</i>) formerly under the remit of
Abingdon Abbey. Having grown up in the riverbend it’s now drifted a little way
inland, with the intervening space given over to farmland.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6atIxdAEmNmVWG_v_9yG_gBJ7H_l4fp10cee2jfNPu9RMW0UNFsgmTT_SoFqkbKNOkns6Mh2qD2iECP_e2IdBZo2ngrF6MaxTgRvOLalb4q2PwYSdFcsHa0NZGknliKcslyjUAFELwHQ/s5184/IMG_0133.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6atIxdAEmNmVWG_v_9yG_gBJ7H_l4fp10cee2jfNPu9RMW0UNFsgmTT_SoFqkbKNOkns6Mh2qD2iECP_e2IdBZo2ngrF6MaxTgRvOLalb4q2PwYSdFcsHa0NZGknliKcslyjUAFELwHQ/w640-h480/IMG_0133.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The roofs of Culham, including
the tower of its 1852 Gothic Revival church.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwqKSMMXaBJfdwAsFQY2WVqBbAY5evKc8_kEYl54BefRD5o0Ihe2RQqCu7ppeEp8zMCN6yaziZ6QOaABv7xuk38aOBCFq-ulDQes7Rwg_7uuNNGLburAn39fYz7D1ZIbqMwJEXoKzEzZs/s5184/IMG_0132.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwqKSMMXaBJfdwAsFQY2WVqBbAY5evKc8_kEYl54BefRD5o0Ihe2RQqCu7ppeEp8zMCN6yaziZ6QOaABv7xuk38aOBCFq-ulDQes7Rwg_7uuNNGLburAn39fYz7D1ZIbqMwJEXoKzEzZs/w400-h300/IMG_0132.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The occasional red kite swoops
around in the skies above the middle Thames. Sighting one at rest like this is less
common.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo4o-IbvLvZCq6yJvkyqQjBdYhk274g4hJvQkSP6r1qpy3lwmzh-ayqltewfdXsxrglMOptXHrK2S_K8TbqGfBLWBtsTqX9lJDejiA-W-nKukUIbCK6OKr5MDVFpnfKfH7I-zNkjQD4VQ/s5184/IMG_0134.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo4o-IbvLvZCq6yJvkyqQjBdYhk274g4hJvQkSP6r1qpy3lwmzh-ayqltewfdXsxrglMOptXHrK2S_K8TbqGfBLWBtsTqX9lJDejiA-W-nKukUIbCK6OKr5MDVFpnfKfH7I-zNkjQD4VQ/w400-h300/IMG_0134.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Round the bend the Culham Cut
departs (or rejoins) the main flow, and once more the river is whole – at least
for the one kilometre from here to the next cut.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvtYX3Kv_FY6el0crLdmczMHQxXK9MRukdscaz008CZfbMot_g4qt1IBUDL8KoLbvEv7OCS25eHuVISRDFbuymTFLsU6z5HEfJNY3nk37B8Or-KlZL5zHMSLbcsbgRdlSzi5vfdvcJSho/s5184/IMG_0136.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvtYX3Kv_FY6el0crLdmczMHQxXK9MRukdscaz008CZfbMot_g4qt1IBUDL8KoLbvEv7OCS25eHuVISRDFbuymTFLsU6z5HEfJNY3nk37B8Or-KlZL5zHMSLbcsbgRdlSzi5vfdvcJSho/w400-h300/IMG_0136.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Ploughed fields spread through
the space between river and village.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">After a thousand years as yet another
tiny rural hamlet whose influence remained largely within the reach of its
ploughs, <i>Cula’s homestead</i> would suddenly find its name propelled to the forefront of humankind's efforts to meet the challenges of its energy future. In 1944 a Royal Navy aircraft station was opened to
the village’s east to train reservists, but it closed after World War II and
sat around for a while as a storage centre. That was when the UK Atomic Energy
Authority came along. In those years this was the body with full responsibility
for this country’s civil and military nuclear affairs, and above all for getting
this country its own nuclear weapons. (This included atomic bomb tests
in Australia and the Pacific, with devastating legacies there in the effects of
radioactive fallout and nuclear waste, </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/jul/17/not-in-this-town-artwork-about-britains-nuclear-colonialism-removed"><u>but be ready for the nationalists to tantrum at you if you mention it</u></a>.</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The UKAEA identified the Culham site
as a suitable spot to build a cutting-edge nuclear research laboratory, but in
the following decades the Authority’s functions were gradually split off,
leaving it as a research organisation almost entirely concerned with developing
nuclear fusion – the process that powers stars – as a controllable energy
source. To that end the <b>Culham Centre for Fusion Energy</b>, as it is now
known, serves as one of the world’s primary centres for fusion research and
experimental technology. Of these experiments the most iconic is the <b>Joint
European Torus</b>, the world’s most powerful fusion reactor (specifically a <i>tokamak</i>,
originally the design of Soviet physicists). It began construction here in the
1970s, achieved its first plasma in 1983, and so far holds the record in producing
as close to as much power as the amount that must be put in to create and
sustain the conditions to do so (which remains the main technical challenge in
harnessing fusion as an energy source).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJX17-4yDsMT0z3hEXhWIl6TYF4AXr5ghXO75EOfAZIpcfJ_ZwucVvTiqdDzzsAvMaURdgFJYqRCFTZtvMQTr-URiOV0Hpm8ZsEFb1tuSxfo8p1A_Dm3ercBDgzjypd_OEW7wx5Qd6IUs/s5184/IMG_0138.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJX17-4yDsMT0z3hEXhWIl6TYF4AXr5ghXO75EOfAZIpcfJ_ZwucVvTiqdDzzsAvMaURdgFJYqRCFTZtvMQTr-URiOV0Hpm8ZsEFb1tuSxfo8p1A_Dm3ercBDgzjypd_OEW7wx5Qd6IUs/w640-h480/IMG_0138.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">An artificial star in a box:
not exactly the first thing you’d expect in these surroundings,
is it?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">As its name suggests, the JET is a <i>joint</i>
undertaking with the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), which supplied
most of its funding. Though distinct from the EU, this country reflexively
withdrew from it straight after Brexit because as a primarily theatrical
exercise it wouldn’t work unless it threw absolutely everything out of the pram.
So out flew a monumental four-decade cooperative investment in some of the
world’s most promising research into solutions for humankind’s existential
energy crisis, and now the entire project has been flung into doubt, managing
its best on temporary arrangements while it waits to find out whether it still
has a future.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Zw3kZtWphoiwnJtqvY2RnXtKWxxqfBJy3juTlSQfNEJbvvNgQttFo9M9tdYYObyRTAJdW3bnHX_phboYtLs_N5pCbjOtt3ChuOC1T1t6YdtmjHPFkT1Hln5ori49xhDypcjgovnS5oY/s5184/IMG_0137.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Zw3kZtWphoiwnJtqvY2RnXtKWxxqfBJy3juTlSQfNEJbvvNgQttFo9M9tdYYObyRTAJdW3bnHX_phboYtLs_N5pCbjOtt3ChuOC1T1t6YdtmjHPFkT1Hln5ori49xhDypcjgovnS5oY/w400-h300/IMG_0137.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Perhaps if you put your eye to
this you can spot extremely small bunnies making off with bits of the tokamak.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwl6Y0933kQaNrOXurPoqD2VsegT083CVUzsFaTobqt4QngWtQXEEimGJYGIsKUqMuOBjd-d8RX624H8XrQ1ggUZUITqf7-wDCXpuRydkzpJ1Uv8T4-h_bJeh97sLJ_XhEPybDJuvphdY/s5184/IMG_0140.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwl6Y0933kQaNrOXurPoqD2VsegT083CVUzsFaTobqt4QngWtQXEEimGJYGIsKUqMuOBjd-d8RX624H8XrQ1ggUZUITqf7-wDCXpuRydkzpJ1Uv8T4-h_bJeh97sLJ_XhEPybDJuvphdY/w400-h300/IMG_0140.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Glimpsed through the bushes is
Culham’s old bridge, built by a religious brotherhood in 1422. It was heavily
fought over in the Civil War as an ideal place to attack Royalist convoys
travelling to Oxford.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Abingdon</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">And now we draw in to the principal
town on this reach. But first there is the matter of the third and final river
cut on this reach – which was really the first and oldest by far, because where
the Thames Navigation Commissioners dug, there once dug monks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVExKx4omi9L6e7OUhthBsqDjWz2vlY5vBiuwNmjYxuanywhm2iWPqrlvfIxde2GLahaQXmFqYi3faD2_jZ21hTewttsdlQdXlWm0RVkg3vqX2WuqcbMIhmkS8yhRuNyhcKEi4M5FbKo/s5184/IMG_0139.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVExKx4omi9L6e7OUhthBsqDjWz2vlY5vBiuwNmjYxuanywhm2iWPqrlvfIxde2GLahaQXmFqYi3faD2_jZ21hTewttsdlQdXlWm0RVkg3vqX2WuqcbMIhmkS8yhRuNyhcKEi4M5FbKo/w400-h300/IMG_0139.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The footbridge over the lower
mouth of the ‘Swift Ditch’, which slices through the corner opposite Abingdon.
The town’s suburban outskirts are now in sight.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This cut is an expression of the
town’s defining – yet muddled – relationship with the river. Abingdon had a
powerful abbey, as indicated by its string of satellite hamlets on this route,
and by the late Anglo-Saxon period its monks were diverting the river’s flow
into weir streams through this corner to power their mills. This caused river
traffic congestion, which in turn caused complaints, so around the 1050s the
newly-elected abbot Ordric had them dig a newer, larger channel. This shortcut,
which became known as the <b>‘Swift Ditch’</b>, came into use as the main
navigation channel and would remain so till the 1790s, when for reasons likely
connected to lock and canal construction Abingdon’s industrial interests got
that role reverted to the main river. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirf4aW1-dNyFOOE5M8UkofMTX9qa8rhU299GBpFkuX-07NaM2g4tHziYICaz2RQ7psK0z4mqmPq8XL3_f8nN1JT-zIQ_z7Thre5MPbidGlLzxqA25qIuwHpV9kQCBDWLE_UPV1StS5iro/s5184/IMG_0142.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirf4aW1-dNyFOOE5M8UkofMTX9qa8rhU299GBpFkuX-07NaM2g4tHziYICaz2RQ7psK0z4mqmPq8XL3_f8nN1JT-zIQ_z7Thre5MPbidGlLzxqA25qIuwHpV9kQCBDWLE_UPV1StS5iro/w400-h300/IMG_0142.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">These millennium-old
waterworks turned the inside of this bend into an island, known as <i>Andersey</i>.
Named after a chapel to St. Andrew that once stood on it, this is one of the
largest islands on the Thames. It was popular with royalty and held a residence
much used by the Mercian, Wessex or Norman kings of the day. Today it’s
Abingdon’s primary green space and carries the ancient Dorchester road through
parks, fields and sports grounds.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm54ug7p-_rE8jW2344SeS1HpcUY5m54ZHW_XCZJovvklyO0NWvCz_sr4_qWEisVZC6wucH3raiBd6zJ0E7F9w6q5nzovrX-zu7dpwPxD7ZXoXL0fkBfL7E9ldnROZSJySeDptT_Qwrso/s5184/IMG_0143.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm54ug7p-_rE8jW2344SeS1HpcUY5m54ZHW_XCZJovvklyO0NWvCz_sr4_qWEisVZC6wucH3raiBd6zJ0E7F9w6q5nzovrX-zu7dpwPxD7ZXoXL0fkBfL7E9ldnROZSJySeDptT_Qwrso/w400-h300/IMG_0143.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The entrance to Abingdon
Marina, on whose north side the town’s suburb of Caldecott beings.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4hwwFJYQV9fF7a4olwGnZuwHjnUJNeHaf_JMXzKivWYO03-LXLI7pwuScOc5CdblPuASk-SPL8efXrFS7kD2_x-PPB_XjaGmQLJ_4mwxFOUEbBz3dLj0wOBem3w6GhSX-5gIAnYxAaKQ/s5184/IMG_0144.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4hwwFJYQV9fF7a4olwGnZuwHjnUJNeHaf_JMXzKivWYO03-LXLI7pwuScOc5CdblPuASk-SPL8efXrFS7kD2_x-PPB_XjaGmQLJ_4mwxFOUEbBz3dLj0wOBem3w6GhSX-5gIAnYxAaKQ/w640-h480/IMG_0144.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Abingdon is known for its
750-year-old </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">independent school</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. It’s boys-only (this being a
shamelessly sexist country), recognisable to fans of <i>Radiohead</i> as that rock
band’s place of origin, and like most such schools has a fervent sporting
tradition. This is its expensive boathouse, built in 2003 and claimed to be the
largest oak-framed building in Europe.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Further chapters in Abingdon’s
relationship with the river are on show as you follow it up into the town.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSYv6rwdvSKeFPnXWY15oIoiCqGSSaVsO5ZJBSpfrP4TIGa_A7xi3Ed5HvmQjMUgKo8dxWNbxpmjEu3MHDQNTA44qNzQ1kBh75_n_0MN175HOLXFfCG4zVVUIFq5HhhmHfSLFfcXB7HmA/s5184/IMG_0145.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSYv6rwdvSKeFPnXWY15oIoiCqGSSaVsO5ZJBSpfrP4TIGa_A7xi3Ed5HvmQjMUgKo8dxWNbxpmjEu3MHDQNTA44qNzQ1kBh75_n_0MN175HOLXFfCG4zVVUIFq5HhhmHfSLFfcXB7HmA/w640-h480/IMG_0145.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Pleasure-cruisers and
narrowboats line up along the first serious built-up embankment in some
distance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAvfRRabEUWOqSN_ALiKBztwX7_91GHltQsztCMR2LxaDLSdAokUADTFca9HNXeLr8yPh7Gagb2f5vlYvn35FS8SNY30eAn4JbD2EH5E5jE5yaz0wL-gIZTBD-Td44gqSo0MbisvRlAyo/s5184/IMG_0147.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAvfRRabEUWOqSN_ALiKBztwX7_91GHltQsztCMR2LxaDLSdAokUADTFca9HNXeLr8yPh7Gagb2f5vlYvn35FS8SNY30eAn4JbD2EH5E5jE5yaz0wL-gIZTBD-Td44gqSo0MbisvRlAyo/w400-h300/IMG_0147.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Then an abrupt change in
material signals what used to be the junction with the <i>Wilts and Berks Canal</i>
(as in Wiltshire and Berkshire – the short form was its official name). This
was opened in 1810 to link to the </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Kennet and Avon Canal</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> and spent a century funnelling the
stuff of the industrial revolution – primarily coal – before it was killed off
by the railways, finally closing in 1914. Its ruins have since either been
built over or abused as a rubbish tip, but in 2001 a partnership formed to get
it restored and has been steadily rescuing bits of it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF49lQsWrqhfnJMdlqj_KZCOlot4DnC6JwoDx9p03LcDoY_dWZot6hZLl-2WZKsyjsxFoeCZk3UfATVQHGy175YBKVYQpwwACHA0I-kuhvB6QO5uKzzLAondFyYbnCPITtb5miAKaYNbE/s5184/IMG_0148.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF49lQsWrqhfnJMdlqj_KZCOlot4DnC6JwoDx9p03LcDoY_dWZot6hZLl-2WZKsyjsxFoeCZk3UfATVQHGy175YBKVYQpwwACHA0I-kuhvB6QO5uKzzLAondFyYbnCPITtb5miAKaYNbE/w640-h480/IMG_0148.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And then an actual tributary
arrives. The River Ock, whose name comes possibly from a Celtic word for <i>salmon</i>,
dribbles east down the Vale of White Horse to come in here at left. A southern
boundary and millable resource of ancestral importance to the Abingdon
settlement, it looks like a tiny stream but is known to menace the town with
floods when it’s upset.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">And from there we come to Abingdon’s former
wharf, and its bridge which brings us into the town proper.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJqJ4eNqJeNsP9aVJdbQT2EGulenYujFhVDeeRCLgqfBdUR2pYkZthxrTgvd847Sj8SY0s44Xs89yzLzZF6iGn0Z-nZ7slcU8L-BaHZYJoUwnSYDtA-b3M9J61dEY2xm5J5KwyeTHkOC0/s5184/IMG_0151.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJqJ4eNqJeNsP9aVJdbQT2EGulenYujFhVDeeRCLgqfBdUR2pYkZthxrTgvd847Sj8SY0s44Xs89yzLzZF6iGn0Z-nZ7slcU8L-BaHZYJoUwnSYDtA-b3M9J61dEY2xm5J5KwyeTHkOC0/w640-h480/IMG_0151.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Twelfth-century St. Helen’s
Church is an Abingdon landmark and one of its most historic surviving
buildings. It overlooks what used to be the town’s wharf, in its day the </span></b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">hub of its merchant community and the </span></b></span></span>living
conduit of their trade and prosperity.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0-Ae2sZF6-3hHBHsUWwyqStMgMfD55A8oAiFrox2c-hT0ziO-hu9524AXgP0yivEUAC2pbmfZkAUaDchWrWX9KzfWYE7GnRlToMfXexf5BlbZ8KcwnOdo-gdnroQuBmssLp7Ai_ORnog/s5184/IMG_0152.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0-Ae2sZF6-3hHBHsUWwyqStMgMfD55A8oAiFrox2c-hT0ziO-hu9524AXgP0yivEUAC2pbmfZkAUaDchWrWX9KzfWYE7GnRlToMfXexf5BlbZ8KcwnOdo-gdnroQuBmssLp7Ai_ORnog/w400-h300/IMG_0152.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">That huge purple creature made
it through Sutton Bridge and has here pulled in for a rest, allowing us to
identify the individual in charge upon its prow.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWOO3uEuY_NPgRiHPxbvVGZsykiMVJ28J0XxVKq46mVar_lHYq1KVM7J4QOe6e4Q8fefsLnw9qsOKnc-20VHyRP5jCy2HXyhvAu4gWWrvvEX6nTnWLD0h5QInFQ3kOFXrcDAvd5X2ijEw/s5184/IMG_0153.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWOO3uEuY_NPgRiHPxbvVGZsykiMVJ28J0XxVKq46mVar_lHYq1KVM7J4QOe6e4Q8fefsLnw9qsOKnc-20VHyRP5jCy2HXyhvAu4gWWrvvEX6nTnWLD0h5QInFQ3kOFXrcDAvd5X2ijEw/w640-h480/IMG_0153.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Abingdon Bridge – actually two
bridges, with Nag’s Head Island (here at left) in the middle – is a 1927
rebuild of a limestone crossing erected in the 1410s by Abingdon’s priests and
merchants. The relationship between these two estates seem to have been a core
dynamic in Abingdon’s rise, which the bridge’s completion secured </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">at Wallingford’s expense</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Abingdon’s assertion is a bold one: it
claims no less than to be the oldest town in Britain. While impossible to
verify, it’s certainly true that the town and its surroundings have thrown up a
wealth of artifacts spanning almost every period of human immigration to and
settlement in this area. These include Palaeolithic hand-axes, Neolithic
pottery, and significantly, a late Iron Age <i>oppidum</i> like </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-14-settling-point.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">that which held the Dorchester bend</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> – only here supposedly contiguous in
time with the present town – along with loads of Celtic coins and imported goods
suggesting a highly active centre of material exchange.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSfiXp2lPkAUZzaiIRKIL_aapihcgvyAUezECs-JiHSHpXsfZXSV0sFSTl0NHLLJ4C6IMdGygUOMe1jySQnr2HRNInMqeMO6gBk2uUsIwHQ-SkTBuyQILHjKn8LQcgwZ9akWy1JqjifME/s5184/IMG_0207.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSfiXp2lPkAUZzaiIRKIL_aapihcgvyAUezECs-JiHSHpXsfZXSV0sFSTl0NHLLJ4C6IMdGygUOMe1jySQnr2HRNInMqeMO6gBk2uUsIwHQ-SkTBuyQILHjKn8LQcgwZ9akWy1JqjifME/w400-h300/IMG_0207.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And if that’s not good enough,
how about an Ichthyosaurus? This Late Jurassic fossil was discovered in a local
gravel pit in 1988 and now sits proudly on display in the Abingdon Museum.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The <i>oppidum</i> was succeeded by a
small Roman town but developed its lasting identity in the Anglo-Saxon period.
Supposedly known to the Anglo-Saxon immigrants as <i>Seuekesham</i>, this was
changed into Abingdon – from </span><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Æ</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">bba’s</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> or </span><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Æ</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">bbe’s hill</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, they say, even though it’s not on a
hill, suggesting they transferred the name from elsewhere at around the time it
got its abbey.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Abingdon Abbey had its own (rathe more
questionable) claim to be the oldest monastery in Britain. More likely it was
founded around the 670s by the viceroy of Wessex, and rose to some prominence
before getting thoroughly sacked by the Vikings in the ninth century and left
to fall into ruin. Revived under the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-5-cross-purposes.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Benedictine reforms of King Edgar inthe 960s</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, Abingdon
Abbey became a centre for that movement and would spend the half-millennium
from then till Henry VIII’s crackdown as the thundering heart of the town and
its region.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihDfFTulBGTbngawzt5n4EmaiFkBI374aJ7YR1IzCheTRXxNsoHdCCshoKogdcxUMT4R_0xgZiaYlxhyC_T-hMs7IIlmHjRLlxjOiqlWNBJpPWtAvg1FbJC2ULpXJcq73JwSaiPlXpK7I/s5184/IMG_0217.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihDfFTulBGTbngawzt5n4EmaiFkBI374aJ7YR1IzCheTRXxNsoHdCCshoKogdcxUMT4R_0xgZiaYlxhyC_T-hMs7IIlmHjRLlxjOiqlWNBJpPWtAvg1FbJC2ULpXJcq73JwSaiPlXpK7I/w640-h480/IMG_0217.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Little survived of Abingdon
Abbey’s buildings after its suppression and decay, but its imprint on the town
is tangible to this day. This is its much-restored gateway, connected at left
to the small St. Nicolas Church. The latter was built for the Abbey’s workers
and servants, who were otherwise excluded from its life in a sign of the
tensions between the monastery and the people of the town.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWDeYWp09wJhmVCDBzUSorYqz9iHxhFJOk3UtGa5FbYisolCvWd0-NAj33AbdUnsVa9CguKKRVARXCg58xo50UqW7yTkDZrzgaC5LWzyh8BJUopBEnPZQM5ldG3mTL1XPNSX8UsGXg4Rw/s5184/IMG_0163.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWDeYWp09wJhmVCDBzUSorYqz9iHxhFJOk3UtGa5FbYisolCvWd0-NAj33AbdUnsVa9CguKKRVARXCg58xo50UqW7yTkDZrzgaC5LWzyh8BJUopBEnPZQM5ldG3mTL1XPNSX8UsGXg4Rw/w640-h480/IMG_0163.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And this is “merely” the
remnant of one of the Abbey’s domestic buildings – namely its exchequer, or
financial administration, with its timber-framed Long Gallery (here at left) and a curious and
rare medieval chimney. As its scale makes evident, this huge monastery was as
much a material exercise as a spiritual one.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfvc4zxaMDhKdYfMXHULiIhh8QVQU5EKXc3eTT9zC-VJX8AQ2zw8PRB5qReoEkGPkbynSz82PoIav0V4Fn-skxGJBLi2nYGHKN7wz_EhoXGMLMEt0w_ct-2yVUZx_qbSZOJLcVy-0KSss/s5184/IMG_0224.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfvc4zxaMDhKdYfMXHULiIhh8QVQU5EKXc3eTT9zC-VJX8AQ2zw8PRB5qReoEkGPkbynSz82PoIav0V4Fn-skxGJBLi2nYGHKN7wz_EhoXGMLMEt0w_ct-2yVUZx_qbSZOJLcVy-0KSss/w400-h300/IMG_0224.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">What looks most like the
Abbey’s ruins actually has least to do with it. This is Trendall’s Folly, put
up in the 1860s because the Abbey Gardens’ private land-holders wanted
something that <i>looked like</i> its ruins. Ironically some of these stones
came from St. Helen’s Church so could actually be very old indeed.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Hand-in-hand with Abingdon’s
religious status rose its economic clout, with the monks in effect its dominant
corporation. The monastery’s river of wealth was of course the river itself,
which provided water and fish, powered their mills, and netted them a fortune
in tolls on traffic at one of the most fordable points on its upper-middle
course. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This went down poorly with the town
growing up in its shadow, its merchants and traders most of all. They had their
own guild, focused at St. Helen’s Church above the wharves which made them
their killing, and they regularly quarrelled with the monks over the latter’s
intrusive control over their affairs. The town’s prosperity in agricultural
produce and textiles (especially wool) gave high stakes to these tensions,
which came to a head in a massive and bloody riot in 1327.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Nonetheless, in the fifteenth century
the merchants prevailed on the monks to let them set up the <i>Fraternity of
the Holy Cross</i>. Despite the sinister sectarian-sounding name this seems to
have been an attempt on the merchants’ part to thrash out some practical
self-government in Abingdon; the Fraternity invested considerably in civic
infrastructure projects such as almshouses, a causeway, and most importantly
the bridge. It also sank a large sum of money into raising a prestigious and
ornate market cross in the middle of the square: a clear statement of power and
prestige in the face of the Abbey’s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWYmeFGvnOgGYZ2iRRMMu9N09ckPszYfKKynbmc6HYQ331rWo3zoQVRjM4VSpOz47awxFDqZQ5fKB8JjCqg4H9slrJZxOmEiLwvGp19fD_EORfCWgsqMFIPhixOXfWgPhLHDXp6hw8UvA/s5184/IMG_0216.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWYmeFGvnOgGYZ2iRRMMu9N09ckPszYfKKynbmc6HYQ331rWo3zoQVRjM4VSpOz47awxFDqZQ5fKB8JjCqg4H9slrJZxOmEiLwvGp19fD_EORfCWgsqMFIPhixOXfWgPhLHDXp6hw8UvA/w640-h480/IMG_0216.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Abingdon’s market square
today.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This hard-nosed mercantile culture was
to keep the town going after Henry VIII’s sledgehammer broke the monastery out
of the equation – apparently, and surprisingly, with its willing compliance –
in the 1530s. Like the settlements downstream Abingdon then had to endure both
the crushing impact of this asset-stripping on its market life (further worsened
when the Fraternity itself was abolished by the central government), followed
by its ill-fated position on the front lines of the seventeenth-century Civil
War. The Parliamentary army took control of the town in 1644 in a collapse of
the king’s protective screen around his Oxford stronghold; but as yet unable to
take Oxford itself, the angry Puritan soldiers took out their iconoclastic ire
on the Abingdon merchants’ market cross, which is why it no longer stands in
the square today.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoFCFatOe41xzooEyyStFMbSIV8q4ZARRvSw-GHNuVCNsqVzO6Rm2xtAsjo9eU_gWh9IPu96jfs3k2e5uHHmeM9_YLsDjFfPOzl0ToOu4w1NOH1_RMXpwvR4fXSuVaQrNNi-96Cm3oCRc/s5184/IMG_0170.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoFCFatOe41xzooEyyStFMbSIV8q4ZARRvSw-GHNuVCNsqVzO6Rm2xtAsjo9eU_gWh9IPu96jfs3k2e5uHHmeM9_YLsDjFfPOzl0ToOu4w1NOH1_RMXpwvR4fXSuVaQrNNi-96Cm3oCRc/w400-h300/IMG_0170.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Although not all is lost; you
can still get awesome hot chocolate from the independent Bulgarian café in its
corner.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Against these difficulties Abingdon managed
to secure a royal charter in 1556. This elevated its status to that of one of
Berkshire’s core administrative and judicial centres, a set of functions it
shared with Reading till the latter, with its better position in the railway
revolution, </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">surpassed it in its industrial heyday</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">. For its part in this rivalry
Abingdon bolstered its status with some fancy architecture, and towards the
industrial period set out to distinguish itself with a range of unusual
customs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilN4qBa2X-u7jiGr_1N9ljZKOtq37YBvPEX8n6J_hyphenhyphenkGA19R_3BaBWE-x-UARg6I91qrxDXcT9zbSnINqifQm4AG-FRO40yJyhYviEvbtSMk8h5kBX3DxPuB8d_VALJJ0hfX4Y6CAHavk/s5184/IMG_0184.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilN4qBa2X-u7jiGr_1N9ljZKOtq37YBvPEX8n6J_hyphenhyphenkGA19R_3BaBWE-x-UARg6I91qrxDXcT9zbSnINqifQm4AG-FRO40yJyhYviEvbtSMk8h5kBX3DxPuB8d_VALJJ0hfX4Y6CAHavk/w300-h400/IMG_0184.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Case in point: <i>Bun-Throwing</i>.
This photograph in the Abingdon Museum shows what the market square looks like
on major national or royal events. Abingdon marks these with a ceremony in
which civil officials hurl buns filled with currants off the roof of the County
Hall to the excited throng below. The idea’s origin is unclear but is thought
to have begun with the coronation of King George III in 1760. The long-term
effect of COVID-19 on it remains to be seen.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In addition to Bun-Throwing this town
grew into a major centre for <i>Morris-Dancing</i>, an old English folk
tradition with strong regional variations. It’s also one of the few English
urban centres to carry on a tradition of late autumn fairs, which customarily
gave farm workers and domestic servants a chance to come into contact with
better potential employers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjryEnyj8___EddhtZUBp-9-Xwy0gAnYWsD5f3PsEilnOmXFmbmiMXfiuR-F0M8qSxHFit0Dyx4OohIHsRNahB-X53jM7IRWbaMCg3lb_m3uipPf94haCYM6j4HgrBIjOsXPKCqbYTrtvY/s5184/IMG_0220.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjryEnyj8___EddhtZUBp-9-Xwy0gAnYWsD5f3PsEilnOmXFmbmiMXfiuR-F0M8qSxHFit0Dyx4OohIHsRNahB-X53jM7IRWbaMCg3lb_m3uipPf94haCYM6j4HgrBIjOsXPKCqbYTrtvY/w640-h480/IMG_0220.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Abingdon’s grand County Hall,
in whose design the English’s architect-hero Christopher Wren is suspected to
have been indirectly involved, was built in the late 1670s as a courthouse and
administrative centre with space for market activity beneath. It now houses the
Abingdon Museum and offers access to the roof terrace for good views across the
town in all directions.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDilMG4bNiUadgg3jqvUOymJXqUgbl4STLCfegTYdz-fWk-euCm0BPXRKgwYx_jVFI9kdkhBxPIJE_vSJfQUPcuRSJC3lz_x3nMcuzXKOYOfXv_P6pByoVNQd9DOHPZWdEXq8gA0v7c24/s5184/IMG_0187.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDilMG4bNiUadgg3jqvUOymJXqUgbl4STLCfegTYdz-fWk-euCm0BPXRKgwYx_jVFI9kdkhBxPIJE_vSJfQUPcuRSJC3lz_x3nMcuzXKOYOfXv_P6pByoVNQd9DOHPZWdEXq8gA0v7c24/w300-h400/IMG_0187.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Not all innovations in this
period were so well-intentioned. These sticks were used by officials to assault
inmates in Abingdon’s workhouse, built in 1835 under the Poor Law reform to
torture people for being poor. Its separation of men and women, and of children
from their parents, added to the heinousness of its crimes. The workhouses were
the exultation of an English tradition of cruelty, abuse, and the blaming of
victims of political and structural violence for their own suffering – the same
tradition which informs the present government’s austerity programme and
perversion of the welfare system to punish this country’s most vulnerable
people.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6EivM66T2d8fYjG_gVPQ161NP20W4lhRpjgafT-E9trL4mptSMZjUQw0lS3rFFFUI4nzcqGjDQ7w8Md33MxsIGPp2YR3cvAHnjSuIO24iupzPJSgiYIssuewiWfhR4J-Ti4ZrKs4lJ30/s5184/IMG_0157.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6EivM66T2d8fYjG_gVPQ161NP20W4lhRpjgafT-E9trL4mptSMZjUQw0lS3rFFFUI4nzcqGjDQ7w8Md33MxsIGPp2YR3cvAHnjSuIO24iupzPJSgiYIssuewiWfhR4J-Ti4ZrKs4lJ30/w400-h300/IMG_0157.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">More abuses: this was Abingdon
Gaol, opened next to the bridge in 1811 as the old jail in the Abbey gateway
grew overcrowded. The prison system was still taking off in this period, with
most inmates (typically driven to desperation by the violence of Enclosure
and/or industrialisation) held prior to getting put to death or transported to
labour in the colonies. The Gaol represented the shift to punitive
incarceration, but closed in 1867 with its functions transferred to </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">the larger prison at Reading</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. As you can see here, instead of a
memorial to organised mass brutality they’ve gone for full bad taste by converting
it into a leisure centre and luxury flats.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The rise of the railways passed
Abingdon by, with distaste for them among the local landowners displacing Brunel’s
Oxford branch to Didcot instead. This and the only temporary advantage provided
by the Wilts and Berks Canal risked sidelining the town during industrialisation,
and in the 1860s caused it to lose its administrative honours to Reading.
Nonetheless its mercantile tradition just about held its own by branching into
one or two distinct manufactures.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8F5h-uNvHBJUanDh_usQOCtBmp9-YwCI4glPxGq4gvlo2Ag5Ztp9u89oFTzmfru5odWOqMQW0bmjnaVo7SVQD3HuYuCasHPgx9byhu7VDLkkF3PyzDxy-TMusFF4zqdi-CFbRhR_ZNKc/s5184/IMG_0214.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8F5h-uNvHBJUanDh_usQOCtBmp9-YwCI4glPxGq4gvlo2Ag5Ztp9u89oFTzmfru5odWOqMQW0bmjnaVo7SVQD3HuYuCasHPgx9byhu7VDLkkF3PyzDxy-TMusFF4zqdi-CFbRhR_ZNKc/w640-h480/IMG_0214.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">In the nineteenth century Abingdon’s
beer-brewing heritage coalesced into the Morland Brewery, with its headquarters
here (at centre) from the 1880s on. Famous for its <i>Old Speckled Hen</i>
premium bitter, it was sold in 1999 to one of the all-devouring pub companies
of the present day, Greene King, who immediately moved production away to its
own ancestral home in East Anglia. The brewery is now apartments.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG0h9wxrVpc0q7lY2OKxbMtoSiUpcl4CosUCro-Tr0LlaIHrfc5rTNe-tNfZ2j0mNFWayF8tHjX-wkwIEQ4guTCTN4Scn_f4CoUJZOKCELJLMgsZ7XEx-o77seosL8qM7zw3geAJPHHRQ/s5184/IMG_0204.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG0h9wxrVpc0q7lY2OKxbMtoSiUpcl4CosUCro-Tr0LlaIHrfc5rTNe-tNfZ2j0mNFWayF8tHjX-wkwIEQ4guTCTN4Scn_f4CoUJZOKCELJLMgsZ7XEx-o77seosL8qM7zw3geAJPHHRQ/w400-h300/IMG_0204.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"><i>Old Speckled Hen</i> was
named for Abingdon’s flagship industry from 1929 on: the MG car company, or
specifically a workers’ car within its Abingdon factory. The Abingdon Museum
claims this specimen here to be the final car off its production line, whose
closure in 1980 dealt the town a devastating blow. The MG brand now belongs to
a Chinese state-owned car company.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Evidently this country’s industrial
decline has hit Abingdon much as anywhere else, <i>Thames or Isis</i> or not. In
the present day however its place within Oxford’s university-city necklace of
high-tech science facilities, equipment suppliers and business parks keeps the
nutrients flowing in an economic bloodstream already enriched by its quirky
cultural scene. As well as the Culham fusion research centre there are the
Harwell and Rutherford laboratories and the Milton Park innovation centre a few
minutes down the A34, in addition to the Didcot railway and energy complex,
numerous technology company headquarters, and of course, Oxford itself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJg3qJ0fywXOGoyhE6T1EsWPTzkTg2io0bNMwJ8UEZJzYjNOsI1FSK6GKUqEg7o-rmdE4aY7kes0pAAKLZJp3GojYjLWBBrtjqOQsSCFC-V8B1eOtTeY3FgQ_6urnJ34Jfp93P6zDQvg/s5184/IMG_0212.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJg3qJ0fywXOGoyhE6T1EsWPTzkTg2io0bNMwJ8UEZJzYjNOsI1FSK6GKUqEg7o-rmdE4aY7kes0pAAKLZJp3GojYjLWBBrtjqOQsSCFC-V8B1eOtTeY3FgQ_6urnJ34Jfp93P6zDQvg/w640-h480/IMG_0212.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Abingdon’s high street, facing
west towards the former Morland Brewery and MG car factory. All these
high-angle views come from atop the County Hall on the market square.</span></b></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibE2CCBBOgMJXuDOsgQxknM8gydKe8x8nOhHTe_FRVGvAW7ZMWRye3LbXA27y55BDFXPPVE4W58Nmd5_S5hpI85WXOX5p7PIlspIb_HLYcsZqrgXJxAkpP2nkSARKQ72gFv_jyoAsgUCM/s5184/IMG_0219.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibE2CCBBOgMJXuDOsgQxknM8gydKe8x8nOhHTe_FRVGvAW7ZMWRye3LbXA27y55BDFXPPVE4W58Nmd5_S5hpI85WXOX5p7PIlspIb_HLYcsZqrgXJxAkpP2nkSARKQ72gFv_jyoAsgUCM/w400-h300/IMG_0219.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Didcot looms across the trees
to the south. If you’re travelling south by rail then that’s where you go when
you need to get out of here. Abingdon did eventually get its own branch line
for a while, only to close it to passengers in 1963 and to goods (such as car
parts for MG) in 1984.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSLS0jCB-0d6qmG6AodDEGM-wtpbbXaHTuDzAxigo7zgX65UsFcNrOtR-AvHUkygGhXVtSr3oS7hNUgrmswyj6eaGketjc6FZxCaCKB_LIlHGf91iTSwRDXEgq2FpQxDa0sXYuh_yyBk/s5184/IMG_0210.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSLS0jCB-0d6qmG6AodDEGM-wtpbbXaHTuDzAxigo7zgX65UsFcNrOtR-AvHUkygGhXVtSr3oS7hNUgrmswyj6eaGketjc6FZxCaCKB_LIlHGf91iTSwRDXEgq2FpQxDa0sXYuh_yyBk/w640-h480/IMG_0210.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">And this is east to the river,
with the double bridge and that hideous Old Gaol defining the landscape. The
greenery of Andersey Island spreads beyond.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxQwM4zO5pK5S0eFYzhhCJ39xokcAuBJTyg_9jJjJwQRF6Su1U-iieQizbe29A88ArV3_bRdqJ8osChlG_-sQ_iU1DzZUl3mETwAK5S3jd76E9kuyzLw9lBiiONJEd7oPSLuo3ex30Hm0/s5184/IMG_0227.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxQwM4zO5pK5S0eFYzhhCJ39xokcAuBJTyg_9jJjJwQRF6Su1U-iieQizbe29A88ArV3_bRdqJ8osChlG_-sQ_iU1DzZUl3mETwAK5S3jd76E9kuyzLw9lBiiONJEd7oPSLuo3ex30Hm0/w400-h300/IMG_0227.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Part of the Abbey Gardens.
Though much reshaped through private hands since the Abbey’s destruction, the
reach of its former grounds gives a great sense of how the town was shaped in
relation to it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">So it is here, at the last stop
before Oxford, at the button on the collar beneath the head of the middle
Thames, that we should ask once more: <i>Thames? Or Isis?</i> Farms and fields and
villages, just like the rest of it? Or an intellectually-charged passage enchanted by its proximity to other worlds, through whose shifting reeds and
glassy reflections flitter phantasms like Winnie-the-Pooh, flying buns with
currants inside, metal doughnuts with artificial stars inside, and the ghost of
George Orwell as he seethes in his ‘nearest convenient cemetery’...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">...and reminds his country that
despite all his warnings, it’s still sold the truth up the river?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheeUrMzMY08Pe8LkRzLfXSQKbgsFrQZcAnyv8u5VXhUnET568ZVfVLB9XH3xLF34OXOO_SdeqGlKxTJSpM3humcE_a7km-92WyHHY4Bd_2ddfu5x9mBnDxsL0rWV5pzGC4aqPuXawV8d0/s5184/IMG_0031.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheeUrMzMY08Pe8LkRzLfXSQKbgsFrQZcAnyv8u5VXhUnET568ZVfVLB9XH3xLF34OXOO_SdeqGlKxTJSpM3humcE_a7km-92WyHHY4Bd_2ddfu5x9mBnDxsL0rWV5pzGC4aqPuXawV8d0/w640-h480/IMG_0031.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /> </span></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Abingdon, UK51.67078 -1.287952951.660131945480771 -1.3051190376953126 51.68142805451923 -1.2707867623046876tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-33812333438476241202021-08-24T15:11:00.000+01:002021-08-24T15:11:04.052+01:00THAMES: 14) Settling Point<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
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Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
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Name="Smart Hyperlink"/>
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Name="Hashtag"/>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Is time like the river? There are
places where it feels less like a flow, with one age succeeding another, than
an <i>accumulation</i> of all ages together. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV4U0ldmG6j4hWVkjfYQ6z8eTOMrhk7HGlegVZjph8JfDtsTU1yDpNBJ9uDeWGLZH8NUNEs6RNi8Bi3GYbxk_wynScueXgVDz8QaAoWrPq08pe_w0JM9qdarcol7z0I7gDAOIUB1qVeGY/s3264/IMG_1211.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV4U0ldmG6j4hWVkjfYQ6z8eTOMrhk7HGlegVZjph8JfDtsTU1yDpNBJ9uDeWGLZH8NUNEs6RNi8Bi3GYbxk_wynScueXgVDz8QaAoWrPq08pe_w0JM9qdarcol7z0I7gDAOIUB1qVeGY/w640-h480/IMG_1211.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Witness the Oxford Plain. Through an agrarian
spread of yellows and greens the river ribbons blue. Here upstream of
Wallingford it bends, and in that bend is a tiny village which, at first glance,
might as well be any other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAwdVNG_rPcjufbPutTojysC6BwVARVmA_8Tvb6TGDheXMYKhf8q9Y8CTcD1e-cuz1N3knoCkpzw9HFlo2GhyeJUZhqnix_SNigqzmhxc_OZnSpU0lBoNw4mPbjO9prf0xi4Vyhq0jEWk/s3264/IMG_1208.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAwdVNG_rPcjufbPutTojysC6BwVARVmA_8Tvb6TGDheXMYKhf8q9Y8CTcD1e-cuz1N3knoCkpzw9HFlo2GhyeJUZhqnix_SNigqzmhxc_OZnSpU0lBoNw4mPbjO9prf0xi4Vyhq0jEWk/w400-h300/IMG_1208.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Dorchester-on-Thames</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, not to be confused with its
better-known namesake the provincial capital of Dorset, is a tiny settlement of
1,000 people. Little houses. Sheep in fields. Aside from a peculiarly large church, what
is there to set it out in the shadows of the vast structures of power and
privilege that line this valley?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Look closer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoHdWAw_p7bC2FuaD1OHTu8ktJoNIrPIJvZ2Ujy7CfVQb0ZbRD4UqSo2_D0hjZpeRxnEKMPyTMXD4owwbtAYI2D-CGrYoakk5BSEK6__7EWhEA86HViyxAs2-nMKmdnmVjVjtEfjBYTcY/s3264/IMG_1176.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoHdWAw_p7bC2FuaD1OHTu8ktJoNIrPIJvZ2Ujy7CfVQb0ZbRD4UqSo2_D0hjZpeRxnEKMPyTMXD4owwbtAYI2D-CGrYoakk5BSEK6__7EWhEA86HViyxAs2-nMKmdnmVjVjtEfjBYTcY/w640-h480/IMG_1176.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Are those not some noteworthy
earthworks (at right)? And where are these views coming from on the flat Oxford Plain?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIuOLtv8n-brgEzVotX5geM8CbhJTNACguCnBBYjSSzD7LUWvOpykAB4kZLoymhg-jHgMFkOMR8x_8pYg_T7Tcm3uDQV19yYV1Hc3PvBCaDKPwyEUv18FmtGfQbsz1y9atLoogO07FYgk/s3264/IMG_1160.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIuOLtv8n-brgEzVotX5geM8CbhJTNACguCnBBYjSSzD7LUWvOpykAB4kZLoymhg-jHgMFkOMR8x_8pYg_T7Tcm3uDQV19yYV1Hc3PvBCaDKPwyEUv18FmtGfQbsz1y9atLoogO07FYgk/w400-h300/IMG_1160.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Hill forts. How about it then.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In fact this subtle riverbend is one
of the richest historical treasure-troves in the Thames valley. Six millennia
of continuous human habitation are written in the shape of its landscape, from
the ramparts and ditches everywhere you look to the coins, bones and grave
goods that practically erupt from its gravel. It took the English some time
to realise it. They’d wrecked much of it through gravel quarrying by the time
that they did. But once they did, the Dorchester bend became one of the most prized archaeological zones in the country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">These are deep memories it harbours. Most
of them long precede the English nation. They precede even its precursors. They
go all the way back to a time when far, far away, Gilgamesh and the Egyptian
pyramids were happening; and when here on the very fringes of the story of
humanity, the migrants who wandered out this way got out their flint hand-axes
and, for the first time, whacked down the stakes of this
island-peninsula’s earliest permanent settlements.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhABeluMBNEfC02wxZwh4ux2AKK-hlR1USxzDAJtjzr7DF_NytFNy0ONpLGbbFP_1kr92rZuGWhv5M1V8-IQqmN13m-krSsqucUbG4ySrOzDToRIU5DvxWYMIy-NnQk6QCH5xKcK3njU/s3264/IMG_1175.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhABeluMBNEfC02wxZwh4ux2AKK-hlR1USxzDAJtjzr7DF_NytFNy0ONpLGbbFP_1kr92rZuGWhv5M1V8-IQqmN13m-krSsqucUbG4ySrOzDToRIU5DvxWYMIy-NnQk6QCH5xKcK3njU/w640-h480/IMG_1175.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A landscape in time, not just
in space. The shape of this land is the product – and continuation – of the
stories of about six settlements that succeeded each other on and around the
Dorchester bend.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Doubtless life in these earliest
societies to put down roots here would have been full of struggles. But had it
yet gone so fundamentally wrong as we find it today? Was this then, as it is
now, a land of abuse? Had the masculine power fantasy, which should never have
existed, been invented yet? Whatever diseases afflicted them, was it in
them yet to come up with such staggering political and cultural mis-reactions
as they have for COVID-19 today?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimBZAv2rS_VnUOe25VZcP160neq3evW-JbAlqu1nJ8HsG586iQBaZ-gJAltiaUkJPy-tN__d6iS60JjbOFaleBO-asyaquWuDFniX9RrndRqjevf086GwALFvcht5jwYhRiXWN-JybxMM/s3264/IMG_1145.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimBZAv2rS_VnUOe25VZcP160neq3evW-JbAlqu1nJ8HsG586iQBaZ-gJAltiaUkJPy-tN__d6iS60JjbOFaleBO-asyaquWuDFniX9RrndRqjevf086GwALFvcht5jwYhRiXWN-JybxMM/w640-h480/IMG_1145.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Regrettably that’s not a
theoretical question.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">And because this is the middle
Thames, we have to ask: what of their forts? The Iron Age fort on the hill, and
fort in the bend; the Roman fort just beneath where the village is now: were
these, already, Privilege Forts? Or were these forts for everyone?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">There’s simply too much in the way to
answer these questions now. Nonetheless, let’s take a few steps into a
landscape where perhaps there’s less to impede those ancestors’ touch on your
skin than anywhere else in this part of the country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7xLXKBunzIp7DudilyHxaTwOOsE1zEQufRVik5hCXSqes4h2wPxmZY_6oE-6O8T5f42QRJI77KaNdMJ_cnjjx-IY7TVGA2QnbzNux_B-V_z1Mc3zOATHMQTuBNRLtUYw2D3nGmkGM5w8/s3264/IMG_1183.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7xLXKBunzIp7DudilyHxaTwOOsE1zEQufRVik5hCXSqes4h2wPxmZY_6oE-6O8T5f42QRJI77KaNdMJ_cnjjx-IY7TVGA2QnbzNux_B-V_z1Mc3zOATHMQTuBNRLtUYw2D3nGmkGM5w8/w640-h480/IMG_1183.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPO2uL5MTOCXtcKmq2WLuXIPzlDczAmQopCj2DUPYZHRasGjizKWPkSds5DNQAjwhwH9sf4lUQ8ZYHk_jCKSlJUu1Ln0OOIcVo861fSej5C18bwr9lKvzNVFJ41sL6yJzCyDtYLdy8tkk/s955/14%2529+Wallingford+to+Dorchester.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="770" data-original-width="955" height="516" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPO2uL5MTOCXtcKmq2WLuXIPzlDczAmQopCj2DUPYZHRasGjizKWPkSds5DNQAjwhwH9sf4lUQ8ZYHk_jCKSlJUu1Ln0OOIcVo861fSej5C18bwr9lKvzNVFJ41sL6yJzCyDtYLdy8tkk/w640-h516/14%2529+Wallingford+to+Dorchester.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Start:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Wallingford Bridge (<i>nearest
station: Cholsey – ten minutes by bus, or take the X39 or X40 from Reading for
approx. thirty minutes</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">End:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Confluence with River Thame, near
Dorchester-on-Thames (<i>nearest station: miles away, take the X39 or X40 bus
to Reading or Oxford instead</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Length: 8km/5 miles</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Location: Oxfordshire – South
Oxfordshire</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Topics</span></u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">: Wallingford Castle Meadows, Benson,
Shillingford, and thousands of years of settlement at <b>Dorchester-on-Thames</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Wallingford Castle Meadows</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Dorchester is only a couple of hours’
walking upstream of Wallingford, beginning with what was formerly the grassy
envelope of </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html" target="_blank"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Wallingford castle</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvLgmV4QP5tJBe6J9lZvCUKfV7Bwlcw2Z_Qw-W_V4JW5FCvWSJ8oIKGErCWTnmqgRdA5GanBIdUIm5NgIqmWHU-RCPnRXgzjrR0NwgFW1WCBSYRZ9m2lzKOwW_G9FGqd25jVMiGyX9Rp0/s3264/IMG_1058.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvLgmV4QP5tJBe6J9lZvCUKfV7Bwlcw2Z_Qw-W_V4JW5FCvWSJ8oIKGErCWTnmqgRdA5GanBIdUIm5NgIqmWHU-RCPnRXgzjrR0NwgFW1WCBSYRZ9m2lzKOwW_G9FGqd25jVMiGyX9Rp0/w640-h480/IMG_1058.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The river from Wallingford
Bridge, with <i>The Boat House</i> pub and boat rental at left.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBTSBC2Yg8-QAjTWzBzpqzxeHAa8Z1EUMASzE_U8Hb2418OnXvFn8w_vQCiqfUgRzTKsAh4I09gdakyb010IILuzQl_fPJBEj3hBu7NrByiGQ_8Joz8v-VVKtyRML7Fbs9Q_ucONTTjPA/s3264/IMG_1061.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBTSBC2Yg8-QAjTWzBzpqzxeHAa8Z1EUMASzE_U8Hb2418OnXvFn8w_vQCiqfUgRzTKsAh4I09gdakyb010IILuzQl_fPJBEj3hBu7NrByiGQ_8Joz8v-VVKtyRML7Fbs9Q_ucONTTjPA/w400-h300/IMG_1061.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Wallingford natives take their
morning coffees and relaxations by the river.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY7Uj6mWq4ai38_znNWqgHK6WyHagWjVmfg_q96TnrwZ2yEiHoNYrUL_kvYwJP1IuMsfbPbpg5LTa7tr8knLIwY_9LF9Lea4N8jaXaGC4q2O2OxL2cZSZ4aZJlquWjBkSLIMU95GKRgL8/s3264/IMG_1062.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY7Uj6mWq4ai38_znNWqgHK6WyHagWjVmfg_q96TnrwZ2yEiHoNYrUL_kvYwJP1IuMsfbPbpg5LTa7tr8knLIwY_9LF9Lea4N8jaXaGC4q2O2OxL2cZSZ4aZJlquWjBkSLIMU95GKRgL8/w400-h300/IMG_1062.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Almost immediately the
riverbank greens, with open fields appearing inland.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpDhTuzs_3RRH7tUkMMgXvVhm5fDzBDRAjUVb1_17rYNWQeZXXTIDH9ClJ0WeEaAscIJ52qhdQ27TfE1HnP038NvS6jUhf3283SwTHkdv0-1jeTKCQUp6qxjeojdSEJG1qAoM1Ft6s_CY/s3264/IMG_1064.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpDhTuzs_3RRH7tUkMMgXvVhm5fDzBDRAjUVb1_17rYNWQeZXXTIDH9ClJ0WeEaAscIJ52qhdQ27TfE1HnP038NvS6jUhf3283SwTHkdv0-1jeTKCQUp6qxjeojdSEJG1qAoM1Ft6s_CY/w400-h300/IMG_1064.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The fields are Wallingford
Castle Meadows – a wide strip of pastures between the river and the embankment
where once towered the castle’s outer wall.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">These fields were likely an
integrated part of the castle complex, so have inherited the names <i>King’s
Meadows</i> and <i>Queen’s Arbour</i>. It is thought they grew hay to feed its
animals while offering an extra layer of wet and marshy defence. Recent archaeology
has unearthed a chalk foundation for a stone outbuilding here,
perhaps a dock or a quay.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheIxoyFtLdI5l7w-3mkf-Xk1zyW5srIllZrTVWoZSS9aitPql0q7SGslWkyiqinFNfnO1uynp5Z_QCvqb4XuBcj2i65x2oPLrXj9h-WksI_rt9fceLQ8jBVjapGSrw9nqgq2Jb3-v4rJo/s3264/IMG_1067.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheIxoyFtLdI5l7w-3mkf-Xk1zyW5srIllZrTVWoZSS9aitPql0q7SGslWkyiqinFNfnO1uynp5Z_QCvqb4XuBcj2i65x2oPLrXj9h-WksI_rt9fceLQ8jBVjapGSrw9nqgq2Jb3-v4rJo/w400-h300/IMG_1067.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html" target="_blank"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">After the castle’s demolition</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> the hay meadows were reseeded and
chemically treated to suit commercial dairy cows. This ruined their
biodiversity, so now they are trying to bring it back through better management.
These fellows’ summer grazing appears part of that plan.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSy0cSKVBwEQbLP9fAfBRS1I1ThIrhN0F8fCH-A2NHJxLje1jVGeSmcjw91cYnISkdhFymiIQzFTI3DGsT8BJE_oVtfHIH3ip3K9h8-NFNQLjkj4gni1po-q8w05DS5hqNkivT9wKruAw/s3264/IMG_1069.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSy0cSKVBwEQbLP9fAfBRS1I1ThIrhN0F8fCH-A2NHJxLje1jVGeSmcjw91cYnISkdhFymiIQzFTI3DGsT8BJE_oVtfHIH3ip3K9h8-NFNQLjkj4gni1po-q8w05DS5hqNkivT9wKruAw/w640-h480/IMG_1069.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Nuuo.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2XTxMcF3yaOPcSOEcTPH0Ph9KaneAJsC9q2zEUWf5hNtR7R-juJqGNizHlDS2IbvCjKVgBpUVj-c998gf3EFGOY2JZ2TyhOo-sHeJpJaLXM01xDkUjR8NtPWMmz83rk1e33IhJiC1bJQ/s3264/IMG_1071.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2XTxMcF3yaOPcSOEcTPH0Ph9KaneAJsC9q2zEUWf5hNtR7R-juJqGNizHlDS2IbvCjKVgBpUVj-c998gf3EFGOY2JZ2TyhOo-sHeJpJaLXM01xDkUjR8NtPWMmz83rk1e33IhJiC1bJQ/w400-h300/IMG_1071.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A related congregation takes
its ease on the opposite bank. Formerly the Howbery Park manor grounds, those
fields now host a sprawling complex of environmental science organisations such
as the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and a large solar power station.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6cYYclKkd3M4V776_wJafR_nQgG3cFKD4EKwi78pbgfRn_bQOsp6PnbnIHNDSgDranr5VFe_-eXW5wTpPeHNzUNQ6-xZeHLb1y2DnYc05kCdHvPIzyIp1lvRD4cQ9sG8wFbl49taAav0/s3264/IMG_1072.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6cYYclKkd3M4V776_wJafR_nQgG3cFKD4EKwi78pbgfRn_bQOsp6PnbnIHNDSgDranr5VFe_-eXW5wTpPeHNzUNQ6-xZeHLb1y2DnYc05kCdHvPIzyIp1lvRD4cQ9sG8wFbl49taAav0/w400-h300/IMG_1072.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The meadows stretch on past
the northern limit of the castle ruins.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">From here farmland takes over for the
short stretch to the commuter village of Benson.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Ojn2YFqWR26Rrih467NNq2Tidql0UJPnznqK3RwyiU5oC21SJnB8_mQWC2vS-2yjANjGqPEvV4UmpRrQifg3ubqF8eTbP31wNj7Fe6DOFAGRt3KCoIgvVUFnjPxjJCXE96ysOyfDEMY/s3264/IMG_1074.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Ojn2YFqWR26Rrih467NNq2Tidql0UJPnznqK3RwyiU5oC21SJnB8_mQWC2vS-2yjANjGqPEvV4UmpRrQifg3ubqF8eTbP31wNj7Fe6DOFAGRt3KCoIgvVUFnjPxjJCXE96ysOyfDEMY/w400-h300/IMG_1074.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The vessels moored along here
appear barely lived in, when not outright haunted.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr2G62AntbJ03-njKm9l18qf8OPtVe5OQcEXbP695ppHvKU6Xm617BullBGTMnGGSTzyElqzAaUQ3S2nFa8PmyNg7jq0CrY_budc1DlKRmL6jUyCUXdPY6DoFcZTbBTz4WxTwZHAEegLs/s3264/IMG_1077.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr2G62AntbJ03-njKm9l18qf8OPtVe5OQcEXbP695ppHvKU6Xm617BullBGTMnGGSTzyElqzAaUQ3S2nFa8PmyNg7jq0CrY_budc1DlKRmL6jUyCUXdPY6DoFcZTbBTz4WxTwZHAEegLs/w640-h480/IMG_1077.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Much of today’s reach is free
of habitation, giving the river a chance to present its more natural face.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiX-WyTfjbi7gAp3yUXhw_h2r0gBDk54uH34_0rUZJPSQscPjDYoeteaFHNIIEgmububoc8omUjgvr_VCi2Li_6lTY3ch4VzXYaWKDoyWi1OP9-v2aTqbocxY_3SYXqtyjMZOesjmQLwU/s3264/IMG_1080.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiX-WyTfjbi7gAp3yUXhw_h2r0gBDk54uH34_0rUZJPSQscPjDYoeteaFHNIIEgmububoc8omUjgvr_VCi2Li_6lTY3ch4VzXYaWKDoyWi1OP9-v2aTqbocxY_3SYXqtyjMZOesjmQLwU/w400-h300/IMG_1080.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">If not completely. The leisure
of the monied classes seems to dominate river activity throughout the
Oxfordshire Thames. Even on these beginnings of remoteness, the wayfarer is
regularly passed by their pleasure-cruisers.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzu_jnbRI3buSEcaJakbXI0Xyq-TGB9PV6ncvYB18tmfW6XKL93-YDXLwsLM2IJMSmDXu556bNMDScpsD47oKAlzgSIEcysnA4RIuyObbGRdcd5_NHpk_xCnMShCoVRQo_z6syNiPEyD8/s3264/IMG_1081.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzu_jnbRI3buSEcaJakbXI0Xyq-TGB9PV6ncvYB18tmfW6XKL93-YDXLwsLM2IJMSmDXu556bNMDScpsD47oKAlzgSIEcysnA4RIuyObbGRdcd5_NHpk_xCnMShCoVRQo_z6syNiPEyD8/w400-h300/IMG_1081.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq9oePtneCgSMn3F5BkRr58wJYnwxrkklqklhs4loQUfvflgnFnyRh2P2czk4OT-sJCHOwtaNWTObJsw0ugJlEFcHK9llGth5NeeRQqQqZNsHgSEq3syVr-_dCD_OqiT9AcKebZ8zZw70/s3264/IMG_1083.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq9oePtneCgSMn3F5BkRr58wJYnwxrkklqklhs4loQUfvflgnFnyRh2P2czk4OT-sJCHOwtaNWTObJsw0ugJlEFcHK9llGth5NeeRQqQqZNsHgSEq3syVr-_dCD_OqiT9AcKebZ8zZw70/w400-h300/IMG_1083.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">By this point we are more or
less clear of the chalk hills. North and west of Wallingford it’s all farmland.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Benson</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Eventually a weir comes in sight,
heralding the village of <b>Benson</b>. The towpath switches to the north bank
here, though rejoining it once across requires a quick circumnavigation of
Benson’s waterside housing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Ufb13qJVh7K_KAbEn0OYDk5fI0tgst413f4gNjTTfDVDCizwnzIqshXsxq5FrM4We435Z82w3WdxXoT5u1bcxYgXQJlHJIHR6i6ogAj9pd4W6g9rput6OlYw7P4Ad3tjMhcsZLTPf9A/s3264/IMG_1086.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Ufb13qJVh7K_KAbEn0OYDk5fI0tgst413f4gNjTTfDVDCizwnzIqshXsxq5FrM4We435Z82w3WdxXoT5u1bcxYgXQJlHJIHR6i6ogAj9pd4W6g9rput6OlYw7P4Ad3tjMhcsZLTPf9A/w400-h300/IMG_1086.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The weir is attached to Benson
Lock.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyAhtOtbocWMGgrv6N9_abnr53FFVc70UnvrRZ27e7MLaAJhmSTnqe7QvRVrSVDCm3XMp2FB10aLTLqzgh8nuSJoMkSRFqoXpcyYjdfIFSYmOWdVMxHzr9JqKG9Hklki8CxC1enX_aT_I/s3264/IMG_1087.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyAhtOtbocWMGgrv6N9_abnr53FFVc70UnvrRZ27e7MLaAJhmSTnqe7QvRVrSVDCm3XMp2FB10aLTLqzgh8nuSJoMkSRFqoXpcyYjdfIFSYmOWdVMxHzr9JqKG9Hklki8CxC1enX_aT_I/w400-h300/IMG_1087.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">These are so common a sight
now as to almost cease to warrant commentary.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVyYO2aRKgs3WN2vm5yA6LbJPpa4UsqPh3qhEtIniGcPyUIDrFLMdAhY0exybu5p4fKzxH1GxeYgIHh350tmazOLZDGfp9cZjYhO-q7xV8hRhf5ZZKZrvzvqVaWGFUKFiNY3qyuylHSo/s3264/IMG_1088.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVyYO2aRKgs3WN2vm5yA6LbJPpa4UsqPh3qhEtIniGcPyUIDrFLMdAhY0exybu5p4fKzxH1GxeYgIHh350tmazOLZDGfp9cZjYhO-q7xV8hRhf5ZZKZrvzvqVaWGFUKFiNY3qyuylHSo/w640-h480/IMG_1088.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Benson Lock is another
installed by the Thames Navigation Commission in the 1780s, replacing an
earlier flash-lock attached to a fourteenth-century millers’ weir.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW2c11eDoS4iMJUVjXfhapL2g_r5cd38H7KrnoAf4TRcKDyphi0IibHyc5MbNOXXral5_YJ64nSE1tFcV0GVhGUtTykHgDo0TxHpJpqDGTxJZur4iVm_ESD4Vf_6vyHcNogM5Pdp_8TIQ/s3264/IMG_1089.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW2c11eDoS4iMJUVjXfhapL2g_r5cd38H7KrnoAf4TRcKDyphi0IibHyc5MbNOXXral5_YJ64nSE1tFcV0GVhGUtTykHgDo0TxHpJpqDGTxJZur4iVm_ESD4Vf_6vyHcNogM5Pdp_8TIQ/w400-h300/IMG_1089.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Unusually you can walk atop
this lock and weir to cross the river.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Benson is a residential village and
travellers’ outpost perched on gravel in otherwise marshy surroundings. It was
known as <i>Bensington</i> until a century or two ago, by when they seem to have
found the extra syllable too much effort.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Benson shares in some recurring
themes of this region’s heritage. It has evidence of thousands of years of
human activity, as well as a frontier position that got it fought over in
generations of conflicts: between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, between </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html" target="_blank"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Matilda and Stephen</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, and between the Royalists and
Parliamentarians in the Civil War. It later flourished in the service of
stagecoach journeys on the London-to-Oxford road, and keeps busy doing the same
for river travellers today with its large boatyard, bungalow park and
waterfront café.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT6oiRmbBxJsaaiAXY9njAYn2vr-30rdtcBFU9-f1WwXCNdsuiXO1MQYScrqDZFy1VVDE3mgsXTwhGXtfMKkjw8e9CMnXNq74iGd3oYhrfyiOCrn4ls79vsLBR0pu7Rs8V31XR8H_nGGQ/s3264/IMG_1098.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT6oiRmbBxJsaaiAXY9njAYn2vr-30rdtcBFU9-f1WwXCNdsuiXO1MQYScrqDZFy1VVDE3mgsXTwhGXtfMKkjw8e9CMnXNq74iGd3oYhrfyiOCrn4ls79vsLBR0pu7Rs8V31XR8H_nGGQ/w640-h480/IMG_1098.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The riverside at Benson, with
pleasure-craft lined up a long way up the quay and large crowds bustling
through the café.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Benson’s other landmark is its Royal
Air Force (RAF) base, built to its east at the beginning of World War II.
Originally installed to train air crews and house fighters and light
reconnaissance craft, it now appears concerned with the trimmed-down air
force’s support helicopters and transportation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibNy_88KAhrOfQU-M_Gb7G_ENZq2WMVu8ZmQajuCu73BRlNcALgPltbV8kQzGBx3B5wCt9n2-3BAj-x5MbuLOG03ciQ5Uhuw9SAdt7aaCpb4lFpUGFsAYlau-okp7zrpWjHsaHyDRZ5hA/s3264/IMG_1100.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibNy_88KAhrOfQU-M_Gb7G_ENZq2WMVu8ZmQajuCu73BRlNcALgPltbV8kQzGBx3B5wCt9n2-3BAj-x5MbuLOG03ciQ5Uhuw9SAdt7aaCpb4lFpUGFsAYlau-okp7zrpWjHsaHyDRZ5hA/w400-h300/IMG_1100.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The path out of Benson passes
this complex of holiday cabins, likely aimed at people on long boat journeys.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir_619372EwBlqaTUWbezoQj52W3ViwV4yhZy94b6Ot_j0eeNvI1Xhbo6sImhjSyLZEWLJ6iB79r9nGY3WdkhX8Mo5P8-PVTmQRhYVaoojLi_GnRIg2bCzGwVStUAjcoGHXjtQYgZubzo/s3264/IMG_1101.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir_619372EwBlqaTUWbezoQj52W3ViwV4yhZy94b6Ot_j0eeNvI1Xhbo6sImhjSyLZEWLJ6iB79r9nGY3WdkhX8Mo5P8-PVTmQRhYVaoojLi_GnRIg2bCzGwVStUAjcoGHXjtQYgZubzo/w400-h300/IMG_1101.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Then it’s straight back into
rurality. But the fields here are not quite as remote as they seem. Across them
runs the A4074 which became the main Reading-to-Oxford road in the 1980s,
replacing the route through the </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/07/thames-12-gap-in-chalk.html"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Goring Gap</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsFx6vRCn7AVrxDVssnSYk5IEPnoBhK2ETO69BxGbYkwbZEJ5pqQCG6DceqH06zoSD569z14OsvpojWDLmDC7Gl2Z7Lgz6uQrfYzLEKKJGwVvpnXITfRibq5Dp9nl-9e7gB1hZTVujyYk/s3264/IMG_1102.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsFx6vRCn7AVrxDVssnSYk5IEPnoBhK2ETO69BxGbYkwbZEJ5pqQCG6DceqH06zoSD569z14OsvpojWDLmDC7Gl2Z7Lgz6uQrfYzLEKKJGwVvpnXITfRibq5Dp9nl-9e7gB1hZTVujyYk/w640-h480/IMG_1102.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRzMYqPBxvyJGV0nqJfkSpl-K4pGoCmVwKMu6nbKYI_AjCZD0Bel5Tg8LuWbl2asP8PuEo1A7cexcXK3HhubBMfPn3WlkljG9AnVnW_2SbWqUvoakwkwOTfv7E6TWCiNlhjOyzdut_Bk0/s3264/IMG_1105.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRzMYqPBxvyJGV0nqJfkSpl-K4pGoCmVwKMu6nbKYI_AjCZD0Bel5Tg8LuWbl2asP8PuEo1A7cexcXK3HhubBMfPn3WlkljG9AnVnW_2SbWqUvoakwkwOTfv7E6TWCiNlhjOyzdut_Bk0/w400-h300/IMG_1105.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A more old-fashioned instance of local river traffic.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">While the north bank proceeds through
fields and woods, the south is occupied by the grounds of an old manor house
known as Rush Court. The original house was thoroughly rebuilt in the 1920s and
has since been turned into a residential care home.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyC5psVy2agi7kmVb67Pd6Fr_wHRrCes45wDcpIR0hYbfcAylD0cn-dzOV9iAS4Lxm9ejMA7EZu_s-FqhoODM4HxyMZ2ggvQrl5oE-E6bw4fqv7K0lJcBlq9hz5S3d_bdd7HNMl5t_qa0/s3264/IMG_1106.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyC5psVy2agi7kmVb67Pd6Fr_wHRrCes45wDcpIR0hYbfcAylD0cn-dzOV9iAS4Lxm9ejMA7EZu_s-FqhoODM4HxyMZ2ggvQrl5oE-E6bw4fqv7K0lJcBlq9hz5S3d_bdd7HNMl5t_qa0/w400-h300/IMG_1106.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The wall of Rush Court’s
ornamental gardens is visible from across the river.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtbTEM7Q91-EbpxPvVUWTXmIhkyJPCfgiJyPUZlL2ic68d8Gy-xxXNVb8n63H0d7z8C6z9TsKFwCeynFfrJGrPqV5OqrQdi14HCsdSVdw5ngMenEINokA3O2EfX6e9Am9OecOvUc1_GI/s3264/IMG_1107.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtbTEM7Q91-EbpxPvVUWTXmIhkyJPCfgiJyPUZlL2ic68d8Gy-xxXNVb8n63H0d7z8C6z9TsKFwCeynFfrJGrPqV5OqrQdi14HCsdSVdw5ngMenEINokA3O2EfX6e9Am9OecOvUc1_GI/w400-h300/IMG_1107.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Summer draws to a close. A
long and bitter winter lies in store for this land.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikLSs7wwUYgWPoNgbrR1bd-a-mi4H1HIfx0GZ1iIhc4pF2_xqWVKbsyQnB3khC1cC46LqKYmu7ipP-2MW8Y3ErxD3wL_xBWH_BrSHES3H53DHCtqN_GGS-dvGCd57r4roPw9S_0THRVZA/s3264/IMG_1108.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikLSs7wwUYgWPoNgbrR1bd-a-mi4H1HIfx0GZ1iIhc4pF2_xqWVKbsyQnB3khC1cC46LqKYmu7ipP-2MW8Y3ErxD3wL_xBWH_BrSHES3H53DHCtqN_GGS-dvGCd57r4roPw9S_0THRVZA/w640-h480/IMG_1108.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A lighter vessel lingers about
the walled Rush Court grounds.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBpr2tFZ_7HpwTCGsl-3HvxwEn9NOsmLIQr-2YLSVepVBfFdCos9pnB454PvAyD6IW3AzFIVJzwRvz-tV12Ahg-PUJBn_YlWVdlEdUpDbKUtDasuN1HZcu8pPpz1pSFGmq0D_bmOchkQY/s3264/IMG_1111.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBpr2tFZ_7HpwTCGsl-3HvxwEn9NOsmLIQr-2YLSVepVBfFdCos9pnB454PvAyD6IW3AzFIVJzwRvz-tV12Ahg-PUJBn_YlWVdlEdUpDbKUtDasuN1HZcu8pPpz1pSFGmq0D_bmOchkQY/w400-h300/IMG_1111.JPG" width="400" /></a></div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDlw079IsDxUPhZtOOB7jHF7ImATMpIM2C8pYNg6BNMRxTcrA8c1mslA9mNmtJbyQ-5nYnIsF3YENXioKRAZ4Q3yBQgvE_BuS9mncl_YrK1z44AE6npO6hcX25gcsE6QI3yq72v0_vxSU/s3264/IMG_1114.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDlw079IsDxUPhZtOOB7jHF7ImATMpIM2C8pYNg6BNMRxTcrA8c1mslA9mNmtJbyQ-5nYnIsF3YENXioKRAZ4Q3yBQgvE_BuS9mncl_YrK1z44AE6npO6hcX25gcsE6QI3yq72v0_vxSU/w400-h300/IMG_1114.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Indeed, the flowers here have
increasingly had their say for this year.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMvp0-RheG9FE1dxpcscRkMBLHCu2dlIwevRxu-KsbURO6bXEbNt2W-8iBpTxJMqDD2JRxl6VdNlQ9Rz0LBwG08bPc_IZSRw5hzOP4OdkGPT99OqswFJ_q2fVltxYnFJoypF1gxuZuO9c/s3264/IMG_1115.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMvp0-RheG9FE1dxpcscRkMBLHCu2dlIwevRxu-KsbURO6bXEbNt2W-8iBpTxJMqDD2JRxl6VdNlQ9Rz0LBwG08bPc_IZSRw5hzOP4OdkGPT99OqswFJ_q2fVltxYnFJoypF1gxuZuO9c/w400-h300/IMG_1115.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A long, hard winter, packed
with plague, persecution and ingrained political abuse. Even surroundings like
these can no longer distract from the abject irresponsibility of humankind in
general, and the English in particular, in taking this world down its current
path.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In due course another small hamlet
crops up by the river.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Shillingford</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">As its name suggests, <b>Shillingford</b>
is defined by its river crossing, which since 1827 has taken the form of one of
the Thames’s prettier stone bridges. It is the latest in a line of bridges
going back at least to the fourteenth century and preceded in turn by fords
and/or ferries. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtgVavIhlSB92v4oaaxPvytrU1gECpc6IpUBJd7xOXKF0KnM5iyXCt9gU3ifUXzLxEpeKdtCsQsT76dguI6ltePcXB64CkfuFSnKi3XGHtWiCcT2sOWFyAvlWVsOXLTp8YL8sTClKcs-w/s3264/IMG_1118.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtgVavIhlSB92v4oaaxPvytrU1gECpc6IpUBJd7xOXKF0KnM5iyXCt9gU3ifUXzLxEpeKdtCsQsT76dguI6ltePcXB64CkfuFSnKi3XGHtWiCcT2sOWFyAvlWVsOXLTp8YL8sTClKcs-w/w400-h300/IMG_1118.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The cabins on the waterfront
here look perilously vulnerable to flooding.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnZQhZA1EdCUM6vesW3RjCB3_CGNgbtgafl2FzuMc0nnwwCss_f5LhEkiicRI8hxdMOyw2wXC3IqVC9My-xY6EEv53PQ9qndMtMknKev-mrHWfHFy_92xnRQyphZo5NSw22tDbMr2BNIs/s3264/IMG_1121.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnZQhZA1EdCUM6vesW3RjCB3_CGNgbtgafl2FzuMc0nnwwCss_f5LhEkiicRI8hxdMOyw2wXC3IqVC9My-xY6EEv53PQ9qndMtMknKev-mrHWfHFy_92xnRQyphZo5NSw22tDbMr2BNIs/w640-h480/IMG_1121.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Shillingford Bridge. The
origin of <i>Shilling</i> in this case is unclear, though most likely refers to
someone’s name.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Shillingford has long connected
important land routes on both sides of the river. Thus its service as a
crossing point is thought to be extremely old – at least as old as the Roman
road system, but probably much older. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">For some reason the towpath now
spends some time on the opposite bank before rejoining this one, and there is
no route here along the Shillingford bend. The wayfarer is thus frustrated into
a short detour into the village, and less pleasantly, along the busy Reading-to-Oxford
road.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjspEKa-FI29MeKDEp4oqHuIUVpoMliDmoju9ivchskqtpREKzZJF5cbVeu0upo6aNiDFXfVlcGGXUaoQ6_NG1d2x6UQst4bWtW_eSZKd29kz9c7q8ktTwX3l_5G7TVPQsCdgBpNKoaT3s/s3264/IMG_1125.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjspEKa-FI29MeKDEp4oqHuIUVpoMliDmoju9ivchskqtpREKzZJF5cbVeu0upo6aNiDFXfVlcGGXUaoQ6_NG1d2x6UQst4bWtW_eSZKd29kz9c7q8ktTwX3l_5G7TVPQsCdgBpNKoaT3s/w300-h400/IMG_1125.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Fearsome clusters ambush those
who dare walk the narrow path behind Shillingford’s houses.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdYVz5v7uQ_fdjpBqk5KmbX4CiyWH4-qzelGup8CyZTVIRbmeG5BbOJeSqZcSAhv6MXVo8bN2eMIFJ7xLMV5mjkjhbLBlRwPfp0J6r9kqMwGoVcIfDKCc5H81ax7D8u45cSfk-ty0BnK8/s3264/IMG_1126.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdYVz5v7uQ_fdjpBqk5KmbX4CiyWH4-qzelGup8CyZTVIRbmeG5BbOJeSqZcSAhv6MXVo8bN2eMIFJ7xLMV5mjkjhbLBlRwPfp0J6r9kqMwGoVcIfDKCc5H81ax7D8u45cSfk-ty0BnK8/w300-h400/IMG_1126.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The English do enjoy their
walls and fences. This alleyway is an exhibition of several different types.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU861bUFllyiGmtaQ1Y6nHsOEguxzpOyJyIkaEBW31dbC2XfLU2DpDS2UFO8O871CeCvuzac_1zL7k7hrIFGsnzocTDwWu4hmI4Ec4Vto7pAVkiU57wjdxEwtzMS9AtbrNpPcYSX06mBM/s3264/IMG_1131.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU861bUFllyiGmtaQ1Y6nHsOEguxzpOyJyIkaEBW31dbC2XfLU2DpDS2UFO8O871CeCvuzac_1zL7k7hrIFGsnzocTDwWu4hmI4Ec4Vto7pAVkiU57wjdxEwtzMS9AtbrNpPcYSX06mBM/w640-h480/IMG_1131.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Shillingford’s central
crossroads. It’s very small, with houses converted from inns from the
days when coaches stopped here. It’s still a busy crossroads for motor traffic,
but at present-day speeds everyone passes straight through now.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0PR7cerXt5K7w8uLf3stZ7We8hKzwoWeiqcrRmcmS7n3YW_2dwTFyfUKxHOz9prO2M9WBhE8yjU8Y8BFOsp2hVhwV7kTgvLiajl1vbFrWIn6EHqIXoeQ9sCdAeHyc9rHip0crl1Zy4jA/s3264/IMG_1132.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0PR7cerXt5K7w8uLf3stZ7We8hKzwoWeiqcrRmcmS7n3YW_2dwTFyfUKxHOz9prO2M9WBhE8yjU8Y8BFOsp2hVhwV7kTgvLiajl1vbFrWIn6EHqIXoeQ9sCdAeHyc9rHip0crl1Zy4jA/w400-h300/IMG_1132.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This is a much-used road with
poor air, narrow pavements, and long waits for anyone trying to cross it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Eventually a path offers
passage back to the river, and from there, at last, entry into the
time-twisting landscape of the Dorchester bend.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc3ODngVyxsg1Ya0fSjmX9EJfTrOM9l5-cZPqkLd7rDYJvI1_O66vFORiMv1IpS-QkBjdGszoWV-5o7qu77mskNYJuoSWbTfmi2ayXiDyuMb8GBjOvzo_nbsTc1bEarc0A02Au9VIevgw/s3264/IMG_1135.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc3ODngVyxsg1Ya0fSjmX9EJfTrOM9l5-cZPqkLd7rDYJvI1_O66vFORiMv1IpS-QkBjdGszoWV-5o7qu77mskNYJuoSWbTfmi2ayXiDyuMb8GBjOvzo_nbsTc1bEarc0A02Au9VIevgw/w400-h300/IMG_1135.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another of these lurks in the
meadow that leads back to the river.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitngk7sX7tkFLoBEygxVzTPlQQmfOCBSj7JJm2877IhR76kSVGOPAk34_vHD-XbUrUMDb11DOrCfJiDTRM9BFF1E1Df8wNx0O6g-A1xQ4XoKVX5FGUJi-msOvDQOl_EEbQpv0jl_8VCx0/s3264/IMG_1137.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitngk7sX7tkFLoBEygxVzTPlQQmfOCBSj7JJm2877IhR76kSVGOPAk34_vHD-XbUrUMDb11DOrCfJiDTRM9BFF1E1Df8wNx0O6g-A1xQ4XoKVX5FGUJi-msOvDQOl_EEbQpv0jl_8VCx0/w640-h480/IMG_1137.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL257SecdG_DyR8vKt4OaJHBAe6Sa6X76kKv1rqnoucRcsvEkiVYuszO5OxiVfddnpF422Rb4sZ87SX10OkBjqqGiKOyHY6XrHu6Pw-yvJczv3gfuHHS7ddzs-_8bWVRtGAnNpKV2nzpk/s3264/IMG_1140.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL257SecdG_DyR8vKt4OaJHBAe6Sa6X76kKv1rqnoucRcsvEkiVYuszO5OxiVfddnpF422Rb4sZ87SX10OkBjqqGiKOyHY6XrHu6Pw-yvJczv3gfuHHS7ddzs-_8bWVRtGAnNpKV2nzpk/w400-h300/IMG_1140.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The final approach to
Dorchester is a straightforward march across this field.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguLkEiDnUioUbtBKQTvIYwugl_4-jSvggKLMWL6gTRU7w8OQFK7kckKWckIBU8ZIM3U0CZNH6366cA-IhPPA2b-CaSYM3NiVsVSjjeOVySGvwWdmQMDmUkE0y3CC9NIT4zevCscHAxHlE/s3264/IMG_1139.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguLkEiDnUioUbtBKQTvIYwugl_4-jSvggKLMWL6gTRU7w8OQFK7kckKWckIBU8ZIM3U0CZNH6366cA-IhPPA2b-CaSYM3NiVsVSjjeOVySGvwWdmQMDmUkE0y3CC9NIT4zevCscHAxHlE/w400-h300/IMG_1139.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">From here we have a first
sighting of Dorchester Abbey. Its profile dominates its immediate surroundings,
much as it defines Dorchester’s most recent millennium. <i>Only</i> the most recent, we may note, for from here we must widen out our view of time.<br /></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxj-W4FdhTa1tAQmL7mluiaMahs0HsvJScuUlGT92xw8fzudIV2dnFKEY7Qtx2x_O0RHEpAKolZMSaGR-ze9NCsOJqscutBgBBe7_UjXznQ2dVyJkyByx-H9De2prRpXzLXUkdJ_VjPdI/s3264/IMG_1142.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxj-W4FdhTa1tAQmL7mluiaMahs0HsvJScuUlGT92xw8fzudIV2dnFKEY7Qtx2x_O0RHEpAKolZMSaGR-ze9NCsOJqscutBgBBe7_UjXznQ2dVyJkyByx-H9De2prRpXzLXUkdJ_VjPdI/w640-h480/IMG_1142.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;">Dorchester-on-Thames</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">We now tread on ground that’s
experienced more than six thousand years of continuous human settlement, and
whose very shape has shifted in its recording. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Two geographical features stand out on this riverbend, and in so doing have set the parameters of human activity here.
We encounter the first as we reach a bridge not over the Thames, but over a
tributary which joins it here after its own long journey: the <b>Thame</b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-7NlLKq9bfecJasYe2RBPTeoZWnHgUTtAAmpwRJNkpw4bEcb_zijdgwhQmD5Wc3Acx9Svx29GealKgrMT4lupushBbPGa9H3iO73pQKW5C5TVQ38P-GX8aaEmlJq6LVHzyCKavJz-OPg/s3264/IMG_1146.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-7NlLKq9bfecJasYe2RBPTeoZWnHgUTtAAmpwRJNkpw4bEcb_zijdgwhQmD5Wc3Acx9Svx29GealKgrMT4lupushBbPGa9H3iO73pQKW5C5TVQ38P-GX8aaEmlJq6LVHzyCKavJz-OPg/w400-h300/IMG_1146.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The confluence of the Thames
and the Thame.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ-h555ld_gbanZGO6NuJ8tuy_ezHfvHyxxoiytxHEOI5I9LgjkMkhyulJnWmL2Y2XOBa-miybF72aP_L86EO6WuSJLJYW3QGu5nvc7pD2RQqj3l4x8k595xn7ZI8yunjkmI9uPPhmDOY/s3264/IMG_1147.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ-h555ld_gbanZGO6NuJ8tuy_ezHfvHyxxoiytxHEOI5I9LgjkMkhyulJnWmL2Y2XOBa-miybF72aP_L86EO6WuSJLJYW3QGu5nvc7pD2RQqj3l4x8k595xn7ZI8yunjkmI9uPPhmDOY/w400-h300/IMG_1147.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Thame looks barely
navigable, but it’s a major tributary with serious geographical and cultural
significance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Witness the extreme resemblance of
the names. <i>Thames</i> has been interpreted as </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/10/thames-prologue-dark-river.html" target="_blank"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">‘dark river’</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> in this land’s old Celtic languages,
and though the Thame (which unlike the larger river, they pronounce to rhyme
with <i>game</i>) possibly shares this origin, the truth of it is lost in the
fog of prehistory. Such is frequently the way with rivers, which are there all
the way through, often bring people in in the first place, and so tend to carry
the most ancient names of all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The Thame rises in the Vale of
Aylesbury, an eastward extension of the Oxford Basin whose Late Jurassic clay
dominates the neighbouring province of Buckinghamshire. By flowing south into
the Thames just as the latter emerges from its own southward curve, the pair create
a peninsula and pack it with gravelly alluvium. Like that they have provided a
relatively stable, accessible and defensible seat for settlement in an
otherwise marshy area.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It is significant that from this
point on the Thames is referred to in the Oxford English dialect by a different
name: the <b>Isis</b>. It would be tempting to dismiss this as a posh scholarly
affectation on that university city’s part if not for how the practice’s weight,
enhanced through its use by Oxford’s fearsome rowing subculture, has prevailed
on cartographers like the Ordnance Survey to label it <i>River Thames or Isis</i>
from here on up on official maps. In fact the name <i>Isa</i> first emerges in
writing in the fourteenth century; there is a theory – perhaps put forward by
Oxford academics at that time, and almost certainly erroneous – that the Roman
name for the Thames, <i>Tamesis</i>, was the outcome of this merger here,
linguistic as physical: <i>Thame</i> plus <i>Isis</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhepb-V_srEJhWEOu2r_bLJLMWDYvBE3bodz4_7JT0uvWQ8te41aQ67oVFvUGCO9XXGsrbRsFJGRWWYCAXwWSVPLYPQC6dNCOWCkeTy5Z-CYKLWMKmlpqqQM6TVfJjZAcnIm08rzZELV4c/s3264/IMG_1148.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhepb-V_srEJhWEOu2r_bLJLMWDYvBE3bodz4_7JT0uvWQ8te41aQ67oVFvUGCO9XXGsrbRsFJGRWWYCAXwWSVPLYPQC6dNCOWCkeTy5Z-CYKLWMKmlpqqQM6TVfJjZAcnIm08rzZELV4c/w400-h300/IMG_1148.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Present-day Dorchester adjoins
the Thame on this peninsula. Most of its preceding settlements did too.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBcOVA4p1MuzP1VQqeFwldMdVXNuWJGKSAt9FgdxwfhYeXegYO1nRJEn0NAV5vYT_RN_D4rGI_8sU8G8ndRbYqwOEH0-rR_USYKJ5SFOPd3kCGA1dJVMYmXNz5aTxOa0exHBywqHwVpPo/s3264/IMG_1152.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBcOVA4p1MuzP1VQqeFwldMdVXNuWJGKSAt9FgdxwfhYeXegYO1nRJEn0NAV5vYT_RN_D4rGI_8sU8G8ndRbYqwOEH0-rR_USYKJ5SFOPd3kCGA1dJVMYmXNz5aTxOa0exHBywqHwVpPo/w400-h300/IMG_1152.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">South across the river, the region’s
other defining feature is at once apparent.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">On the south side the land rises into
a pair of hills that offer the only high ground on this level floodplain. This
is an orphaned outcrop of </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/07/thames-12-gap-in-chalk.html" target="_blank"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">the Chalk Group</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">, which offers sweeping views across
miles of surrounding landscape. This huge defensive, navigational and
aesthetic value has garnered these hills many names. They are the <b>Sinodun Hills</b>
(thought to be from Celtic: ‘old fort’); the <b>Wittenham Clumps</b> (which
strictly speaking refers to the beech woods on their summits); the <b>Berkshire
Bubs </b>(a reminder that ancestral Berkshire encompassed this bank till 1974);
or more colloquially, thanks to a sixteenth-century lady of the local manor who
by this estimation cannot have been small, <b>Mother Dunch’s Buttocks</b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">That aesthetic value is also sought
by today’s recreational walkers, who climb them for some of the best views in
the region.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiufWtnaprGOYdKJLon1mzmfYFcPQX6iZpEeWtOwxYF-Z2uMrqq4I7-Na3y7bh65ot8E2hVVAsKn4IxWm9z7Mf0gJdjuZWNPpqjtKxZ40TohWyUVIUypm4FwTvpEGgeExLejIhE7Mg3zyE/s3264/IMG_1169.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiufWtnaprGOYdKJLon1mzmfYFcPQX6iZpEeWtOwxYF-Z2uMrqq4I7-Na3y7bh65ot8E2hVVAsKn4IxWm9z7Mf0gJdjuZWNPpqjtKxZ40TohWyUVIUypm4FwTvpEGgeExLejIhE7Mg3zyE/w400-h300/IMG_1169.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Clumps are a
straightforward climb from the river and can be reached on foot within forty
minutes from present-day Dorchester. This is convenient for visitors, but must also have closely integrated the hills into the lives of earlier settlers on the
north bank.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSBolrX1ryLyJuqF2fSZdgxlyid0iSwNokgdQ96gNgEyb1pO39aWsuAnGZ1P_8qjY1ZeBbkibX-cTmnK7GS95qTV7na_NU1HcYlsN2HKYu3HYfrfLlOKJek6Xh9_xpr3KA_OJU71uD2n8/s3264/IMG_1177.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSBolrX1ryLyJuqF2fSZdgxlyid0iSwNokgdQ96gNgEyb1pO39aWsuAnGZ1P_8qjY1ZeBbkibX-cTmnK7GS95qTV7na_NU1HcYlsN2HKYu3HYfrfLlOKJek6Xh9_xpr3KA_OJU71uD2n8/w640-h480/IMG_1177.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The view up the peninsula
between the rising Thames (at left) and the Thame (invisible at right), with
Dorchester village clustered right of centre. On a clear day the spires of
Oxford can be glimpsed in the distance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUH5NIjgjUHe6qpm7tKGgIngrWAwIOPTgk-PNOOJZ7bUmfV02TIi0yFWolhtN68Th-6n0TwFIReHfbVkV8yIKPeP5gcSkZk1wX6igguGEXOvseZIXVK2Wo5mqWW5FeJaR-vWHc0bwoIKI/s3264/IMG_1173.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUH5NIjgjUHe6qpm7tKGgIngrWAwIOPTgk-PNOOJZ7bUmfV02TIi0yFWolhtN68Th-6n0TwFIReHfbVkV8yIKPeP5gcSkZk1wX6igguGEXOvseZIXVK2Wo5mqWW5FeJaR-vWHc0bwoIKI/w400-h300/IMG_1173.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">To the west is Didcot Power
Station. The huge chimneys of its coal and oil plant, Didcot A, dominated the
area till they were demolished in controlled-explosion media spectacles over
the last decade. What remains is Didcot B, which continues to burn natural
gas.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXEGE8km6pzuRZ53npRb7Fu_7YeZa0d2PWUk_laN_TJwZ_UhvltUGtB2fvM98daiCZp-AGv0Ij_7E3tUq08zQ8j5AzOu-h_quGmv9VCj9sWULfcGskVRHIZ0OWtMdjNEDv7ZVe9KspNls/s3264/IMG_1203.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXEGE8km6pzuRZ53npRb7Fu_7YeZa0d2PWUk_laN_TJwZ_UhvltUGtB2fvM98daiCZp-AGv0Ij_7E3tUq08zQ8j5AzOu-h_quGmv9VCj9sWULfcGskVRHIZ0OWtMdjNEDv7ZVe9KspNls/w640-h480/IMG_1203.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Back downriver the roofs of
Benson are in plain sight. From here there is a much clearer view of its RAF
base with its hangars and airfield.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuUM4Ng-46IKAz3c-eH7OVsO9zpL6Z9Ev7z13pinrO0bet_fX9vwav0eU3i22WBfLhNr1pMQPJuJQq5oh6RximMbAdo426-qsuC5lhs9-dyrTXROfo_RMmm8O1-qMbKeLxPwk7HjRMidw/s3264/IMG_1210.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuUM4Ng-46IKAz3c-eH7OVsO9zpL6Z9Ev7z13pinrO0bet_fX9vwav0eU3i22WBfLhNr1pMQPJuJQq5oh6RximMbAdo426-qsuC5lhs9-dyrTXROfo_RMmm8O1-qMbKeLxPwk7HjRMidw/w400-h300/IMG_1210.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Perhaps that combination is why this
area has been a magnet for migrating humans as far back as the Palaeolithic or Old
Stone Age. From this vast period – considered to span from the first ice-age
immigrations around 400,000 years ago, to the gradual warming of this land in
the last few millennia BCE – Dorchester’s gravel has yielded an impressive
number of worked flint hand-axes. This signature artifact of those times was an
indispensable tool for chopping and carving all manner of meats, skins, bones,
woods and other everyday materials.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">A decisive transition marks the
Neolithic or New Stone Age, from around 4000 BCE: namely, that these nomads began to
cultivate plants and domesticate animals. It was this farming that rooted them
to fixed locations, offered food surpluses when things went well, supported
larger populations, and thus gave rise to more complex societies which
rearranged the environment around them. It was a momentous change – and the
challenge in any assessment of it is that it was precisely the pivot which underpins the settled cultures that carry on in the present day. Thus any evidence
about it, still fragmentary at best, is necessarily filtered through both the
curses and celebrations which the humans of today direct, often with fierce
conviction and the gravest of personal stakes, at their current ways of life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Life for these early farmers was
probably neither the cesspit of sickly, bloodthirsty misery that the fans of
modernity – that is, its minority of privileged beneficiaries – please to
condemn them to for the contrast, nor an idealised golden age free of the raft of
horrors that modernity has largely amplified rather than created from scratch. What
then do we really know about these ancient people? To answer that we have to
look at the evidence they have left us, such as the pottery, earthworks and
burial sites that survive from that period. Of these, Dorchester’s promised to
be some of the most revealing in all of England – at least until that clever
and enlightened modernity got it in its head to lay waste to it by digging it
up for gravel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3r7iJtGkMu5x0tIFZS3XX9rT0k3AdgS9bamNfcKvU_YKktWyZwelUEattSa6ST3sgT0oCiiOjkrNs1pcV-iVOMYjaJcATLWV7S6JxCY9CNxDtJdSEynKYOL7fa9Ux3p6hf-eycMIIfCg/s3264/IMG_1212.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3r7iJtGkMu5x0tIFZS3XX9rT0k3AdgS9bamNfcKvU_YKktWyZwelUEattSa6ST3sgT0oCiiOjkrNs1pcV-iVOMYjaJcATLWV7S6JxCY9CNxDtJdSEynKYOL7fa9Ux3p6hf-eycMIIfCg/w640-h480/IMG_1212.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">See that big lake by the river? It’s actually
the filled-in remnant of one of Dorchester’s gravel pits, which the English
quarried out in the late twentieth century for concrete and road construction.
In so doing they wrecked the traces of one of the most tantalising Neolithic ceremonial
sites yet discovered.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Around the 1920s and 30s, when the
advent of powered flight offered new views of this land from the air, passing pilots
began to notice </span><a href="https://historicengland.org.uk/research/methods/airborne-remote-sensing/formation-of-cropmarks/" target="_blank"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">cropmarks</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> in the farm fields north of the
present village. Cropmarks are patterns in plant growth which indicate altered
soil conditions beneath – such as caused, for example, by buried ditches or
wall foundations, to whose presence they serve as a clue. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Eventually these came to the
attention of the archaeologists. What they found was astonishing: an entire
Neolithic complex of ritual monuments and burial enclosures, spanning the
period 2-3,000 BCE. They then spent the rest of the century in a race against
the construction industry to rescue what they could from the gravel diggers
and, later on, the builders of the Oxford Road’s Dorchester Bypass.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkPJP-SEUmN64JY3sKyN5a0mxPPGTGS5RMbnxCL1Hx50A2IWIl5ZV5EGnoGwEgior3Jn2vDIDpRFgG0hphtc_1XXobwIU4ocnMDDFnGxd-8RU7uk_7foMZWEUvUoKklkpwInD4SS3gk4/s720/Dorchester+Big+Rings.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="720" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkPJP-SEUmN64JY3sKyN5a0mxPPGTGS5RMbnxCL1Hx50A2IWIl5ZV5EGnoGwEgior3Jn2vDIDpRFgG0hphtc_1XXobwIU4ocnMDDFnGxd-8RU7uk_7foMZWEUvUoKklkpwInD4SS3gk4/w400-h294/Dorchester+Big+Rings.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Cropmarks made by
what came to be known as the ‘Big Rings’ ritual complex, as photographed from an
aircraft by Major George Allen in 1938. It’s now that lake in the previous
photo.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Most of the enclosures contained
cremated human remains, sometimes with animal bones, arrowheads, or flint or
pottery fragments. Amidst them stretched the site’s largest structure by
far: a long, linear pair of ditches called a <i>cursus</i>, which ran roughly
where the Dorchester Bypass runs now and whose function remains unknown. Possibly
it was a boundary, a ceremonial route, or an axis of ritual alignment, very likely
with reference to the river. And next to this cursus had stood an outstanding monument:
the ‘Big Rings’ <i>henge</i> (as in Stonehenge) that made such an impression on
passing pilots. Centuries of farming had obliterated everything above the
surface, but the ditches beneath suggested a considerable double-ring of
standing stones or timbers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">We can scarcely guess at the
functions of sites like these, least of all when a nation’s response to such
precious evidence is to annihilate all trace of it in the pursuit of passing material
gain. Yet they do permit some general suppositions. For one, Stone Age humans
were not the grunting cavemen of popular imagination but sophisticated
communities which crafted skill-intensive tools and, far from being consumed by
material drives, re-shaped their environments, often at enormous expense in resources
and organised labour, to express abstract cultural pursuits and better understand
the patterns of nature.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s also interesting how what’s now
a largely peripheral belt of fields between Oxford and Reading seems to have
been a core of human activity from at least the third millennium BCE. It’s
easily imaginable that at least as many people would have been involved in
building and operating these monuments as live in Dorchester today. Perhaps we
could have learnt a lot more about them had their successors, in all the
advanced wisdom of their modernity, not, you know, mined their entire site to
oblivion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVrsxBInHqKBAYl8wQksqk0ZlNCatWz_aVH-rrBn34vADnY2AISz9k1_9n9ln2uXz331VLdliMVEurFZSJlYEyLGBOzikTYOflEyLQZaAEWJJw_dZMd6LVDKKZHNv8-_obR9zsrBzb_6M/s3264/IMG_1213.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVrsxBInHqKBAYl8wQksqk0ZlNCatWz_aVH-rrBn34vADnY2AISz9k1_9n9ln2uXz331VLdliMVEurFZSJlYEyLGBOzikTYOflEyLQZaAEWJJw_dZMd6LVDKKZHNv8-_obR9zsrBzb_6M/w480-h640/IMG_1213.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small; line-height: 107%;">When the sites were wiped out
large sections had yet to be studied. How much richer a picture might they have
yielded to the advance of investigative methods and environmental sampling
techniques since then?</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Excavations of some of the later
sites here found bronze tools and ornaments, indicating the shift to what they
call the Bronze Age. This is considered to have lasted till about 1,100 BCE in
this land, but despite the use of bronze metal (and thus a rise in lasting evidence
in the form of bronze tools, grave goods and ceremonial offerings), Neolithic
ways of life are thought to have more or less persisted. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">A more substantial shift came with
the use of iron, with the associated Iron Age in this land lasting through the final
millennium BCE. By that point settlements and populations were growing, robust political identities had emerged, and large ritual
monuments were falling out of fashion. The change is dramatically recorded in
the Dorchester landscape because it was now that a hillfort appeared atop the
Wittenham Clumps.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsgYgg6OY-9ar_2t8fmKM1vyMioY7F98H4Jk7qdAySTTYULNHQqRTovlJHXZkn_S5LkUFaEDZi-tg7oXdnH99Mt3yVB6zxRMZxnGT4UcxETBM8o7BtERXdhFuBKzZFGI0WvddEukvVDQg/s3264/IMG_1194.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsgYgg6OY-9ar_2t8fmKM1vyMioY7F98H4Jk7qdAySTTYULNHQqRTovlJHXZkn_S5LkUFaEDZi-tg7oXdnH99Mt3yVB6zxRMZxnGT4UcxETBM8o7BtERXdhFuBKzZFGI0WvddEukvVDQg/w640-h480/IMG_1194.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Clumps were occupied since
at least the late Bronze Age, but Castle Hill (the eastern one), seen here from
Round Hill (the western), was thoroughly fortified from around 600 BCE. Its
ditch and rampart are still in outstanding condition.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">By then the Dorchester bend ran
through an overlap between three groups of people: the <b>Atrebates</b> on the
lower Thames to the south; the <b>Dobunni</b> in the upper Thames and Cotswolds
to the northwest; and the <b>Catuvellauni</b> about the Chilterns to the east.
These were Celtic or Belgic societies, but we know them today largely through
their Latinised names and accounts by the Romans who later subjugated them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Little about their relationships over
these centuries is certain, although by the Roman arrival they were clearly
organised polities which appointed kings, minted coins, and traded far and
wide. How exactly this hillfort figured into their interactions is thus largely
a matter of conjecture, save that it’s easy to imagine its formidable
defensibility and prestige as a place of occupation. Although it has never been
excavated, several studies including a <i>Time Team</i> investigation have dug
up enclosed sites and rubbish pits in the surrounding area. Far from an
isolated outpost, it’s more likely it formed the nucleus of an interconnected
settlement system that engaged as much in trading, crafting and administration of
the surrounding communities as in military activity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRj-tFYBEKGZPkd_th6zU1UPs6sU_wIWVzeQ2qyGeQcz_Xsifk82w1fnvwDNg7UmB5QK9PChhyphenhyphenfyUFW1Ei-hlArdZmKgnBvduLO1JykNF-Cwii4312xXG7yWslU4BtgWWjbkp9IyruYg0/s3264/IMG_1200.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRj-tFYBEKGZPkd_th6zU1UPs6sU_wIWVzeQ2qyGeQcz_Xsifk82w1fnvwDNg7UmB5QK9PChhyphenhyphenfyUFW1Ei-hlArdZmKgnBvduLO1JykNF-Cwii4312xXG7yWslU4BtgWWjbkp9IyruYg0/w640-h480/IMG_1200.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The commanding view to the
south, with the rampart running through in the foreground.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfs64_fs1rYm93yLSuyThaD3cL4fKkez34CEyGPGMYmdk_Srf8BpH-xnoA6e5jB07AcYp7NZ-rz7-gQ-s12moW5p5EglDmfvxzn79cS3Z1dzH4RrF_33bUt39s43NH4yaNvNTiXrT6EP8/s3264/IMG_1197.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfs64_fs1rYm93yLSuyThaD3cL4fKkez34CEyGPGMYmdk_Srf8BpH-xnoA6e5jB07AcYp7NZ-rz7-gQ-s12moW5p5EglDmfvxzn79cS3Z1dzH4RrF_33bUt39s43NH4yaNvNTiXrT6EP8/w400-h300/IMG_1197.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The other clump, on Round
Hill, is the oldest set of planted hilltop beech trees in England at over three
hundred years old.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj24wgP0HbjPgsZSjUSjYiZaJm4yd14WH-4KoDyS_N-qJ40ytd3BWS6GthfjY1GBBE5A7LR4bwVsSXCOgweJ8lc69JD1sPq75ppiOT7wP9nWWWPp_b-DslwNgbJ3COl5rmYDQxzjyr9NQg/s3264/IMG_1180.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj24wgP0HbjPgsZSjUSjYiZaJm4yd14WH-4KoDyS_N-qJ40ytd3BWS6GthfjY1GBBE5A7LR4bwVsSXCOgweJ8lc69JD1sPq75ppiOT7wP9nWWWPp_b-DslwNgbJ3COl5rmYDQxzjyr9NQg/w640-h480/IMG_1180.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Hills like these usually carry
an eerie reputation. They are almost certainly haunted and no doubt concentrate
a mass of local folklore concerning ghosts, curses, strange animals, strange
noises, hidden treasure, and peculiar weather and seasonal patterns on account
of proximity to <i>other worlds</i>. Spend the night here if you dare.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6jUm4mj51oen_IOjsTjBhJlfN1hry_1Ng-IS7HtmoNNJdzwX26oHOcHdLEVycbFRy3FiliUQ1WZPTcRQCNwNuvBjchSgMYZrdxypWnvvzxNYA74WbcZPl00gEe_m7Ya-wndhpSpALEKI/s3264/IMG_1195.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6jUm4mj51oen_IOjsTjBhJlfN1hry_1Ng-IS7HtmoNNJdzwX26oHOcHdLEVycbFRy3FiliUQ1WZPTcRQCNwNuvBjchSgMYZrdxypWnvvzxNYA74WbcZPl00gEe_m7Ya-wndhpSpALEKI/w400-h300/IMG_1195.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Bovine custodians graze the
rounds of the Wittenham Clumps as they prowl for human troublemakers. Witness
them contemplating action against these on account of their barking dog.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCDE4k5Nahr86HTtq7Dq88LT0_VD-Jj0IfVSV9qTRYYqQZYLFGn4WvzJhdhMIp9LCHs4GPwYUHntzFBa2ouU57FQRC6jl5CZKXVFMeuufpTZfx2WTjwI1KFxAcZXHMxGueac1aQ-EQs6w/s3264/IMG_1209.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCDE4k5Nahr86HTtq7Dq88LT0_VD-Jj0IfVSV9qTRYYqQZYLFGn4WvzJhdhMIp9LCHs4GPwYUHntzFBa2ouU57FQRC6jl5CZKXVFMeuufpTZfx2WTjwI1KFxAcZXHMxGueac1aQ-EQs6w/w640-h480/IMG_1209.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The hillfort seems to have fallen out
of use towards the end of the millennium. Why is not clear. Perhaps the
politics grew stabler, and visual prestige and defence became less important
than trade and ready access. The outcome in any case is that the focus of
settlement shifted back across the river, this time to the very bottom of the
loop between the Thames and the Thame. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ozb3PfG1xTq3xHaNlstrYmPqfI8KE09pnqV9L7isvSjkLG4Tg4fcc_og2urKrbXb8XhXutI5hWj2Wbj8qD4O9JjC-3kyYBaisSedbC2PwRTTG-e3unE5UkJ1ryJscYH6Ylnr1zR0WT0/s3264/IMG_1214.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ozb3PfG1xTq3xHaNlstrYmPqfI8KE09pnqV9L7isvSjkLG4Tg4fcc_og2urKrbXb8XhXutI5hWj2Wbj8qD4O9JjC-3kyYBaisSedbC2PwRTTG-e3unE5UkJ1ryJscYH6Ylnr1zR0WT0/w640-h480/IMG_1214.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Specifically to the area demarked
by this line of earthworks, just south of the present village.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This rampart, known today as the <b>Dyke
Hills</b>, is believed to have formed the northern perimeter of a
forty-six-hectare town – significantly larger than the four-hectare hillfort –
that grew up here shortly before the Romans arrived. No less than one of
pre-Roman Britain’s first true towns (an <i>oppidum</i> in archaeological
parlance), its status as a major trading centre is attested by its profusion of
cropmarks indicating large houses and smaller enclosures – most likely
workshops and storehouses – arranged along organised roads, as well as the huge
concentrations of Iron Age coins that have sprung from its earth at the touch
of farmers’ ploughs.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji0kFckWLJYg1ZJ6B94n6971aa9dXl70cgjR-WWBK4SKgD82y19hnfEMkMNV1rA5200UJ1mWYFVQBQ645qlvLyMnGzoGHpR6dOHgXtkGBAbYcRFayv0ntWQ9X2mxRTWv_3KGHfh7tvStg/s3264/IMG_1154.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji0kFckWLJYg1ZJ6B94n6971aa9dXl70cgjR-WWBK4SKgD82y19hnfEMkMNV1rA5200UJ1mWYFVQBQ645qlvLyMnGzoGHpR6dOHgXtkGBAbYcRFayv0ntWQ9X2mxRTWv_3KGHfh7tvStg/w640-h480/IMG_1154.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The ditch beneath the Dyke
Hills rampart connected the Thames and Thame and would have surrounded the
settlement with water, creating a defensible and well-connected island.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmDMidKhNRAtV7tWYe3sYF6AwXjADJJCRGgMD0ivx0-Xn1Evfrek5PoGrf12elDMkitEuUql_rUHwbny7mXBvpgPdmCnhMHtl-wPo0IhNRu3UwGSAWu3t2k843Arh2-wzL4z_sc-kCZfU/s2048/IMG_2547.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmDMidKhNRAtV7tWYe3sYF6AwXjADJJCRGgMD0ivx0-Xn1Evfrek5PoGrf12elDMkitEuUql_rUHwbny7mXBvpgPdmCnhMHtl-wPo0IhNRu3UwGSAWu3t2k843Arh2-wzL4z_sc-kCZfU/w400-h300/IMG_2547.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A south-facing impression of
this landscape in the late Iron Age, on display in the Dorchester Abbey Museum.
The new settlement commands the riverbend; note the moated rampart that's now the Dyke Hills. Across the river the old hillfort still
stands prominent on the Wittenham Clumps.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh70ohyphenhyphenqsyU6si67FiykMc2B1v3ZMsbQXEDd4I6gkbsikbaOeTxKcU3_VA0_nFSEY7BaPil3WYiV9i6Ayr1Cwv2lbaCCNtJhLlagIHfPh9HyYG8J6fC4DVQO3HzOD1C6j8E8AoAvlpPvKA/s3264/IMG_1163.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh70ohyphenhyphenqsyU6si67FiykMc2B1v3ZMsbQXEDd4I6gkbsikbaOeTxKcU3_VA0_nFSEY7BaPil3WYiV9i6Ayr1Cwv2lbaCCNtJhLlagIHfPh9HyYG8J6fC4DVQO3HzOD1C6j8E8AoAvlpPvKA/w640-h480/IMG_1163.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Today the settlement’s site supports
a woollier population. Army-officer-turned-archaeologist General Augustus
Pitt-Rivers (as in Oxford’s Pitt-Rivers Museum) did a big excavation here in
the 1870s, battling with profit-hungry agricultural landowners whose ploughs
and shovels were obliterating these earthworks much as the gravel-diggers would
wreck the Neolithic sites a century later.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-1Owg2g6DJG9Xgq9bHxckLoVYCEPQBWOFO2QBYu7WEDY9Jdfh6TjPFENImkZ0aaG2XmHnDd4AMPg6EOLPCT6dzJjYQC_Z1q8K_uU9OQlLIAluGGZZ0LEgmzjSE0w0BrUhpf0f_UmjlA/s3264/IMG_1216.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-1Owg2g6DJG9Xgq9bHxckLoVYCEPQBWOFO2QBYu7WEDY9Jdfh6TjPFENImkZ0aaG2XmHnDd4AMPg6EOLPCT6dzJjYQC_Z1q8K_uU9OQlLIAluGGZZ0LEgmzjSE0w0BrUhpf0f_UmjlA/w400-h300/IMG_1216.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A peacock butterfly occupies
the path, grumbling about countries that place greed for profit and property
above the protection of precious heritage.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This would have been the situation on
this bend when the Romans arrived in the first century CE. They integrated this
land into their empire as the province of <i>Britannia</i>, co-opting its Iron
Age peoples – by force, persuasion, or trickery as the case may be – and
gradually transforming their ways of life under Roman cultural practices. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Logically the name of Dorchester
ought to have its origins in this period. The <i>-chester </i>name element is
common in later Anglo-Saxon place names as a reference to fortified Roman
sites, though what the <i>Dor</i> signifies here is unclear. Excavations have
indeed revealed a Roman fort by the Thame just north of the Dyke Hills
settlement, where it would have controlled both the rivers and the Calleva
Atrebatum (Silchester)-Alchester route on the conquest-enabling Roman road
system. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Whether this caused the abandonment
of the Dyke Hills settlement, or whether its activity was already shifting to
what became the Roman civilian settlement that replaced the fort after its
demolition around 78 CE, is not known for sure. What is clearer is that this
was the first settlement on the site of the present-day village, and so has
influenced all further siting decisions to the present day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWyVjUtrcneU8N0VwE-RLbHmkedVtUF7tO2tSFQx-HZIDPk3crbYyLRNvK5kEPZFeoyPsQp1PpewYt2e-ff3h5ZJxAz5YbzVeZ1aIkU_8zL4Sh-TpGabEtR2ShJUpH_2cw5ZoQHXti6q8/s2048/IMG_2531.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWyVjUtrcneU8N0VwE-RLbHmkedVtUF7tO2tSFQx-HZIDPk3crbYyLRNvK5kEPZFeoyPsQp1PpewYt2e-ff3h5ZJxAz5YbzVeZ1aIkU_8zL4Sh-TpGabEtR2ShJUpH_2cw5ZoQHXti6q8/w400-h300/IMG_2531.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The gravelly riverbed here
meant that Roman builders had to bring in stone from elsewhere. Centuries’
worth of later builders, facing the same problem, often ended up digging for
the Romans’ stone footings to recycle them for their own projects.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">If this was one of Roman Britannia’s tiniest
walled civilian towns, its small size did not detract from its importance. Swathes
of impressive finds have burst from the ground over centuries of village
activity, including high-quality glass, ceramic and silver goods such as jars
and cutlery; evidence of high-standard construction such as tiled roofs, mosaic
floors, tessellated pavements and decorated wall plaster; and the considerable
leavings of the farms, pottery kilns and cemeteries that sprawled across the surrounding
area. These, on top of the great effort they patently went to to protect this
town, suggest its crucial role as an administrative outpost and distribution
hub, most likely for this region’s rich agricultural produce. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">These discoveries extend over the
later years of Roman rule, thus also helping to inform us about one of this
land’s most complex and psychologically sensitive periods: the long transition
from the declining Roman political and cultural systems, to those of the
Anglo-Saxon immigrants – the latter often spoken of, casually and inaccurately,
as the identity-fount of modern English whiteness. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">On this too Dorchester offers a more complicated
picture. For instance, graves have been found of individuals of Germanic origin,
sometimes with Roman grave goods, or items from Gaul or the Rhineland, or in
some cases both. There is a good chance that these were continental mercenaries
(<i>foederati</i>), whom the sub-Roman people of this island were known to
invite in for protection as the Roman army departed. Though signs of Saxon
building and burial practices increase in the subsequent centuries, here as
elsewhere the evidence is of a long and multi-dimensional shift, for much of
which groups with different identities were living in close contact with one another. The quality of some of these finds suggests a persisting level
of wealth in sub-Roman/early Saxon Dorchester, and thus a continuing regional
importance for this town.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZv9Kn6mCcU3BC0_YxPnjp7T4Q7uU3TGTN9xQlev3Xz4p6zjYlUQKZCej-_ivIVms4kj1md1jAHrM1rwxhf6fGsj0fnXt73dqjh7suih0gHHA2OBHgyvfdSPCJbCKx3IKAQUePEJ8kEU4/s3264/IMG_1153.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZv9Kn6mCcU3BC0_YxPnjp7T4Q7uU3TGTN9xQlev3Xz4p6zjYlUQKZCej-_ivIVms4kj1md1jAHrM1rwxhf6fGsj0fnXt73dqjh7suih0gHHA2OBHgyvfdSPCJbCKx3IKAQUePEJ8kEU4/w640-h480/IMG_1153.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">These days another of these
World War II pillboxes, unusually made of brick, guards the southern approach
to Dorchester.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMEiPdQMUsK12Fd3WDdGThq6E3yjejChN-pAYnj6ZbeZqHrRMNcRNXoyxWMOmOI7Nj4_yjhDskf0aVZmtry4wLpoiLdhEEuZ7p26wZnT065bFw1Br2YYmJJ9BgVhEa_IaFtLm73sO5uAQ/s3264/IMG_1155.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMEiPdQMUsK12Fd3WDdGThq6E3yjejChN-pAYnj6ZbeZqHrRMNcRNXoyxWMOmOI7Nj4_yjhDskf0aVZmtry4wLpoiLdhEEuZ7p26wZnT065bFw1Br2YYmJJ9BgVhEa_IaFtLm73sO5uAQ/w400-h300/IMG_1155.JPG" width="400" /></a></div> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon immigrants
into settled kingdoms placed Dorchester yet again on a frontier zone. This time
it was the young kingdom of <b>Wessex</b> which looked across the river at the
great northern heavyweights of the period, <b>Mercia</b> and <b>Northumbria</b>
– the last time, incidentally, when the main power on this island was in the
north.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Dorchester’s status received a major
raise in this period. In 635 BCE, as recorded by the Northumbrian historian
Bede, a Frankish missionary called <b>Birinus</b> arrived, sent by
the Pope to convert the West Saxons to Christianity. Dorchester was significant
enough that it was here that Birinus presided over the baptism of Wessex’s
king, Cynegils, ahead of the latter’s daughter’s political marriage to the
already-Christianised king of the Northumbrians, Oswald. As part of the
arrangement Birinus was made the first Bishop of Wessex, and given land in and
around Dorchester to establish his cathedral. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">In other words, Dorchester was suddenly the central religious headquarters of a newly-converted kingdom. Its new church
would in time evolve into its present one, while Birinus’s own name would later
be revived and exalted as the regional founder-figure for English Christianity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">For all this religion however, the
deeper significance of these events was political. In Dorchester the nascent
Wessex kingdom now had an anchor for its expansion north into the Thames
valley, as well as a platform for managing its interactions with its stronger,
more established rivals beyond it. The latter’s advantage was proven when
Dorchester subsequently fell under Mercian control. Its status as an
ecclesiastical centre was taken off it in favour of Mercia’s own more central
bishops of Leicester and Lindsey (Lincoln), and it didn’t get it back till
Mercia was devastated by the Scandinavian Vikings some two centuries later,
opening the way for the rise of Wessex under Alfred, the Viking defeat, and the
partition of not-yet-England into Saxon and Viking realms.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">By that point however the rise of </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/08/thames-13-castle-vanishes.html" target="_blank"><u><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Alfred’s <i>burhs</i></span></u></a><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> at Oxford above and Wallingford
below suggested that beyond its status as a religious centre, Dorchester’s
commercial and strategic situation was in decline. This was confirmed when
after the Norman conquest of 1066 that ecclesiastical status was removed to
Lincoln yet again, this time for good. Nonetheless as an outpost of the
Lincoln bishopric Dorchester remained productive, sufficiently so that around
1140, on the site of the Saxon cathedral, the Bishop of Lincoln commissioned a monastery
whose main building dominates the local landscape to this day: <b>Dorchester
Abbey</b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizNFkGwWRYTSnL-QViO97xFE6gFYzQWdaMzRU5bxlobwF7ioSaBSZRbf5pXeBSm2h2GVfDgsvh3lVOucoRTOeyXNyClvzpMX1oCfxTWH5zZmdczvaVuC4APw2XXGCC6vKMO6zv7YdDenY/s2048/IMG_2528.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizNFkGwWRYTSnL-QViO97xFE6gFYzQWdaMzRU5bxlobwF7ioSaBSZRbf5pXeBSm2h2GVfDgsvh3lVOucoRTOeyXNyClvzpMX1oCfxTWH5zZmdczvaVuC4APw2XXGCC6vKMO6zv7YdDenY/w640-h480/IMG_2528.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A close-up view of the Norman
abbey, within whose structure traces of masonry from the Saxon cathedral are
said to survive.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidcU7EMumUMqE-LNwC9hQSvS3RfjlAn9TBZeMIaDpGYD3m13E9W0dBXTSQyUfY7Uk_nfdPxSxeR79YrfDeK0kQ54ao1tINOMvfyIJpha9At-uFE_-4SLJNHZ6ydnycIRjTpTStNlyRvKU/s2048/IMG_2535.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidcU7EMumUMqE-LNwC9hQSvS3RfjlAn9TBZeMIaDpGYD3m13E9W0dBXTSQyUfY7Uk_nfdPxSxeR79YrfDeK0kQ54ao1tINOMvfyIJpha9At-uFE_-4SLJNHZ6ydnycIRjTpTStNlyRvKU/w300-h400/IMG_2535.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Unlike many English churches nowadays
this one’s usually open, and actively welcomes visitors to poke around inside
as much for historical interest as Christian observance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">The Abbey was settled by monks from
an independent branch of the Augustinian order called the Arrouaisians, who
migrated in from across the Channel. Arriving as they did some decades after
the Norman conquest, they missed out on its wholesale land-grabs and so got
little in the way of manorial estates with resources and income. Instead they
made do with spiritual taxes and fees, and gradually accumulated holdings up the
Thame watershed in the centuries that followed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zTT5jNFE4NM5O56FFxbwCXIwomKmqkI-W7TL167TNx9FQuuwXq93CTpC-zGqEqze5-IEemKlfrcL_Jth6DQ_Fefr2nIWRUA-oMS138vwFaUkWLJBf5fFMaK9aFl9UwYM6Z5XasWIQ8g/s2048/IMG_2537.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zTT5jNFE4NM5O56FFxbwCXIwomKmqkI-W7TL167TNx9FQuuwXq93CTpC-zGqEqze5-IEemKlfrcL_Jth6DQ_Fefr2nIWRUA-oMS138vwFaUkWLJBf5fFMaK9aFl9UwYM6Z5XasWIQ8g/w480-h640/IMG_2537.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The building survives from
this period, though has received many upgrades and renovations over the
millennium. This window for example contains a mix of medieval and Victorian
glass.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6HLciFySXkhiMDp9zSiZw123zKV_TqZXudeOuQSOE_7IVZhnBHMyuIZXLDj_O-K8_OfKLgwbMk5bWoLDPAwueEA5B801F1LRtVMMeoBdr6Tn-xbycLkBXJqToI_2QRfMDiiNeMPDyObg/s2048/IMG_2536.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6HLciFySXkhiMDp9zSiZw123zKV_TqZXudeOuQSOE_7IVZhnBHMyuIZXLDj_O-K8_OfKLgwbMk5bWoLDPAwueEA5B801F1LRtVMMeoBdr6Tn-xbycLkBXJqToI_2QRfMDiiNeMPDyObg/w300-h400/IMG_2536.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">The monks came up with a crafty
scheme to raise their profile: they claimed to possess the original relics of
Birinus. Dodgy as this was, it gave rise to a new cult of Birinus which drew loads
of pilgrims to Dorchester. The money they spent here enabled the monks to fund
an extensive building programme, including for a Birinus shrine. This did not
survive Henry VIII’s crackdown in the 1530s, but Birinus’s name remains
indelibly infused in its atmosphere. This for instance is the St Birinus
Chapel; the little circle in its window is the building’s oldest glass, dating from
around 1225.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1BrZx-TM-IT9zhwsFWZhObNYguvCaXo9Izv8AID1laugce44RBXggWpbjZ-hbSps-6p6zRyXpng9fwkqlKt9h-7FT6AXoMD2x3PSXXrDp7mBnsFAgS95FqDCDOsXNqlcJn0X8UBDa0ZI/s2048/IMG_2553.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1BrZx-TM-IT9zhwsFWZhObNYguvCaXo9Izv8AID1laugce44RBXggWpbjZ-hbSps-6p6zRyXpng9fwkqlKt9h-7FT6AXoMD2x3PSXXrDp7mBnsFAgS95FqDCDOsXNqlcJn0X8UBDa0ZI/w300-h400/IMG_2553.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another of the Abbey’s original
pieces: the Norman lead font from around 1170, carved with figures of the
Apostles from Christian mythology.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Dorchester’s monks were pensioned
off, apparently in compliance, when Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell crushed the
monasteries in the 1530s. Much of the complex was lost as a result, but
Dorchester Abbey’s main building was saved when it was bought by Richard
Beaufort, a rich local farmer, and returned to the community as the ordinary
parish church it still serves as today. It also escaped the worst of the next
round of obliterations, that wrought by the iconoclastic Puritans during and
after the Civil Wars. Despite being expensive to maintain it received some
dedicated restoration under the Victorian boom in interest in gothic
architecture, and stands on today as one of England's better-preserved large Norman monastic
pieces. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimfVh-GqlYjJ2GFGUiuWIa3nI-597nOH9SzrWTyUP3Cuehw21mdFuJMNrqmtaOX0etmFhmdMPRLgZPln9D0jSSZddtqCFRWdMZPqW3bx3g8xMDgd-Iy4qz1rfllYcIIyN_74Ni3Hjqz5E/s2048/IMG_2554.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimfVh-GqlYjJ2GFGUiuWIa3nI-597nOH9SzrWTyUP3Cuehw21mdFuJMNrqmtaOX0etmFhmdMPRLgZPln9D0jSSZddtqCFRWdMZPqW3bx3g8xMDgd-Iy4qz1rfllYcIIyN_74Ni3Hjqz5E/w640-h480/IMG_2554.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">This list of its heads –
bishops of the Saxon cathedral (left), abbots of the Norman monastery (right),
and vicars of the English church (centre) – is a good answer to those who use <i>Anglo-Saxon</i> as a byword for whiteness. How many Haeddis, Aelfnoths and
Wulfwigs do you come across today?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGX2Z8f9T_Iojv1T61YQLqnUGA588ZqxsurqLWGQe8T_NOpkENVvW4yfYVFREYSrQlyLFZ91yyMxRgWz_x2Zr4uznyEr-796D6n2F1FvcsNmIPomsFUzGvBPhCPJBuFkhS3O1M3h1SUkI/s2048/IMG_2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGX2Z8f9T_Iojv1T61YQLqnUGA588ZqxsurqLWGQe8T_NOpkENVvW4yfYVFREYSrQlyLFZ91yyMxRgWz_x2Zr4uznyEr-796D6n2F1FvcsNmIPomsFUzGvBPhCPJBuFkhS3O1M3h1SUkI/w640-h480/IMG_2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">On the Abbey’s north side is
its cloister garden – a restful place, good for tranquil contemplation. The
Dorchester Abbey Museum runs out of the monastery’s old guest house next door, with
delicious cakes available at the tea rooms out back. Both currently have good
COVID-19 safety measures in place.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Dorchester’s national impact has since
declined, perhaps to a quieter level than ever in its history. Left as a
largely unremarkable farming village, its fields were Enclosed under a small
number of families like Beaufort’s with its agricultural base backed up by
milling and smithing. The village more or less fed and serviced itself,
sprouting local shops as well as numerous inns and pubs; the latter straggled
out of Dorchester’s old tradition as a road and river waypoint but got a brief
boost in the era of barges and turnpikes. By around the late eighteenth century
however the village became notorious for its poverty, and struggled to support
its victims of agricultural depression against the cruelty of that era’s Poor
Laws – the antecedent to the present Conservative Party’s abuse of the welfare
system to torture and punish people for being poor. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3qkxo1tfSsdF8wc8MxluMDuTdXwq-iF6nzr0NyG_kUs0GYtdHQLqDViggj_-YXsU0uTSi7euhSOFkp87iqq2QCbS7LKD_c6si5BrPYeu_eK_m4BbYFmo7yZejKQps85z3akd3KYvULxs/s2048/IMG_2556.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3qkxo1tfSsdF8wc8MxluMDuTdXwq-iF6nzr0NyG_kUs0GYtdHQLqDViggj_-YXsU0uTSi7euhSOFkp87iqq2QCbS7LKD_c6si5BrPYeu_eK_m4BbYFmo7yZejKQps85z3akd3KYvULxs/w300-h400/IMG_2556.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Look at this. When will humans
cease to blame individuals for ‘exceffive senfibility’, and actually take some
responsibility for the ‘rude Shakes and Joltings’ inflicted by their societies’
abusive values, practices and prejudices?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBnIW1pkq6DB6D1CtjEPfEvCE1pkEO8jzUFzP7zo1UPkmk0_QyTWC1x4MlwfxWjyGWWwP3e3fVqcVbuPhTgzCUjhuYLO5sMeWIzSuZzTvmEWyTkq6UBemf07V2ahzOK7VPDHWVpaQG5xA/s2048/IMG_2557.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBnIW1pkq6DB6D1CtjEPfEvCE1pkEO8jzUFzP7zo1UPkmk0_QyTWC1x4MlwfxWjyGWWwP3e3fVqcVbuPhTgzCUjhuYLO5sMeWIzSuZzTvmEWyTkq6UBemf07V2ahzOK7VPDHWVpaQG5xA/w480-h640/IMG_2557.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Almost all of Dorchester’s
shops and services have since turned into private houses. As ravening
developers have more or less bypassed this village, many of these are
living pieces of history; elements persist from their initial construction
hundreds of years ago despite centuries of modifications since. Timber frames,
wattle and daub, cob (i.e. mud mixed with hair or straw to stabilise it),
flint, and even chalk all attest to the village’s creative and resourceful use
of materials in the local absence of suitable building stone.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmyskzWn06YWxX4vf0xaWfAH5Ggvb1T16Ett7O4L0P8gTyMH-L_PsBLGd6kLt4V3ng6H3RB3kIdm7gon8V8GME0PIYU2EGITWE3-JijgSCB4r8h3r2JovVARXK9SMpaoK0F0yOoLDKFhk/s2048/IMG_2530.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmyskzWn06YWxX4vf0xaWfAH5Ggvb1T16Ett7O4L0P8gTyMH-L_PsBLGd6kLt4V3ng6H3RB3kIdm7gon8V8GME0PIYU2EGITWE3-JijgSCB4r8h3r2JovVARXK9SMpaoK0F0yOoLDKFhk/w400-h300/IMG_2530.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small; line-height: 107%;">Facing the Abbey, the George
Hotel is one of the few Dorchester businesses still in service. Its
fifteenth-century timer-framed building (though much altered since) is one of
the grandest in the village.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s easy to overlook this tiny settlement
in the apparent middle of nowhere. Enter its landscape with senses open,
however, and they quickly fill with a depth of heritage totally belied by its
settlement’s present-day humility. It presents a human story that runs unbroken
all the way back through Saxon immigrants, Roman occupiers, Iron and Bronze Age
traders and crafters; all the way back, indeed, to those prehistoric hunter-gatherers who came together and, for the first time in this land, took up the way
of the settler which, for good or for ill, the English carry on today.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Okay, admittedly for some quite
abominable ill. From the fount of settlement, not inevitably but by choice, has
arguably come the cult of property and a catastrophically murderous hostility
to anyone it deems unfitting: that is, nomads, wanderers, refugees, homeless people, and every indigenous
society they wrecked when they carried their settlement practices over the
sea. In a further irony, it was also from the way of the settler’s most
triumphant expression – cities – and their defining material, concrete, that
came the hunger for gravel which has done the most, on the Dorchester bend, to
destroy the very six-millennia-long story from which it emerged.<br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Nonetheless it is writ in this floodplain still.
You don’t have to dig through books or archives to read of it. Only walk,
instead – up the hills, along the ramparts, through and around the Abbey – and
you'll know it through your soles. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">That’s the other irony. Here you best
learn the story of settlement by doing that which all settlers had to do first, yet too often come to despise when others do it too. You move. You migrate.<br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhszDN83Pnb8iH_ansGd0EPUunWpv6y8IUFbpG1HkSxLYReAZ5Pda7EzRUO4qY7efxVno3ucRtsEzlqwb11fLrvV-qA0Q9HpetBmJ5U8uowuX_zYS-zQ5dtzNCzhWKkNB6ERPLakK7ziA0/s2048/IMG_2525.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhszDN83Pnb8iH_ansGd0EPUunWpv6y8IUFbpG1HkSxLYReAZ5Pda7EzRUO4qY7efxVno3ucRtsEzlqwb11fLrvV-qA0Q9HpetBmJ5U8uowuX_zYS-zQ5dtzNCzhWKkNB6ERPLakK7ziA0/w640-h480/IMG_2525.JPG" width="640" /></a></div> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Very special thanks to the Dorchester
Abbey Museum for informing much of the content in this section, and for its
efforts to ensure a safe visit in COVID-19 conditions.</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">For those interested, a more detailed
overview of Dorchester’s story – with lots of photographs and diagrams – can be
found in </span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Dorchester
Through the Ages<i> by Jean Cook and Trevor Rowley (eds.), published by Oxford
University Department for External Studies in 1985.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Dorchester, Wallingford, UK51.6458462 -1.167157346.310185102391976 -9.9562198 56.981507297608026 7.6219052000000005tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-35377761777208358992021-08-07T15:15:00.001+01:002021-08-07T15:15:38.018+01:00THAMES: 13) The Castle Vanishes<div style="text-align: left;">
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Privilege
Forts like to appear immortal. That after all is how privilege protects itself:
by seeding the belief that it’s innate, essential, morally ordained, rather
than a violent seizure of power <i>within history</i>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Can
you look on a <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">Tower
of London</a></u> or a <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">Windsor
Castle</a></u>, and dare imagine the scene without them there?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How about the
Thames’s other great castle?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes. There was a third. It was every bit as mighty, massive and politically consequential
as the other two. Unlike them it actually had to fight off siege after siege
after siege. And it did. It capped the entire set of core English strongholds;
only those two were a match for its power and prestige.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ever
heard of <b>Wallingford</b>? Thought not.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Tu23T6h0BwMgDPVRjj7V-4gnbeJNUutNP7Y6fvwFKt2JpcYh12Z3ipHsqs8w8XJtyslYfzC9XLo32gJD5378lPz9dwARiB-zqpZCjRFraaX_1feNI6uc_wF4pNcJ0C0s3iIeAiEQMnU/s3264/IMG_0988.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Tu23T6h0BwMgDPVRjj7V-4gnbeJNUutNP7Y6fvwFKt2JpcYh12Z3ipHsqs8w8XJtyslYfzC9XLo32gJD5378lPz9dwARiB-zqpZCjRFraaX_1feNI6uc_wF4pNcJ0C0s3iIeAiEQMnU/w640-h480/IMG_0988.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Today
the river brings us to a Privilege Fort of yesterday, although its retirement
appears more comfortable than most. Nestled at the bottom of the Oxford Plain where
once it guarded the <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/07/thames-12-gap-in-chalk.html">Goring
Gap</a></u>, the little town of Wallingford potters quietly about in the rustic margins between Oxford and Reading. But get up close and poke it, and you might just get it to tell you
the story of its days as the capital of the royal centre, the unbreakable
shield of dynasties, and the pivot of those conquests, rebellions and civil
wars in whose bloody crucible a shape was first carved for the English nation.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Which
begs the question: <i>What happened to it?</i></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIJm8hyFi_JFGIE-yNDXUUo7MnZTrp3Q5EXnvDTwsqfIzz3rnQDw4cSwSTUt4NXC2FdcQvFwNT4LfsY2_KMUOxXnoClSMKYoHyv0SrLMgi4EEQtHfTTYMbKCI9-yCbBlpJcJfi3_Wwfyg/s3264/IMG_0982.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIJm8hyFi_JFGIE-yNDXUUo7MnZTrp3Q5EXnvDTwsqfIzz3rnQDw4cSwSTUt4NXC2FdcQvFwNT4LfsY2_KMUOxXnoClSMKYoHyv0SrLMgi4EEQtHfTTYMbKCI9-yCbBlpJcJfi3_Wwfyg/w640-h480/IMG_0982.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The castle once filled this entire plateau.
Does something like that simply disappear? From memory as much as from
landscape?</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6OAW0IsEpHRYAaOnb1TDkHRGR3R4WfPIsVoCvqZoBdky7Hw_p16klA24GuVf6igvFCzipN4oYLj063H5gGyEaPrACcd4O7oPs_CMrvve7ylFg-xEGr3g1NnEO1KO9suCkryGE09x_Hv0/s3264/IMG_0971.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6OAW0IsEpHRYAaOnb1TDkHRGR3R4WfPIsVoCvqZoBdky7Hw_p16klA24GuVf6igvFCzipN4oYLj063H5gGyEaPrACcd4O7oPs_CMrvve7ylFg-xEGr3g1NnEO1KO9suCkryGE09x_Hv0/w400-h300/IMG_0971.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Perhaps it was murdered. Wallingford was also the later-life home of the
detective-novel writer Agatha Christie – recognised by Guinness as the
best-selling fiction writer of all time – as well as a principal filming site
for the TV drama <i>Midsomer Murders</i>. One is advised to stay alert to suspicious
middle-class people with knives and poisons leaping out from its innumerable
little corners like this one.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This
mystery awaits in a straight strike north from the Goring Gap. This is more or
less a two-phase walk: there is the spruced-up high-bourgeois white fantasyland
beyond Goring and Streatley, followed by a wilder push through Berkshire bush
the rest of the way. All in all it’s very green, and if you can bear the
typical all-pervading English structural injustice then it actually offers some
really nice walking on a warm summer’s day like this one.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigHEV2nxN4N9Xp-pVirkj9d1EKP77KMbgMR3e2fzP-mCTm3pt8awY-wbSKw0EfPL_dJ6kim6YEgqoKARm6dH25pHU21YiZpQoQ2anCp98P6pzNGD4hkUekwnydkQwpTY9sRFm7Nn-qM5E/s3264/IMG_0874.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigHEV2nxN4N9Xp-pVirkj9d1EKP77KMbgMR3e2fzP-mCTm3pt8awY-wbSKw0EfPL_dJ6kim6YEgqoKARm6dH25pHU21YiZpQoQ2anCp98P6pzNGD4hkUekwnydkQwpTY9sRFm7Nn-qM5E/w640-h480/IMG_0874.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The river north of Streatley. There’s plenty of space to walk around people on
this one, but be considerate on occasional narrower passages through foliage.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs2m8q2qVVVfUelsl2VTfuXQLvuWXqLvi59HmZqI418ikScXRy4-JxSR1KDP4J2EOkKoX9RWL9DSNtWFFVaru9PSaVMEzSz62D5zpU0vuaSwIDnBV0PygK1LWIIZKaJs3bVriL4YShF1E/s3264/IMG_0887.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs2m8q2qVVVfUelsl2VTfuXQLvuWXqLvi59HmZqI418ikScXRy4-JxSR1KDP4J2EOkKoX9RWL9DSNtWFFVaru9PSaVMEzSz62D5zpU0vuaSwIDnBV0PygK1LWIIZKaJs3bVriL4YShF1E/w640-h480/IMG_0887.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Among
those injustices, do not forget, of course, that this country’s self-inflicted
COVID-19 disaster goes on. While most of this route is out in the open, social
distancing, face masks, and general hygiene considerateness are strongly advised in
the built-up settlements and on public transport.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie23jOygaDGytvIhr9ABEPH4TXFtv7D5TytYqZcAxbCKcDaFQUhQfTq35bkOI6c9M9orWUT3I9PqZ67pNvOV4OKkOAucfm2UcLjyo0g7rLmufm8GQ_tPCDqXSrBgMbo1iTmXb3dcjUR1E/s3264/IMG_0847.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie23jOygaDGytvIhr9ABEPH4TXFtv7D5TytYqZcAxbCKcDaFQUhQfTq35bkOI6c9M9orWUT3I9PqZ67pNvOV4OKkOAucfm2UcLjyo0g7rLmufm8GQ_tPCDqXSrBgMbo1iTmXb3dcjUR1E/w640-h480/IMG_0847.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>North from Goring Bridge, with the Swan Hotel of Streatley at left.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfp6-UiW1s71Jh7ymTavp0ohR_cUdVYASCPdpVSDIcA_WkrPftzxX8SeHsmqxINQfZkt_YB3R6AIwOqyQaoldjK46474WhrBNy4oz8X6-ga3oMceIqD_W6S3uNLD9-YUb3GUBU6hiLbCM/s740/13%2529+Goring+to+Wallingford.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="730" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfp6-UiW1s71Jh7ymTavp0ohR_cUdVYASCPdpVSDIcA_WkrPftzxX8SeHsmqxINQfZkt_YB3R6AIwOqyQaoldjK46474WhrBNy4oz8X6-ga3oMceIqD_W6S3uNLD9-YUb3GUBU6hiLbCM/w632-h640/13%2529+Goring+to+Wallingford.png" width="632" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Start:</b>
Goring Bridge (<i>nearest station: Goring and Streatley</i>)</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>End:</b>
Wallingford Bridge (<i>nearest station: Cholsey – 10 minutes by </i><a href="https://www.thames-travel.co.uk/routes/136" target="_blank"><u><i>Bus 136 from Wallingford
Market Place</i></u></a>)</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Length:
11.2km/7 miles</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Location:
Berkshire – West Berkshire; Oxfordshire – South Oxfordshire</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Topics</u>:
Streatley, Moulsford, <b>Wallingford: Saxon fort, Norman castle, English ruin</b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span><a name='more'></a></span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Streatley</span></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We
begin by crossing back to the west riverbank for a quick duck through
Goring-on-Thames’s counterpart of <b>Streatley</b>. The village’s name, suggesting
a clearing (<i>leah</i>) on a road (<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">stræt</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">), identifies its long strategic
importance. Most likely the road in question is the old north-south Roman road through
the </span><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/07/thames-12-gap-in-chalk.html" target="_blank"><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">gap in the
chalk</span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> hills</span></span></u></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">, though
it could also refer to the far older east-west Ridgeway.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoSthAo32r6hupUzUh5H76gVDuhqXP2DnSRBrjk2K-7eQMXYdk4Gde8DmkqfU9tAEj01hG3ST-M14mvzoKGlOs8WIDa0Oq8SLD0O0lQ6BIz8pk-o3tCX_OSQUwbkbdtzNbVlNAHZx8mzg/s3264/IMG_0846.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoSthAo32r6hupUzUh5H76gVDuhqXP2DnSRBrjk2K-7eQMXYdk4Gde8DmkqfU9tAEj01hG3ST-M14mvzoKGlOs8WIDa0Oq8SLD0O0lQ6BIz8pk-o3tCX_OSQUwbkbdtzNbVlNAHZx8mzg/w640-h480/IMG_0846.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Swan Inn that dominates the Streatley riverside goes back to at least the
mid-nineteenth century, though is thought to be considerably older. Its current
incarnation is as a posh hotel, restaurant and rental space for functions.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdCrPHVrKgwRck0TswsEPu1FGvj5Z0ZyN9kZPBscPGUmDttBaDp3j0oyyiRRtCzMdaNP2VzN1qw45J5t__xZQeBZjKZ_nqAH4sUc59p71ZaOPy6S3RIYz7FwGLJQr7rlgie8jnrQ8AN0U/s3264/IMG_0848.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdCrPHVrKgwRck0TswsEPu1FGvj5Z0ZyN9kZPBscPGUmDttBaDp3j0oyyiRRtCzMdaNP2VzN1qw45J5t__xZQeBZjKZ_nqAH4sUc59p71ZaOPy6S3RIYz7FwGLJQr7rlgie8jnrQ8AN0U/w400-h300/IMG_0848.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Behind the Swan is Streatley’s St. Mary’s Church, a nineteenth-century
extensive rebuild of a Norman thirteenth-century structure (which itself likely
superseded one still older).</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4MvQnUBBHNM9HZQFYShJofw5r2yssu990702NwoLmi1DmUilTndQN2OGlFbgya-6a6YWX7WPjtB5S_Lml_Z6IIF-P4p_DViCmc6GM5Nqf52up2Qg5NrCgP668DW_YYoEjnjIo52UqD74/s3264/IMG_0850.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4MvQnUBBHNM9HZQFYShJofw5r2yssu990702NwoLmi1DmUilTndQN2OGlFbgya-6a6YWX7WPjtB5S_Lml_Z6IIF-P4p_DViCmc6GM5Nqf52up2Qg5NrCgP668DW_YYoEjnjIo52UqD74/w300-h400/IMG_0850.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>From there it’s straight into the woods and back to the river.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hemmed
in by the Berkshire Downs, Streatley is tiny, with Goring getting most new
development when the railway came through. It ends almost as soon as
it began, conceding the riverbank to a succession of farms and open fields.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH_x90GzECW7xjfsjcDy4V2WYoM76qFLksmjiRM-V8q_KRqY1S3bMg1u8LV7gGQjDYkroNfmZEPsETGyetDyW6l8q-qtYr4u4s2fpZqJ8ewxZ4HwYCLNNTFtME8zpEPA2Y-NYHybUBZK0/s3264/IMG_0852.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH_x90GzECW7xjfsjcDy4V2WYoM76qFLksmjiRM-V8q_KRqY1S3bMg1u8LV7gGQjDYkroNfmZEPsETGyetDyW6l8q-qtYr4u4s2fpZqJ8ewxZ4HwYCLNNTFtME8zpEPA2Y-NYHybUBZK0/w400-h300/IMG_0852.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>For now the path is the remnant of the old working towpath, where horses once
pulled barges along the river. Today’s terrain is easy walking for the most
part.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG0VlFWldRWf3qniPzDrNGYoqkAqvx9niBTmEzit2GakHC-SVl2u_wydFJxXDfl7z3jwalOsNQLuZntzBu021Pt_VWR7Y8AlPtxwpSZsnEFjJDXqG3FArKndcDd3AYmF6LX32SHMIe_dY/s3264/IMG_0854.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG0VlFWldRWf3qniPzDrNGYoqkAqvx9niBTmEzit2GakHC-SVl2u_wydFJxXDfl7z3jwalOsNQLuZntzBu021Pt_VWR7Y8AlPtxwpSZsnEFjJDXqG3FArKndcDd3AYmF6LX32SHMIe_dY/w640-h480/IMG_0854.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Flower meadows abound on these reaches.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Meanwhile
the lavish property-playgrounds of Goring sprawl their monied way up an east
bank replete with gardens, follies and boatyards. Their growling lawnmowers
puncture the chorus of insect and bird chirps, while the water itself endures a
regular traffic of their pleasure-cruisers.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium; mso-spacerun: yes;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhps81PiPyToigRmagIz9fFjRQzo-XrFm7_mCDW5KUZ1f3HOUhvMfvQ1G9nKNHNzjsnb1qfwXeLWl9C0QBJy1jMlM2FdLIWK5EpNU9zW7asPHqLS-tuf4BK5yJpaZoAixej3ZUL3EWZ5Wk/s3264/IMG_0855.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhps81PiPyToigRmagIz9fFjRQzo-XrFm7_mCDW5KUZ1f3HOUhvMfvQ1G9nKNHNzjsnb1qfwXeLWl9C0QBJy1jMlM2FdLIWK5EpNU9zW7asPHqLS-tuf4BK5yJpaZoAixej3ZUL3EWZ5Wk/w640-h480/IMG_0855.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitpRYKfIF3Hhfbr7H6QjBjHCaw2mn_1XoC8IXp9FAmDRgp9ulPs8Rh8GDLuG2auBL45hqHJUvioO5NJU-NGD2kNhUMPkztsZ399H-TUTApDTD1k3mScUD4AvTZaE2IO6RUkwAyubF9iq0/s3264/IMG_0853.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitpRYKfIF3Hhfbr7H6QjBjHCaw2mn_1XoC8IXp9FAmDRgp9ulPs8Rh8GDLuG2auBL45hqHJUvioO5NJU-NGD2kNhUMPkztsZ399H-TUTApDTD1k3mScUD4AvTZaE2IO6RUkwAyubF9iq0/w400-h300/IMG_0853.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>This one has the lookout turret for a cleverly-disguised subterranean bunker,
no doubt for sheltering from the consequences of the English caste system.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU7NgKHttKOU6rPe4qRgMdyI75NNosuriIvv_YG61roMsuFb-FT_rtu2lmsOIxg2HItwCDihjTrMFJshUq7g3-EsCSZf5VY-Ej-jpfgMECsPOrYFLHxxjJp9hY1vsuE-Pbzikas5oo5oc/s3264/IMG_0858.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU7NgKHttKOU6rPe4qRgMdyI75NNosuriIvv_YG61roMsuFb-FT_rtu2lmsOIxg2HItwCDihjTrMFJshUq7g3-EsCSZf5VY-Ej-jpfgMECsPOrYFLHxxjJp9hY1vsuE-Pbzikas5oo5oc/w400-h300/IMG_0858.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Here on the west side, what was probably once a working inlet has been
repurposed as a water feature for well-off residences.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg05Ad1SuFsHDPdY8J5PXgdNHOvc5-5mAbKi7SA23MI_c3SK5V3BLKFlOza09bBbJa5QPcn18z6zZteWfHQ4-AiIL2SkA4LsDQu9R_rIVa8CaI8OSG3f_E2dkk39110h9XD6GIozYX8erE/s3264/IMG_0859.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg05Ad1SuFsHDPdY8J5PXgdNHOvc5-5mAbKi7SA23MI_c3SK5V3BLKFlOza09bBbJa5QPcn18z6zZteWfHQ4-AiIL2SkA4LsDQu9R_rIVa8CaI8OSG3f_E2dkk39110h9XD6GIozYX8erE/w300-h400/IMG_0859.JPG" width="300" /></a></div></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A
pleasant wide meadow then opens up, popular with such dog-walkers, picnickers,
small children and fishing parties as are a frequent sight through this
section. Here the pleasure-craft back up as they queue to get through <b>Cleeve
Lock</b>, the only lock and weir we will pass today.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2W7X4-7USSQxWGkwDhDaldzrAxX04Na3NnRdOmK6y4hgEGrxsMz6Ucp4Liodz80Ajov2W8OnR1pj5uur4Lp6e_PQXIhluRHk27l95NCJDGldAkqZmgpV0KwJO8OsvyHQPpeS14_QlgDA/s3264/IMG_0861.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2W7X4-7USSQxWGkwDhDaldzrAxX04Na3NnRdOmK6y4hgEGrxsMz6Ucp4Liodz80Ajov2W8OnR1pj5uur4Lp6e_PQXIhluRHk27l95NCJDGldAkqZmgpV0KwJO8OsvyHQPpeS14_QlgDA/w640-h480/IMG_0861.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgobT8PPUt5wljlXyNNs4jpOzfkYSqKXdvpHOayGd-4utXlVJcPt-5hFNisJbPE5-_3_VXHeam4u_whAgbglEoLPRqsgzEv7iFiT9WCIY4105DUx3_ZIDky2AzU10oeGlVPQLQRrmCTw-o/s3264/IMG_0862.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgobT8PPUt5wljlXyNNs4jpOzfkYSqKXdvpHOayGd-4utXlVJcPt-5hFNisJbPE5-_3_VXHeam4u_whAgbglEoLPRqsgzEv7iFiT9WCIY4105DUx3_ZIDky2AzU10oeGlVPQLQRrmCTw-o/w400-h300/IMG_0862.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Some sizeable hard-worked thistles here.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT5eDQ-3i-BS0oFaXfy-HV66QqXozzehVxc7XTWWhyUzPai6ZsvnmWAliSmjGvz6glyV6B_csCyuKJJ0n6_y1YUXUlKTTQ84YiSO4WMtVULicDGXmkuFV8yDFJVkHBWYyt8Vf3tfa8jZM/s3264/IMG_0865.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT5eDQ-3i-BS0oFaXfy-HV66QqXozzehVxc7XTWWhyUzPai6ZsvnmWAliSmjGvz6glyV6B_csCyuKJJ0n6_y1YUXUlKTTQ84YiSO4WMtVULicDGXmkuFV8yDFJVkHBWYyt8Vf3tfa8jZM/w400-h300/IMG_0865.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Cleeve Lock is one of the smaller ones, built first in 1787 then rebuilt in
1874. Cleeve was a separate village that has since been absorbed into Goring.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_if7Hg1_X2tHYZ1WyJjirSMDmvg7IzFqbwudc20KpqjRtg-BBHGYefX1wi9vndeBzbWtIIY5rvmmiXWdvfFLCqTYAPkimM-_rZ9rDIQOCHJJRrWo4d3KjXWdMst1gc5b1oJxThezz5TQ/s3264/IMG_0864.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_if7Hg1_X2tHYZ1WyJjirSMDmvg7IzFqbwudc20KpqjRtg-BBHGYefX1wi9vndeBzbWtIIY5rvmmiXWdvfFLCqTYAPkimM-_rZ9rDIQOCHJJRrWo4d3KjXWdMst1gc5b1oJxThezz5TQ/w400-h300/IMG_0864.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The old mill with the weir has joined the ranks of Goring’s lavish private mansions.
River travellers like to note that the downriver reach to Goring Lock is the
Thames’s shortest between locks, while the upriver reach to Benson Lock (beyond
Wallingford) is its longest.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Beyond
the lock the property-incursions grow gradually sparser. To the west, views
open up of golden wheat fields trailing off the Berkshire Downs.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJeTECPQDdVw9WNcqJYZaxhzSxIUUCsCYvbvmn5bJzih6FP1BNqOrQhOSgxqHXXyIBK3CtTKMwK3RtFXQj6iFPDupKmFcGgNQHxr-qutQoiKEB2H89k3Yxa-ARjzdFCTCB_qnFe4cn9Ss/s3264/IMG_0868.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJeTECPQDdVw9WNcqJYZaxhzSxIUUCsCYvbvmn5bJzih6FP1BNqOrQhOSgxqHXXyIBK3CtTKMwK3RtFXQj6iFPDupKmFcGgNQHxr-qutQoiKEB2H89k3Yxa-ARjzdFCTCB_qnFe4cn9Ss/w400-h300/IMG_0868.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZwgdlKTBS6cymd6pU3MXlQloaLuqcStLWbPk0gQh5y4TpcbGJ8BXURfn0G-rWVvBMq70ICAcqutseZ6uw_Bi1EkTDAZqNALh_TzYFRHFmSXPxMqDjKBZuuyRyWRpVn7GBFYCGJCNaZbc/s3264/IMG_0869.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZwgdlKTBS6cymd6pU3MXlQloaLuqcStLWbPk0gQh5y4TpcbGJ8BXURfn0G-rWVvBMq70ICAcqutseZ6uw_Bi1EkTDAZqNALh_TzYFRHFmSXPxMqDjKBZuuyRyWRpVn7GBFYCGJCNaZbc/w400-h300/IMG_0869.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The <i>Leatherne Bottel</i> on the east bank is another old establishment that
has since been fancily done up by the leisured classes, in this case into the
Don Giovanni Italian restaurant. It is something of a celebrity-magnet, but the
site’s repute goes back at least three or four hundred years to when its
springs were said to have medicinal properties and drew visitors over great
distances.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivqkNTE6YcJ0TkGCs59h6aWv3koZFNrccgX5kzbgVgGR7zTz3_F2aKwj53B7QnWrMnv9IbAf7RLnq7XojR5r9X9Zllr5s1ds4_WR6Vzeoey5DA7-Vj7WHwzxoOJqhODwdch4ScIn6YKk4/s3264/IMG_0870.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivqkNTE6YcJ0TkGCs59h6aWv3koZFNrccgX5kzbgVgGR7zTz3_F2aKwj53B7QnWrMnv9IbAf7RLnq7XojR5r9X9Zllr5s1ds4_WR6Vzeoey5DA7-Vj7WHwzxoOJqhODwdch4ScIn6YKk4/w640-h480/IMG_0870.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigXZ32Mj8FoXVYMFNYM4c1Gg5s_XMo833cUK-tQ-Toki3pXPQ5sNHaQwlSof0Sod7NLwatCuWSWHOb3yHZf9-hSEKu5N0i0Ve6JLQpo3yCvXU1AfqdYsjUzS9ysd1NCAKe8rdakTllx9U/s3264/IMG_0873.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigXZ32Mj8FoXVYMFNYM4c1Gg5s_XMo833cUK-tQ-Toki3pXPQ5sNHaQwlSof0Sod7NLwatCuWSWHOb3yHZf9-hSEKu5N0i0Ve6JLQpo3yCvXU1AfqdYsjUzS9ysd1NCAKe8rdakTllx9U/w400-h300/IMG_0873.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>A heron keeps a watchful eye on passers-by.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Eventually
the river ducks into a copse of willow trees at Runsford Hole, a pocket of
denser greenery that precedes the approach to the only settlement on this side
between the Goring Gap and Wallingford.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKOAKi05rW6G6iBVrP2fzILMQ5Wm9BFtLkno7d6vCfoouwFDFNYwNvOaqHRa-pEocH7DXqb8beImOoGAeD2MKlUHLsyNViiwQEgz4uK475vch9yqZUhoP_J8p10OLYdFgnBAlEcrnbAR4/s3264/IMG_0877.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKOAKi05rW6G6iBVrP2fzILMQ5Wm9BFtLkno7d6vCfoouwFDFNYwNvOaqHRa-pEocH7DXqb8beImOoGAeD2MKlUHLsyNViiwQEgz4uK475vch9yqZUhoP_J8p10OLYdFgnBAlEcrnbAR4/w400-h300/IMG_0877.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Regrettably there’s lots of this too. In fact the land belongs only to itself,
and you should refrain from the activities listed here out of consideration for
the actual land and others who use it, not imaginary claims to its ownership.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinDdFGik8vDS0K49E__RvjokRMwDv9dSbqQRGz9k7U5yz3wDj3pVJB2UmLd1QxZ7L6qZECPlVZ_QlHsZnYtiF4f73UOEZPDgMB1wv9EVIj_HQ7NuLMAtn_inEPbQsVsicgmWFzluUkHb0/s3264/IMG_0879.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinDdFGik8vDS0K49E__RvjokRMwDv9dSbqQRGz9k7U5yz3wDj3pVJB2UmLd1QxZ7L6qZECPlVZ_QlHsZnYtiF4f73UOEZPDgMB1wv9EVIj_HQ7NuLMAtn_inEPbQsVsicgmWFzluUkHb0/w400-h300/IMG_0879.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Runsford Hole</i> is obscure. Few clues remain as to where the name comes
from, or what feature on this bit of river afforded it a name in the first
place. These willows appear to be coppiced; perhaps they were regularly managed
and harvested in earlier times. Osiers, they call them in that capacity. You
can make lots of stuff out of them.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiakDi99X3_G_TbII1cKNnltfzPgOCJ-O3BWpmC1UaVocwlMB4_UB-mcee3LYjxa7w4mF3GXEQb3AZSXJ7hOnLSTmfWmGkNhu4OyVUi2ZgCKWIi_HEZ65oVV78od_wNTYqoaUlBoV3Hv0Q/s3264/IMG_0880.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiakDi99X3_G_TbII1cKNnltfzPgOCJ-O3BWpmC1UaVocwlMB4_UB-mcee3LYjxa7w4mF3GXEQb3AZSXJ7hOnLSTmfWmGkNhu4OyVUi2ZgCKWIi_HEZ65oVV78od_wNTYqoaUlBoV3Hv0Q/w640-h480/IMG_0880.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Younger willow shoots up thick here, necessitating a little pushing through their
growths.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now
here’s another imaginary line. It is hereabouts that the wayfarer passes, unremarked,
from Berkshire into Oxfordshire. However this has only been the case since the
administrative reforms of 1974. For over a thousand years prior Berkshire
extended some way further up the Thames’s western flank, beyond the Berkshire
Downs and out across the Vale of White Horse.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqKRQVMpSrr7qb8dyLp7SICEv9ZXWB3pfeZGF_vlFPL_Eay6Cetlu8OkLAlRtW6A6N6hy1aCUH28l5KEJWUfRT26eQunJ5HmmBjt3fvKK9MF8xIGh15A37WJtwxIpPXFQqqcKsVVIust4/s3264/IMG_0883.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqKRQVMpSrr7qb8dyLp7SICEv9ZXWB3pfeZGF_vlFPL_Eay6Cetlu8OkLAlRtW6A6N6hy1aCUH28l5KEJWUfRT26eQunJ5HmmBjt3fvKK9MF8xIGh15A37WJtwxIpPXFQqqcKsVVIust4/w640-h480/IMG_0883.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>To the west, the farmed slopes of the Berkshire Downs roll into the Oxford
Plain. The Vale of White Horse runs off between these foothills and the
Thames’s uppermost reaches.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjif1UM-U1PofG4q0YlptotCyirHkHNxqnV1TrdiTQuqBkfMpaNcTWIaDOxGoEWFJ0exosM9cPBegWMYqtjfr1n39Fd_p4xVlqMqeyFI0-I6oczc3DqfLMQzTa39gGDd7wrEP6a9yVPxB0/s3264/IMG_0884.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjif1UM-U1PofG4q0YlptotCyirHkHNxqnV1TrdiTQuqBkfMpaNcTWIaDOxGoEWFJ0exosM9cPBegWMYqtjfr1n39Fd_p4xVlqMqeyFI0-I6oczc3DqfLMQzTa39gGDd7wrEP6a9yVPxB0/w400-h300/IMG_0884.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>It’s quite nice here. You could almost forget what a state this country is in.
Almost. Countries which forcibly deport people for their skin
colour don’t deserve to be allowed to forget it.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivqmZ4nMAVFRskO6wnsmKnh2gHLjkYP-cBpKYXE2wXOf5f_Wv8gpOTIdn8WBHwV38jE87wPxl94w6D3TmpqCPpLxAQHxMo15BCafunnn71YJqKxnNgk3JunCkzEKmjWD6S-71PKw3dw3Q/s3264/IMG_0885.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivqmZ4nMAVFRskO6wnsmKnh2gHLjkYP-cBpKYXE2wXOf5f_Wv8gpOTIdn8WBHwV38jE87wPxl94w6D3TmpqCPpLxAQHxMo15BCafunnn71YJqKxnNgk3JunCkzEKmjWD6S-71PKw3dw3Q/w400-h300/IMG_0885.JPG" width="400" /></a></div> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Moulsford</span></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Suddenly
there materialises a built embankment lined with small boats, followed by the
re-emergence of affluent residences. It is the approach to <b>Moulsford</b>, a
village that briefly breaks up this old Berkshire rurality.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbMVA26y7SESHLzpxljy3zGbDzmXiCTmjIOIjKhK1U_e5_8MiKnya6zeoKAS7RaXSiMdPMNO-bXIZYbX6F7U1ti6hOra50ejqz5IZbHP7DnDk7y8qIwJVnLdh6QmMhRLRdUbbvrbNOEk0/s3264/IMG_0890.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbMVA26y7SESHLzpxljy3zGbDzmXiCTmjIOIjKhK1U_e5_8MiKnya6zeoKAS7RaXSiMdPMNO-bXIZYbX6F7U1ti6hOra50ejqz5IZbHP7DnDk7y8qIwJVnLdh6QmMhRLRdUbbvrbNOEk0/w400-h300/IMG_0890.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrIbTiiE4DiZRAbEsiBsQtJOyC6wEdxjDAgMfM2HfqdMDefaMbIcJqf6e2vrUMxPT1tAQ1J2IhiMaqdTru9vbCuzTDdTnUXM8Egd9DMhjc4CJbB2cek43j5czVYBELuL-uomSIXaA-ZTA/s3264/IMG_0891.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrIbTiiE4DiZRAbEsiBsQtJOyC6wEdxjDAgMfM2HfqdMDefaMbIcJqf6e2vrUMxPT1tAQ1J2IhiMaqdTru9vbCuzTDdTnUXM8Egd9DMhjc4CJbB2cek43j5czVYBELuL-uomSIXaA-ZTA/w400-h300/IMG_0891.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>One of these parts’ more bizarre riverside properties: Moulsford’s ‘Egyptian
House’, completed in 1999 under apparent commission by a professional
Egyptologist.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Moulsford
was traditionally a manor held from Norman times by the ennobled Carew family,
though more recently it has served as a hotel, US Air Force
facility, and a nursing home before falling into private control. To more
immediate aggravation it gave rise to another set of riverside property-grabs, thus
forcing the towpath onto the opposite bank past another manorial remnant, the
hamlet of <b>South Stoke</b>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">With
the demise of the Moulsford Ferry by which the river workers got around this
problem, wayfarers are left with no choice but to detour inland up the A329,
the descendant of the old Roman road.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNzj74Z9NaTel2pjGLz_W3p6IaJW5_RpBU8aSBK29g3CtnsPo4Yg9Ww-DTMzTD1nx4JPRe578g6HZo1g0Z-h0za9z5q1DLjpnJlf5e44660dAUpZKkKkZ0yNGsUf3muUsOd4q-SO2U4AQ/s3264/IMG_0893.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNzj74Z9NaTel2pjGLz_W3p6IaJW5_RpBU8aSBK29g3CtnsPo4Yg9Ww-DTMzTD1nx4JPRe578g6HZo1g0Z-h0za9z5q1DLjpnJlf5e44660dAUpZKkKkZ0yNGsUf3muUsOd4q-SO2U4AQ/w640-h480/IMG_0893.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The Beetle and Wedge Boathouse – now another fancy restaurant – sits on the
former timber wharf which ran the ferry until 1967. Its name records its prior
incarnation as a workers’ trading inn: a <i>beetle</i> in this sense was a
mallet used for driving wedges into logs, which would have been split here then
floated down the river.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5eXRKNJ_jT_L9BUMGr6ZDvE01h0-N5lywULAmUMmFhK3dhC2_4qnV-Fsl9u2_4s9M3MOKiceQPzXHk2e7jb5gk_if8eIG4RQyfWoInv-tDeEnuqMGuzCdZh50Nt1UyL369QLHDFPvaNU/s3264/IMG_0897.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5eXRKNJ_jT_L9BUMGr6ZDvE01h0-N5lywULAmUMmFhK3dhC2_4qnV-Fsl9u2_4s9M3MOKiceQPzXHk2e7jb5gk_if8eIG4RQyfWoInv-tDeEnuqMGuzCdZh50Nt1UyL369QLHDFPvaNU/w400-h300/IMG_0897.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>For all its long history, the road through Moulsford today has little to
recommend it. The village is upper-bourgeois residential with a couple of
prestigious private schools.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeqa-QKk9pkAspyZGMb6jAJvakpxVheI7aEy_jDGQV1Dx7KWhmHCjV4tdZVZZ08oel67BeWiS3H6lyMchpMzpxT9FsY4bt19TS54CWoYgTovR6PwVG2ECdc_rIlbegobW5Hlipn1ac-Vw/s3264/IMG_0901.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeqa-QKk9pkAspyZGMb6jAJvakpxVheI7aEy_jDGQV1Dx7KWhmHCjV4tdZVZZ08oel67BeWiS3H6lyMchpMzpxT9FsY4bt19TS54CWoYgTovR6PwVG2ECdc_rIlbegobW5Hlipn1ac-Vw/w400-h300/IMG_0901.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Moulsford’s little church, with distinct timber bellcote, is an 1840s Gothic
Revival piece that replaced a twelfth-century chapel.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWy0Upmu_Vk7lUSNQc4PFOGyY18zODTN2l-cXrL6sp1EJ-8odGtP37GxBQwMdQgfki38EbXOA_D8ZArEqArYOkghErCe9mfSXhCXTx15zlaxjP_MAT4peefKyhOZIZrEVxxCs0e-0a4N8/s3264/IMG_0903.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWy0Upmu_Vk7lUSNQc4PFOGyY18zODTN2l-cXrL6sp1EJ-8odGtP37GxBQwMdQgfki38EbXOA_D8ZArEqArYOkghErCe9mfSXhCXTx15zlaxjP_MAT4peefKyhOZIZrEVxxCs0e-0a4N8/w400-h300/IMG_0903.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>At the north end of the village the buildings and sports fields of Moulsford
Preparatory School (boys only, because this is a shamefully gendered country) occupy
a large riverside complex. Here they seem to be expanding across the road to
build an additional school facility for smaller children.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Moulsford
has one other major structure, which faces explorers who make it past the
settled area and find the farm track back to the river.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizPZYWVUQxuo4R1mgxSBO2kwK_mJaa-w5ggA0G2vjHU70bVhpHABV_PcbSh1lOS0XowTyv8SvCzoXDIoyzt9K-HE5IxKJMIKDDCBQK4QcDdsTd-N1QN_ftSB9eF-glLjvYqgoJdneMro4/s3264/IMG_0906.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizPZYWVUQxuo4R1mgxSBO2kwK_mJaa-w5ggA0G2vjHU70bVhpHABV_PcbSh1lOS0XowTyv8SvCzoXDIoyzt9K-HE5IxKJMIKDDCBQK4QcDdsTd-N1QN_ftSB9eF-glLjvYqgoJdneMro4/w400-h300/IMG_0906.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwS2XrfknEVaCqqVn1Q52phAoKYgS9p8SbnkbOIrX_PwC13aRytQpPwaPDH0hGhNA3kwpgH4s0OEN3htstlf76SdFwfX-JkQqSorF7pNOdVRHJ2WQ7juNOWGYtphYE1pkVBKQntrpN8-0/s3264/IMG_0912.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwS2XrfknEVaCqqVn1Q52phAoKYgS9p8SbnkbOIrX_PwC13aRytQpPwaPDH0hGhNA3kwpgH4s0OEN3htstlf76SdFwfX-JkQqSorF7pNOdVRHJ2WQ7juNOWGYtphYE1pkVBKQntrpN8-0/w640-h480/IMG_0912.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Looks familiar?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Moulsford
Railway Bridge is a monumental four-arch Isambard Kingdom Brunel piece much
like <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/07/thames-12-gap-in-chalk.html">its nearby
counterpart at Gatehampton</a></u>. Like that one it was constructed at the end of
the 1830s to run the Great Western Railway up to Oxford, and has remained in
decent service since with few structural alterations.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglreMt4sxiGedqYMN55_kJ9BsO5BFmqobrRWLk8ABdZPz5srw3U2J6YgPGGj6QwS3xvGsFUO1HrceXVehoZlfLBcpX4_pBYOrOsg7sRCn_J9ZvN-y3tVG2hMXxa4xG5EdoHu3A_5EkpbY/s3264/IMG_0910.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglreMt4sxiGedqYMN55_kJ9BsO5BFmqobrRWLk8ABdZPz5srw3U2J6YgPGGj6QwS3xvGsFUO1HrceXVehoZlfLBcpX4_pBYOrOsg7sRCn_J9ZvN-y3tVG2hMXxa4xG5EdoHu3A_5EkpbY/w400-h300/IMG_0910.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A boardwalk helpfully enables walkers to proceed through the westernmost arch
without getting wet.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghfeg-6TPdL6TwEONnCuRakHZTu_JvHjonka_2P6seE68ICZmiNNf1b_tfHcg-r091dSKvvDetxB8FymgcS5wKwJwE92RQnM8BiL6kney6KKm-uVlM_JVT8axP6VouePgbYBqIY68RJSQ/s3264/IMG_0911.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghfeg-6TPdL6TwEONnCuRakHZTu_JvHjonka_2P6seE68ICZmiNNf1b_tfHcg-r091dSKvvDetxB8FymgcS5wKwJwE92RQnM8BiL6kney6KKm-uVlM_JVT8axP6VouePgbYBqIY68RJSQ/w300-h400/IMG_0911.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>From this angle you can see it’s actually two bridges. They added the second in
the 1890s to increase capacity, building it as close to Brunel’s design as they
could.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From
here the grass grows taller and the brush thicker with life. A more immersive
nature walk through wooded fields and marshes offers a temporary respite from
the nightmares of humankind.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUDAuNvF6f9dRKbOSz1EyYKTezruoUjO9ubUUP8XA3mRmr39tsiHyChd2ef_CUP5Mgq7gCOiLlTLhk1nUA9GVy50EYuhdvbv9SqtHsgtpo4jg9thKLIwbCJqxwQYuQAPAxKFrHvJktZM4/s3264/IMG_0914.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUDAuNvF6f9dRKbOSz1EyYKTezruoUjO9ubUUP8XA3mRmr39tsiHyChd2ef_CUP5Mgq7gCOiLlTLhk1nUA9GVy50EYuhdvbv9SqtHsgtpo4jg9thKLIwbCJqxwQYuQAPAxKFrHvJktZM4/w640-h480/IMG_0914.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Before, beyond, and through it all, there is the river.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibQR88Csp_39Gl5UDHOi24q7OySIfys7JUlP7eiSrbgJ9XbOQBjN5KAna4MATsQBzKyu4GJkiB_xvPj2k304W3eym_XbqUCGDZoNMrUAsIqMcAqeBOeVX7ntqvHZ4P6doSBB7Eb8u1Dow/s3264/IMG_0915.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibQR88Csp_39Gl5UDHOi24q7OySIfys7JUlP7eiSrbgJ9XbOQBjN5KAna4MATsQBzKyu4GJkiB_xvPj2k304W3eym_XbqUCGDZoNMrUAsIqMcAqeBOeVX7ntqvHZ4P6doSBB7Eb8u1Dow/w400-h300/IMG_0915.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Others have come and just as surely gone. No-one can own it or claim special
entitlement to its services. All are its guests.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5on_pQUXf8G83znJPndM5zCjOrF4-RNneNmtZM3sxe0rEKVYT3JXkTX-SyArSjMEmIzT2_L0SkMH42u5bhsx1ASspsXhLu29Ptq_InEBo_rAsZ-Kobu2RcRkLWrL0Q64Ttj6gRyFxeqI/s3264/IMG_0917.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5on_pQUXf8G83znJPndM5zCjOrF4-RNneNmtZM3sxe0rEKVYT3JXkTX-SyArSjMEmIzT2_L0SkMH42u5bhsx1ASspsXhLu29Ptq_InEBo_rAsZ-Kobu2RcRkLWrL0Q64Ttj6gRyFxeqI/w640-h480/IMG_0917.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>During an ITV interview in 2017, then-Prime Minister Theresa May, when asked to
identify the naughtiest thing she’d ever done, infamously replied that she’d
run through fields of wheat as a child. The blank stares might have subsided by
now but the very image of English wheat fields may be forever tarnished by the
association.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9ca5Z3zEykDNJ29gjKhdLF8t2jD6WIYG2Vs715qZfl0uUsYk1xheeix54ejbS1f2gDmldFSNzeHNZ16X-cgsi-wmU8vj_C59j8jVn_0ohwCU4ofzg8GlTuLA-TDP16B27hCGfyGPD-qc/s3264/IMG_0921.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9ca5Z3zEykDNJ29gjKhdLF8t2jD6WIYG2Vs715qZfl0uUsYk1xheeix54ejbS1f2gDmldFSNzeHNZ16X-cgsi-wmU8vj_C59j8jVn_0ohwCU4ofzg8GlTuLA-TDP16B27hCGfyGPD-qc/w400-h300/IMG_0921.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A Red Admiral butterfly. Crickets thrum through the meadows here, and a
professional birdwatcher was encountered with camera fixed resolutely into the
trees. This unbuilt stretch has got to be one of the most biodiverse on the
middle Thames.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even
here however, this people’s dodgy history necessarily intrudes on the scene.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6eGMuPnEh-WWbNggtUmewtjztyCP8f0151N6IvlKjZweVaAZZaW_EamnPJdtyi8y6wsr7gTfSWV7AjcA2hk0A7OVfOGBABTauOW04lzYoIgLs-YGf55SPiWh8QJm7Ux8fIMVsnMNpQ94/s3264/IMG_0916.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6eGMuPnEh-WWbNggtUmewtjztyCP8f0151N6IvlKjZweVaAZZaW_EamnPJdtyi8y6wsr7gTfSWV7AjcA2hk0A7OVfOGBABTauOW04lzYoIgLs-YGf55SPiWh8QJm7Ux8fIMVsnMNpQ94/w400-h300/IMG_0916.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Sightings of these World War II pillboxes grow more frequent as we follow the
river into Oxfordshire. One is led to suspect they were systematically
installed under a single operation.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbsTk94f8ny__MaXvGxVYhCMKg2IAi95b3_0FvrpbrvRCE3n6YzBtuwCjaGmwrvhqL3p9gEHeFH9UYN6wnPsSihW2LwXo3VChYsRdcdX3JyUDL5RNEMASod9g5PUDy2aBtPWAKW6e4D1M/s3264/IMG_0923.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbsTk94f8ny__MaXvGxVYhCMKg2IAi95b3_0FvrpbrvRCE3n6YzBtuwCjaGmwrvhqL3p9gEHeFH9UYN6wnPsSihW2LwXo3VChYsRdcdX3JyUDL5RNEMASod9g5PUDy2aBtPWAKW6e4D1M/w400-h300/IMG_0923.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Goodness knows what this one is. It’s thoroughly overgrown and plastered with
warning signs. Gateway to another world perhaps (if only).</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By
the time the towpath returns to this bank we are in Cholsey Marsh, a protected
nature reserve. A rare riverside marsh that hasn’t been drained for
agriculture, it provides a haven for birds like kingfishers as well as some
very uncommon lily and snail species. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Historically
the marsh extended further. On its inland side (up a road called Ferry Lane,
where presumably an old ferry provided crossings between towpath segments) the
village of <b>Cholsey</b> grew up in the Anglo-Saxon centuries on what was then
an island in the marshes called <i>Ceol’s Eye</i>. It later passed to <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html">Reading
Abbey</a></u>, whose monks built a barn there in the fourteenth century to hold the
taxes that farmers paid them in produce (<i>tithes</i>). Apparently one of the
most massive barns ever built in the world, it was torn down in 1815 when later
occupants lacked money to pay for its repair.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpjKeTQvwDJwFGUAHItnRWxm1y3nR-96RWCZhM9PjMZ6A7eAHEF4NDOPmonkIxDk4C08wtMh36DShQJmuVtzhAZeW9TP6el0wn-0N2cWkg4fhf0iions0W62zdE3wLlRuVIFb642AQTJc/s3264/IMG_0926.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpjKeTQvwDJwFGUAHItnRWxm1y3nR-96RWCZhM9PjMZ6A7eAHEF4NDOPmonkIxDk4C08wtMh36DShQJmuVtzhAZeW9TP6el0wn-0N2cWkg4fhf0iions0W62zdE3wLlRuVIFb642AQTJc/w640-h480/IMG_0926.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Cholsey Marsh.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ72n7ADXyJ1-XIWhuG2WgbETon6vxMpk6Znu4wCvhEYKvGM1dLhK1S8oWcuI5PEEolXFfj_UfyHKyKxv94eHn5GtueiFamlGPjNZPmdYN0VkhFbRchyphenhyphenUxtFKrsiRqq2jhlsvJ3vLQRyc/s3264/IMG_0927.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ72n7ADXyJ1-XIWhuG2WgbETon6vxMpk6Znu4wCvhEYKvGM1dLhK1S8oWcuI5PEEolXFfj_UfyHKyKxv94eHn5GtueiFamlGPjNZPmdYN0VkhFbRchyphenhyphenUxtFKrsiRqq2jhlsvJ3vLQRyc/w400-h300/IMG_0927.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Beyond the trees on the far bank is the tiny village of North Stoke.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibcOluBP3H7Oi10oRlLbOCezF4qWf6BZYoJJPYRbaPG1JF4S06I_X3ReiYVcYNIzyZalYWm3HOLFN65ZnuNZX8P1AVu0inraT9K7nBlGU6QB2nufMlooeyLVZ8QENUJ85N-RsYMBSXCmU/s3264/IMG_0928.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibcOluBP3H7Oi10oRlLbOCezF4qWf6BZYoJJPYRbaPG1JF4S06I_X3ReiYVcYNIzyZalYWm3HOLFN65ZnuNZX8P1AVu0inraT9K7nBlGU6QB2nufMlooeyLVZ8QENUJ85N-RsYMBSXCmU/w400-h300/IMG_0928.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Local hunter-gatherers toil for their dinner.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxaEmczrlFQJxxPc20ziCAUWBWHvuFdAXwk99ggWXGJJadZU-1YOkX-25kBTvnHKrZNJrwYpQVa9hmW9MX2U09nl4oGVERE_FWpl3x3kMcnJ8YMCEEKv4TidSgdqqaymLsQRKzLcUy9X0/s3264/IMG_0931.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxaEmczrlFQJxxPc20ziCAUWBWHvuFdAXwk99ggWXGJJadZU-1YOkX-25kBTvnHKrZNJrwYpQVa9hmW9MX2U09nl4oGVERE_FWpl3x3kMcnJ8YMCEEKv4TidSgdqqaymLsQRKzLcUy9X0/w400-h300/IMG_0931.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>One of the most affirming experiences of exploring on foot has to be encounters
with professional dog-walkers at just the moment the dogs are splashing in the
river. Timed correctly, they will all bark and run at you and take turns to
jump, pressing their wet paws on you and sniffing and nuzzling till you stroke
them.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s
pleasant out here. Make the most of it while you’re there, for you’ll still get
your daily gaslighting by the Tories when you turn on the news in the evening.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdVxvia2AtMfeN6XAnQ8aIqBlceijLySAUO4ej4QnLmG3okNKBmnIv5jKkh1Em28ulN8Kbhp-ayvPqeguGApp31ChQnBa0T-IYURPKqOhhi46FlcCj_iphtcLYDam65xjskrNs7n7fZHw/s3264/IMG_0934.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdVxvia2AtMfeN6XAnQ8aIqBlceijLySAUO4ej4QnLmG3okNKBmnIv5jKkh1Em28ulN8Kbhp-ayvPqeguGApp31ChQnBa0T-IYURPKqOhhi46FlcCj_iphtcLYDam65xjskrNs7n7fZHw/w400-h300/IMG_0934.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This is one of a pair. They’ve set it back to cover the field...</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUhTUcDU6cAMjx14G-vCEJ_UfPxuu0Z34n9ckdDWUhvDrI70P_9_3nx5HAaOc9gV8_WzAiuAl_YktfXaflYBrxqvfKQIjqK5pTcLLpymUWfy4HKs4mybvv_RsbZM_9KLpZEMuXsxG79qs/s3264/IMG_0935.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUhTUcDU6cAMjx14G-vCEJ_UfPxuu0Z34n9ckdDWUhvDrI70P_9_3nx5HAaOc9gV8_WzAiuAl_YktfXaflYBrxqvfKQIjqK5pTcLLpymUWfy4HKs4mybvv_RsbZM_9KLpZEMuXsxG79qs/w640-h480/IMG_0935.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>...while on the opposite bank its partner perches over the water. In the event
their defensive contributions were precisely nil. These days they no doubt make
the country <i>more</i> vulnerable by keeping nationalist narratives of World
War II salient in the minds of passers-by. Do they feel exceptional, when these
enter their line of sight? As their minds fill with images of treacherous
Europeans lurking hungrily round the edges of the picture, do they cast their
support for those in their politics who feed on their xenophobic paranoia? As
the Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole has observed, the English have never truly
recovered from winning that war.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvNDT79hdybWmQ8kvmWC3t3H7K6SsaY39DsKqmtKTYX5jV4IIal7-fNgNpcnxVGe9yhe3UCaQjqba_BZBi8J7LVhBkrG6sFMWbFvmEHP1Z4lwAt60ngv-skD9mE3DqNt5KS3Z6BGc_1BY/s3264/IMG_0936.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvNDT79hdybWmQ8kvmWC3t3H7K6SsaY39DsKqmtKTYX5jV4IIal7-fNgNpcnxVGe9yhe3UCaQjqba_BZBi8J7LVhBkrG6sFMWbFvmEHP1Z4lwAt60ngv-skD9mE3DqNt5KS3Z6BGc_1BY/w400-h300/IMG_0936.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFaeqlkpSQjRCP2GeSw4m2un9rWLnxN5iFvsNm63HlKy3uS-9a3Z3YqOjF7PbKMsYDKuq-pm4u4a-ibu6PSQW1t-nG4iKrwGPf_dYVVeaN4UG84li2wCf5AGWfB5nrac6Ftl5a_y9rM6E/s3264/IMG_0938.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFaeqlkpSQjRCP2GeSw4m2un9rWLnxN5iFvsNm63HlKy3uS-9a3Z3YqOjF7PbKMsYDKuq-pm4u4a-ibu6PSQW1t-nG4iKrwGPf_dYVVeaN4UG84li2wCf5AGWfB5nrac6Ftl5a_y9rM6E/w640-h480/IMG_0938.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>There. A field. No nationalists in it. It’s happy for you to stand in it no
matter where you’re from or how much money you have. Let’s build bunkers to
fortify it against the Home Office.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6hXklME5BfFuAhy8247IvKng9jTaZKiEhEEkJjKjKxs0QpyF-zHWF9RJsttWFLl1kzW4srFDTZ-s7ohHJR76sUcXPrDjddxFbGhjj-Qd-mkNEMNO-vCRw59dlxI7shOj8eQDNM3Hsoc/s3264/IMG_0939.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6hXklME5BfFuAhy8247IvKng9jTaZKiEhEEkJjKjKxs0QpyF-zHWF9RJsttWFLl1kzW4srFDTZ-s7ohHJR76sUcXPrDjddxFbGhjj-Qd-mkNEMNO-vCRw59dlxI7shOj8eQDNM3Hsoc/w400-h300/IMG_0939.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcVga08CxcJ_hLW39sV_GtQDd6gaZYFFc3G_0xEDvUXWPhHWpN81aT95BtpWpwuMrSAuNX0-vrMIYWd_of6etUPcmyYowQ3-8Dic00HRzBbPEhwH2aoEcxNjI6g8l77kDrbU97J7TiM8M/s3264/IMG_0942.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcVga08CxcJ_hLW39sV_GtQDd6gaZYFFc3G_0xEDvUXWPhHWpN81aT95BtpWpwuMrSAuNX0-vrMIYWd_of6etUPcmyYowQ3-8Dic00HRzBbPEhwH2aoEcxNjI6g8l77kDrbU97J7TiM8M/w400-h300/IMG_0942.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>It’s not actually hiding. It’s trying to make you <i>think</i> it needs to hide,
in order to imply that all foreigners are nefarious.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Slowly
but surely, the bush falls away as people’s gardens creep up to the riverside.
Wallingford is close.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY4xmo29GAgGKQT1cB4nEQOr6QoWs_BiXo-8fu5VgsrnMkiNnQZY1GyPZFCEyOohl7JK6tIbezNPAcKFmUEJylwQ-uCUkYBs69pKa0_GJZnnwS7Rk8TxxyfoMjt4kpMyCSwDis4M0JUW8/s3264/IMG_0945.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY4xmo29GAgGKQT1cB4nEQOr6QoWs_BiXo-8fu5VgsrnMkiNnQZY1GyPZFCEyOohl7JK6tIbezNPAcKFmUEJylwQ-uCUkYBs69pKa0_GJZnnwS7Rk8TxxyfoMjt4kpMyCSwDis4M0JUW8/w400-h300/IMG_0945.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This is unusual. Unlike most riverside residences we’ve witnessed, this string
appears happy to have the towpath run across their lawns. With their regular
benches and berths, they create the sense of a rare liminal zone that’s within
the private fences but also comfortable for the public to exist in them.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX5OLYCRUcvHEJcnClWqhm6hkwT78pJ4lU0Vgv3jh94TjIu2rKUpc2ImxNQt1X2Sqv0ARioEs1eCOK1RgbdjwGuVS8FmTscn1S5eIoNAQWjoxgytzD9g-5TiDBqi0wfOG6PBfw6ikHlZI/s3264/IMG_0947.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX5OLYCRUcvHEJcnClWqhm6hkwT78pJ4lU0Vgv3jh94TjIu2rKUpc2ImxNQt1X2Sqv0ARioEs1eCOK1RgbdjwGuVS8FmTscn1S5eIoNAQWjoxgytzD9g-5TiDBqi0wfOG6PBfw6ikHlZI/w400-h300/IMG_0947.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Shield? Gong? Cooking pot? Ritual summoning instrument?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmDA6ycP5uLYsTiz6TJod7vmnIxcabiPH-7An-4sx0M0XLe1Mur4tJGu20aImKIkURwPKAV3LcvAPDoX_dpWEtZ89ANdyCJ_QD81Zx-SH-HnqwM3rtfUzW2oOVMsIY0pwS5kv4npUs8l4/s3264/IMG_0949.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmDA6ycP5uLYsTiz6TJod7vmnIxcabiPH-7An-4sx0M0XLe1Mur4tJGu20aImKIkURwPKAV3LcvAPDoX_dpWEtZ89ANdyCJ_QD81Zx-SH-HnqwM3rtfUzW2oOVMsIY0pwS5kv4npUs8l4/w400-h300/IMG_0949.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuf0mIzpP7_flT2-u-SABs4iDeLaGx3GoMmr0sAjbgoAoJ_e45yiAZWbdiW3TZGUr4Q-KBC5GKTSBEXzkfZ9lmZg9RwkqTF059-gF8xzSBn3ME7E0DdN3MK4L_0Bkia0w1gesPmz1JrlE/s3264/IMG_0950.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuf0mIzpP7_flT2-u-SABs4iDeLaGx3GoMmr0sAjbgoAoJ_e45yiAZWbdiW3TZGUr4Q-KBC5GKTSBEXzkfZ9lmZg9RwkqTF059-gF8xzSBn3ME7E0DdN3MK4L_0Bkia0w1gesPmz1JrlE/w640-h480/IMG_0950.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>When the river doesn’t like it, it takes it back.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One
last peculiar little village peeps across from the east bank here. I haven’t a
clue how you’re supposed to pronounce <b>Mongewell</b>, but apparently it’s an
Anglo-Saxon reference to the spring of someone called Munda. Its historic
significance goes back way further, given its extensive Iron Age earthworks
whose embankments and cuttings run east into the Chilterns. Perhaps they were
defensive; more likely they eased access into the hills for routes like the
Ridgeway.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">More
recently Mongewell manor house and its park were used by the RAF during World
War II. It then became a Jewish boarding school called Carmel College, known
for its eccentric Modernist architecture and – as seems so typical in this
institutionally abusive country – an appalling sexual abuse scandal that didn’t
properly emerge till two decades after the school’s closure in 1997.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0-6WB9QsraZblog0ukRjjLbjuQjNLyN0Fy6VIbMZMDPFovNz7SmIEIErRdM4e_4RFvhe24hDaL49ksid9_a9iHJPuZ-wZLuttqZv9ZY6i8C6tnGf0hrMy6Ch8TSQapxg8Z4yVo71gwJs/s3264/IMG_0951.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0-6WB9QsraZblog0ukRjjLbjuQjNLyN0Fy6VIbMZMDPFovNz7SmIEIErRdM4e_4RFvhe24hDaL49ksid9_a9iHJPuZ-wZLuttqZv9ZY6i8C6tnGf0hrMy6Ch8TSQapxg8Z4yVo71gwJs/w640-h480/IMG_0951.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Mongewell Park’s boathouse. The buildings stand derelict, and are occasionally
used by film crews as they wait for developers to turn them into unaffordable
housing.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0VOM7CnZbKucKo0fD_4NjtD_o07vn5MLAdr1dguqyk29pA_5gRFtSwoa5aolHQ7lnW0FHghzvJAnEApAMHIv_nV45Y7lVRi3eaP_JnkAtPfAEHrTLK1oUnNIPZ9n3by4xUPL-Q2Vi8p8/s3264/IMG_0953.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0VOM7CnZbKucKo0fD_4NjtD_o07vn5MLAdr1dguqyk29pA_5gRFtSwoa5aolHQ7lnW0FHghzvJAnEApAMHIv_nV45Y7lVRi3eaP_JnkAtPfAEHrTLK1oUnNIPZ9n3by4xUPL-Q2Vi8p8/w400-h300/IMG_0953.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This high up its course the water appears to glide so gentle, but as ever in
its history there can be no underestimating its power. This is a fresh memorial
to a local called Dean Luckett, who appears to have died in early July this
year after getting into difficulties in the river during a fishing trip.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFvCBHO6ovKVtTswb5uGSt4o4xWr8fifO1-73OX-E76YVRxfJIFUs6PO1PdZ2YDpZnQQO6_zlSEOvPbQ7TtRdGKbw6bzkLzKEZMnZFwukQTRo4QgEinsRNITkxA4M46hLdunJtZIlIoew/s3264/IMG_0956.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFvCBHO6ovKVtTswb5uGSt4o4xWr8fifO1-73OX-E76YVRxfJIFUs6PO1PdZ2YDpZnQQO6_zlSEOvPbQ7TtRdGKbw6bzkLzKEZMnZFwukQTRo4QgEinsRNITkxA4M46hLdunJtZIlIoew/w400-h300/IMG_0956.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The A4130 bypass carries road traffic around Wallingford. The bridge’s
construction in 1993 came with investigations into ancient archaeological sites
on both banks, which it was positioned so as not to disturb.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdkH5WjrakvwX09nBlmQp9QdHG9tz8K6utgXukznekuotxPMkz5XRFvSEsOqgSogkcvdiR1wcYkbMa8wMlJgTjXqrOWgo2NyVBgr-t9LDV_kNxZXIqp0w6_ejalq_ariH1mSJVZqLxmfQ/s3264/IMG_0957.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdkH5WjrakvwX09nBlmQp9QdHG9tz8K6utgXukznekuotxPMkz5XRFvSEsOqgSogkcvdiR1wcYkbMa8wMlJgTjXqrOWgo2NyVBgr-t9LDV_kNxZXIqp0w6_ejalq_ariH1mSJVZqLxmfQ/w400-h300/IMG_0957.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>No, you definitely do not want to tie or latch up any cows you might find in this
field. Cows cannot be expected to take kindly to such an exercise. Also, there weren't cows.<br /></span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV8KRE2k4Xe-0rZD6Va4_ttJxuAN5kVoQ2TJsYv8Vt6DKbjtbO4D16wI1BXVf7y62kBRVZuEprPQvPsBwb0LTOlE7_ekkRErCBRqM328K0wZuimcWoO1MY0rL0og9luw3QYXpFZyKd59E/s3264/IMG_0959.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV8KRE2k4Xe-0rZD6Va4_ttJxuAN5kVoQ2TJsYv8Vt6DKbjtbO4D16wI1BXVf7y62kBRVZuEprPQvPsBwb0LTOlE7_ekkRErCBRqM328K0wZuimcWoO1MY0rL0og9luw3QYXpFZyKd59E/w400-h300/IMG_0959.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The combination of river water and toxic politics has here given rise to a
hairy alien life-form.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
now the fences and buildings hem in the towpath, dragging it at length into the
goal of this section.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6lwLyB3eILzm191cH10P2X4PZvibYavFCrfBvJ9cpcYeX6ejwXQHI1s1scW_j-4Cke27pDyBocg7riFyKeHEuytRAk_lbYghIvZ8jRzAp1b8n8bW4q63R128YaVN8BQLivH3cgMeUIqI/s3264/IMG_0962.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6lwLyB3eILzm191cH10P2X4PZvibYavFCrfBvJ9cpcYeX6ejwXQHI1s1scW_j-4Cke27pDyBocg7riFyKeHEuytRAk_lbYghIvZ8jRzAp1b8n8bW4q63R128YaVN8BQLivH3cgMeUIqI/w400-h300/IMG_0962.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This house is the remnant of Wallingford Lock (a.k.a. Chalmore Lock), which
only existed from 1838 to 1883. Used only in summer to raise the upstream water
level, it fell into disrepair as the rise of the railways took money off the
river, and was finally removed in the face of local opposition.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZwtxD2HQ6IuIneBUKFClmSimYasrwdT3Sd2aBmMe5eW-AcRS69AcRmhk50-_b2M4-fYzt3dvRGpPskdMUJ1oOJ7Xkk1vh59esSppTKzfixgReBmjl3ImK3LHods3pyvSfOQx3LlsEv78/s3264/IMG_0964.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZwtxD2HQ6IuIneBUKFClmSimYasrwdT3Sd2aBmMe5eW-AcRS69AcRmhk50-_b2M4-fYzt3dvRGpPskdMUJ1oOJ7Xkk1vh59esSppTKzfixgReBmjl3ImK3LHods3pyvSfOQx3LlsEv78/w640-h480/IMG_0964.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>And here we have one of the firmest signs yet that we have entered Oxford
University’s sphere of influence. This is no less than the headquarters of the
Oxford University Boat Club, resurrected here after its original base, in
Oxford itself, burnt down in 1999. Its rowers train rigorously here for <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">the annual
Boat Race in west London</a></u>.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2j7TVyBdiIJyMVchiy4hreYkY9vNHe8-uROtJEMtMmu0KMZwUI9ba0x_r7W-7GlGGI28vmm7uhOcUD5sfsl2J81jLtxCKQECf5Duyg6ELLR4uGSwtx08gMLan3-5bGz31MfJLfkq-CoM/s3264/IMG_0966.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2j7TVyBdiIJyMVchiy4hreYkY9vNHe8-uROtJEMtMmu0KMZwUI9ba0x_r7W-7GlGGI28vmm7uhOcUD5sfsl2J81jLtxCKQECf5Duyg6ELLR4uGSwtx08gMLan3-5bGz31MfJLfkq-CoM/w400-h300/IMG_0966.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQCaMZbqTqrmpJ0pzwPB3ZgJLvJjmHzcF8xHWLEu8Nd00EVzxULZPBa64nbyGAv5Q8i2FtkvPp9ednPqNhBRYvuTsEH3MeHR9mioCRKao_7pr-u1Pj_KMPxFIJcWl6GQYtUbt4o2l5hO0/s3264/IMG_0973.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQCaMZbqTqrmpJ0pzwPB3ZgJLvJjmHzcF8xHWLEu8Nd00EVzxULZPBa64nbyGAv5Q8i2FtkvPp9ednPqNhBRYvuTsEH3MeHR9mioCRKao_7pr-u1Pj_KMPxFIJcWl6GQYtUbt4o2l5hO0/w400-h300/IMG_0973.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>And as a couple of hotels and Wallingford’s own boat club (formerly a
malt-house) enclose the riverside, we are funnelled towards Thames Street and
into Wallingford proper.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 106%;">Wallingford</span></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At
first sight, <b>Wallingford</b> is just another well-placed river crossing whose
fertile fields and strategic routes have drawn settlers since at least the Bronze
and Iron Ages. As is its way, the river has taken good care of their tools,
ritual offerings and human remains, occasionally yielding samples to the
inhabitants of today.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8K6UfDsnWx3ZgP4l7NB8wcvDZXlXOk8R_7LzUSpHOxFVDKdrgb1y0Ih5DOcaKwa6yCFTqb9IvOJDqn6MRo7A-TrSLjTVZzP7W87JJR-_SOt-a5IyExti_MWy_pi3g95g3MDoIkHMMzHU/s3264/IMG_0973.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8K6UfDsnWx3ZgP4l7NB8wcvDZXlXOk8R_7LzUSpHOxFVDKdrgb1y0Ih5DOcaKwa6yCFTqb9IvOJDqn6MRo7A-TrSLjTVZzP7W87JJR-_SOt-a5IyExti_MWy_pi3g95g3MDoIkHMMzHU/w640-h480/IMG_0973.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The way into Wallingford lies down ye-olde village streets like these, hemmed
in by quaint houses which no doubt harbour the kinds of murderous interests
Agatha Christie wrote about.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyQ6_eJ4lhqeo2cXqOSZX1Hy39TwYEvDXrkQMwBybWJXBE1auigkfsig1V1432_-quy6FvK3h7_bxugegy8MCq9pAnldagliqEriQ8kuThTy__AoaGaQnCONC-4He1Z9_JY7zqp2Bb_wg/s3264/IMG_0970.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyQ6_eJ4lhqeo2cXqOSZX1Hy39TwYEvDXrkQMwBybWJXBE1auigkfsig1V1432_-quy6FvK3h7_bxugegy8MCq9pAnldagliqEriQ8kuThTy__AoaGaQnCONC-4He1Z9_JY7zqp2Bb_wg/w400-h300/IMG_0970.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Wallingford has no fewer than three parish churches, plus several for more niche
denominations. St. Leonard’s, here in the southeast corner near the river, is its
oldest. Its Anglo-Saxon herringbone stonework is visible here, although much of
the building had to be restored after heavy damage in the Civil War.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrLA7u-BBQLDKv1lLAC3FaerEL_RsGLHVtqHWkB04vaYU505iWeG3fDckMxylUO-i4QRg6mtMKSUSpXttlfAfg4nJfbeooCD1ultFVu3guXgs9mfOn3B3kzmoYBBLLtxbK0ItGsBOWQxc/s3264/IMG_0978.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrLA7u-BBQLDKv1lLAC3FaerEL_RsGLHVtqHWkB04vaYU505iWeG3fDckMxylUO-i4QRg6mtMKSUSpXttlfAfg4nJfbeooCD1ultFVu3guXgs9mfOn3B3kzmoYBBLLtxbK0ItGsBOWQxc/w300-h400/IMG_0978.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Closer to the bridge is the medieval church of St. Peter’s, likewise blown up
in the Civil War then rebuilt. In another sign that Wallingford is special,
this church’s doors are actually open so you can go in and poke around. Here in
its floor is the tomb of William Blackstone (1723-80), probably England’s most influential
judge, whose <i>Commentaries on the Laws of England</i> were foundational to
both English and American law (including of course in the racist, sexist and property-fetishising
ways for which both systems are traditionally known).</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Wallingford’s
name appears to derive from <i>Welsh people’s ford</i> in Anglo-Saxon Old
English. It is of note that by following the road west from here you do
eventually end up in Wales, but in those centuries ‘Welsh’ was a generic term
among the Anglo-Saxon immigrants for the Celtic/Sub-Roman people who already
lived here (and from whom the modern Welsh, who call themselves not Welsh but <i>Cymry</i>,
‘our fellows’, descend). The suggestion is that they had a significant presence
in this settlement, and that as in much of England, the process by which the
Anglo-Saxons superseded them was lengthy, complex, varied, and still
incompletely understood.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKoj2HTsZRXHJbV5wwqRNC2MLsPdQbBoJzeiMKQ_DE5djKFE2IO88lq5-putW2JuCUFqZR-l5kuw5DIw_zAm4qZAnv5Jk9s3K3IppW4zeSv2KqXxSl_GUxRhaUbDhC7NHJYooIwdvcYJI/s3264/IMG_0979.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKoj2HTsZRXHJbV5wwqRNC2MLsPdQbBoJzeiMKQ_DE5djKFE2IO88lq5-putW2JuCUFqZR-l5kuw5DIw_zAm4qZAnv5Jk9s3K3IppW4zeSv2KqXxSl_GUxRhaUbDhC7NHJYooIwdvcYJI/w640-h480/IMG_0979.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Though a fording spot for as long as it’s existed (it’s in the name), a bridge
is attested at Wallingford since at least 1141. It’s gone through several
incarnations, the present dating to the 1810s when it was rebuilt following
flood damage. Tolls were charged to cross until the 1930s.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Take
this Welsh road west and two towns down you come to Wantage, birthplace of <b>Alfred</b>
‘the Great’: king of Wessex, then of the unified Anglo-Saxon peoples. Alfred is
known among other things for the decisive defeats he dealt to the invading
Vikings in the 870s, with whom he agreed the partition of not-yet-England and spent much of
his reign seeing to the Saxon part’s long-term defence. At the heart of his
strategy was the construction of a network of garrisoned forts, known as <b><i>burhs</i>
</b>(whence today’s <i>boroughs</i>). These served to protect against further
invasions while anchoring the commercial and administrative life of their
regions. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Some
burhs, such as Alfred’s capital at Winchester, were adapted from existing
(often Roman or older) fortified settlements. Others were new, and of these
Wallingford’s position was deemed of sufficient importance to warrant one of
the largest such investments. This was the policy which raised a small ford
town into one of the two largest <i>burhs</i> in the country (along with
Winchester), accumulating within its ramparts a busy population, a rich trading
and crafting economy and even its own royal mint, as well as a network of
connected manors in the surrounding farmland. By the turn of the millennium
Wallingford had become in effect the provincial capital of Berkshire.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3l8fNVUwkrdVqLXCgIiDamJpSlQAGBGlDJs-gLpR2cX3LILwBrbaO0uNOUEZQhQhdXGOru_RoyXWm0Gs7_gVPXUsN5uynat0gLuIs7nH15gmyoUMuFzV5Fttsbo2IlLvmwIgrDOI_22A/s3264/IMG_1048.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3l8fNVUwkrdVqLXCgIiDamJpSlQAGBGlDJs-gLpR2cX3LILwBrbaO0uNOUEZQhQhdXGOru_RoyXWm0Gs7_gVPXUsN5uynat0gLuIs7nH15gmyoUMuFzV5Fttsbo2IlLvmwIgrDOI_22A/w640-h480/IMG_1048.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Of all Alfred’s <i>burhs</i> it’s also one of the best-preserved. This is the <i>Kinecroft</i>
in the town’s southwest corner, which together with the <i>Bullcroft</i> to its
north were set aside for grazing cattle. The view is from its rampart – the original
Saxon defensive earthwork, which lines its west and south edges in remarkably
good condition. The Kinecroft is now a public park and is used by the town for big
community fairs and festivals.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdyEoVUnsdw9UtJQW4OQXgX3BxCj-M9L8Icv1U0rGeI4WNqYNEVgr7saUOv1S53eU29INjoFthwZ0wU9kl8s5hL7AGfRD-Wfqw2mlRaj4bwAh7aZQhBjoHTVcukabnn18FKBhLrcGMzIE/s3264/IMG_1049.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdyEoVUnsdw9UtJQW4OQXgX3BxCj-M9L8Icv1U0rGeI4WNqYNEVgr7saUOv1S53eU29INjoFthwZ0wU9kl8s5hL7AGfRD-Wfqw2mlRaj4bwAh7aZQhBjoHTVcukabnn18FKBhLrcGMzIE/w400-h300/IMG_1049.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Such a deep and lasting heritage breeds fearsome fungi.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi92exitES9L2K4Ij6sE8YoVbRjzJhEsdd0XlO75wnbii2ctNc0asrV2APosrIQYnDFH_y4Jke6Xsw1dRRZ0cKrP65DAcLURWbWZTZun7DR3wPuPcNl2KlDs7PeDdquaiVcMG_rLmeyBws/s3264/IMG_0980.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi92exitES9L2K4Ij6sE8YoVbRjzJhEsdd0XlO75wnbii2ctNc0asrV2APosrIQYnDFH_y4Jke6Xsw1dRRZ0cKrP65DAcLURWbWZTZun7DR3wPuPcNl2KlDs7PeDdquaiVcMG_rLmeyBws/w300-h400/IMG_0980.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Wallingford High Street. This appears to be mostly residences, with the
town’s main shops and civic facilities clustered round its market square instead.
The town’s planned street-grid system and rectangular ramparts, both still very
apparent, for a time confused the later English into believing this was a Roman
settlement.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">All
of a sudden Wallingford was a massive deal. So vital it became for controlling
England that when the Normans took over in 1066, it was one of the very first
places Duke William made for after his victory in the Battle of Hastings. Struggling
to get into London, he instead brought his army up here. Wallingford’s <i>thegn</i>
(Anglo-Saxon lord), Wigod, was sympathetic to the Normans and allowed them to
cross the Thames unopposed. It was here they obtained the submission of Stigand, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, thereby conferring legitimacy that defused much continuing
Saxon opposition to William’s claims to kingship. Meanwhile one of William’s
minions married Wigod’s daughter, thereby beginning the planting of the Norman political
nobility in the region’s manors. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">William
had his own, more extreme version of Alfred’s <i>burh</i> strategy: the
construction of colossal Norman castles both to facilitate military control and
to awe the populace into submission. Straight away three of his most formidable
went on the Thames to protect the heartland of his new realm, of which two, the
Tower of London and Windsor Castle, we have passed already.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
the third? Well, here already was a successful Saxon fortified town, ideally
positioned so as to guard the chalk pass and the ancient east-west routes. Where
better?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFp6m5Qjr4tEFOavfcHIW4zoTDDidLdGOM2k_dbCGcGQNxdzqlDGKRMvRE-FF1B_QLpU7wkI2371z-o-5PIQ5AExmFEJ6VEb97IHIFBQYDE81qoIfHPGAGzsiSVOSn_UQayUSwMLPwg-o/s3264/IMG_0981.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFp6m5Qjr4tEFOavfcHIW4zoTDDidLdGOM2k_dbCGcGQNxdzqlDGKRMvRE-FF1B_QLpU7wkI2371z-o-5PIQ5AExmFEJ6VEb97IHIFBQYDE81qoIfHPGAGzsiSVOSn_UQayUSwMLPwg-o/w640-h480/IMG_0981.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Wallingford Castle meadows, north behind the high street. Another of Wallingford’s
public green spaces. Nice rampart, no?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Mkocgk86JDG7Ctc1OH0jTGBTSV9bmUC_tIN5m8IFJytuO0RVwZu8fwtuRmyzrzolg3q2nVD3dgf9zWoKt3hYOkgwiRgbPsgx-D8802EP-K3lnQfHjL_LBgmhXQQhfc1wzdjBhrIjctk/s3264/IMG_0984.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Mkocgk86JDG7Ctc1OH0jTGBTSV9bmUC_tIN5m8IFJytuO0RVwZu8fwtuRmyzrzolg3q2nVD3dgf9zWoKt3hYOkgwiRgbPsgx-D8802EP-K3lnQfHjL_LBgmhXQQhfc1wzdjBhrIjctk/w640-h480/IMG_0984.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>And there we are.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Wallingford
Castle</b> shot up within five years of the Norman takeover. Like its
counterparts it was a motte-and-bailey monstrosity, with two rings of walls and
towers overlooking the river and ford. And beyond its obvious defensive
statement it was built with a full range of facilities to support active royal
and administrative work: a Great Hall, living chambers, courthouses, chapels,
kitchens and dining rooms, bakeries and breweries and spice and wine chambers,
clerical accommodation, armouries, prisons, stables, storehouses, jousting
lists and animal pens. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij8a5afxq90mqqDC4d26JLItrDh9gkUucDsJ8JXNAz-TrBI2y2o2txREl5RKfadFyXk1Jid6uePoTIqre0VVHzazMPjtRzvqhq0_Wj7OIjtPLfpOd7RRBZ0gHwlIfNRXELeQey7hZtOKY/s3264/IMG_0986.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij8a5afxq90mqqDC4d26JLItrDh9gkUucDsJ8JXNAz-TrBI2y2o2txREl5RKfadFyXk1Jid6uePoTIqre0VVHzazMPjtRzvqhq0_Wj7OIjtPLfpOd7RRBZ0gHwlIfNRXELeQey7hZtOKY/s320/IMG_0986.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_HZyfubDUb5OoW1ReTw0R4KFjrrPDSv-CVAIyMYSaEVxoPasBOfaW1iOAvwte1YJrJKOzVd-hIeJPDSdPhNSZYxCCO0Mt6dTCBjOZlhmSqJadEQhVC_CybCrd-_Xx_14KBTODf_QfVa8/s3264/IMG_0989.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_HZyfubDUb5OoW1ReTw0R4KFjrrPDSv-CVAIyMYSaEVxoPasBOfaW1iOAvwte1YJrJKOzVd-hIeJPDSdPhNSZYxCCO0Mt6dTCBjOZlhmSqJadEQhVC_CybCrd-_Xx_14KBTODf_QfVa8/w640-h480/IMG_0989.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This main block of surviving ruins, larger in itself than many entire castles,
was merely part of one of its chapels. To get a sense of the full complex’s
scale requires a look past these walls...</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFkVwIHPtJddlz79_5U-FpktHK3wquNu4qtEx6eJJWM4CvrKQamhTMayQMBgamM7XtPBhHyl7hn2NIm-1a0DpGKZFLuGAmubrzT6HZ04i2wC_upE-pmaHPZ8YBXVmiugzuHAKdBkAeu8U/s3264/IMG_1003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFkVwIHPtJddlz79_5U-FpktHK3wquNu4qtEx6eJJWM4CvrKQamhTMayQMBgamM7XtPBhHyl7hn2NIm-1a0DpGKZFLuGAmubrzT6HZ04i2wC_upE-pmaHPZ8YBXVmiugzuHAKdBkAeu8U/w640-h480/IMG_1003.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>...and out across the hill, all of which was encompassed within the castle’s
walls and yards. There’s nowhere you can stand that lets you fit the entire
site in your field of view at once.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNmPvBDHeuURczmL1JzAfd1_rCn_JVRW55w9ic-8x6tFPQr_yKrEBctSmJTb9v1QYbvmL4mdq0Ri7e-jhMQh7bQvwNlBU3-yAJBqJDWBYPvix9GhR8_5WmDe5C7dXaF02XmXlBl0wyiVo/s3264/IMG_1014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNmPvBDHeuURczmL1JzAfd1_rCn_JVRW55w9ic-8x6tFPQr_yKrEBctSmJTb9v1QYbvmL4mdq0Ri7e-jhMQh7bQvwNlBU3-yAJBqJDWBYPvix9GhR8_5WmDe5C7dXaF02XmXlBl0wyiVo/w640-h480/IMG_1014.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This scale model in the Wallingford Museum gives some idea of this thing’s
magnitude. North is to the right. Note the river and bridge in the bottom left.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWq906U0PvD1qA-2bHL2bDS5ZlpPmIW9FCHsrab-Nvby9wzaNNQBAqB1Qs_7LyALQL35NwpzWOrpVuur0DEh9NceQSMhTrOLg-9c8F63hHCH0vPBqxvSPia_ip8h2UbIz0ZQcQ-ttLfbQ/s3264/IMG_0991.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWq906U0PvD1qA-2bHL2bDS5ZlpPmIW9FCHsrab-Nvby9wzaNNQBAqB1Qs_7LyALQL35NwpzWOrpVuur0DEh9NceQSMhTrOLg-9c8F63hHCH0vPBqxvSPia_ip8h2UbIz0ZQcQ-ttLfbQ/w400-h300/IMG_0991.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The hill overlooks the roofs of Wallingford town. The spire is St. Peter’s
Church (the Blackstone one).</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Wallingford
Castle’s first great test came after the death of Henry I, William the
Conqueror’s youngest son who sought to consolidate Norman rule (including by <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html">commissioning
Reading Abbey</a></u>). Despite Henry’s efforts he’d still presided over a feudal
patchwork of self-regarding (and frequently armed) barons and priests more than any semblance
of a coherent state, and his dynastic plans came to grief when his most
promising heir and son drowned in the Channel in the <i>White Ship</i> disaster
of 1120. Thus with Henry’s own death in 1135 came the disintegration of any
reliable succession system, and in its place, a vicious two-decades-long power
struggle between two of William the Conqueror’s grandchildren.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of this
pair, Henry I’s daughter <b>Matilda</b> – or <i>Empress</i> to her face – had
the more compelling claim, backed up by direct descent as well as marriages
first to the German Holy Roman Emperor (whence her title) and second to the
Count of Anjou (now in France, then a powerful principality in its own right),
giving her wide-ranging continental support, connections and resources. But her
reputedly arrogant and domineering manner alienated many of the English barons
and priests (or maybe they and/or later historians were simply misogynistic </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--></span><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 106%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: 游明朝; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">–</span> who knows?), such that when Matilda’s cousin <b>Stephen</b> of Blois (another
combative French county) reached England first and declared himself king, a
number of them threw their lot in with him. Many others, perhaps the majority,
had no vested interest in one ruler or another and would direct their private
armies for their own gain through the carnage and social breakdown that
followed when Matilda, having secured Normandy, came in force across the
Channel in 1139. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Later
historians would call this period <i>The Anarchy</i>. It is hard to consider it
a true civil war; unlike <i>the</i> Civil War five centuries later it was more an
elite feudal free-for-all with no meaningful popular or constitutional stake in
its outcome. But that hardly made it any less ugly and miserable for the people of both
the urban centres and rural expanses over which Matilda’s and Stephen’s conflict,
both direct and by baronial proxy, rampaged back and forth for twenty years.
The fighting spread across the claimants’ realms on both sides of the Channel,
swaying in favour of one side then the other, with either getting cornered or
captured then escaping at least once.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But there was, perhaps, one pivot to
which the contest kept returning; one stronghold which just wouldn’t fall.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC4XdEB0cryuFKUkDL339qd-zQABRfW0JF94ZuZ0aTVgjY0pngUuo2fc3afdZiIAXSY-0eN5oIFOGvDNnxeO5839aeBHiAnCaWrFTJvJes44GDzuuNhS2HBEwI-re3yyBTZBCUzA63Vy4/s3264/IMG_1004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC4XdEB0cryuFKUkDL339qd-zQABRfW0JF94ZuZ0aTVgjY0pngUuo2fc3afdZiIAXSY-0eN5oIFOGvDNnxeO5839aeBHiAnCaWrFTJvJes44GDzuuNhS2HBEwI-re3yyBTZBCUzA63Vy4/w400-h300/IMG_1004.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG1_WBqhw95MaWiEcgavFyxbOud_5D-JT-aIARmWpX38Jz_iw0ezK7qCSF867Qx8fcMoeUYjSknle8M97yKz2UAyBfVJcaw4XGYkoLv7rVJ5x0KXKqpFI3_foTLhf78-jf6sf6jEtSXyQ/s3264/IMG_0999.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG1_WBqhw95MaWiEcgavFyxbOud_5D-JT-aIARmWpX38Jz_iw0ezK7qCSF867Qx8fcMoeUYjSknle8M97yKz2UAyBfVJcaw4XGYkoLv7rVJ5x0KXKqpFI3_foTLhf78-jf6sf6jEtSXyQ/w400-h300/IMG_0999.JPG" width="400" /></a></div></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Secured
early by Matilda, Wallingford Castle was besieged by Stephen no fewer than
three times in this war. But it proved just too strong to take, even when the
would-be king had counter-castles built across the river to pile on the
pressure. It also featured in what grew into one of the more mythic episodes of
the war: Matilda’s personal escape from a surrounded Oxford in the winter of
1141, in which she is said to have fled by a postern gate at night, crossed the
frozen river on foot, sneaked past Stephen’s armies in the camouflage of a
white gown, and from there rode to the safety of her Wallingford garrison. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Within
a few years the conflict had degenerated into a attritional slog, and by the
1150s into a stalemate in which everyone was exhausted. Stephen made one last committed
attempt on Wallingford in 1152 and almost succeeded in starving the castle into
submission – only for Matilda’s son with the Count of Anjou, the future Henry
II, to come to its relief. By this point the worn-out nobles in both armies had
had enough, and they went round their leaders to drag each other into peace
talks.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
resulting <b>Treaty of Wallingford</b> of 1153 effectively ended the struggle
in a compromise. Stephen got to keep the throne – but after he died it would be
Matilda’s son Henry, and thus her Angevin line, that succeeded him.
Conveniently for the latter, Stephen died the very next year, paving the way
for Henry II to bring the Anglo-Norman and Angevin domains together into a singular
realm. His marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine brought yet more land into a territory which now stretched from the Scottish frontiers to the French Mediterranean: a composite kingdom which was disparate, quarrelsome, and sure as hell unsustainable.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By a
certain standard Wallingford Castle had succeeded, and spectacularly. William’s
stronghold held the line long enough for his crumbling Norman legacy to reassemble
under a far-reaching dynasty whose bloodthirsty ambitions, and failures to
attain them, would drag England into its lasting unified shape; a dynasty that
would get named for the yellow broom plant on the Anjou crest, the <i>planta
genista</i>, that is to say, <i>Plantagenet</i>. But in more meaningful terms
that legacy was bloody, violent and cruel. The pattern it set was for the terrorisation,
starvation, imprisonment and torture of the populace beneath the violence of
petty ruling-class power struggles – an effect heightened, not lessened, when
the monarchs wrecked their own authority in this way, and so haemorrhaged it to local bullies and alternative power structures; that is to say, those barons
and priests, who would trouble Henry II <u><a href="aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">and
his successors</a></u> for centuries to come. And it would propel the Plantagenets
into their long and futile war with the coalescing French, culminating in the
loss of all these continental territories, another round of inward bloodletting
in the Wars of the Roses, and the emergence, from their piles of corpses, of
the Tudor dynasty that would build the troubled template of English modernity.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPu8FStfWFJY6ffZUzRmN0sRsCk8E9I7XKhitPWJORt1u2kKBalx9dbOORTNTSKqUNivLfheilkdP6-r_AVm9alj5e3XWd5tQCG74HO9GYDkNt79cP_d09qFpMa-hjGjoV_OcwwXzJjbE/s3264/IMG_1021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPu8FStfWFJY6ffZUzRmN0sRsCk8E9I7XKhitPWJORt1u2kKBalx9dbOORTNTSKqUNivLfheilkdP6-r_AVm9alj5e3XWd5tQCG74HO9GYDkNt79cP_d09qFpMa-hjGjoV_OcwwXzJjbE/w400-h300/IMG_1021.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Wallingford’s fifteenth-century treasure chest, now on display in the Wallingford
Museum. The wood is thought to be Prussian spruce, found only in certain parts
of Eastern Europe and thus a symbol of the reach of the castle town’s trade
connections.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
suffering of Wallingford’s population over twenty years of on-and-off siege was
typical of this, but for its service to the Angevin settlement the new king
rewarded it handsomely. The town became only the second in England to get a
Royal Charter, granting it a vast range of privileges. Subsequent kings like John
and Henry III would expand the castle, adding a third ring of walls and
towers, and for several centuries it would serve as a favoured stronghold for
monarchs who, in their perennial struggles with rebellious barons, oft fell
back on it for its impervious reputation.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw55GjPSFqfHAJ3PegqTivFRmp2N-h9UdblmxT-cS1AzuGqvMfZwcN7nk-JGjymOJ3YSTqRuhHOl51HYh066etV4AWpFQwiil-dbd1IxyEtBSTptZ00RDNpGihKdSSDO0AsZ-ONHDQrto/s3264/IMG_0987.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw55GjPSFqfHAJ3PegqTivFRmp2N-h9UdblmxT-cS1AzuGqvMfZwcN7nk-JGjymOJ3YSTqRuhHOl51HYh066etV4AWpFQwiil-dbd1IxyEtBSTptZ00RDNpGihKdSSDO0AsZ-ONHDQrto/w300-h400/IMG_0987.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Which once more raises the question: what happened to it?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Decline,
when it came, seems to have washed over Wallingford in waves. The <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-9-death-in-willows.html">mid-fourteenth-century
bubonic plague pandemic</a></u> devastated the town, which then found its recovery
hampered by a growing rivalry with Abingdon upriver, especially as the
latter built bridges and got the main London-to-Gloucester road diverted
through it. By the rise of the Tudors the castle itself was crumbling round the
edges, overlooked perhaps in part because the Wallingford area offered little to
sate Henry VIII’s hunting obsession. A practice emerged of taking stones off it
to improve his and his daughters’ preferred castles like Windsor. Cardinal
Wolsey’s closure of Wallingford’s priory in 1525, in a prologue of sorts for
his king’s subsequent rampage against the monasteries, must have done the
town’s prosperity and prestige few favours either.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nonetheless
the castle was formidable enough to take the loss of a few bits of wall. Such
was its tried and tested reputation that when the English fell about each other
in their worst bout of bloodshed yet – the much more serious, gunpowder-charged
business of the actual Civil War this time – Wallingford’s strength as a
stronghold was remembered and called upon just as it had been so many times
before.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When
King Charles I failed to take back London in 1642, he pulled his army upriver
and made Oxford his headquarters. This put Wallingford front and centre in the
defensive ring of fortified towns by which the Royalists shielded their wartime
capital from parliamentary assault. The king appointed one of his nobles,
Colonel Thomas Blagge, as governor of the Wallingford garrison, and <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html">much
as at Reading</a></u> the populace was made miserable as soldiers got billeted in
their houses and looted their crops, animals, valuables and building materials
to repair and supply the castle. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In
some ways they fared better than Oxford’s other satellites. Just as in its
heyday, Wallingford Castle held the line as tides of English blood swept its
surrounding towns and fields from one side to the other. It was secure enough
for Charles to visit Wallingford in person on numerous occasions, and even for
Colonel Blagge’s wife to give birth and hold a fancy Christening ceremony for
the new baby. Its walls were impenetrable. They held even as the war turned
against the Royalists everywhere else; even as in 1644 Abingdon above and
Reading below both fell to Parliament; even the following year when the
Royalist army was all but obliterated at Naseby; and even the year after that, 1646,
when Oxford itself fell, leaving Wallingford on its own as one of the last
Royalist holdouts in the country. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">With
Charles taken prisoner and the war (or at least the initial phase of it) all
but lost beyond its walls, there was nothing left for Wallingford to defend. After
a four-month siege Colonel Blagge surrendered it to parliament’s General
Fairfax in July 1646, by mutual agreement and under very generous terms.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Once
more the old castle had endured. The monarchy’s enemies couldn’t defeat
it here; they had had to defeat it everywhere else instead. The castle had
made, and survived, its final stand...</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3sUgClmI89yZaUO0oUYa6V9BFTYnQ4chPWbAjUme7VQaNi0kFXLwfupnsQ4f_1ezvMsl2GcwyP8PNQntAiW5AZRhqQDT1eivrpkLShFz8sR5ONSx0L9JEj3Z39kFDDv12dPoy0v2Hb2U/s3264/IMG_0983.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3sUgClmI89yZaUO0oUYa6V9BFTYnQ4chPWbAjUme7VQaNi0kFXLwfupnsQ4f_1ezvMsl2GcwyP8PNQntAiW5AZRhqQDT1eivrpkLShFz8sR5ONSx0L9JEj3Z39kFDDv12dPoy0v2Hb2U/w400-h300/IMG_0983.JPG" width="400" /></a></div></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">...only
to die without a fight once the war was over.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><u><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></u><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">With
unrest lingering on into the 1650s, the parliamentary regime – that is to say, <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">Oliver
Cromwell’s military junta</a></u> – feared that Wallingford’s Royalist sympathies
might be re-ignited against it in future. In 1652 the order was given to
slight, that is, demolish, the castle to the point where it no longer offered any
military utility. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
so, just like that, Wallingford Castle, invincible through half a millennium of
sieges, was wiped from existence. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0K21YpUM5NJFqO6mrqrHtsl11YbDvLPObm3hVY3Zqn3NAliENnkQ8ZBtiNHxC0-tLmqFVltTsn80EimLjihQjQkOof_noqS3dw6mhgCzSa8OGNu_GHqKzpDWkbPUkqzeg0oawgfM4MU/s3264/IMG_1002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0K21YpUM5NJFqO6mrqrHtsl11YbDvLPObm3hVY3Zqn3NAliENnkQ8ZBtiNHxC0-tLmqFVltTsn80EimLjihQjQkOof_noqS3dw6mhgCzSa8OGNu_GHqKzpDWkbPUkqzeg0oawgfM4MU/w400-h300/IMG_1002.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Aside from the main block of ruins and the earthworks, lone shards of masonry
like this are all that survived the castle’s demolition and the looting of its debris
for buildings elsewhere.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ2c0wfiFzg6SHdqzppOSevD6XV_0UORQDpmOeyI-MW1yrc812vMS63E_p0_CaiN3ytzwraPKnLA5jo24HrmqZlY6i9uL46LFAndpTL07o3uEr2xY35yL0P0bZJgiFdj7kWubzfZnwWcc/s3264/IMG_0992.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ2c0wfiFzg6SHdqzppOSevD6XV_0UORQDpmOeyI-MW1yrc812vMS63E_p0_CaiN3ytzwraPKnLA5jo24HrmqZlY6i9uL46LFAndpTL07o3uEr2xY35yL0P0bZJgiFdj7kWubzfZnwWcc/w400-h300/IMG_0992.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Today the ruins stand largely unremarked in the Castle Meadows.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJlh4sIloO-XyaTIR39X_XUNUgH2mfPvRMkKDRYtiXXho8Y0fFAMM3PRx0u6HAWKPwdn25xvBn_oNwG6Z1973hIcVjPhJHVHNvbxh6alzLPHr2ro5GQhBPgTqPZjumu_KOkxSNMoM4ZVw/s3264/IMG_1000.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJlh4sIloO-XyaTIR39X_XUNUgH2mfPvRMkKDRYtiXXho8Y0fFAMM3PRx0u6HAWKPwdn25xvBn_oNwG6Z1973hIcVjPhJHVHNvbxh6alzLPHr2ro5GQhBPgTqPZjumu_KOkxSNMoM4ZVw/w400-h300/IMG_1000.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>These fine fellows now use the Castle Meadows for summer grazing.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_HBnLyKiW_7JL6pfJh8YEtWZ1ktnO3rvKt6DoAtZpWGxWo6LtCuIRsqyo2E0DOkOWUekBVQxscWmRWmPuTYwlVo6yCyGZH0q2_yMbnXphAwKrrlFH0buMhNG__UnjRAIOOnYL5mWTQs8/s3264/IMG_0998.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_HBnLyKiW_7JL6pfJh8YEtWZ1ktnO3rvKt6DoAtZpWGxWo6LtCuIRsqyo2E0DOkOWUekBVQxscWmRWmPuTYwlVo6yCyGZH0q2_yMbnXphAwKrrlFH0buMhNG__UnjRAIOOnYL5mWTQs8/w400-h300/IMG_0998.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Instead of walls and towers, the castle site now has only this one grumpy bull
to defend it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWS0mCcnGnd0N0iOU_lzW-jucaUS7C17OvHlC0sxZdKzA2YgH_4sTfEIdaknNBDdMNOVAsWiSnBIq__RRCFbVuoBYpnNYZhWoN_haCh9HgJcLfnlI8ZlECcLNzr_oYLUAllDW7j3DBWzc/s3264/IMG_1001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWS0mCcnGnd0N0iOU_lzW-jucaUS7C17OvHlC0sxZdKzA2YgH_4sTfEIdaknNBDdMNOVAsWiSnBIq__RRCFbVuoBYpnNYZhWoN_haCh9HgJcLfnlI8ZlECcLNzr_oYLUAllDW7j3DBWzc/w640-h480/IMG_1001.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>He does his best.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Wallingford’s
days as a nationally-significant Privilege Fort were over. It had been plagued,
shelled, impoverished, and ultimately eclipsed by the rise of more illustrious
neighbours, leaving it to face a long slog to recovery in increasingly
competitive industrial times. That said, it seems to have made a pretty decent go
at it. Bereft of its castle and defensive purpose it gradually re-invented
itself as a market town, adding brewing, malting and iron-founding to its
steady agricultural base.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As
with the Thames’s other industrial towns, most of those works made it well
into the twentieth century before disappearing. Yet with all the caveats of
viewing it through a stranger’s eye, Wallingford seems, on the surface at
least, to have staved off the worst of the modern poverty and hollowing-out we have
seen in many such towns left to struggle to find their way, such as <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html">Reading</a></u>
or <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html">Maidenhead</a></u>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_hiGUEIgC-7KITNDkNFPXSPgXLFBgCMQTR5-Mu2pSv_vRttW_PjjqsMUiLWsGj_uH1cLJcFn2e-omeX0_ggF_6k39whrOMzJJPB-wU1Yn31GdblSXWTcCVhykN0DsLwqT3XBFEnR8yD4/s3264/IMG_1052.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_hiGUEIgC-7KITNDkNFPXSPgXLFBgCMQTR5-Mu2pSv_vRttW_PjjqsMUiLWsGj_uH1cLJcFn2e-omeX0_ggF_6k39whrOMzJJPB-wU1Yn31GdblSXWTcCVhykN0DsLwqT3XBFEnR8yD4/w640-h480/IMG_1052.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Wallingford’s market square, revived to new importance in industrial times. The
old Town Hall (centre) came up in 1670 after the restoration of the monarchy, and later
had William Blackstone working there as the town’s legal advisor. Behind it is
Wallingford’s third parish church of St. Mary-le-More, whose present
incarnation is Victorian, but whose predecessor was damaged in the Civil War
and rebuilt with stones from the castle.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaakm4TcsYEb7UvrfoUO1Y2jLgHA9DFhQzNQuXzCME9-iqh6Zg6nn4_pAeeRN6QsKhoHqemYco66XDMkMk5tDY7JUolg4DTKh_ACPk0sLnuq0ZziB5VJA6wwC3r9P8yByYh9DOVMFPN4k/s3264/IMG_1051.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaakm4TcsYEb7UvrfoUO1Y2jLgHA9DFhQzNQuXzCME9-iqh6Zg6nn4_pAeeRN6QsKhoHqemYco66XDMkMk5tDY7JUolg4DTKh_ACPk0sLnuq0ZziB5VJA6wwC3r9P8yByYh9DOVMFPN4k/w300-h400/IMG_1051.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The marketplace’s narrow streets are still lined with antique buildings, containing either traditional shops or modern ones. The ambience is refreshing, even if the
English flags might set off alarm bells.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6HNsTTfbnnRRH486Ep02GxYvqrBS6LbLwfvpI4vARWTsG-m8dT-scdz7Pe8UB3LQNQSEjSiEHNwAEdoGUiNFLJZsdr-cprF7j-jAh-5GVooCV3Td9VBane4akaGLIhCbWySoJO0rngP0/s3264/IMG_1053.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6HNsTTfbnnRRH486Ep02GxYvqrBS6LbLwfvpI4vARWTsG-m8dT-scdz7Pe8UB3LQNQSEjSiEHNwAEdoGUiNFLJZsdr-cprF7j-jAh-5GVooCV3Td9VBane4akaGLIhCbWySoJO0rngP0/w400-h300/IMG_1053.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The old Corn Exchange: built in 1856, now a local cinema and theatre.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps
Wallingford’s historical weight, the way it’s built into the very shape of the
town, has given its inhabitants a stronger stake in protecting it. Or perhaps
its position in a railway blind-spot, having lost its rail extension in the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-8-river-shamans.html">Beeching
Cuts</a></u> (it now runs only as a heritage railway), has diverted the more
ravenous property speculators off its terrain. In any event Wallingford’s
landscape seems to breathe more freely than most settlements in its position –
its character preserved, its cobblestones and greenery cherished, its wealth
clearly present but not ostentatiously flaunted.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One
expression of this is its superb local museum, which is run entirely (and
COVID-consciously) by local volunteers on a charity basis and has filled a tiny
fifteenth-century flint cottage on the west road with thoughtful, detailed and
immersive displays and archaeological finds. But Wallingford’s feel is perhaps
exemplified best of all by its castle ruins. For all its storied
gravity, no attempt has been made to sensationalise, touristify, or otherwise
cheaply cash in on these stones. Instead they stand organically in a public
park, left just as they are to tell their own story to those curious enough to
seek it out. The ruins are free to enter and frequented by locals resting,
strolling or having picnics, while cows graze what were once their walled-up
yard, and small children roll yelping with glee down embankments which no longer offer their protection to the unaccountable English authoritarians of one day or the next.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps
it’s better like this. The walls of castles like Windsor and the Tower still do
what walls typically do: exclude. They keep your feet off the carpet, your
hands off the treasures, your commoner’s scent out of privileged nostrils and
your eyes off dirty national secrets (unless of course you can fork out for a
ticket then keep to where you’re told.) Alone amongst them, the walls of Wallingford
Castle no longer exclude. Their story, of the impermanence of power, is
everyone’s to hear.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKMvHvbaT_oE2iEItqKpXBtsisHQ92pHNwUu0aNWrE27l2jxwfArB__RtbuvgR9ACVdqu1MlyT8-R08861QXnKWPYO6MZbcb8UZXEvUofmKRlxm2QnXK-mw3hb_uDFKfHTA6J5uEH3SfU/s3264/IMG_0993.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKMvHvbaT_oE2iEItqKpXBtsisHQ92pHNwUu0aNWrE27l2jxwfArB__RtbuvgR9ACVdqu1MlyT8-R08861QXnKWPYO6MZbcb8UZXEvUofmKRlxm2QnXK-mw3hb_uDFKfHTA6J5uEH3SfU/w640-h480/IMG_0993.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i> </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>If
you wish to explore this area yourself, be advised that Wallingford is the
first waypoint on this journey without its own train station. Regular buses run
between the market square and the closest station at Cholsey, which lacks
facilities in or around the station, keeps its toilets and waiting rooms
locked, offers no shelter or shade on the southbound platform, and is regularly
passed by nonstop or heavy goods trains at high speed. But at least you can
listen to the meeh meeh of sheep in the surrounding fields while waiting an
hour for your train.</i></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
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its volunteers for informing much of this article, as well as their care for
ensuring a safe visit in pandemic conditions.</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="line-height: 106%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: 游明朝; mso-fareast-language: JA; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="toa heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
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<![endif]--></span></div>Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Wallingford OX10, UK51.5974177 -1.133561345.013698311883374 -9.9226238 58.181137088116628 7.6555012tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-34802493915116589782021-07-23T14:26:00.002+01:002021-07-23T14:26:20.069+01:00THAMES: 12) The Gap in the Chalk<span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">A
hundred million years ago, England didn’t exist.</span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nor for
all but the latest sliver of the ninety-nine million years that followed, for
that matter.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What
about the <i>land</i> they now called England? That existed, in a manner of
speaking. But it had no humans yet, and so no names based on imaginary lines on
maps or in minds. It also sat about in tropical latitudes some thousand miles
from where it is now. It had dinosaurs. When it wasn’t underwater – which much
of the time it was.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
while it was underwater, it had something else: extremely tiny planktons which,
when they died, left behind extremely tiny calcium carbonate shells. There were
a lot of them. More than forty million years’ worth in fact. And that’s why these
extremely tiny creatures are among the most extremely important things to the
people of what is now southern England.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They’re standing on them.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg54y4GObNtKXkcMAdqHro7hZjTa2dqBbmm58-R56x3k4mtnub9Hu5m-rXRqbNFJmxMtE5JDz9iz-H4wMyLAiSHEcOsmBhOnIgbIMQHdj9Opcp4eo_Gsp1xKQ0lyhE-UrqEsBm4DF8_v3U/s3264/IMG_0767.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg54y4GObNtKXkcMAdqHro7hZjTa2dqBbmm58-R56x3k4mtnub9Hu5m-rXRqbNFJmxMtE5JDz9iz-H4wMyLAiSHEcOsmBhOnIgbIMQHdj9Opcp4eo_Gsp1xKQ0lyhE-UrqEsBm4DF8_v3U/w640-h480/IMG_0767.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>This stuff. Chalk.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Standing
on them physically, but also mentally. The English <i>like</i> standing on these
planktons’ contributions. It makes them feel English. Be it rolling downs like
the Chiltern Hills or the soaring cliffs of Dover and Beachy Head, chalk is a
nigh-obligatory feature in the green-and-pleasant landscapes of their national
imagination.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5yySgbloDVMwFVBo8VqbL00g8_wyvoMlZlJHAf8sF2kPDt_wYeCnkzT3y8p9y2uD_XCEC1YBVjY5RN2vJJb56JVH0KZCUegzCtESgS1r1TxSfm_hnLbCX7zKP4oNS9Mt3OxVbUHTkdz8/s3264/IMG_0772.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5yySgbloDVMwFVBo8VqbL00g8_wyvoMlZlJHAf8sF2kPDt_wYeCnkzT3y8p9y2uD_XCEC1YBVjY5RN2vJJb56JVH0KZCUegzCtESgS1r1TxSfm_hnLbCX7zKP4oNS9Mt3OxVbUHTkdz8/w640-h480/IMG_0772.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The low ridge of the Chilterns, gliding down to the gap where the river runs
through the chalk.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
cliffs are ironic. Within that imagination their chalk is a barrier, a natural
wall against the inferior barbarian hordes on the European mainland. In
reality the chalk does the opposite. Its province of deposits does not separate
but <i>connects</i> England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands over a
timespan for much of which the island of Britain was no island at all but a
European peninsula. The Dover cliffs are not a wall, but a bridge beneath the Channel to the
Alabaster Coast of Normandy. It’s the
same chalk.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chalk
– that is the concern of today’s length of river. It is through the outer arms
of this Cretaceous (literally, <i>chalky</i>) realm that the river cuts down to Reading
and the </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">comparatively recent sands and clays</span> of the London Basin. And
having followed the water up that basin, it is time to cross into a
more ancient land: the Jurassic reaches of Oxford, and in their midst, the river’s
origins in Cotswold limestone.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH5ZtYestAdTCI8EqWXqyAtiX2mnBKuaTD4WeH1O4ALFpxlTdpWLzmgc8UZWJV_vsHr7_Y8TrKO9JuutSAyauXLM7xv45e2k2melIw0Dn3hvQtQuG8V16IQAhB8S218v-UdgX2xCB6gFk/s3264/IMG_0716.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH5ZtYestAdTCI8EqWXqyAtiX2mnBKuaTD4WeH1O4ALFpxlTdpWLzmgc8UZWJV_vsHr7_Y8TrKO9JuutSAyauXLM7xv45e2k2melIw0Dn3hvQtQuG8V16IQAhB8S218v-UdgX2xCB6gFk/w640-h480/IMG_0716.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The view upstream from the Pangbourne-Whitchurch toll bridge, from where we set
out today.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
river created this passage itself. Later it would prove important to the human
immigrants by funnelling their boats, roads and railways through its narrow
corridor. And so the corridor sprouted a pair of villages: Goring on one side,
Streatley on the other. From the former comes their present name for this
gap in the chalk: the <b>Goring Gap</b>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIOkKdc0gU32mvRvpGkSoh2M6FP_HYfq3hawKreKatHus52gHv9MHn1eMsDix_tiGdt5dmzG54RbNXMNSdwh6ZkWGP0afbWoApA6goTDkMKUrcMHoGfNS_nwN1BRaMQyPoBKS8hZTT88A/s3264/IMG_0756.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIOkKdc0gU32mvRvpGkSoh2M6FP_HYfq3hawKreKatHus52gHv9MHn1eMsDix_tiGdt5dmzG54RbNXMNSdwh6ZkWGP0afbWoApA6goTDkMKUrcMHoGfNS_nwN1BRaMQyPoBKS8hZTT88A/w640-h480/IMG_0756.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The river a little downstream of the Goring Gap. For all the chalk’s geological
significance you can only draw it out so far for dramatic effect because its
hills aren’t actually all that high. There’ll be no breathtaking scenes of the
Thames gushing through precipitous canyons. There’ll be plenty of grass though. And cows.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlaLWmcbSOwwtJJb7P6mr0jp030kekbsETiOti3nklfwbADa7QmdHbkdZnTG-zNle-GViWEIxTwh9o2BILGGkh2BZ-v-yKdt56aEz2U9l2NJjecr-QeP5G9te7EHbH1PUN-eYZmE7E4JM/s857/12%2529+Pangbourne+to+Goring.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="791" data-original-width="857" height="590" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlaLWmcbSOwwtJJb7P6mr0jp030kekbsETiOti3nklfwbADa7QmdHbkdZnTG-zNle-GViWEIxTwh9o2BILGGkh2BZ-v-yKdt56aEz2U9l2NJjecr-QeP5G9te7EHbH1PUN-eYZmE7E4JM/w640-h590/12%2529+Pangbourne+to+Goring.png" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Start:</b>
Whitchurch Bridge (<i>nearest station: Pangbourne</i>)</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>End:</b>
Goring Bridge (<i>nearest station: Goring and Streatley</i>)</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Length:
6.4km/4 miles</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Location:
Oxfordshire – South Oxfordshire</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Topics</u>:
Whitchurch, Hartslock Wood, Gatehampton, Goring, and the geology of the Thames</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span><a name='more'></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Whitchurch</span></u></b></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">First off, a smaller crossing: that of the river itself, from Pangbourne into the
village of <b>Whitchurch</b> which faces it on the north bank. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheJRgtv2_nk4tNauyoCNftgkW4Bn2DW0Ww7B_W4OkWcwidjs6HIXMClUUsdwVaEiLoJUeja3dcaij-ZjrLGDx9fnIJWOt4eSSEqnhwvuspSdMBm0x7LnLnr9Q5Xi7iO1G827qIgJ6g0T4/s3264/IMG_0714.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheJRgtv2_nk4tNauyoCNftgkW4Bn2DW0Ww7B_W4OkWcwidjs6HIXMClUUsdwVaEiLoJUeja3dcaij-ZjrLGDx9fnIJWOt4eSSEqnhwvuspSdMBm0x7LnLnr9Q5Xi7iO1G827qIgJ6g0T4/w400-h300/IMG_0714.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>From atop the bridge, the view back into the London
Basin. Today we leave this for the older, higher Thames.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm01JCb_dgMNEPnxnISuMsQ26OqJTjXPk1KdfN6hBheeFq8QrZj5a9S9-RP-BeQnZOf3SNLH6nuhWmhXV_rteDzVBuZW7K7ZVBlgMASFJf0fTmVXFz8dqKsFMqgXcA7-foxiOkO64S2lU/s3264/IMG_0718.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm01JCb_dgMNEPnxnISuMsQ26OqJTjXPk1KdfN6hBheeFq8QrZj5a9S9-RP-BeQnZOf3SNLH6nuhWmhXV_rteDzVBuZW7K7ZVBlgMASFJf0fTmVXFz8dqKsFMqgXcA7-foxiOkO64S2lU/w640-h480/IMG_0718.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>To the west, a first glimpse of Whitchurch communicates the genteel character of
this area’s social landscapes.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Straight
away we are necessitated to do what we’ve so often had to on this journey and
take an inland detour to get past propertied land-grabs. On this occasion we
can take advantage of this to get up close and personal with the geology in
question, for after following the river along the southern dip slope of the
Chiltern Hills, we now find them sweeping in right up to the water’s edge. To
advance into Whitchurch is straight away to climb uphill.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyLqARpjbGrMdyWF7roArgat_fd7QUlKcvF8vGsCjB4Uw_RugNwn_lautorA8kkCXwderTvx-ICyNRKkQ25oAGEYKeWgx0Jgg-kM1Hr1iUMfkNaFCNgcCQ5GLU_9GjKGi1DykcWIhMrS8/s3264/IMG_0726.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyLqARpjbGrMdyWF7roArgat_fd7QUlKcvF8vGsCjB4Uw_RugNwn_lautorA8kkCXwderTvx-ICyNRKkQ25oAGEYKeWgx0Jgg-kM1Hr1iUMfkNaFCNgcCQ5GLU_9GjKGi1DykcWIhMrS8/w400-h300/IMG_0726.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Whitchurch is smaller than Pangbourne. Most of it branches off this main road,
here beginning its climb up the Chilterns.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBeSbHUJjejk_CF-stOT8UO1aoBFRM6ezdrwLB7nBT85CoIX4RQdxZqPaY-6d5XMmPTe4Izpg3g4ao2wApOCByr-bfO3_uCEwam0ftIm1jdJz7v4D5HGlaRmYvAp6GYYgmvZCbvowfY0/s3264/IMG_0723.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBeSbHUJjejk_CF-stOT8UO1aoBFRM6ezdrwLB7nBT85CoIX4RQdxZqPaY-6d5XMmPTe4Izpg3g4ao2wApOCByr-bfO3_uCEwam0ftIm1jdJz7v4D5HGlaRmYvAp6GYYgmvZCbvowfY0/w400-h300/IMG_0723.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Whitchurch’s present St. Mary’s Church is a Victorian do-up of an oft-altered
Norman building. But the settlement’s name of “white church” (<i>Hwitcurke</i>)
came from the Anglo-Saxon structure that preceded it, most likely for being built
out of the chalks and flints of the surrounding hillside.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg526B83AJb32ks4-9jsJghc8_bVg_BWprN_pB57ThZhJvDAUN5jQlTy_BTQc3R9LL5FqZc51WW06E6G0loqMgBpzYqDfoerUrsWr6TMwoKuA-Ac9w_X5rd3iANOkSkK4G5V_Zn83_Et0/s3264/IMG_0724.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg526B83AJb32ks4-9jsJghc8_bVg_BWprN_pB57ThZhJvDAUN5jQlTy_BTQc3R9LL5FqZc51WW06E6G0loqMgBpzYqDfoerUrsWr6TMwoKuA-Ac9w_X5rd3iANOkSkK4G5V_Zn83_Et0/w400-h300/IMG_0724.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>They’re huddling round this tree for protection because they know the politics
has gone all wrong.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGadx3lf4xPo_7Yc9rol01qHeg8u50BczHiRZi5VvDBZsyp4OwBlApXAW1yHiGYb_V9ZII5kej0iPuKVWbWik8xBGSeGM3s7PHzfLizCFWeZoEU9DKG0j72YS53MDBEIR30WgVBSRUNY/s3264/IMG_0731.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGadx3lf4xPo_7Yc9rol01qHeg8u50BczHiRZi5VvDBZsyp4OwBlApXAW1yHiGYb_V9ZII5kej0iPuKVWbWik8xBGSeGM3s7PHzfLizCFWeZoEU9DKG0j72YS53MDBEIR30WgVBSRUNY/w400-h300/IMG_0731.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>According to ancient Chinese philosopher Gongsun Long, ‘a white horse is not a
horse’. What about a green horse?</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After
accumulating a little altitude, it’s time to swing left and seek the river
again.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlbKkRanT8JTFPoMl9Q_Ovi019-DZJYLBWGDPJggaJvXVoDiL45bA81HQJItJo-mxKQ5f52YRk3rfbvD2jnd95WXuAA6UDTsyNKLsTzzXGsjxV30P0_jUtM_9tnOe7N0PDe_5mylwiTkM/s3264/IMG_0732.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlbKkRanT8JTFPoMl9Q_Ovi019-DZJYLBWGDPJggaJvXVoDiL45bA81HQJItJo-mxKQ5f52YRk3rfbvD2jnd95WXuAA6UDTsyNKLsTzzXGsjxV30P0_jUtM_9tnOe7N0PDe_5mylwiTkM/w400-h300/IMG_0732.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>...which is easier said than done seeing as a bunch of huge farms has colonised
the riverside here. This is not the fence of someone whose vocabulary includes
words like ‘public’, ‘commons’ or ‘compromise’. It stretches on and on for
about a mile as if they own it.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ZPQCIFePl5SxOct8ild4JGoASGDQ6NAULwHc4VhrfwCtqYWyhii-5NWebERgenZ5IxSJiqDBYQHNdIDBRmc5g6erWLl6SwU-IrMEBrcNrnuCkY_efNaFe5mZ2aUzUwExgrBysFUIH1Y/s3264/IMG_0734.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ZPQCIFePl5SxOct8ild4JGoASGDQ6NAULwHc4VhrfwCtqYWyhii-5NWebERgenZ5IxSJiqDBYQHNdIDBRmc5g6erWLl6SwU-IrMEBrcNrnuCkY_efNaFe5mZ2aUzUwExgrBysFUIH1Y/w400-h300/IMG_0734.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Many of the pastures here seem set up for horse grazing. This horse does appear
to be a horse (but you never know).</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyNybs-773rJi_QIqa1PPfLBSp_NTJrR0IWabvPh-Lw4uY9021_aKZQcs0P5S7B5qTN0lvmycmUhBYvwkYaPT63msuVNtOBVycgk9eV-179B2KS9TZs6QsaeKTrCmJZcyY_HgY5HPHKU4/s3264/IMG_0736.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyNybs-773rJi_QIqa1PPfLBSp_NTJrR0IWabvPh-Lw4uY9021_aKZQcs0P5S7B5qTN0lvmycmUhBYvwkYaPT63msuVNtOBVycgk9eV-179B2KS9TZs6QsaeKTrCmJZcyY_HgY5HPHKU4/w400-h300/IMG_0736.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>When the fence concedes a view over the river valley, it is to reveal this
stock of nuclear warheads in the guise of agricultural supplies.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
now the ground starts to undulate, as the road turns to path and plunges into
that rarest of environments on these cleared, farmed and propertied riverbanks:
proper woodland.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0NPt2T8iZKZBeJL1VUV5gbvJcolsqb4AeJm0OT1unbYziO-qh8Wo3lUBRmJkdMioLn3qHWNMB9PNID6GsMId6OxC6fMDWpvgoGVVQx8lUEo8F-JHLG-2q97_yLEP2kmmaCMBGGLhTOqs/s3264/IMG_0737.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0NPt2T8iZKZBeJL1VUV5gbvJcolsqb4AeJm0OT1unbYziO-qh8Wo3lUBRmJkdMioLn3qHWNMB9PNID6GsMId6OxC6fMDWpvgoGVVQx8lUEo8F-JHLG-2q97_yLEP2kmmaCMBGGLhTOqs/w300-h400/IMG_0737.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The first serious ups and downs on this journey indicate geological happenings
worth paying attention to.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16OSyEG8K-Wj45iHrcQ9GqOvUTpC1usfJrHT58OuzLD2EjxhAf-l9NYHrsJxGSHhEgezsgMRa6elB3IfxbjNSDd25vdcQYi6CnI4LCKqxGFYi7Q61ykYo-fJoA4Ihmj4fixw_ozpc2vM/s3264/IMG_0739.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16OSyEG8K-Wj45iHrcQ9GqOvUTpC1usfJrHT58OuzLD2EjxhAf-l9NYHrsJxGSHhEgezsgMRa6elB3IfxbjNSDd25vdcQYi6CnI4LCKqxGFYi7Q61ykYo-fJoA4Ihmj4fixw_ozpc2vM/w400-h300/IMG_0739.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Through gaps in the trees the Chilterns roll. Their name is said to come from <i>Cilterne</i>
in the ancient Celtic languages, meaning ‘land beyond the hills’.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7WG9ZadmsTGGCulXS0Ll26oc_J0mxBKVzRU70ukSkFFQRZZLjRKhpTK2Jap-VQDvmXh_QEQabIa4XNzUw5tCb5osGf3pSmhEoD7Zweld9uTK3JHEE7JkiGVBJb9Xe606zSTB61tQS6xg/s3264/IMG_0741.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7WG9ZadmsTGGCulXS0Ll26oc_J0mxBKVzRU70ukSkFFQRZZLjRKhpTK2Jap-VQDvmXh_QEQabIa4XNzUw5tCb5osGf3pSmhEoD7Zweld9uTK3JHEE7JkiGVBJb9Xe606zSTB61tQS6xg/w480-h640/IMG_0741.JPG" width="480" /></a></div> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Hartslock Wood and the Goring Gap</span></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
name <i>Hartslock</i> descends from a family called the Harts who once installed
a lock on the river here. The river didn’t like it and by 1800 it was already
in ruins. But apparently it was never demolished properly, and a hundred years
later boats were still getting damaged by the bits sticking out. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They
tried to farm this area too. With twentieth-century agricultural technology
there weren’t many wild places they <i>couldn’t</i> flatten into commercial
farmland. But here on this slope they gave up. The chalk was too steep, made
the soil too infertile. <b>Hartslock Wood </b>is now a protected nature reserve and
Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), one of the few of its kind
remaining and home to some very rare plants and animals.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_Iy1O1Q_y1Smr36RjlVwMvyOFNwB0XLAYOlboDq3gKgL2-vnWD-97le-ub5jyt8Gi0NTntc_YOEWAEg9xwmqR9PDDsZOxr-ZTw-HNGAMSxt3pr8C3iBvJgm7tm7Tj_XXjgH4AqJQBic/s3264/IMG_0742.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_Iy1O1Q_y1Smr36RjlVwMvyOFNwB0XLAYOlboDq3gKgL2-vnWD-97le-ub5jyt8Gi0NTntc_YOEWAEg9xwmqR9PDDsZOxr-ZTw-HNGAMSxt3pr8C3iBvJgm7tm7Tj_XXjgH4AqJQBic/w300-h400/IMG_0742.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>This has not stopped the local people carving cryptic political slogans into
the trees.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFNnD9tsBaw1bRuGeaf64g1e2FtAytjTbZ870FfBYBvoaykbmbpfDjHpr59Yqa7MxXjdwiUhV3MfRBf7tEWtEAoHFQLkADoeSv97ep7wzzXyC2lLpt_Ew1u66nXvzTJAHSIpbvpY5VXI/s3264/IMG_0745.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFNnD9tsBaw1bRuGeaf64g1e2FtAytjTbZ870FfBYBvoaykbmbpfDjHpr59Yqa7MxXjdwiUhV3MfRBf7tEWtEAoHFQLkADoeSv97ep7wzzXyC2lLpt_Ew1u66nXvzTJAHSIpbvpY5VXI/w400-h300/IMG_0745.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6KelZZAvFdS1syTxTEWlU4q49tLFmKz_mRJ6Ra9_eQyflsNbF2gJ3wqFcDPeXTf_Z8F3Y5Zdxwr0S36jEFEAey_Gl6tsLpWRlxfyaaqJ9iTgHdEr_eFbBZprqeurbKeFqT95WLblGuU0/s3264/IMG_0746.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6KelZZAvFdS1syTxTEWlU4q49tLFmKz_mRJ6Ra9_eQyflsNbF2gJ3wqFcDPeXTf_Z8F3Y5Zdxwr0S36jEFEAey_Gl6tsLpWRlxfyaaqJ9iTgHdEr_eFbBZprqeurbKeFqT95WLblGuU0/w640-h480/IMG_0746.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
then, a short distance into these woods, the ground to the left suddenly drops away. It’s a chalk cliff, directly above the river: we now stand
on the very west edge of the Chiltern escarpment.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt2kY0qn2yvSvoPuJXyB5ZG8Xr3-6Qe6_041vWwWrDgAWLXO7FACSEq7JCc2_FUIuUFIdD_YxkUBPS_Rx_6QjcBY3jlayLiLcqxf3S_RNuE7E_Ev1dW1FWnkURzV6oZhyphenhyphenFZ3faSOHdZ7I/s3264/IMG_0749.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt2kY0qn2yvSvoPuJXyB5ZG8Xr3-6Qe6_041vWwWrDgAWLXO7FACSEq7JCc2_FUIuUFIdD_YxkUBPS_Rx_6QjcBY3jlayLiLcqxf3S_RNuE7E_Ev1dW1FWnkURzV6oZhyphenhyphenFZ3faSOHdZ7I/w640-h480/IMG_0749.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizd8bjxevzouRK-xf_bvPgAxk4xjH3bVHoUiKwzquakzcIHxqJYD-jG2lNzwurICbNf7TkhiHCXEefREFzPdLmMvVYvy_jBCnZQEIKnuSb7R9lh06DGeeKZyplc9nlWQ1GAE8OeGARON0/s3264/IMG_0751.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizd8bjxevzouRK-xf_bvPgAxk4xjH3bVHoUiKwzquakzcIHxqJYD-jG2lNzwurICbNf7TkhiHCXEefREFzPdLmMvVYvy_jBCnZQEIKnuSb7R9lh06DGeeKZyplc9nlWQ1GAE8OeGARON0/w400-h300/IMG_0751.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>And there’s the river. It might be down there now, but it was that flow which carved
out this gap between the Chiltern Hills...</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7LqMvA26PTeochK-rK7xQsBXYGQuXhrJB13B-vJyQbljVUqbj1VsOQTRipsdJBUyGo6chD6q62CXO-ii2RU9CixWh7H_ixmU_otd_Mqo9xF8GU8qex_cg2204oxhmSRvP_hAIoqv-gX0/s3264/IMG_0750.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7LqMvA26PTeochK-rK7xQsBXYGQuXhrJB13B-vJyQbljVUqbj1VsOQTRipsdJBUyGo6chD6q62CXO-ii2RU9CixWh7H_ixmU_otd_Mqo9xF8GU8qex_cg2204oxhmSRvP_hAIoqv-gX0/w300-h400/IMG_0750.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>...and the Berkshire Downs on the other side, which despite getting a different
name are really the same chalk ridge.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Scattered
across the far side are the dispersed hamlets of <b>Basildon</b>, which might
look like the middle of nowhere but were actually pretty centrally-positioned.
They grew up on the old Roman road through this gap, which was later the
contested frontier between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia – thus
getting successively rampaged over by those kingdoms’ armies, the Normans, the
Angevins, and then the bubonic plague. Its nonetheless prosperous manors later
gave rise to Jethro Tull, whose inventions pioneered the eighteenth-century
mechanical revolution in English agriculture.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfQbRCdeRmvuglVOn4906nCKlOM357a3yh1m7X9LebO8oQkyXrcFviyEa6sDIYy9GlJdSHx0BXv_Lb7CR9KoTJoNfKP78eJ4XSwDnr44x74NfOkfuu1EMI6R_EBRuHmsfGIzeCW0m7utk/s3264/IMG_0752.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfQbRCdeRmvuglVOn4906nCKlOM357a3yh1m7X9LebO8oQkyXrcFviyEa6sDIYy9GlJdSHx0BXv_Lb7CR9KoTJoNfKP78eJ4XSwDnr44x74NfOkfuu1EMI6R_EBRuHmsfGIzeCW0m7utk/w400-h300/IMG_0752.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Back on the Chiltern side, this tree has grown its roots in a tentacular manner
to express its disapproval for the cosmic horror of the English socio-economic
condition.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGqEwHARTnzS3Izs1exy3HvQWSnEDyrbf8No2lAIq_6WZOpDr0x2x4XRwA2aIdhbNt1fNwKxqFiNeHT5kaK7cvUDJ8Y_uBekizmxtyuFnpstvbnDXBDqGo6nHJnC0bzh-JMxu1g-emSng/s3264/IMG_0754.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGqEwHARTnzS3Izs1exy3HvQWSnEDyrbf8No2lAIq_6WZOpDr0x2x4XRwA2aIdhbNt1fNwKxqFiNeHT5kaK7cvUDJ8Y_uBekizmxtyuFnpstvbnDXBDqGo6nHJnC0bzh-JMxu1g-emSng/w400-h300/IMG_0754.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Is this the Golden Hopelight flower, which grows in the soil of countries where
there’s at least a minuscule chance that they’re not irrevocably doomed? Alas,
no – it would appear to be the easily-misidentified Future-To-Dust Follyblossom.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJwRQCfKfHgw6QyY9pph79sG5xZrPEd4UGgqwGKAlvjf9v3owgwbQ23E5U5pQ_lkqwAkbcV1igUIYN5LhG0cnPRe9BYI2x9xU2FX1Z-0iQ_KUSz1zDgFzxhxtfOUZ_6_xaWaMPyPp6sO0/s3264/IMG_0755.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJwRQCfKfHgw6QyY9pph79sG5xZrPEd4UGgqwGKAlvjf9v3owgwbQ23E5U5pQ_lkqwAkbcV1igUIYN5LhG0cnPRe9BYI2x9xU2FX1Z-0iQ_KUSz1zDgFzxhxtfOUZ_6_xaWaMPyPp6sO0/w640-h480/IMG_0755.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Say hello.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Let’s
take a closer look at what’s going on here. Here is an <i>extremely</i>
simplified attempt to make sense of this region (as well as a reminder of why I don't draw things):</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjilpOxmeYFVFDdfgd3otSFFHwUTykC1WpRVwry7ic5z3RWr-vliDBMjo2QHO_MBwl-DMk4xHgus5x5iMDwMbLYOxYIzeL2q7R0Bjnn_-n-s0qYS8rNqy064iyxmtuI7GeGRvnwsuUSX1w/s2048/Goring+Gap+geology+sketch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1451" data-original-width="2048" height="454" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjilpOxmeYFVFDdfgd3otSFFHwUTykC1WpRVwry7ic5z3RWr-vliDBMjo2QHO_MBwl-DMk4xHgus5x5iMDwMbLYOxYIzeL2q7R0Bjnn_-n-s0qYS8rNqy064iyxmtuI7GeGRvnwsuUSX1w/w640-h454/Goring+Gap+geology+sketch.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Like
its human history, the deep history of the British landmass is a story of
migration and diversity (only without the hostile panic at it). The journey of
this land upon the tectonic movements of the Earth’s crust has brought it
through hot and cold, over and under the water, and across the planet’s surface
from as far as where Antarctica is now, ever rising and falling, growing and
shrinking, losing chunks and joining greater wholes.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As
such its present-day geological profile reads like a colourful cross-section of
three billion years of planetary history. The general principle is that the further
north and west you go, the older the layers that rise to the surface, with the Precambrian
metamorphic gneiss of the Scottish far north and the Hebrides lurking at the
deep end of this scale.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmphIgmMCJbjN5P9YZySJiO8tQu6remY3cd_1LGxwfRficpdK6lBpEU8DPi423KUOknKPd8IA1JNfx6j69AmCfHyp3Gd-ouBz_y6KbZDBYOlNFePGrNs_WRHDw6Z9ZENvFgmo2WnXvu-E/s782/Britain+geology+map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="782" data-original-width="551" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmphIgmMCJbjN5P9YZySJiO8tQu6remY3cd_1LGxwfRficpdK6lBpEU8DPi423KUOknKPd8IA1JNfx6j69AmCfHyp3Gd-ouBz_y6KbZDBYOlNFePGrNs_WRHDw6Z9ZENvFgmo2WnXvu-E/w450-h640/Britain+geology+map.png" width="450" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>William Smith’s famously beautiful 1815 map of Britain’s geology, the first
detailed chart of its scale and kind. This country’s rich range of exposed
rocks from different time periods well-equipped its people for the empirical
study of the Earth, but it was only around the nineteenth century that they
really took off at it, as the scientific and industrial revolutions undermined
the power of religious creation narratives and drove huge economic incentives
in mining and infrastructure. (For his part, Smith was ignored, ruined, and banged up in debtor's prison; only in his final years were his contributions recognised.)<br /></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here
at the younger southern end, the Thames threads through several of this land’s
more recent layers. We are now high enough up the river to begin consideration
of the one it first sprung from: the sedimentations of the warm and shallow sea
that covered what is now the <b>Oxford Basin</b> in the Jurassic period, about
145 to 200 million years ago. Oxford’s fossil-rich clays accumulated over that
period, and so did the honey-coloured limestone of the <b>Cotswold Hills</b>,
formed of billions of tiny calcium carbonate shells left behind by tiny marine
organisms and rolled around into cute ovular shapes (<i>ooids</i>) on the
shallow sea floor. Today it is from their midst that the Thames springs.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There
followed a dramatic change in climate, marking the end of the Jurassic period
and start of the Cretaceous. In this chapter of the story, lasting famously to
the extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs around 65 million years ago,
these lands were submerged under deeper seas, further from exposed rocks and
thus from their eroded sediments. As a result the tiny marine organisms of this
time left far purer calcite shells, which over this period, built up into a province
of a softer, more porous variety of limestone: chalk – known as <i>creta</i> in
Latin, hence <i>Cretaceous </i>period.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDJk2nVm137dm0G5cgAxFV4wngz1_p38JIG3KMcFay8vcMUaUpbkLwrdON0auzwlFXiJMpTFMm1IWbeb-yxns_iA8SK23QfLdhRPnOBlbqfRvCSVAQK-_fEy4YtsqFv6tbRy0xaIym-C4/s3264/IMG_0768.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDJk2nVm137dm0G5cgAxFV4wngz1_p38JIG3KMcFay8vcMUaUpbkLwrdON0auzwlFXiJMpTFMm1IWbeb-yxns_iA8SK23QfLdhRPnOBlbqfRvCSVAQK-_fEy4YtsqFv6tbRy0xaIym-C4/w640-h480/IMG_0768.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Chalk which here regularly emerges from the thin soil, and has a distinct
texture beneath the soles of your shoes.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The <b>Chalk
Group</b> is the general name for this province of deposits. It encompasses all
the chalk formations of south and east England, including the Chiltern Hills
and Berkshire Downs here at its edge, as well as the Dover cliffs and various
Downs in south England; but also the white limestone cliffs of Antrim in Ireland,
the Alabaster Coast of Normandy and wine caves of Champagne in France, numerous
formations in the Low Countries, Germany and Denmark, and even the
petroleum-bearing shelves beneath the North Sea. At the risk of understating
its complexity (there are multiple chalk subgroups as well as different localised
processes), this chalk is essentially a single contiguous unit developed over
tens of millions of years.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">All
this chalk then got crumpled towards its present shape by the violent tectonic
upheavals of around 30-50 million years ago – an <i>orogeny</i>, as they call
it (from Greek <i>óros</i> + <i>génesis</i>, ‘creation of mountains’), whose
plate movements pushed up the long chain of Eurasian mountains from the Alps
and Atlas at one end to the Himalayas at the other. Here at the edge
of the action they only got small “mountains” like the Chilterns and the
Downs, while the spaces in between sank to form valleys like the <b>London Basin</b><span>.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>In London the chalk is still down there, deep
beneath the ground we’ve walked up so far. But during and since those foldings
it has collected a few more layers of deposits, including, eventually, on
account of the Thames and its tributaries.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizVYGkB3OH3ZX3N0Lwmg07xO-lS-wsIUR8OPwOtMMnmgJZm9gXFLf0wb8w7UR_lCh8llNg6zIvzkNZqCsKpxsoVx0x-JmThJcOjbHxwJH9vzVQRzNDqWPhG0-MuTTGJDRgvN2JCvZVUj4/s3264/IMG_0764.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizVYGkB3OH3ZX3N0Lwmg07xO-lS-wsIUR8OPwOtMMnmgJZm9gXFLf0wb8w7UR_lCh8llNg6zIvzkNZqCsKpxsoVx0x-JmThJcOjbHxwJH9vzVQRzNDqWPhG0-MuTTGJDRgvN2JCvZVUj4/w400-h300/IMG_0764.JPG" width="400" /></a></div> </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>It’s impossible to state when exactly the
river’s story begins, but for most of its existence it is thought to have run
more or less straight east to the sea. Its change to its present course is, by
the scales we’ve been looking at here, extremely recent. It came about thanks
to the ongoing </span><b>glaciation</b><span> (“ice age”) of the last two million years or
so, or more precisely, its alternating <i>glacial</i> and <i>interglacial</i>
periods of advancing and retreating ice sheets (of which the planet is
currently in one of the latter).</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>It so happened that the early Thames ran
close to the limit of the Arctic ice sheets’ advance. The ice was not all that
thick down here, but grew substantial enough to form blockages to the river’s
route and cause it to grind into the Chalk Group in search of paths of less
resistance, especially when the melting ice turned its flow torrential.
Eventually – it’s not clear exactly when – the water broke through the chalk
right here, creating what they now call the </span><b>Goring Gap</b><span> and plunging a
new course into the London Basin. With it went huge loads of glacial debris,
which it would go on to deposit as London’s sand and gravel terraces. </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>The wider landscape remained in tremendous
flux in this period, with temperatures and sea levels rising and falling. Britain
alternated between peninsula and island. It was connected to the European
mainland till as recently as 10,000 years ago, when much of the North Sea was
exposed as a landmass called <i>Doggerland</i> and the Thames was a tributary
of the Rhine. Only when Doggerland submerged due to undersea landslides around
6,000 BCE did Britain become an island again.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Which is hardly its final destiny. These
processes are still ongoing, right now, at the same patient pace as has always
been their way. It can’t be said, however, that they’re so vast as to be
indifferent as to the humans who came along and ruined it with pretend-games
like nationhood and private property. These too have had real geological
impacts: the draining of lowlands, forest clearance and consequent accelerated
erosion, gravel and clay extraction, and of course, anthropogenic climate
change with its vast and wide-ranging impacts on temperatures, sea levels,
flooding, coastal erosion and ecology. Whether humans like the English will
come to terms with their position as characters within this ongoing story,
rather than authors who think they’ve ended it and stand with arms folded on
its cover, will strongly influence how it unfolds from here.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-jbgTTAoiCsPVG_fPDqlVZFthWzI-yc5EDOYkvTG6oVumWqgOE9Y1TlgiUtDSOtV8WxO4muabfmdgQGHAxMBZUJdHyJPs_wOtccD8rwNAmLG01ZXqbFsgfL_dI1fSB9rjrSBZC3pacdU/s3264/IMG_0762.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-jbgTTAoiCsPVG_fPDqlVZFthWzI-yc5EDOYkvTG6oVumWqgOE9Y1TlgiUtDSOtV8WxO4muabfmdgQGHAxMBZUJdHyJPs_wOtccD8rwNAmLG01ZXqbFsgfL_dI1fSB9rjrSBZC3pacdU/w400-h300/IMG_0762.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqmKJV95PZAOnYn9rACgTvxXwRTi0QsZxYuJQ2l6TA3hQS-XKoJGEOLlYmLMuAu7K76vfn2OAXdj89JzhOhPqvgDGsz3bbOadkbZ5M0JaHxEqdUpSc72ojULKc7vlOdEp8Jcrp_2xPAkg/s3264/IMG_0758.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqmKJV95PZAOnYn9rACgTvxXwRTi0QsZxYuJQ2l6TA3hQS-XKoJGEOLlYmLMuAu7K76vfn2OAXdj89JzhOhPqvgDGsz3bbOadkbZ5M0JaHxEqdUpSc72ojULKc7vlOdEp8Jcrp_2xPAkg/w400-h300/IMG_0758.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This is obviously a tunnel into
another world; on the balance of probabilities, a healthier one where they’ve
made far better choices than in this one. No entry if you’re too tall.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>So let’s press on and – there. You see?</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCJzRS5ub67rpbc3nkd5_AVJRsc9V-YkQGNQITM3mvRqa2gYAhpFR7hAQp1Olhgq1LPhkF_hXJCUrOQ2bYg12DDvFm2wkjH0dv0az3Xkd-7MYvGcDe2Pcy39NVjx7WGi4tbe8-w-yzAEM/s3264/IMG_0759.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCJzRS5ub67rpbc3nkd5_AVJRsc9V-YkQGNQITM3mvRqa2gYAhpFR7hAQp1Olhgq1LPhkF_hXJCUrOQ2bYg12DDvFm2wkjH0dv0az3Xkd-7MYvGcDe2Pcy39NVjx7WGi4tbe8-w-yzAEM/w400-h300/IMG_0759.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This. Look at this. The English and
their choices.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPBN5hcBkQzXph29GpC6Vu07fdUJhmje-jN1Jkawh5kw6F69M5dDxZCQm5HkFoII98vkUKYDgitbiYZnqUwyj6KMgKXbQz3tKu5BxU5_pKkrEI8Bvth1D1hmfTnxOqAUPPqSxscuevYpI/s3264/IMG_0760.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPBN5hcBkQzXph29GpC6Vu07fdUJhmje-jN1Jkawh5kw6F69M5dDxZCQm5HkFoII98vkUKYDgitbiYZnqUwyj6KMgKXbQz3tKu5BxU5_pKkrEI8Bvth1D1hmfTnxOqAUPPqSxscuevYpI/w400-h300/IMG_0760.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Presumably this is a World War II
bunker. They were scared of the Germans invading, expected they’d do so by
means of the river, and somehow imagined that if they did a thing like this
would stop them.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAA_4hCMajK9myWM6RM6vPCXz-W-x9Zef5-8mDuGvtlbyzqzMg_HOlvGcHj3OoeLzxZLbAEzrjwIeCfhYZeV0egCuojZoQIhSn6B6UPkqIhdzhaJD0fqEDg-4YLaL-mgZfr_7ePsv5POk/s3264/IMG_0761.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAA_4hCMajK9myWM6RM6vPCXz-W-x9Zef5-8mDuGvtlbyzqzMg_HOlvGcHj3OoeLzxZLbAEzrjwIeCfhYZeV0egCuojZoQIhSn6B6UPkqIhdzhaJD0fqEDg-4YLaL-mgZfr_7ePsv5POk/w300-h400/IMG_0761.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Then on closer inspection, we see one
of the defining hypocrisies of present-day English nationalism. On the one
hand, shrill rhetoric about how admirable this country’s history is and the
need to protect heritage when it’s statues of slave traders. On the other hand,
shameless contempt for actual heritage, whether it’s localised mistreatments
like this, general funding cuts, or ploughing a massive road tunnel through
Stonehenge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Gradually the woods thin and the slopes ease
down to the present-day river level. The trees open up to reveal broad views of
the Goring Gap.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmKLkZSaXROtwNggRuHde_sTvZseUhsXe9pMcWZRexqFwga0_EelpgKtudL1aYksdiaX33ELRBHImG6UPAcRqXSHlGUbp3Imco5_B8PdM22SXaOT5U7rc3s1xthJMIfdqttqx3FG4t2qE/s3264/IMG_0769.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmKLkZSaXROtwNggRuHde_sTvZseUhsXe9pMcWZRexqFwga0_EelpgKtudL1aYksdiaX33ELRBHImG6UPAcRqXSHlGUbp3Imco5_B8PdM22SXaOT5U7rc3s1xthJMIfdqttqx3FG4t2qE/w640-h480/IMG_0769.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>More of the Chilterns’ western slopes.
Notice the extremely English barbed wire, fending wayfarers off property claims
that should be common land.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnmNIi-OYP48iGO5yKkdLccw4B2QHTislWroDY8Ay43QKI3FuAtMV7hD5qB6jpdV-8X-WlXgBzz-_1MOo6PXap24VF19MsRPARe-BX88gbY9PJXYRIeXHxihMFpJJZQFOrOg6_JhGKxks/s3264/IMG_0773.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnmNIi-OYP48iGO5yKkdLccw4B2QHTislWroDY8Ay43QKI3FuAtMV7hD5qB6jpdV-8X-WlXgBzz-_1MOo6PXap24VF19MsRPARe-BX88gbY9PJXYRIeXHxihMFpJJZQFOrOg6_JhGKxks/w300-h400/IMG_0773.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The chalk is never far beneath your
feet.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJMg3n7UOeSRaAsibZ0uQ0xCJaWrNmuWAx3Wov627bGkuoxbm0yF7SvOp9iQ5YRntCArd4_Nt2JoqjG75uPWqh4O-2c4-ATbFy0C7RtboE8lhZkSrQSTgi9bGXvBbu8tdrvxRbGliJFw/s3264/IMG_0774.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJMg3n7UOeSRaAsibZ0uQ0xCJaWrNmuWAx3Wov627bGkuoxbm0yF7SvOp9iQ5YRntCArd4_Nt2JoqjG75uPWqh4O-2c4-ATbFy0C7RtboE8lhZkSrQSTgi9bGXvBbu8tdrvxRbGliJFw/w400-h300/IMG_0774.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>As the chalk poorly suits this ground
for growing crops, most Goring Gap farmland appears to be pasture for cows or
horses.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK6Ym9SdI2by2wSsX6JjOb3zLWldSNzicI4F2INrvI7IomA5rvdu1DgP6ASPusmPLYUT53Jw5fMUL-xyJd8aCEU0laRyod-6WfPn3WHYqG0c9vO-FqSMTTcjt3a0861Kjz6aH-agcrlP0/s3264/IMG_0776.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK6Ym9SdI2by2wSsX6JjOb3zLWldSNzicI4F2INrvI7IomA5rvdu1DgP6ASPusmPLYUT53Jw5fMUL-xyJd8aCEU0laRyod-6WfPn3WHYqG0c9vO-FqSMTTcjt3a0861Kjz6aH-agcrlP0/w300-h400/IMG_0776.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Despite its narrow isolation, the
Gap’s geography has made it a pinch-point for human travel and communication
routes, thus connecting its villages </span><span><span>–</span> eventually </span><span><span>–</span> to metropolitan culture.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Gatehampton</span></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Inside the bend before the Gap is the isolated
hamlet of </span><b>Gatehampton</b><span>. This tiny cluster of farms and cottages has
been an outlying satellite of Goring for over a thousand years, though it
picked up a manor house when Enclosure hit it around 1700. But if it’s never
exactly been huge, its modest size belies its historic weight.
Flint hunting tools have been found here from some ten thousand years ago, some
of the earliest post-glacial Neolithic relics in the country, as well as Bronze
Age graves, Iron Age potteries, and the remains of sophisticated Roman and
sub-Roman farm buildings, including a grain-drying kiln and a villa with
painted walls and floor heating.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Clearly this site, on a river ford at the
entrance to the narrowest part of this geographic funnel, has held vital and continuous
importance to humans living on or moving about this land. Indeed, it’s one
theory as to where Gatehampton’s name comes from. The ‘home farm at the gate’: the
<i>gate </i>to the Goring Gap, and by extension to the English interior.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Or <i>gate</i> could actually mean <i>goat</i>.
No-one’s quite sure.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0QNUuTpaebA4aoal0znL3sNNPC_Sptm9jpaZJJwcFsl6Ifh23b7lhLCNtF1flY_G0EZjExxYYXyD1tSZxlKMxCi9QQPXXg4O77BGa8m2l0NyhNQOMa-Ux6HYIuGzGrZKvKNx210uFhoM/s3264/IMG_0778.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0QNUuTpaebA4aoal0znL3sNNPC_Sptm9jpaZJJwcFsl6Ifh23b7lhLCNtF1flY_G0EZjExxYYXyD1tSZxlKMxCi9QQPXXg4O77BGa8m2l0NyhNQOMa-Ux6HYIuGzGrZKvKNx210uFhoM/w400-h300/IMG_0778.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A riverside cottage at Gatehampton,
named <i>Ferry Cottage</i> for the ferry to Basildon that crossed here for
several centuries. The ferry seems to have vanished after the 1830s when the
bridge up in Goring appeared.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNUkvSQLnVdI0U2K7vOXxnU_yvYVjnoLv5Moy34Sfd0OxRde6xQyk6TLZOiuhzcf50fzPakjbGXbY5ID9OQX-rx4iFa18FjxciH8ielS2FSWfR6Kp9-qnaxEyzySlZQe9OuaZIrhqKvY4/s3264/IMG_0779.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNUkvSQLnVdI0U2K7vOXxnU_yvYVjnoLv5Moy34Sfd0OxRde6xQyk6TLZOiuhzcf50fzPakjbGXbY5ID9OQX-rx4iFa18FjxciH8ielS2FSWfR6Kp9-qnaxEyzySlZQe9OuaZIrhqKvY4/w400-h300/IMG_0779.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The river at Gatehampton, hidden
beneath the reeds.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Further round this bend, Gatehampton surprises
wayfarers with its most outstanding structure.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj72n_bs8axHA6cwpw05dB3dERBETY8mCO2XlhW_RveKIxVO0alJ56u9JdBFqkVgFK5-d_7x9LJlPCtJmkJ3voLwfL7dz1bM8x_7VZzxxi79j2HP-kAbngNaTp89JTBfH0ri1gB3awQkHw/s3264/IMG_0780.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj72n_bs8axHA6cwpw05dB3dERBETY8mCO2XlhW_RveKIxVO0alJ56u9JdBFqkVgFK5-d_7x9LJlPCtJmkJ3voLwfL7dz1bM8x_7VZzxxi79j2HP-kAbngNaTp89JTBfH0ri1gB3awQkHw/w400-h300/IMG_0780.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span>Here once more runs the Great Western
Railway...</span></span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQcEBJ-4oib8-zvMFnom9ao5gz6egZcyZn0XHMUqI96hLFUbavhrzn-pdlVIB5unOAAfjCWGU8PTrKlV7RS8SErOM5f4KLylyMKxeARm3X-EWf4G0Sp0sVwxc-JPec911hGkd4qJRnzLM/s3264/IMG_0787.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQcEBJ-4oib8-zvMFnom9ao5gz6egZcyZn0XHMUqI96hLFUbavhrzn-pdlVIB5unOAAfjCWGU8PTrKlV7RS8SErOM5f4KLylyMKxeARm3X-EWf4G0Sp0sVwxc-JPec911hGkd4qJRnzLM/w640-h480/IMG_0787.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>...which suddenly rockets across a
more impressive brick viaduct than you’d ever expect to find this far out in the bush.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>It takes only a glance to suspect this bridge
to be an Isambard Kingdom Brunel creation. The English’s most admired
engineer-hero was known for designing structures to be not merely functional
but aesthetically pleasing, a concern which stands out all the more for its contrast
with the soullessness of market-fundamentalist architecture today. This thing
is huge – too huge to fit in one photograph, with four of these great wide
arches stretching beyond the riverbanks. Yet it’s a comfortable hugeness, not a
menacing one, and in its own way fits agreeably into its landscape. As for
function, it’s had a few upgrades and repairs since its opening in 1840 but still
appears up to its job two centuries later.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHfHQBeWCYqFVElKJTbqo9Ur_BqG8ASCz4p44yMheZLP2rWptsR5C_Ys9CW6fdMla7HOX4IBmBmxSEw2nUHOaDGBQo0U1Tmtl3qSX_F1-wlj2vc-37so8wkD-_tia-50yn4wUHpKuj4Tk/s3264/IMG_0791.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHfHQBeWCYqFVElKJTbqo9Ur_BqG8ASCz4p44yMheZLP2rWptsR5C_Ys9CW6fdMla7HOX4IBmBmxSEw2nUHOaDGBQo0U1Tmtl3qSX_F1-wlj2vc-37so8wkD-_tia-50yn4wUHpKuj4Tk/w640-h480/IMG_0791.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A pocket of peace: the ‘Little Meadow’
beyond the railway bridge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWgrX9YyZtBjvDl88p7MR6pHAwjvdlWWD1BX6gTAIHlJfy5dQ0azfxB87ZUsA_wnU51Baqfd3HhhDWwSilBfsGDsqjWvcFXsmb7TyOEY2a-MvIpO-lDviSs6cz4pJqzDZGm830eaOSMLY/s3264/IMG_0790.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWgrX9YyZtBjvDl88p7MR6pHAwjvdlWWD1BX6gTAIHlJfy5dQ0azfxB87ZUsA_wnU51Baqfd3HhhDWwSilBfsGDsqjWvcFXsmb7TyOEY2a-MvIpO-lDviSs6cz4pJqzDZGm830eaOSMLY/w400-h300/IMG_0790.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Idyllic places of rest like this lose
their magic under the psychology of the COVID-19 age. The more
attractively-positioned a bench like this, the less inclined you are to sit on
it for fear that someone with the virus was recently there.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsUflR56SfO-JPN8nsZhFjgqWqw8XX8-0P5HSS4i5Xtg9PIKnQ5MYfcCEl-giDVHN6pe5XjOnRK1Y7k4ApCCtVQ4m-xvnUMXfyqSt59bPH-TLlHoeG4LfiOGvDDLm9nWLHRuP3d74jrfI/s3264/IMG_0793.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsUflR56SfO-JPN8nsZhFjgqWqw8XX8-0P5HSS4i5Xtg9PIKnQ5MYfcCEl-giDVHN6pe5XjOnRK1Y7k4ApCCtVQ4m-xvnUMXfyqSt59bPH-TLlHoeG4LfiOGvDDLm9nWLHRuP3d74jrfI/w400-h300/IMG_0793.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span>Some positionings are not so well
thought through.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>The Gatehampton farm fields extend a little
further before at last giving way to the residences of Goring.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGAJ7Yq8Ov554S80II8RZ3ilovN6ERqFXmbP3YKPfOoti0dAPAiX20WyxS94v9DkNsFvgx7vWvvkqta7Cf4NYb6liSdFOT2olOL8z44_OQUIUvhcJ5I0_8Tkz9AMi_UNBK3sMq3yfBUvY/s3264/IMG_0797.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGAJ7Yq8Ov554S80II8RZ3ilovN6ERqFXmbP3YKPfOoti0dAPAiX20WyxS94v9DkNsFvgx7vWvvkqta7Cf4NYb6liSdFOT2olOL8z44_OQUIUvhcJ5I0_8Tkz9AMi_UNBK3sMq3yfBUvY/w640-h480/IMG_0797.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>And this makes three consecutive
sections with bovine encounters.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOP3kg_1fMODjb35A4jEVqupJ1XXRaBuW3bYG9Y3MrZ-T8NuomNiH-KunELFZcN1gUztOlbeuELrStAnhYKp7CTcEsCQGoY95ba9EUwbCTVcvFYfmPdnUpEYC2vp1-8qE2wVBQMMqkyqA/s3264/IMG_0794.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOP3kg_1fMODjb35A4jEVqupJ1XXRaBuW3bYG9Y3MrZ-T8NuomNiH-KunELFZcN1gUztOlbeuELrStAnhYKp7CTcEsCQGoY95ba9EUwbCTVcvFYfmPdnUpEYC2vp1-8qE2wVBQMMqkyqA/w400-h300/IMG_0794.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUpAAUyXLxhON97tYX__wKqPqibzh6OEU7Q9owWb_knG2CkfFlnPVUqiH-0KCj3KrvObmWScP5vIxBblpSLQJvRNc6ePdDGNwPRaqXL88ikoPxrdue3wyUUiS6wJNSPGgD0qCNWx8y5Xs/s3264/IMG_0795.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUpAAUyXLxhON97tYX__wKqPqibzh6OEU7Q9owWb_knG2CkfFlnPVUqiH-0KCj3KrvObmWScP5vIxBblpSLQJvRNc6ePdDGNwPRaqXL88ikoPxrdue3wyUUiS6wJNSPGgD0qCNWx8y5Xs/w400-h300/IMG_0795.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This is a younger, shyer herd. After
raising their heads to stare a while they turned and shuffled away.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfiVgFrHJb_oBhhPXJph19Qk6BH7yQOBtdU7KKra1MRGw7ApQDHqKwNo4WYsluaW5s5VWP1MJOusFhaPBc896e_LuT6jElmK-0_vk0ZshXHFvwjMzmqXUriwwbt3ONyopUsS1U2SuwVc/s3264/IMG_0799.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfiVgFrHJb_oBhhPXJph19Qk6BH7yQOBtdU7KKra1MRGw7ApQDHqKwNo4WYsluaW5s5VWP1MJOusFhaPBc896e_LuT6jElmK-0_vk0ZshXHFvwjMzmqXUriwwbt3ONyopUsS1U2SuwVc/w300-h400/IMG_0799.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Nuuo.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhak0EP5esYrpmqdJCngkAZddgdrthbhIXExe-3sf9jVjHUfgR9TxZBhu_1nl3h8iz6olfGq9geljaf20x9Mjqd7SqiUqbV-0cmQXOCKuu5-heAwEdIQwLlN9Fl4WEYT-MElAEPbTwiWjk/s3264/IMG_0802.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhak0EP5esYrpmqdJCngkAZddgdrthbhIXExe-3sf9jVjHUfgR9TxZBhu_1nl3h8iz6olfGq9geljaf20x9Mjqd7SqiUqbV-0cmQXOCKuu5-heAwEdIQwLlN9Fl4WEYT-MElAEPbTwiWjk/w640-h480/IMG_0802.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>And then, too soon, another round of
over-propertied encroachments signals the approach to the pair of villages in
the gap.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqyktfAAhdU_w1zrGWm13hqCUTlYPBZO_zyF25NRtvbqsmKsFPugx0oCgTj44a3VfZNFnGa4lP4TB6tCsaGvm26-Bm-mlms0JQ2Ie-eF9fc03CFggJAlUi7L_vROopwpJPsotzMgPSybk/s3264/IMG_0803.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqyktfAAhdU_w1zrGWm13hqCUTlYPBZO_zyF25NRtvbqsmKsFPugx0oCgTj44a3VfZNFnGa4lP4TB6tCsaGvm26-Bm-mlms0JQ2Ie-eF9fc03CFggJAlUi7L_vROopwpJPsotzMgPSybk/w400-h300/IMG_0803.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>It starts on the opposite bank, where
from here on it’s all huge houses with gardens large enough to house several
families of refugees. It’s not lack of space that’s the problem in this
country.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS8eGDDiKLOGbKX92nyRtUMUR4c0EFyCemUVE61S9hNZW_nfP7nzWpSSORpL3GMeAFIMs-javAAOmamR8ZCWFWT9A9QLm1xuxPeah7T4krM-nqb6qLG4yq8sIFKlG8UsJ0fU4UsBJg0T0/s3264/IMG_0805.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS8eGDDiKLOGbKX92nyRtUMUR4c0EFyCemUVE61S9hNZW_nfP7nzWpSSORpL3GMeAFIMs-javAAOmamR8ZCWFWT9A9QLm1xuxPeah7T4krM-nqb6qLG4yq8sIFKlG8UsJ0fU4UsBJg0T0/w400-h300/IMG_0805.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Englishness is placing a heron statue
on a river post so actual herons don’t land there.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiQA5i4qKRU8WQfti715-rS4D9b6AuIF5WDOLy8ezsj6Y1tjZJ0f3vXOuiWMNzBiS8Ml-t1qyC88iSz65WtY1j2_O-d_JEVclwyWkhDdMo3DKeJaBp50UeiAvF_ynkb8BhCENtJQhUvbM/s3264/IMG_0808.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiQA5i4qKRU8WQfti715-rS4D9b6AuIF5WDOLy8ezsj6Y1tjZJ0f3vXOuiWMNzBiS8Ml-t1qyC88iSz65WtY1j2_O-d_JEVclwyWkhDdMo3DKeJaBp50UeiAvF_ynkb8BhCENtJQhUvbM/w400-h300/IMG_0808.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>It’s noticeable that some of the
mansions along here have been left to fall into dereliction. This one, <i>The
Grotto</i>, built in 1720 for the Basildon nobility, had a fire (suspectedly
arson) rip through it just this March.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDSrWLuzCZFhVjmb54LNQaKBvHG3awPjUHv0_b2nsWjF0oPFd_ptQZhWuH00TMickfMPusmAPh8XhVh2sHlpPdY2MnAoFM1AxMFKNwBQnbzvmoxd4-2PwbPbLyw0oDSwgomU6TL0gguh0/s3264/IMG_0806.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDSrWLuzCZFhVjmb54LNQaKBvHG3awPjUHv0_b2nsWjF0oPFd_ptQZhWuH00TMickfMPusmAPh8XhVh2sHlpPdY2MnAoFM1AxMFKNwBQnbzvmoxd4-2PwbPbLyw0oDSwgomU6TL0gguh0/w640-h480/IMG_0806.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Across to the west, the Berkshire
Downs extend the chalk into the old kingdom of Wessex.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Goring-on-Thames</span></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>As the fences close in, a steady increase in
foot traffic indicates that we have entered Goring. Virtually all of these walkers
are white and middle-aged or elderly, which would seem to represent these
settlements’ position on the English class profile. Fortunately they also tend
to come with dogs, making for some more therapeutic encounters on this narrow
towpath.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB1jnjvXwIYSJE4HSGXZ10Dkl10VO0fevOOTW6Y9VSm4sZuJgE2ZYdgVBKP8WhZ_eqqSmrPtZXjsz0R1IhVvSBCWpOyr4piqgGvr6Uze8JYRUP_km9tNqitXoa0eR_PHyu_qkn-kgp6iM/s3264/IMG_0812.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB1jnjvXwIYSJE4HSGXZ10Dkl10VO0fevOOTW6Y9VSm4sZuJgE2ZYdgVBKP8WhZ_eqqSmrPtZXjsz0R1IhVvSBCWpOyr4piqgGvr6Uze8JYRUP_km9tNqitXoa0eR_PHyu_qkn-kgp6iM/w400-h300/IMG_0812.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>One of the last scenes of passably
wild river before drawing into the landscaped pinch-point.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKy56hLHZU1l7ddN12DdZ-gEhBrGVmDoBZyyD0dcLVbXt9u9Vj2TF5hfhWPe55EWCUXdLTcBLr3luAZ7vVeTrwcicOE0T76Buh1i28wmgB5PafKUmRg25ltzLF0D46-0KkNChsK99dzjs/s3264/IMG_0813.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKy56hLHZU1l7ddN12DdZ-gEhBrGVmDoBZyyD0dcLVbXt9u9Vj2TF5hfhWPe55EWCUXdLTcBLr3luAZ7vVeTrwcicOE0T76Buh1i28wmgB5PafKUmRg25ltzLF0D46-0KkNChsK99dzjs/w400-h300/IMG_0813.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Another wartime bunker hides unconvincingly
on a river island.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtxBKboEMb8sNXzujqzk4vTVt6zazB4RRkCXL3WU8OnLibVLDc2-zBGq7apfR_qI4V5pI5ZGrbHMZj6Vh7xp2c6MJwSjVw2a7PW1V7URcfJATqOwnBxTeLI24NviXvObbUncB_ERrqN78/s3264/IMG_0816.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtxBKboEMb8sNXzujqzk4vTVt6zazB4RRkCXL3WU8OnLibVLDc2-zBGq7apfR_qI4V5pI5ZGrbHMZj6Vh7xp2c6MJwSjVw2a7PW1V7URcfJATqOwnBxTeLI24NviXvObbUncB_ERrqN78/w640-h480/IMG_0816.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>How the English like their walls and
fences.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSPaJwPijnzKd_xxuq-MD8LnLspoesYgEkPjdNnclczUVrz1C0fSe47V78R4N8tmjL7G3kbV4DpsTG0gv1MTKpheuV6V8aVNlyUOIuLfZ9TeL7_0hMiAS0HBFzv6atVOKourxqJZolLgg/s3264/IMG_0815.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSPaJwPijnzKd_xxuq-MD8LnLspoesYgEkPjdNnclczUVrz1C0fSe47V78R4N8tmjL7G3kbV4DpsTG0gv1MTKpheuV6V8aVNlyUOIuLfZ9TeL7_0hMiAS0HBFzv6atVOKourxqJZolLgg/w400-h300/IMG_0815.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A more salubrious thing to like. This
is a good place to observe how dogs either can’t get enough of the water, or
can’t get far enough from it. This was without doubt one of the former, but one of the latter was observed falling in here
and requiring rescue.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>The closer we get to their centre of
settlement, the fiercer grow the fences and displays of reeking conspicuous
consumption.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirYpbKU0OdyeeVbYWCy4dpBNtxGo0cI5377BW38_9e7GbAN5bofpDSLl6UfEyuBQpeEWWBkcVtj-a5orO1yV5f3mgLgAtM4fTmErROB7Fprh0haW0xhViROH8KQieg2f1kEbaUBRk8GTI/s3264/IMG_0818.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirYpbKU0OdyeeVbYWCy4dpBNtxGo0cI5377BW38_9e7GbAN5bofpDSLl6UfEyuBQpeEWWBkcVtj-a5orO1yV5f3mgLgAtM4fTmErROB7Fprh0haW0xhViROH8KQieg2f1kEbaUBRk8GTI/w400-h300/IMG_0818.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Spikes. Really?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX26iKpUxdJxsLhxhiNrqiw3Qnp9xqm13psS4nHzXRhyphenhyphenB3-HbVlINeXJdbCcVyN33SOi1qdRP1ppM3yN__up0veq8LdJVRWEhD7js1ckrGp6cufRwsdsDOSfGBEVHhO7bCMxy88BUE2-c/s3264/IMG_0822.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX26iKpUxdJxsLhxhiNrqiw3Qnp9xqm13psS4nHzXRhyphenhyphenB3-HbVlINeXJdbCcVyN33SOi1qdRP1ppM3yN__up0veq8LdJVRWEhD7js1ckrGp6cufRwsdsDOSfGBEVHhO7bCMxy88BUE2-c/w400-h300/IMG_0822.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This is eyebrow-raising on several
levels. It’d be one thing if it were public. As it is, it kind of leaves you
speechless.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMikylse-B88aj1yDetFehgpM71-BTEm69gNOSS3vztbwgwcisjFObdjxiY11xAks9kdpIK3AyQ9urvmarWW2VFSIZYqUpPXmIZVa_XTB4NhEZeio7FeKk2s6NHU8la7-RWD0W-DWDkm0/s3264/IMG_0823.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMikylse-B88aj1yDetFehgpM71-BTEm69gNOSS3vztbwgwcisjFObdjxiY11xAks9kdpIK3AyQ9urvmarWW2VFSIZYqUpPXmIZVa_XTB4NhEZeio7FeKk2s6NHU8la7-RWD0W-DWDkm0/w400-h300/IMG_0823.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The river belongs to everybody, and
everybody belongs to it. It’s a fair question whether this degree of land-privatisation
should be allowed in a healthy country.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh1LgOQJzkIbxp_vNZhQL7XrvKmeSwn2giLiBoMQ8rZY8vyVQIUB6YZfjo7dej4rurXt45soEMXYwrTmu2FQL8jrsgBdqm9eYE3ICpFsAsz_vUL5NR-nW4HJB6c3a4rhMvPJX6UQSPy-8/s3264/IMG_0824.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh1LgOQJzkIbxp_vNZhQL7XrvKmeSwn2giLiBoMQ8rZY8vyVQIUB6YZfjo7dej4rurXt45soEMXYwrTmu2FQL8jrsgBdqm9eYE3ICpFsAsz_vUL5NR-nW4HJB6c3a4rhMvPJX6UQSPy-8/w400-h300/IMG_0824.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Are they proud of themselves?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>The final approach to Goring is lined with
lived-in boats, most of which look comfortably well-off and/or have English
flags flying from their masts. </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm65VVXIgqegczXMlKIcIzabH3ZwfTkOZUxzi9_rRWCR9AnRG2tUyqQbYAeooCXbWR0_aEJLFfNRAdPvRXU2zf4ONUXxaE_DLRbicRBJ4EmCZoCmyEYCFCCQK57Mpn-HlE14VrZyNiHkU/s3264/IMG_0826.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm65VVXIgqegczXMlKIcIzabH3ZwfTkOZUxzi9_rRWCR9AnRG2tUyqQbYAeooCXbWR0_aEJLFfNRAdPvRXU2zf4ONUXxaE_DLRbicRBJ4EmCZoCmyEYCFCCQK57Mpn-HlE14VrZyNiHkU/w480-h640/IMG_0826.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The towpath downstream of Goring. The
timber bridge is at once eye-catching.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Goring</b><span> on the east bank (<i>Garinges</i> in Domesday, 1086) is an Anglo-Saxon
name for ‘Gara’s People’, while </span><b>Streatley</b><span> on the west refers to the old Roman road
which came through a clearing (<i>leah</i>) here. The latter’s name as well as
the bridge highlight this pair’s significance.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Perched on either side of the narrowest point
in the Thames valley, these small settlements sit on the crossing of some of
the most ancient tracks in the country. Most ancient of all is the river
itself, but here it is met by the <a href="https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/trails/the-ridgeway/trail-information/" target="_blank"><u><i>Ridgeway</i></u></a> and the <a href="http://icknieldwaytrail.org.uk/" target="_blank"><u><i>Icknield Way</i></u></a>, both Neolithic
routes along the top of the chalk. The rich archaeology of these surroundings
attests to long and sustained occupation by humans for thousands of years
prior to recorded history – an importance carried on by the Roman road, and more
recently by the river, road and rail traffic of the industrial age. </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAf9f953BbBVwQ65vY0bIw_LtbMOWnDzwSMG2hfT7vSUsRAMbIDqFeo7PDnzIgtAgvkrFI_blfTZ__2e-Y6_KxCvBs1dnRppfma9RI0xajPffaRkjrlAc1wfVYpfJSGXF_fx5FaI3RToQ/s3264/IMG_0828.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAf9f953BbBVwQ65vY0bIw_LtbMOWnDzwSMG2hfT7vSUsRAMbIDqFeo7PDnzIgtAgvkrFI_blfTZ__2e-Y6_KxCvBs1dnRppfma9RI0xajPffaRkjrlAc1wfVYpfJSGXF_fx5FaI3RToQ/w640-h480/IMG_0828.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The first bridge between Goring and
Streatley was built in 1837, replacing the old ferry in a long sequence of
fording practices here. The current timber and metal structure dates to 1923
and has been done up with flower baskets to emphasise class status.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzX69cGCOYkS6p3FQZAx923EEIX7q7ytl2thnpr5D2MAe9MCGSgeORQdlTzwDLf0QWTgctTQuqNmt0qANmsmH0eKGpH3YQTe-OzNscSNXXr-MqwYNkwqfkpyU6ndP_LWYEtFWAXhAIB4Y/s3264/IMG_0832.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzX69cGCOYkS6p3FQZAx923EEIX7q7ytl2thnpr5D2MAe9MCGSgeORQdlTzwDLf0QWTgctTQuqNmt0qANmsmH0eKGpH3YQTe-OzNscSNXXr-MqwYNkwqfkpyU6ndP_LWYEtFWAXhAIB4Y/w400-h300/IMG_0832.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Immediately upstream of the bridge is
Goring Lock and Weir: first built in 1787, with a current build from 1921.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Goring and Streatley form an interlinked
community and are often referred to together, as in the names of their bridge,
their railway station and their various amenities. But their relationship has a
complicated history. In the Anglo-Saxon period the river placed them on
opposite sides of a boundary between rival kingdoms: Goring in Mercia,
Streatley in Wessex. Though eventually unified under the English state, a
thousand years later its tides of industrial capitalism buffeted them unevenly.
The road on the west side had long made Streatley the dominant village, all the
more so after they built the bridge, but when the railway came through on the east
side Goring expanded in both size and popularity while Streatley found its
expansion constrained by its steeper Berkshire hillside. That is why Goring is
the larger village today, though they claim to peaceful coexistence. </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsxZbQalgBZv3F5Dqjkc3kfJvSLVOJ9fI-tm4jB8jgf3-yWqQrJ6DYz0BGQh_zd9dCDy0bco7aYfYWhuHynCy9vOO441-CAVEqaElvA5csOlVcDwNE32vBf8fJKGpOBzNNZdZhBnsi8uk/s3264/IMG_0835.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsxZbQalgBZv3F5Dqjkc3kfJvSLVOJ9fI-tm4jB8jgf3-yWqQrJ6DYz0BGQh_zd9dCDy0bco7aYfYWhuHynCy9vOO441-CAVEqaElvA5csOlVcDwNE32vBf8fJKGpOBzNNZdZhBnsi8uk/w400-h300/IMG_0835.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Post Office, caf</span>é and ‘doggy
boutique’ on the Goring side of the bridge. A closer look at Streatley should be
possible in the following stage.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIJHW6Jz59rhchaIO6yi5_V2CWfpB1bYiBeIy28q5l0yWTysj6W6dMOSPsVCBFcLoAcoYU_pp0L7vs_HpxDwhCcsfqgKN9UUNjtmffEQien2f9oXsZ5jcW-zpIQaRe6FnajWiclBSRJA0/s3264/IMG_0837.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIJHW6Jz59rhchaIO6yi5_V2CWfpB1bYiBeIy28q5l0yWTysj6W6dMOSPsVCBFcLoAcoYU_pp0L7vs_HpxDwhCcsfqgKN9UUNjtmffEQien2f9oXsZ5jcW-zpIQaRe6FnajWiclBSRJA0/w400-h300/IMG_0837.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The road into Goring, beside its old rectory gardens.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSifGG3iHfPMDhyphenhyphenE7zg1owlxrhC7THEFHF8av8GjHjxQMQiM4vAA5arMV3jrazdYkDSiD8Rvz07sECUO3HSv9fxs36yTpkOGHim5dsxwxaLuNdiNnFqoApv3mrMF9WhFhyiTBBVLftkr8/s3264/IMG_0839.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSifGG3iHfPMDhyphenhyphenE7zg1owlxrhC7THEFHF8av8GjHjxQMQiM4vAA5arMV3jrazdYkDSiD8Rvz07sECUO3HSv9fxs36yTpkOGHim5dsxwxaLuNdiNnFqoApv3mrMF9WhFhyiTBBVLftkr8/w640-h480/IMG_0839.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Goring high street.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It
was in the industrial period that Goring seems to have acquired the whiff of
money which, while not as in-your-face as some of the hulking Privilege Forts
of the lower valley, nonetheless hangs unmissable in its atmosphere. Wealthy
industrialists fleeing the cities were drawn here both for the fresh, picturesque
situation and the long-trodden connections to both sides of the chalk, now accelerated
with up-to-date transport and communications technology. With their resources these
new-rich arrivals Enclosed the local land – likely with violent consequences
for those who lived off it – and transformed a largely rural collection of
hamlets into a fashionable resort of posh houses, social clubs and sports
facilities whose air of privilege still radiates today.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAe3gOh8aWE8Nri03iF0x_jCyPfots0bMMG0WOamPT6SwOSoy7aOErRo1WWMgAt2nUThbO-6EFW3EgNopWvNpkpEylqkiG8dGiXVcYmYhlBaSkXrHZvjBaxwYenvBrIJ09CbDMJSoTZlA/s3264/IMG_0829.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAe3gOh8aWE8Nri03iF0x_jCyPfots0bMMG0WOamPT6SwOSoy7aOErRo1WWMgAt2nUThbO-6EFW3EgNopWvNpkpEylqkiG8dGiXVcYmYhlBaSkXrHZvjBaxwYenvBrIJ09CbDMJSoTZlA/w400-h300/IMG_0829.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>This is a village for people with money. A passer-by was excited to point out
that this grand house, next to Goring’s ancient water mill, was inhabited by
the late musician George Michael. It appears to have since been sold for over
£3 million.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAgADEtQ6Udtq3QfQ4Adt_qvPc5xJkDe1k5d4B4ZeCM2yurSlf2vYguikjryN3f_9_5Q56tMkHjvinntFhnuFmCWiXc5b-V29o79_7YDSxQm8ATjV3sG-yOZ00Uwnz6ibt5t6IP3atPJA/s3264/IMG_0830.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAgADEtQ6Udtq3QfQ4Adt_qvPc5xJkDe1k5d4B4ZeCM2yurSlf2vYguikjryN3f_9_5Q56tMkHjvinntFhnuFmCWiXc5b-V29o79_7YDSxQm8ATjV3sG-yOZ00Uwnz6ibt5t6IP3atPJA/w400-h300/IMG_0830.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>It has a duck house. In English imagination duck houses became synonymous with
ill-gotten wealth in the parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009, when a
Conservative Party MP’s use of taxpayer-funded allowances to install one in his
pond made them symbolic of the entire corrupt affair.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiurb9XE1F4Q9VvJH7GE8hUiW2VxkPArdfwWyZt2rRWRv8Eqbe4Oh3rX3-PtnxyAZ90tesAdXr1kXkwRF2lbe8kBkzM6AIoVEA2h7__4XtlEKYP5LiywVUhaQCdFVPLuw4Y7JcK_u6lkiA/s3264/IMG_0841.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiurb9XE1F4Q9VvJH7GE8hUiW2VxkPArdfwWyZt2rRWRv8Eqbe4Oh3rX3-PtnxyAZ90tesAdXr1kXkwRF2lbe8kBkzM6AIoVEA2h7__4XtlEKYP5LiywVUhaQCdFVPLuw4Y7JcK_u6lkiA/w640-h480/IMG_0841.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The view west towards the river from near Goring and Streatley train station.
The steep profile of the Berkshire Downs is apparent from here.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As a
final point, we would be remiss not to address the elephant in the room – that
is, the resemblance of Goring’s name to the perhaps more familiar G<span>ö</span>ring.
I have not been able to establish whether this most English of villages in the
chalk shares an etymology with the <i>Reichsmarschall</i> of Nazi Germany, but
the mere suggestion is not one from which we might expect a favourable English
reaction.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nonetheless,
there is surprising irony here in that Goring-on-Thames <i>did</i> house
perhaps this country’s closest equivalent to the man who oversaw the atrocities
of the <i>Luftwaffe</i>. This was the English’s own carpet-bombing air commander
Arthur “Bomber” Harris, who after building his Royal Air Force (RAF) career on blasting
civilians to bits for the British Empire in – guess where! – Iraq and
Afghanistan, burnt his name bloodily into history in the massive area-bombing
raids on German cities in the closing stages of World War II. Perhaps the most
notorious was the February 1945 firebombing of Dresden, which deliberately and horrifically
burnt tens of thousands of civilians to death.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
English idolise their RAF for its protection of their country in that war, in
spite of its catalogue of atrocities in their colonies before and after it
which they are not taught in schools. Nonetheless, even by their standards
Harris is bitterly controversial. Known as “Butcher” Harris within the force
for his apparent indifference to the staggering losses of life among the bomber
crews he commanded, the epithet has stuck for the blatancy of their war crimes
for whose blame he became the primary lightning rod. He has a statue outside
the RAF church in London – of course he does – but it has been a frequent
target of protests and attacks. The man himself eventually settled in Goring
and died here, apparently unrepentant, in 1974.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbboIsVErwsaG_WgXQYLWiFRDgRbEWYugDnrcZJJQpHt6PI2zwrywgv3ZktC2wCquycHomBuHRQ71v5Rgl6Y-kwG3eqhb_bcdsi5W6CPM5xUgWrY5R6Rl77ch4ZjR_M03aQO44gy9frVE/s3264/IMG_0809.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbboIsVErwsaG_WgXQYLWiFRDgRbEWYugDnrcZJJQpHt6PI2zwrywgv3ZktC2wCquycHomBuHRQ71v5Rgl6Y-kwG3eqhb_bcdsi5W6CPM5xUgWrY5R6Rl77ch4ZjR_M03aQO44gy9frVE/w480-h640/IMG_0809.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Not so far away from this world’s hell of violence after all then, is it?</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s
hardly the first or last time this country ascribed no value to the death or
agony of those it chooses to other. Pertinently, its government has now
announced the lifting of all COVID-19 restrictions amidst a wave of euphoric
jubilation – right as the deadliest strain of the
virus so far is surging at around thirty thousand new cases per day and rising.
Having got fed up of masks and social distancing, it appears that many of the
English have chosen simply no longer to bother. To make their peace, that is,
with how the most vulnerable in their society, those most marginalised in their
health outcomes and their access to care, will inevitably be the ones to eat
the worst of the mass deaths, traumatic mental health effects, and protracted
suffering under the still poorly-understood <i>Long COVID</i>. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjZeQcAIUXSyD6Rs0uZp-ABDN-gRIcY6YiKx6RaAxuE3M2XsGqYQsfjm_mB_XXHrxIZRU7pM37QlhjiJwC6FE4HMApOTilt4Y7EzOBEHCRJTzxr5yrU1ywGneHIPFrOK0XccmRaioORsc/s3264/IMG_0843.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjZeQcAIUXSyD6Rs0uZp-ABDN-gRIcY6YiKx6RaAxuE3M2XsGqYQsfjm_mB_XXHrxIZRU7pM37QlhjiJwC6FE4HMApOTilt4Y7EzOBEHCRJTzxr5yrU1ywGneHIPFrOK0XccmRaioORsc/w400-h300/IMG_0843.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>If only thanks and rainbows were accepted currency in shops, right?</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Over
the hundred million years that the Goring Gap took to form, England didn’t
exist. Looking at it now, we might well wonder whether it will for much of the
next hundred million – or indeed, whether it deserves to.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span>Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Goring, Reading RG8, UK51.5227526 -1.133344523.212518763821151 -36.2895945 79.832986436178842 34.0229055tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-32084870426756465712021-07-01T14:46:00.001+01:002021-07-01T14:46:55.941+01:00THAMES: 11) Middle Margins<div style="text-align: left;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCGJDcVN6wsAKBTJBX0z3gVrwOccRVm3EeWt9XKUnr1BxP2xuJG3T5PfrwrOW60wCXscxhrJFArvDhO0ES8W8Z2RXZnKGkmrLwHA-loiFmNDRCoNzrfVRzRc7vo9dnj1Gt2Yyl3EjKoAY/s3264/IMG_0603.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCGJDcVN6wsAKBTJBX0z3gVrwOccRVm3EeWt9XKUnr1BxP2xuJG3T5PfrwrOW60wCXscxhrJFArvDhO0ES8W8Z2RXZnKGkmrLwHA-loiFmNDRCoNzrfVRzRc7vo9dnj1Gt2Yyl3EjKoAY/w640-h480/IMG_0603.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Today
is more or less this.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After
<u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html">the
town at the centre of things</a></u>, we come to an in-betweeny space where not
much seems to happen. There are fields. Ducks. Overhead cables. It’s quiet back
here.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis5uLEVdAgAh94pn_hm3ODRdez1LDPEep61YpK7NeqSB8HtQIzbYuOPET1L8fA70NDtUT72aXQreYSHfCyRCCtoSev0T-hUcmtKhId6dt-52VTEDkE1q2bay-M1Eo67miZBcmLTUDyrFc/s3264/IMG_0588.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis5uLEVdAgAh94pn_hm3ODRdez1LDPEep61YpK7NeqSB8HtQIzbYuOPET1L8fA70NDtUT72aXQreYSHfCyRCCtoSev0T-hUcmtKhId6dt-52VTEDkE1q2bay-M1Eo67miZBcmLTUDyrFc/w400-h300/IMG_0588.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Geese on the banks of Rivermead Park, West Reading.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrtNjKk9TvgaLLrK3mNFnqYdSzW3YYCpfeBKiKxZzyHIj30jccpFAnaNMkab_NvMVoB5y_E3rVQFTRIbjuFCLOLUfmwUx64mxnBFCZbb9nN1WIOyZ6SNjtY3t2alHibfI34BKqwqkQe5U/s3264/IMG_0676.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrtNjKk9TvgaLLrK3mNFnqYdSzW3YYCpfeBKiKxZzyHIj30jccpFAnaNMkab_NvMVoB5y_E3rVQFTRIbjuFCLOLUfmwUx64mxnBFCZbb9nN1WIOyZ6SNjtY3t2alHibfI34BKqwqkQe5U/w400-h300/IMG_0676.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">The river near Pangbourne. Railways, pylons and other infrastructure crisscross
this backstage space for Reading and its surrounding settlements.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">And
yet, Reading’s upstream outskirts herald a significant transition in the course
of the river.</span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
central Thames thus far has been a procession of castles and palaces, mansions
and monasteries, elite schools and sports facilities and sprawling land-grabs by the monied obscene. The Privilege Forts of
the English south line up along their valley of imagination: a furnace-belt of
willows and glistening water, insulated from its country’s sordid realities by
its fortress-walls of inherited wealth as it roars in the manufacture of narratives
of high-caste white Englishness.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As
we have seen, the hammering from these foundries is loud and relentless. Theirs
are the stories they want the whole nation to hear.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
then, on the far side of Reading – they fade.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrin8tTyB_nf6Ac3c_YQTrafDElR_UKg0TV2MLLLZ17H_HEggtEAv5yGloH0HMXPKFO88D3gtstnmD-Z0_XTEcTi9UUbXSU7X-5a3dLSXU6tRkE4LkQkc_SS7ubIG0O6bMHW6O6k7rv8M/s3264/IMG_0595.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrin8tTyB_nf6Ac3c_YQTrafDElR_UKg0TV2MLLLZ17H_HEggtEAv5yGloH0HMXPKFO88D3gtstnmD-Z0_XTEcTi9UUbXSU7X-5a3dLSXU6tRkE4LkQkc_SS7ubIG0O6bMHW6O6k7rv8M/w640-h480/IMG_0595.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
upper-middle Thames dispenses with the battlements, searchlights and
megaphones. In their place unfurl rolling lowlands, spread with farms and
dotted with small villages through which the river comes gliding. Some of these
settlements are historic, ancient even, while their surroundings continue to
supply the green-and-pleasant backdrop to the English national reverie. Yet now
the volume is dialled right down. These settlements merely speak their stories,
rather than shout them – except, of course, for one of the loftiest Privilege
Forts of all, which waits at the end of this sequence in a certain city known
as Oxford.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But
there is a more important transition beneath that. Literally.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimJabgIUTqOk1bW96SMHJbs6A7i9okI7b8pwB-2xkXKLPKdTh7A2or0gfH1Zw38LSkr93zNljULcrZ0D66K4_gLQiQ9WsKIr1gOSD9tZgfGwMWU9iMd-29xQRCyCYdexQtfQIwpMrFWu0/s3264/IMG_0584.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimJabgIUTqOk1bW96SMHJbs6A7i9okI7b8pwB-2xkXKLPKdTh7A2or0gfH1Zw38LSkr93zNljULcrZ0D66K4_gLQiQ9WsKIr1gOSD9tZgfGwMWU9iMd-29xQRCyCYdexQtfQIwpMrFWu0/w400-h300/IMG_0584.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Oxford
sits in a basin whose clay is geologically distinct from that of the
lower valley. To push north on this island is as to delve deeper in time. Where
London’s surface clay is young – that is, Cenozoic, about 50 million years old
– Oxford’s goes back some 100 million years further to the Late Jurassic period.
And through the space and time in between runs an outer arm of the great network
of Late Cretaceous chalk deposits (from c.65-95 million years ago) which
stretch across southern England and northwest Europe – and whose separation, of
course, is wholly imaginary. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMQn2fJZdT6WPcexhu1Gm1FqNg2netrSpTY9RZJbx4EMQq8jA0Xczjr4JPyulwi22Ubp5QouGZTfbOu24S40n16NkvpzT-j5eattPKcBDwhyphenhyphenX4rWAYyKfJMp98rA5uGtS1AATbYeElWD0/s3264/IMG_0669.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMQn2fJZdT6WPcexhu1Gm1FqNg2netrSpTY9RZJbx4EMQq8jA0Xczjr4JPyulwi22Ubp5QouGZTfbOu24S40n16NkvpzT-j5eattPKcBDwhyphenhyphenX4rWAYyKfJMp98rA5uGtS1AATbYeElWD0/w400-h300/IMG_0669.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>One segment of that arm is well familiar by now. The chalk ridge of the
Chiltern Hills has overlooked the north bank all the way from <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-8-river-shamans.html">Marlow</a></u>.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This
chalk has dramatically reshaped both the landscape itself and its imagery in
English culture, and among those effects have been significant changes to the river’s
course. There was a time the Thames pushed straight east into the North Sea. But finding its way blocked during the glaciations of the most recent ice age,
it cut a gap through the relatively permeable chalk and has since skewed down
through the London Basin instead.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It
is through this gap that we now pursue it, with a better look at this realest
of deep-history in the next section. For today the goal is the foot of that gap,
where the river emerges between the villages of Pangbourne and Whitchurch.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-kIDmyTiw836NoX2qqIQIqvCjhFZZs4lq54yB7QZGekpojk_YtMx42fu-kaqnldQR1XA2I1ApnxdTmaFEv1LTC_flKK7Ajwg96gvSvFfoHPhndC987TwJxHJivthBEKA8z5R5RuyzE8o/s3264/IMG_0556.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-kIDmyTiw836NoX2qqIQIqvCjhFZZs4lq54yB7QZGekpojk_YtMx42fu-kaqnldQR1XA2I1ApnxdTmaFEv1LTC_flKK7Ajwg96gvSvFfoHPhndC987TwJxHJivthBEKA8z5R5RuyzE8o/w640-h480/IMG_0556.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Thames Water HQ, with its sinister spiral stairs in transparent tubes, hulks
over the river at Reading Bridge where today’s progress begins.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6RwMAqqWZRopI68OTJgKwzw3SlxrNqCBNDh5_c_IvzXj3tioUR5uv6waEdMeEffEUgCkhfpORgNhMSTpsoEpwbzSrE-GghY_GTOo-vtQMjy7H0TxNPDoKMJhBdaEWF7WjEgZ3G29EvWs/s1832/11%2529+Reading+to+Pangbourne.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="703" data-original-width="1832" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6RwMAqqWZRopI68OTJgKwzw3SlxrNqCBNDh5_c_IvzXj3tioUR5uv6waEdMeEffEUgCkhfpORgNhMSTpsoEpwbzSrE-GghY_GTOo-vtQMjy7H0TxNPDoKMJhBdaEWF7WjEgZ3G29EvWs/w640-h246/11%2529+Reading+to+Pangbourne.png" width="640" /></a></div> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Start:</b>
Reading Bridge (<i>nearest station: Reading</i>)</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>End:</b>
Whitchurch Bridge (<i>nearest station: Pangbourne</i>)</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Length:
11.2km/7 miles</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Location:
Oxfordshire – South Oxfordshire; Berkshire – Borough of Reading, West Berkshire
District</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Topics</u>:
West Reading suburbs, Purley, Pangbourne – shifting satellite
settlements on the edge-of-centre</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span>Reading outskirts</span></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Our
main task today is to escape Reading. The town has an imprint on its surrounding
land to match its <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html">pivotal
historical position</a></u>, and so most of this walk is spent shaking loose of the suburbs and infrastructure laid down in reference to it.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkYa2Oa3ugTQsEoMViI6WZDB0dypclQJdUw-W5fjvyfz_LcR5ulZDqopvfi_iiwZOwDJbxRWhjt0h2AZni-3FoggVOaXy-eZzCi4CJ1TarJtwNcLd73sS9i1cO_iILNMK4ZjSBFo5zYY/s3264/IMG_0557.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkYa2Oa3ugTQsEoMViI6WZDB0dypclQJdUw-W5fjvyfz_LcR5ulZDqopvfi_iiwZOwDJbxRWhjt0h2AZni-3FoggVOaXy-eZzCi4CJ1TarJtwNcLd73sS9i1cO_iILNMK4ZjSBFo5zYY/w640-h480/IMG_0557.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The view west from Reading Bridge. Despite carrying the town’s name, this is
the more recent of Reading’s two main river crossings. It was built only in
1923 to ease congestion, as part of the political arrangement by which Reading
absorbed the north bank village of Caversham as a suburb.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtxWf6lQmU_C6RJ1sb0X5b1MiRJ8vOBzW6yC0-mhlDZF0prqmzZzVSWp1BD8xdqtNtehsTx6xplyeyfUhec_1lfuGw6O1N0vhAp7hQPXfLgdsRfz8_bQZR4sM6NoVeea9_aMhZBbVhKRw/s3264/IMG_0559.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtxWf6lQmU_C6RJ1sb0X5b1MiRJ8vOBzW6yC0-mhlDZF0prqmzZzVSWp1BD8xdqtNtehsTx6xplyeyfUhec_1lfuGw6O1N0vhAp7hQPXfLgdsRfz8_bQZR4sM6NoVeea9_aMhZBbVhKRw/w400-h300/IMG_0559.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A century later the same integrative strategy continues. Christchurch Bridge is
one of the river’s newest of all, opened in 2015 to further unify the
pedestrian and cyclist bloodstreams of Reading and Caversham.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi41ivBfP_rn09fvNxjeNeOtprQou4Jj69s_IOtGojxV6lwNdmF9rgRCyqVsbeLXVFkL5MwMF1c_JA2RaPcy5JqTwedUZ8IsKxpsGZoc556bFmTIqbSpOYdd02vxHMXPk8TLl9uoIw8ha8/s3264/IMG_0561.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi41ivBfP_rn09fvNxjeNeOtprQou4Jj69s_IOtGojxV6lwNdmF9rgRCyqVsbeLXVFkL5MwMF1c_JA2RaPcy5JqTwedUZ8IsKxpsGZoc556bFmTIqbSpOYdd02vxHMXPk8TLl9uoIw8ha8/w400-h300/IMG_0561.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>It’s called Christchurch Bridge for the Christchurch Meadows, visible here on
the Caversham side. Those in turn are named for the Christ Church College of
Oxford University, which used to own farmland in Reading and founded Reading
University in 1892 as an extension of itself. Already we begin to sense the tug
of Oxford’s gravitational field.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Between
Reading’s principal bridges is an islet, seen here at left. Where it got its
name of <b>Fry’s Island</b> is not clear, but it comes with a political anecdote
that gives it its other name of <i>De Montfort Island</i>. It concerns
a public duel said to have taken place here in 1163 between two nobles from the
court of King Henry II – the first king of the Plantagenet dynasty from Anjou,
which is now in France but whose state, on his succession, also inherited
England. That arrangement was as much a mess as it sounds and resulted from the
violent upheaval that followed the death of his father’s uncle, the first
Henry, whose <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html">Reading
Abbey</a></u> project was at last coming to fruition.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
combat itself arose over an accusation of dishonourable conduct in battle, and
its outcome was that the accusing noble, Robert de Montfort, grievously wounded
the man he accused, the king’s standard-bearer Henry of Essex. Such a duel having
the equivalence of a judicial trial in that period, Henry of Essex was judged
guilty and stripped of his lands and titles. But the king had him brought to
Reading Abbey, where he was healed by the monks and supposedly joined them
afterwards.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps
that’s this incident’s broader significance. The duel took place here at all
because Henry II happened to be holding court at Reading Abbey. The monastery’s
prominence in this little tale attests that despite the disastrous ructions
that followed its founder’s death, despite even his Norman dynasty’s transition
to an Angevin one, his grand project at the crossroads had endured and was
ready to stand as a stable base of power.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibfNexJ4keZbNk5oT5KTC-8z_5XUo2vLOvXwBok1fmiZQnpv7cAMcz9icIPyzqnYakxC7V05fT-R3WmZ6MasrcNmGmnlSR8WdFwe23t5JSBgNke5SaYBrU0kHtpN1c0PBvuQjmW7oZnVg/s3264/IMG_0562.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibfNexJ4keZbNk5oT5KTC-8z_5XUo2vLOvXwBok1fmiZQnpv7cAMcz9icIPyzqnYakxC7V05fT-R3WmZ6MasrcNmGmnlSR8WdFwe23t5JSBgNke5SaYBrU0kHtpN1c0PBvuQjmW7oZnVg/w400-h300/IMG_0562.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The island, here at right, is known today for its lawn bowls club – the only
one in this country which must be reached by ferry. The main private house on
there still carries the name of Demontfort House.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1WJG31LW27MOpUtSSc2_4_IncN7FDBsT_gg1z-0zj3Sz0wYXG_iLv8qnyryWVNqYhao13SClnwokQ6PTeskJQdi7QZguDypZFuPaNpfbMDVhcJB16Mlh3G-PUGPfApu_W2sTM3PyNkcA/s3264/IMG_0564.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1WJG31LW27MOpUtSSc2_4_IncN7FDBsT_gg1z-0zj3Sz0wYXG_iLv8qnyryWVNqYhao13SClnwokQ6PTeskJQdi7QZguDypZFuPaNpfbMDVhcJB16Mlh3G-PUGPfApu_W2sTM3PyNkcA/w400-h300/IMG_0564.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Fry’s Island also hosts this boatyard. Coincidentally or otherwise, the lion
seems to have been the primary motif in the heraldry of the De Montfort
family.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Approaching
Reading’s main crossing of Caversham Bridge, it becomes apparent that this
settlement’s role as a centre ground also extends to the river’s bird life.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVS3SFsp4EFQRRR-CGOqSlr2gfXqf0wbCaYRANwR1CgtBgyxLGvcQc-CbC6-xKc7i7KTEDucQIlNolEQ2MNdJG_bySsRDfDRk7cy_Q6p3TmC9Vyryp6SeV-FbzndrLxfN0wLZmhSSkZM/s3264/IMG_0563.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVS3SFsp4EFQRRR-CGOqSlr2gfXqf0wbCaYRANwR1CgtBgyxLGvcQc-CbC6-xKc7i7KTEDucQIlNolEQ2MNdJG_bySsRDfDRk7cy_Q6p3TmC9Vyryp6SeV-FbzndrLxfN0wLZmhSSkZM/w400-h300/IMG_0563.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>To live along here must come with the expectation that they’ll eat bits off
your house.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6DSyPrGH7Vl0iAXokvaQynlpav0p58dQoYPwWgKWqrQNqf79k5WG955_NEU3G5e0085WhFuQ-5-YGSNLqBCWkW7r0rFV8dpb_QVe2r3XbtFsSfo4iUJh4PHU7ITTyobW0mQU5EDaKC0g/s3264/IMG_0565.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6DSyPrGH7Vl0iAXokvaQynlpav0p58dQoYPwWgKWqrQNqf79k5WG955_NEU3G5e0085WhFuQ-5-YGSNLqBCWkW7r0rFV8dpb_QVe2r3XbtFsSfo4iUJh4PHU7ITTyobW0mQU5EDaKC0g/w400-h300/IMG_0565.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Apartments overlook the river between Reading’s bridges.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiG1g8S63k2FuCg3lo95fsvHJll_IBekWtUYt2ToMIM90x9RZdWEKjGq0mGxJ9cI8LxlEBWnauFq9cD2cRLJiknE8FIBvdpJrMl2EbfKYZZxKEleCk-Kjl5UGhYD5lEuWBNRs5_K4HOs4/s3264/IMG_0566.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiG1g8S63k2FuCg3lo95fsvHJll_IBekWtUYt2ToMIM90x9RZdWEKjGq0mGxJ9cI8LxlEBWnauFq9cD2cRLJiknE8FIBvdpJrMl2EbfKYZZxKEleCk-Kjl5UGhYD5lEuWBNRs5_K4HOs4/w400-h300/IMG_0566.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>In this yard a group of elderly residents was engaged in some
socially-distanced morning exercise routine. These <i>enormous</i> swans stood in
the middle, looking faintly perplexed.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz4_tKKHkfN6Ts0eCmGsU8OL1QQPx_KX5R9cPOa225uAmulH69rUEHK9HhZG_HU2hBDXHyhNx9aZkkdrTxtPnypTZy0cJLcH8SwU8mCqDbnFRrjAaMKHQy1pOTmcrcVxAGYYbdG2dVxfg/s3264/IMG_0569.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz4_tKKHkfN6Ts0eCmGsU8OL1QQPx_KX5R9cPOa225uAmulH69rUEHK9HhZG_HU2hBDXHyhNx9aZkkdrTxtPnypTZy0cJLcH8SwU8mCqDbnFRrjAaMKHQy1pOTmcrcVxAGYYbdG2dVxfg/w400-h300/IMG_0569.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">It was evident from posters that the local people are actively
engaged in helping look after the cygnets here.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Caversham
Bridge</b> has long been Reading’s principal crossing. It originated not long
after the aforementioned duel, probably under the auspices of the Abbey to
improve its connection to Oxford. A sizeable manorial community seems to have
already existed on the north bank.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr1_zy6e2cz9BnAR-wxy794yf646trR00EXfmaw4rnicJHDIN99SseQEy8CczCKPPZveNnIUR1YF3zRimKlSpBMiUL9ytwwvFunWC8wyRUBsEnvZsR4sJ6ZbGm6luspUGOESO5h_shm7s/s3264/IMG_0572.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr1_zy6e2cz9BnAR-wxy794yf646trR00EXfmaw4rnicJHDIN99SseQEy8CczCKPPZveNnIUR1YF3zRimKlSpBMiUL9ytwwvFunWC8wyRUBsEnvZsR4sJ6ZbGm6luspUGOESO5h_shm7s/w400-h300/IMG_0572.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Caversham Bridge, with the obligatory war memorial at right.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuW0z_bKQ7_2h-Vztc7t7nS8rEf2yBtLmVamtnHLkJGyLDetaMq-ZyDQ57CGCEhBW2cXaFdK7E8NPXs9YjJk5dcLLlJfkkRFbuOVxSk0-zXqAxVhiaJY5UMMdYMriChD2IZQVt_7qfM80/s3264/IMG_0574.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuW0z_bKQ7_2h-Vztc7t7nS8rEf2yBtLmVamtnHLkJGyLDetaMq-ZyDQ57CGCEhBW2cXaFdK7E8NPXs9YjJk5dcLLlJfkkRFbuOVxSk0-zXqAxVhiaJY5UMMdYMriChD2IZQVt_7qfM80/w400-h300/IMG_0574.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>In spite of its heritage, the current bridge is a granite replacement from
1926. See the previous section on how it was <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html">badly
damaged in the civil war</a></u> and languished for many generations.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
on the upstream side...</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcIY59HLbkaxkfbjF7adHBhgwKA2wl9_OHCDff0TkDeXbD4KQcmVonim4tJ2phoqDELEHSNBLeXzpKvW2H2VbS3QPgLROJk0fhSH8-RfTRSQG9hOLCeirUbrm9gSU6MRH3VpDLp5_KzGA/s3264/IMG_0578.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcIY59HLbkaxkfbjF7adHBhgwKA2wl9_OHCDff0TkDeXbD4KQcmVonim4tJ2phoqDELEHSNBLeXzpKvW2H2VbS3QPgLROJk0fhSH8-RfTRSQG9hOLCeirUbrm9gSU6MRH3VpDLp5_KzGA/w640-h480/IMG_0578.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>...this.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ_ueKKynTXoMiRPVaKB6gE3v546o68O8a9AvvU7v0emj196fbcM9WHEZayl4b-HaVaoiN1P5KgwFPDjjSnMz25LmWWxW_XdooHoIpqrtP1BC8b7ylvtCsefWAGPl9obdVP24_CVZUZic/s3264/IMG_0577.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ_ueKKynTXoMiRPVaKB6gE3v546o68O8a9AvvU7v0emj196fbcM9WHEZayl4b-HaVaoiN1P5KgwFPDjjSnMz25LmWWxW_XdooHoIpqrtP1BC8b7ylvtCsefWAGPl9obdVP24_CVZUZic/w640-h480/IMG_0577.JPG" width="640" /></a></div> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Have you ever seen so many swans in one place? A glance through local newspaper commentary suggests that contrary to
popular warnings about handing out food to water birds, Reading’s large swan
population has in fact grown reliant on humans feeding them to the point that
they have started to face starvation risks because of people withholding food
in reaction to said warnings. Evidently this is a relationship they are still working
out.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmo_4jBjIlDcdgHham4rgddJqNm-evjQ76eNhw5XwXQsKLQfQAiZlTgUcgeUhVhwMGMCd4wlAMn9jNtVWwhHe68s-G2C7atzLLINnNupBkDhX1x4o5QDhmECJHpWrFFdk4LgaQfBIPJNQ/s3264/IMG_0576.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmo_4jBjIlDcdgHham4rgddJqNm-evjQ76eNhw5XwXQsKLQfQAiZlTgUcgeUhVhwMGMCd4wlAMn9jNtVWwhHe68s-G2C7atzLLINnNupBkDhX1x4o5QDhmECJHpWrFFdk4LgaQfBIPJNQ/w400-h300/IMG_0576.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The swans here seem remarkably organised, even keeping to a single set of lanes
while conceding the outer lanes to ducks.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigJruZ5iKI5mJl6dJXVp0Bp1GoCpfY97MdnoRFplz_6qtCYu0zMlEYcpQfUUF2HSNOeovX7iABISTFh0nUlHqasA8XSOrDw5YULu0eqQU1zeRFA61_KNNjfw5vrO1w72rZ2ol0q2Kw4cg/s3264/IMG_0579.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigJruZ5iKI5mJl6dJXVp0Bp1GoCpfY97MdnoRFplz_6qtCYu0zMlEYcpQfUUF2HSNOeovX7iABISTFh0nUlHqasA8XSOrDw5YULu0eqQU1zeRFA61_KNNjfw5vrO1w72rZ2ol0q2Kw4cg/w640-h480/IMG_0579.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>From here Rivermead Park accompanies the river all the way out of Reading
proper.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There
now follows a long fringe of parks, fields and farms, which together make up a
wedge of open land between the river and the Great Western Railway. How has
this slice of rurality survived the otherwise unstoppable appetite of suburban
sprawl? Does it hold extra-special significance for the local people, perhaps
in its role as the venue for the annual Reading Festival? Or has its
vulnerability to flooding kept the property speculators off it?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJd97vC51xNIDRhJlpdeYUzAY2hyphenhyphen95Br3SSHgfGS3QklKr_4vqw37fnZ8x5xQi7064jtsbhKBi4MU8353luM0N84GgqBe3qt_bSWug11Lx26Xe6WtuYpOOxWSyC5R0aNpSsAhhm5D7vME/s3264/IMG_0582.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJd97vC51xNIDRhJlpdeYUzAY2hyphenhyphen95Br3SSHgfGS3QklKr_4vqw37fnZ8x5xQi7064jtsbhKBi4MU8353luM0N84GgqBe3qt_bSWug11Lx26Xe6WtuYpOOxWSyC5R0aNpSsAhhm5D7vME/w400-h300/IMG_0582.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Rivermead Park seems a pleasant enough setting, with its large
willows, plentiful waterfowl and well-maintained lawns and paths. But further
inland come hints of decay: rusted information boards, smashed-up public
toilets, and a general atmosphere of faint desolation, of potentiality real but
unfulfilled. The park also holds a large leisure centre which is apparently
about to receive a massive refurbishment.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDca3nYfYnO5NhUFkJTdiQRCCt5d9M-LLkFDqG0ge_W8-TC3tOeZDLimWOkXMd2YjpSjMQ-28Q8RhDW_A05SEqyeiabdP_n3qVA0BBD6pUbQjM9Xvs8URn_Q7FIQ0trDw2jg4tiDaRwpA/s3264/IMG_0583.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDca3nYfYnO5NhUFkJTdiQRCCt5d9M-LLkFDqG0ge_W8-TC3tOeZDLimWOkXMd2YjpSjMQ-28Q8RhDW_A05SEqyeiabdP_n3qVA0BBD6pUbQjM9Xvs8URn_Q7FIQ0trDw2jg4tiDaRwpA/w400-h300/IMG_0583.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>On the opposite bank rise the residences of Caversham Heights. This appears to
be one of the main pockets of affluence in the Reading conurbation, whose
elevated estates flaunt their turrets, riverside gardens and posh boats at the
proletarians across the river.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaGkiV7GZSrgE0xiJ9qFreTWolbQ3BJcDHDvfAKtXV-2JyJPgOo36D6NTzMixk3tS4uBKN_uq4oVNmgH1p7W9IguZQ6ve97j_FZnxApQOuXgZ4yDWnknBVvcKSz2dfI_wTOHthm-dTJGg/s3264/IMG_0587.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaGkiV7GZSrgE0xiJ9qFreTWolbQ3BJcDHDvfAKtXV-2JyJPgOo36D6NTzMixk3tS4uBKN_uq4oVNmgH1p7W9IguZQ6ve97j_FZnxApQOuXgZ4yDWnknBVvcKSz2dfI_wTOHthm-dTJGg/w400-h300/IMG_0587.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Like this.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu-ZKf0souaCtnF592diA8XVse9Y8c9Tue8sRby0jDHl_wMpKszAjzdA67sdPBIvXbXqJmLLRcTdw1EI4VGsTFaf2Ebrs7HPhfVwk4bCNoBVAcUyA90vTahnkfICycK1gFzn_KAR1CdXA/s3264/IMG_0589.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu-ZKf0souaCtnF592diA8XVse9Y8c9Tue8sRby0jDHl_wMpKszAjzdA67sdPBIvXbXqJmLLRcTdw1EI4VGsTFaf2Ebrs7HPhfVwk4bCNoBVAcUyA90vTahnkfICycK1gFzn_KAR1CdXA/w400-h300/IMG_0589.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>And this.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVu_Kv91eFcWUuKfIvms261Fkd7iifZoO_gLLVvq2BBYXxXPYiWGFyaY8hmEauDHS4sRJ_yf5PCFO57B2njr-__omSSih_P1I3iLZbcK6YFXxCRo_lwoNuq9ZdvBQ_cWWTjUCfeLCt5VY/s3264/IMG_0585.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVu_Kv91eFcWUuKfIvms261Fkd7iifZoO_gLLVvq2BBYXxXPYiWGFyaY8hmEauDHS4sRJ_yf5PCFO57B2njr-__omSSih_P1I3iLZbcK6YFXxCRo_lwoNuq9ZdvBQ_cWWTjUCfeLCt5VY/w300-h400/IMG_0585.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>And here we have a Middle-Finger Tree, which has no doubt grown up to support
those on the south side against such shows of ostentation. The ring of pennants
must indicate their alliance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As
with the stretch downstream of Reading, there is an after-the-apocalypse
solemnity in the air here. Even under this overcast sky the park is bright,
green and spacious; surely it should be full of people strolling, playing ball
games, napping, feeding the ducks or sitting around reading newspapers. But
aside from the odd passer-by it is close to deserted.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If
we might put this down to the isolating effects of COVID-19, it is worth
recalling that going for walks in spaces like this has been about the only safe
outdoor pastime available to people in the English urban centres. One can only
suspect that the true malady at issue here is the deeper one: the shipwrecked
modernity of abusive power structures and a toxic work culture that forces the
present-day English commoner to struggle all day just to put food on the table,
and to regard rest and recreation as unaffordable luxuries rather than a health
need and a natural human entitlement. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipp7hyimnT0AmGLJIOHEHC0g90QcSwYIZNDEX9Q0xCC0ySXCe8DCS2BdtwgPJT02skfXVQmHnLOlWPYrgIGTMvXCGT53zXohkbrZ0Vt-QxNoYwA700ojcVzbAfMybKRag69GJt63-Li-A/s3264/IMG_0590.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipp7hyimnT0AmGLJIOHEHC0g90QcSwYIZNDEX9Q0xCC0ySXCe8DCS2BdtwgPJT02skfXVQmHnLOlWPYrgIGTMvXCGT53zXohkbrZ0Vt-QxNoYwA700ojcVzbAfMybKRag69GJt63-Li-A/w400-h300/IMG_0590.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>As the park stretches on, human activity on both banks steadily recedes.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKBSBtG5MXiiqknOewsjxIflD5cjqYeb4GaPOCK7BFS1_kaVFZvj4nxtpr_RNGI2JyeQOI6O1XU0PDABcbpnMSvHo6Q-7wjrhuiTDzo-Kvbu4kXm3p-RMAyZCr36LhjQ7bKYPuPxZK4a8/s3264/IMG_0593.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKBSBtG5MXiiqknOewsjxIflD5cjqYeb4GaPOCK7BFS1_kaVFZvj4nxtpr_RNGI2JyeQOI6O1XU0PDABcbpnMSvHo6Q-7wjrhuiTDzo-Kvbu4kXm3p-RMAyZCr36LhjQ7bKYPuPxZK4a8/w400-h300/IMG_0593.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Soon the tarmac promenade returns to dirt towpath, and the managed parkland
gives way to open fields.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQlrMCwqYRsInHnUY-VNduJqtT_R0H21zh0ARIkg_TEzhuza7y2EjdFJYb2rYtIUKz2ERhZOK0VY7OZ_OAk5HGQXqjUGXMZVGRmk5s1x0CuQLwlm6ylG0-w_hq1ZHkrHt2rTL9RmJOgJM/s3264/IMG_0598.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQlrMCwqYRsInHnUY-VNduJqtT_R0H21zh0ARIkg_TEzhuza7y2EjdFJYb2rYtIUKz2ERhZOK0VY7OZ_OAk5HGQXqjUGXMZVGRmk5s1x0CuQLwlm6ylG0-w_hq1ZHkrHt2rTL9RmJOgJM/w400-h300/IMG_0598.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This would appear to be a concealed English naval operation. Notice the assertive
hoisting of the English and United Kingdom flags side by side, as though to
express the regular assumption in this country that England <i>is</i> the UK.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNt77-zIo-2SH9ILrmudTlNVAcBVBRddlXrDKtc8QJyvyQPWEiNkjzOkUdgoZjGhWJDGvPkYTq_4uVyTiyP36SaB1oBqUqv24FWkZjlDA7ijsLZYLzKD8k59_x0F24utOlfF_5S5jLhug/s3264/IMG_0599.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNt77-zIo-2SH9ILrmudTlNVAcBVBRddlXrDKtc8QJyvyQPWEiNkjzOkUdgoZjGhWJDGvPkYTq_4uVyTiyP36SaB1oBqUqv24FWkZjlDA7ijsLZYLzKD8k59_x0F24utOlfF_5S5jLhug/w400-h300/IMG_0599.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This is the first of several of these strange stone structures that crop up
west of Reading. Were they markers? Did they display something? Or were they
part of the transport infrastructure when working barges were towed along
here?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOpS-yUEQFO7fSnVEcN2xneKQiG8N3tGFpV72IQqKbVMUOmCpCWBpIN86M4odRrAywWAfjPOalNmgtZLacAIGnQ2C1-ZP9jhm1-45I7LdF2MkV8dPRfu26noUoSa9O-nUtE_ioJvWYZrk/s3264/IMG_0601.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOpS-yUEQFO7fSnVEcN2xneKQiG8N3tGFpV72IQqKbVMUOmCpCWBpIN86M4odRrAywWAfjPOalNmgtZLacAIGnQ2C1-ZP9jhm1-45I7LdF2MkV8dPRfu26noUoSa9O-nUtE_ioJvWYZrk/w400-h300/IMG_0601.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The pylons and cables of the busy Great Western Railway main line are
visible inland, with trains rattling through on a regular basis.
Amidst this greenery it is easy to forget that the suburbs of West Reading pack
the other side of the tracks.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After
approximately two kilometres in this vein, a riverbend brings the <b>Great Western
Railway</b> right up beside the river, whereafter the two proceed in parallel for a
time. This track, the main connection between London and Bristol, runs some way
north up the river valley from here. This seems to have been a deliberate
decision by their engineer-hero Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who rather than run
his signature railway straight west, had it arc north beyond Reading to offer a
connection to Oxford along the way.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIYPsaLV1EEMN50JZO3-BkoLiBeuvxUlvvXI4pLOZv_yNjLE0hp11XkEtPZBlm1n3tnlKtBO6AfQTf6jsDq9qSkWuZsXdpXBVr2t57PNBf3RBgtdQyAV3dPu8DLaBECX7dPwmEF_4oGz8/s3264/IMG_0605.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIYPsaLV1EEMN50JZO3-BkoLiBeuvxUlvvXI4pLOZv_yNjLE0hp11XkEtPZBlm1n3tnlKtBO6AfQTf6jsDq9qSkWuZsXdpXBVr2t57PNBf3RBgtdQyAV3dPu8DLaBECX7dPwmEF_4oGz8/w640-h480/IMG_0605.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This large boatyard is one of the only human installations on the banks out
here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcnUPXdm0RTgPwENmcobZbuRIwY5DGMyPygVlMFQtgcPfIgId4zvuLiJkXEoVVBeIYcfDmpbrE57SXiYHAchij0ZFC-MGO6GTKxo24o4NBtklLeT1ovXqsu54ZcuAX1jTypt-kEygW6mo/s3264/IMG_0602.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcnUPXdm0RTgPwENmcobZbuRIwY5DGMyPygVlMFQtgcPfIgId4zvuLiJkXEoVVBeIYcfDmpbrE57SXiYHAchij0ZFC-MGO6GTKxo24o4NBtklLeT1ovXqsu54ZcuAX1jTypt-kEygW6mo/w400-h300/IMG_0602.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The thistles here have grown plentifully this summer, no doubt as a further
warning to the natives that their behaviour is provoking Scottish
independence.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXs5Qx0Ex_gb-TEK0BvPBtKZ_4Dhy3o880LPca3f6jjpE-6goQx_Hh4GFl1hK9laQfUp0DMRlMgZFoMeu4NE5alJmiZNgHXEeZNGEuQa_WeqPSix5QJoCYZ4eG7Ggy5EYivtcOeXvGaDs/s3264/IMG_0607.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXs5Qx0Ex_gb-TEK0BvPBtKZ_4Dhy3o880LPca3f6jjpE-6goQx_Hh4GFl1hK9laQfUp0DMRlMgZFoMeu4NE5alJmiZNgHXEeZNGEuQa_WeqPSix5QJoCYZ4eG7Ggy5EYivtcOeXvGaDs/w400-h300/IMG_0607.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>And here the river and rails draw together. Across the railway is the suburb of
Tilehurst, but the walled rail embankment cuts it off from the riverside.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Tilehurst</b>
is a large suburb west of Reading on the Oxford road. It has its own railway
station here which cannot be reached from the towpath. Originally a hamlet
controlled by Reading Abbey, it was passed down a chain of manorial inheritance
after Henry VIII smashed the monastery. The railway was put through it in the
late nineteenth century, after which it was absorbed into Reading and
transformed into a residential suburb.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
recentness of that absorption is notable. Suburbs do not simply exist by nature
but are rather a distinct historical phenomenon. Most English suburbs, like
Tilehurst, are creatures of nineteenth- and twentieth-century industrialisation,
because it was only with the spread of train and motor car infrastructure, and
the movements they enabled – the mass commute to urban factories and the middle-class escape from them – that suburbs
came to make conceptual sense.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Tilehurst’s
northern part retains the name of the original neighbouring manor of <b>Kentwood</b>.
Hence the name given to this isolated stretch of river, the <i>Kentwood Deeps</i>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuCZpGD4z60AS_eo41tt_juviy3KaOC3ILclBZDv08-Pv3RIyjDSkS7Un-d7m8JuVNmwkZmjiMfTEZicvOYO9Uw-YqhIRwZFFFlgGLSWj8mnAz3hB66vkilUSEthjwFZ7XC9NDlyEcU1A/s3264/IMG_0608.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuCZpGD4z60AS_eo41tt_juviy3KaOC3ILclBZDv08-Pv3RIyjDSkS7Un-d7m8JuVNmwkZmjiMfTEZicvOYO9Uw-YqhIRwZFFFlgGLSWj8mnAz3hB66vkilUSEthjwFZ7XC9NDlyEcU1A/w300-h400/IMG_0608.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Trains go on one side, boats on the other, while those on foot tread this
narrow thread through the middle.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHZlXsTh-R9FYTmNvrFqMrF4_tctkXaQn7o_g9ZYoU4xXA-6RrQUnPMm3I2Fo2YyY-5G6mJ1zIVXDEDkUK_wnP-VetNsS8jh_LoH3PaNBkJX9QF9paG5_GRfH319x72PUYj6Y80j0UJvU/s3264/IMG_0610.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHZlXsTh-R9FYTmNvrFqMrF4_tctkXaQn7o_g9ZYoU4xXA-6RrQUnPMm3I2Fo2YyY-5G6mJ1zIVXDEDkUK_wnP-VetNsS8jh_LoH3PaNBkJX9QF9paG5_GRfH319x72PUYj6Y80j0UJvU/w400-h300/IMG_0610.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Evidence of Reading’s secret socialist sympathies can be found painted on the
wall.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpFUjDI0rYe5hk5XhOxkYgXrLokKyONi9EFv_NH0BBaizI3RJT_TXA3WcEuIAshGhtkV2R6Tk3HSDbva2EdcDUY7sJicYWNfUpAIMB9cz398lwm0EUc2iJdjNlzDcytQ_uuLdFAZEsOuM/s3264/IMG_0611.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpFUjDI0rYe5hk5XhOxkYgXrLokKyONi9EFv_NH0BBaizI3RJT_TXA3WcEuIAshGhtkV2R6Tk3HSDbva2EdcDUY7sJicYWNfUpAIMB9cz398lwm0EUc2iJdjNlzDcytQ_uuLdFAZEsOuM/w400-h300/IMG_0611.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>And here must be the switch that turns the Great Western Railway on and off.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Despite
the constrained character of the path here, it still offers hints as to these
people’s ways of life.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1asau4f35bKJcgEsEynA8mxph7yA4CW-EyBqANUNnfWuCaLaoCdUDSdjHm1hzwLIdz9TbHV_2LZanQEwyudsWfDjjtlRCXNj888jxas88W240Lkt5yAS2eZnzmwgDBnVmfe_IHbnxtxc/s3264/IMG_0612.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1asau4f35bKJcgEsEynA8mxph7yA4CW-EyBqANUNnfWuCaLaoCdUDSdjHm1hzwLIdz9TbHV_2LZanQEwyudsWfDjjtlRCXNj888jxas88W240Lkt5yAS2eZnzmwgDBnVmfe_IHbnxtxc/w640-h480/IMG_0612.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The river looks good when the English property culture isn’t grasping at it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih7Zla4KiOZYDwA35Tb8XjTVy1WAdB3BkUPO0n9beBKI-wOsGPrwSB8ruBGzY-ItHmJPvfvVLSygArkecyQvuWg1CE5KtNXrTJslXzpS_GKUq25Tk5RafdGtE1E-lcDQrzR_7M0xCzezU/s3264/IMG_0613.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih7Zla4KiOZYDwA35Tb8XjTVy1WAdB3BkUPO0n9beBKI-wOsGPrwSB8ruBGzY-ItHmJPvfvVLSygArkecyQvuWg1CE5KtNXrTJslXzpS_GKUq25Tk5RafdGtE1E-lcDQrzR_7M0xCzezU/w400-h300/IMG_0613.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A mysterious brick structure sits beneath the rail embankment, part-concealed
by the vegetation. An obsolete component of the railway system? Or something
more cryptic that wants you to think that’s what it is? There’s no sign of an
entrance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt4KzU_dm_1Bvuj3GZwSEr_S7y2dudEdppAComCY0bxh47nQwu2jqYEbt8kdO5dWn9LfPG1HjeXE0LrE_TAOSYi1H64t5do9fi2eCzXcEjUvfVCZEqVvC5zy0Im-EcY_erHQErIIZMuic/s3264/IMG_0614.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt4KzU_dm_1Bvuj3GZwSEr_S7y2dudEdppAComCY0bxh47nQwu2jqYEbt8kdO5dWn9LfPG1HjeXE0LrE_TAOSYi1H64t5do9fi2eCzXcEjUvfVCZEqVvC5zy0Im-EcY_erHQErIIZMuic/w400-h300/IMG_0614.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Another questionable arrangement. What does this tell us about the English of
the middle Thames valley?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO0NnqHUiGbRtyv10W9Om02DaloFA1jOAByKyr3A5sHzufvSNaGgTcRdrukDIhVOkAKr2LX3F5mKySA3LKVMy12ig4840L4iqwyeC92CuSH_tFUp3PDKAnqMAqEg6KRORSr-JYCo1eNQg/s3264/IMG_0618.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO0NnqHUiGbRtyv10W9Om02DaloFA1jOAByKyr3A5sHzufvSNaGgTcRdrukDIhVOkAKr2LX3F5mKySA3LKVMy12ig4840L4iqwyeC92CuSH_tFUp3PDKAnqMAqEg6KRORSr-JYCo1eNQg/w400-h300/IMG_0618.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Spotted in the bushes: a pair of covert vessels flying the Welsh colours. No
doubt they’ve been parked here to spy on the naval facility downstream, ready
to pounce to neutralise it the moment the English government attempts violent
action against the Welsh independence movement.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Eventually
the river bends once more, opening up another chunk of agrarian land. But at
this point, yet again, wayfarers are forced across a footbridge over the
railway so as not to inconvenience the property-dreams of those who dared think
to privatise the riverside. Like others we have passed on the way,
these landlords fiercely refused to allow the Thames Navigation Commission to install the
towpath across their land, which necessitates us, more than two centuries later, to take an inland detour through
the settlement of Purley.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimnBZPLBAJV1RtXS5MM8kz8heVL7C40922kkMhe7QZdpBO416ZyLymjdOpq6jGJivYDA_sJb3e2FFDIl0yeqZ-i_9jnQkF1esB-259bSrUmThkVvYgA5H7zo_IULsahMFm-nREb9xfprA/s3264/IMG_0620.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimnBZPLBAJV1RtXS5MM8kz8heVL7C40922kkMhe7QZdpBO416ZyLymjdOpq6jGJivYDA_sJb3e2FFDIl0yeqZ-i_9jnQkF1esB-259bSrUmThkVvYgA5H7zo_IULsahMFm-nREb9xfprA/w400-h300/IMG_0620.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The towpath is rudely cut off by a path to private property. Travellers might
nonetheless feel their hearts lift at the sign’s promise of ‘bar snacks and
meals’ at this seventeenth-century coaching inn on the Oxford road, with its
long tradition of refreshing passing boaters and anglers...</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_bhUDgSPUABW6Ht-Ew-XS5bFo7uo1KiTIaKMcig2vXGggrvrNvqqlJyC6dYmOjqoRVFWeDwL9H8VF1vl2-XDXDCsIduzt2LYZLkTRidLmtYe_JC6S8djxap91zq02WW7rDpLcCgtJ9E0/s3264/IMG_0624.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_bhUDgSPUABW6Ht-Ew-XS5bFo7uo1KiTIaKMcig2vXGggrvrNvqqlJyC6dYmOjqoRVFWeDwL9H8VF1vl2-XDXDCsIduzt2LYZLkTRidLmtYe_JC6S8djxap91zq02WW7rDpLcCgtJ9E0/w400-h300/IMG_0624.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>...but alas, this is England under market fundamentalism, and so it turns out
the venerable <i>Roebuck </i>was closed in 2010 and converted to private apartments.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span>Purley</span></u></b></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Purley-on-Thames</b>
exists in flux. After some thousand years as an agricultural area split between
three manors – <i>Purley Magna</i> in the east, <i>Purley Parva</i> in the
northwest, and <i>Purley La Hyde</i> in the southwest (note the continental
inheritance in these names), the processes of so-called modernity have dragged
it messily in different directions.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0j8297gpPA0O1K77UlTs4dAKVIrUbWg4TQ0bgKnlLpXgLLL4jgG2j6sA-eQc5FxmoOS34A-VW_MKlB68dJmiwDHNn9_UiBmQWB-1gDXTcMacS5HRnVLkPwWU9NEENHigp2s5Ln6cIgXU/s3264/IMG_0625.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0j8297gpPA0O1K77UlTs4dAKVIrUbWg4TQ0bgKnlLpXgLLL4jgG2j6sA-eQc5FxmoOS34A-VW_MKlB68dJmiwDHNn9_UiBmQWB-1gDXTcMacS5HRnVLkPwWU9NEENHigp2s5Ln6cIgXU/w400-h300/IMG_0625.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Though part-suburbanised into a satellite of Reading, Purley represents our
first steps into West Berkshire. This is the hinterland of Berkshire province,
as large as all its eastern districts combined and almost all rural or wooded.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj32IhDM0mEVLyJTkR1i-zU0X0eUCPWAj8-Gako99WDuNyE0qQSQKmPIHg6fWO-1bpR1oE0vp-8_OB63PtQ4kAIusA04ieHle58iscuB7wL-mg5WBXezMiR5FVWxRZCWlhS9JjtSlAua_U/s3264/IMG_0630.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj32IhDM0mEVLyJTkR1i-zU0X0eUCPWAj8-Gako99WDuNyE0qQSQKmPIHg6fWO-1bpR1oE0vp-8_OB63PtQ4kAIusA04ieHle58iscuB7wL-mg5WBXezMiR5FVWxRZCWlhS9JjtSlAua_U/w400-h300/IMG_0630.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Wooded enough to afford the river-seeker a brief escape from the Oxford
Road...</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7e8DYPMfkR8e9yjZaFB2qjtRGOy1i7hR998wnR5APTfZmez-qe_rKB-yWltduJMltwk1t0LDYkg2VA3Fa1ut7ESJTEK9DzDh_JpX_eFwIKq6fRcNpM2E8n1BmzQkigrLCI9LfVGov64k/s3264/IMG_0629.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7e8DYPMfkR8e9yjZaFB2qjtRGOy1i7hR998wnR5APTfZmez-qe_rKB-yWltduJMltwk1t0LDYkg2VA3Fa1ut7ESJTEK9DzDh_JpX_eFwIKq6fRcNpM2E8n1BmzQkigrLCI9LfVGov64k/w640-h480/IMG_0629.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">...though one should be careful not to disturb any beetles one happens to find
fornicating in the middle of the path.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
manor grounds of Purley Magna – this eastern part – were thoroughly transformed
by the railway and the motorisation of the Oxford Road, and have since been
absorbed into the Reading conurbation as its outermost riverside suburb.
Perhaps on account of its titled inheritance it appears to be another of Reading’s
chunks of relative wealth – hence the property-grab along the riverbend – but
makes up for this privilege with its susceptibility to devastating floods.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Purley
Parva and Purley La Hyde have likewise seen many of their manorial estates
redone into apartments, but their expanses of farm fields, north and south of
the rails respectively, remain largely intact. These account for the belt of
green between the Reading sprawl to the east and the valley of the River Pang
to the west. The best-known occupant of La Hyde’s manor house appears to have
been a certain Warren Hastings, the disgraced Governor-General of Bengal for
the East India Company, during his sensational impeachment trial in the 1790s.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5kUwXjgVk111t5YytDorr-QIMNXumQcgpOp4iVZ7Mk5ggxrBBKpJ42jbKWgobit6K-496hU1eChtvYwMa_XlHITl0-t7VyaF472j3f6UISL-fG3onuAkkj9SKVWpxn76Vwu1XeCNFLd4/s3264/IMG_0632.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5kUwXjgVk111t5YytDorr-QIMNXumQcgpOp4iVZ7Mk5ggxrBBKpJ42jbKWgobit6K-496hU1eChtvYwMa_XlHITl0-t7VyaF472j3f6UISL-fG3onuAkkj9SKVWpxn76Vwu1XeCNFLd4/w400-h300/IMG_0632.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A typical residential street in Purley. Most of its initial suburbanisation around
the 1920s ribboned along the Oxford Road. The housing closer to the river is
much more recent, dating mostly to within the last few decades and built with
flooding adaptations.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAuQLrFi2pNb-6cIn9JFAjaE6eqHWJMuQiveM3S1zdXYqImeGLvBKvzxN6iP4ZCl7muD5OlySuHxKkZHilQw0Jle6q1KC9TsYkbf5d_XJ2trUw21HQdKTWK7yKC1XZ2DYKE187AXOLzbM/s3264/IMG_0633.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAuQLrFi2pNb-6cIn9JFAjaE6eqHWJMuQiveM3S1zdXYqImeGLvBKvzxN6iP4ZCl7muD5OlySuHxKkZHilQw0Jle6q1KC9TsYkbf5d_XJ2trUw21HQdKTWK7yKC1XZ2DYKE187AXOLzbM/w400-h300/IMG_0633.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The gates of the manor house of Purley Magna, now unaffordable flats. Its
private park still occupies the centre of the suburb.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFRT3oMny9JxwwKNjG1HVxT-bGBLCNYse9t_UwAWUhLKDcYzykW0pBwr8gmIzJzYCMqVZZcPHhWkFc3eFAxcP9cDzrIZbJRx_gB0skXvXgkG7aoQpLY4FJoRhpkgG2TNWIqUNQsRJe2lo/s3264/IMG_0636.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFRT3oMny9JxwwKNjG1HVxT-bGBLCNYse9t_UwAWUhLKDcYzykW0pBwr8gmIzJzYCMqVZZcPHhWkFc3eFAxcP9cDzrIZbJRx_gB0skXvXgkG7aoQpLY4FJoRhpkgG2TNWIqUNQsRJe2lo/w400-h300/IMG_0636.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Along the suburb’s western rim, the old access road to Mapledurham Lock
offers a route back to the river.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ipc_BJv62mgXYtpFhHc2LZZqdvsaomN6FHbG8EZ2sWoI05iJLAv35_GlfWV6tmnTInfOwoRR7MbaKJxh9d77iflt-ysrG2eBzPes7NZSAf89pmZ0qV7aTWX7Px9U1V298aaF6mgwtOc/s3264/IMG_0647.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ipc_BJv62mgXYtpFhHc2LZZqdvsaomN6FHbG8EZ2sWoI05iJLAv35_GlfWV6tmnTInfOwoRR7MbaKJxh9d77iflt-ysrG2eBzPes7NZSAf89pmZ0qV7aTWX7Px9U1V298aaF6mgwtOc/w300-h400/IMG_0647.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Whoever designed this poster is exactly right.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrHsfabGia5sih0eLYfzC146aeT2rl2E885teMUOB8qOPp7Qf48eVEoi3eF2uiDQPeK5h-1wdqAPZy8iKSvrDCU6ZvKob_H_3oexjRPK_KDC5BvvkBcLFrS_SEUxWqDfPDD_D99ykJByE/s3264/IMG_0646.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrHsfabGia5sih0eLYfzC146aeT2rl2E885teMUOB8qOPp7Qf48eVEoi3eF2uiDQPeK5h-1wdqAPZy8iKSvrDCU6ZvKob_H_3oexjRPK_KDC5BvvkBcLFrS_SEUxWqDfPDD_D99ykJByE/w400-h300/IMG_0646.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">I have been hesitant to offer food and drink recommendations on this journey
because so many of the traditional pubs and cafés have been taken over by big corporations
with no connection to the local communities. Purley however conceals a
refreshing surprise. Close to the river, hidden behind the houses on Wintringham
Way, the <u><a href="https://themadduckcafe.co.uk/">Mad Duck Café</a></u> is a unique
and characterful rest stop run by local families which offers excellent lunches
and cakes for very generous prices. Seating is currently outdoors only due to
COVID-19.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When
we rejoin the river, it is to face another large piece of inherited affluence. Like
Purley the north-bank <b>Mapledurham</b> estate goes back at least to the 1086
Domesday survey, but its country house was built in the Elizabethan 1580s. Blasted,
seized and sacked by the Parliamentary army during the civil war, it was later
recovered by the gentry and has since passed down a long chain of succession to
its present holders, the Eyston family. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Unusually,
these dwellers have sought to leverage Mapledurham’s picturesque heritage by <u><a href="https://www.mapledurham.co.uk/">opening up the house and grounds for
public tours</a></u>, while diversifying its offerings with sustainable farming and
leisure initiatives. Its atmospheric setting has also drawn film crews, leading
it to feature in several decades’ worth of movies and TV series.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Regrettably
an assessment of these efforts in the context of the broader English problems
of land and class is beyond this expedition. Mapledurham is unreachable from
this side of the river, and the house, grounds, and tours have all closed this
year on account of COVID-19.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeFfbJhwmXWmALHGTVGJAFUUz5KzwdeZ5b30uBFP0G9aopNV15rIuJvZP1TXEdlcxvtxADCjg01QzI23m7q1z2DvG8g7vMcA242GtPVanWh3jEShyphenhyphenw0nUAoOPFuXtAuiOEZcH3K9y6eaI/s3264/IMG_0658.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeFfbJhwmXWmALHGTVGJAFUUz5KzwdeZ5b30uBFP0G9aopNV15rIuJvZP1TXEdlcxvtxADCjg01QzI23m7q1z2DvG8g7vMcA242GtPVanWh3jEShyphenhyphenw0nUAoOPFuXtAuiOEZcH3K9y6eaI/w640-h480/IMG_0658.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Mapledurham Lock and Weir. The lock is a 1908 upgrade on a 1777 Thames
Navigation Commission creation, but the weir has been here for a millennium of
service to the adjoining watermill. Despite its name, the lock is here on the
Purley side and there is no means to cross the weir to Mapledurham.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEs6eAs9uBiUXjpUOl95S8HQOiJy7k12X-_dyG74xlL4sYC36Nxgt7YDCSroJK9pP1Fn5jm5hq-0o8GPB5_W0um_cCP1qugHNRlF2zntpLjJjCE_FLUscvdIibC8f1A6wvTKHW2IWPfmw/s3264/IMG_0650.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEs6eAs9uBiUXjpUOl95S8HQOiJy7k12X-_dyG74xlL4sYC36Nxgt7YDCSroJK9pP1Fn5jm5hq-0o8GPB5_W0um_cCP1qugHNRlF2zntpLjJjCE_FLUscvdIibC8f1A6wvTKHW2IWPfmw/w400-h300/IMG_0650.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>From the south side Mapledurham House can only be glimpsed through the summer
foliage.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_aFKwalSj8ppGiq3uRckpeqYNIQpzYvTjhjiC8ZrvbOhMVBgRi2KicNXI315RWeRl60gLARptKlxyHzaH_BNeZtCMq87JqqgvxsUI-CjnaXDwobacEbxgxd-7a2L5JvLeYr7ibmeJ9LI/s3264/IMG_0652.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_aFKwalSj8ppGiq3uRckpeqYNIQpzYvTjhjiC8ZrvbOhMVBgRi2KicNXI315RWeRl60gLARptKlxyHzaH_BNeZtCMq87JqqgvxsUI-CjnaXDwobacEbxgxd-7a2L5JvLeYr7ibmeJ9LI/w400-h300/IMG_0652.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The banks facing Mapledurham are pleasant meadowland with sandy riverside
beaches, ideal for fluffy encounters like these.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfnrp_hi25nWEAunMVONYcIvh_7xbXs1gDpmz0Pn-3ESjE6ZAxUQzYC8KFbxYezWeY0pVGc1ARiZJkO7D5DZ_CUU85s_SmxfTlF47vl225fqD3eMWFCzrKlbNs714HAalVAo8Wsq31AQY/s3264/IMG_0656.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfnrp_hi25nWEAunMVONYcIvh_7xbXs1gDpmz0Pn-3ESjE6ZAxUQzYC8KFbxYezWeY0pVGc1ARiZJkO7D5DZ_CUU85s_SmxfTlF47vl225fqD3eMWFCzrKlbNs714HAalVAo8Wsq31AQY/w400-h300/IMG_0656.JPG" width="400" /></a></div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogQndTOWA2aEBAB926g2j0gibKyKQUX6epBt_0caQm1cVV91IvJ4lrddjwhPfGjwjKdTL7H5F8aAFE1sD53eKWta8Y0mP72mtQWaMZ-0sWIpqzWWQ9oy3wNArAtiw5VVEIPU9kBEynE8/s3264/IMG_0660.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogQndTOWA2aEBAB926g2j0gibKyKQUX6epBt_0caQm1cVV91IvJ4lrddjwhPfGjwjKdTL7H5F8aAFE1sD53eKWta8Y0mP72mtQWaMZ-0sWIpqzWWQ9oy3wNArAtiw5VVEIPU9kBEynE8/w400-h300/IMG_0660.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Those wishing not to be eaten by plants might be advised against sitting here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRYaU9i8IkdeKC4TSL_bQhLvnK3uY5eIXH1qZFJJn30d9mk6bTw6-sKdh90l_zt2t0d_lELIBPiFVNp7_Mmv0I1BWkGl1NKf1yh80Yj1hH4a0zAJ5U9XEaG7rymLxnEdECptxo5nlTxgU/s3264/IMG_0663.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRYaU9i8IkdeKC4TSL_bQhLvnK3uY5eIXH1qZFJJn30d9mk6bTw6-sKdh90l_zt2t0d_lELIBPiFVNp7_Mmv0I1BWkGl1NKf1yh80Yj1hH4a0zAJ5U9XEaG7rymLxnEdECptxo5nlTxgU/w400-h300/IMG_0663.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Mapledurham’s watermill had an advanced super-efficient screw turbine installed
in 2011 to generate hydro-electricity. But it continues to produce flour, making it
the only one of the Thames’s countless old mills that still functions
today.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">All
that remains for today is a brisk trek across the meadows of what was
presumably the territory of Purley Parva. This is still predominantly farmland,
centred around what was once the manor’s tiny village of Westbury, from where some
curious present-day inhabitants have come down to investigate passers-by.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgaS4MmUOtRhuTE3dsFJbHxKmW5bjmCoyoSgIQwd-uLB7ep0AxKQ7KmMAUqU4rffwqS2IxomHQVoX-VAgoGd7n3i5tZluoSytuvu4jkLlBrbuc3-lizc-PloTdOTTdUxYPC5ZMA8xUo5s/s3264/IMG_0664.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgaS4MmUOtRhuTE3dsFJbHxKmW5bjmCoyoSgIQwd-uLB7ep0AxKQ7KmMAUqU4rffwqS2IxomHQVoX-VAgoGd7n3i5tZluoSytuvu4jkLlBrbuc3-lizc-PloTdOTTdUxYPC5ZMA8xUo5s/w640-h480/IMG_0664.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The way beyond Mapledurham Lock. The low escarpment of the Chiltern Hills soars
close on the far side, anticipating its landing just a little further
upstream.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkt1atMlZ8lhT-65o72KvNz3K_8C9P2pas1iEKi5kmVs5Gaxs6b9hRLDgq1huijKajlbO8xe6TI1uHRnT_sUewPcB92SVs9DseP-i0e3dmWV1aGwWHFlkepc5S9kj3D5v8x155AZVF-_I/s3264/IMG_0667.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkt1atMlZ8lhT-65o72KvNz3K_8C9P2pas1iEKi5kmVs5Gaxs6b9hRLDgq1huijKajlbO8xe6TI1uHRnT_sUewPcB92SVs9DseP-i0e3dmWV1aGwWHFlkepc5S9kj3D5v8x155AZVF-_I/w400-h300/IMG_0667.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>And what is that concentration of biomass over there?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV4oxN5eBPhEpxpLEN59x9_zCnTrjMkwI-4WfqPQe7OyKWJfhT6DYtIoEGyd05F3EgLmOaEtgumUIo7vzARmLp5EaPXI7wjqlG_LslMTy1Eg3nZQ4hxthTM1mfMxUuV8Kf8G9F96IdY30/s3264/IMG_0668.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV4oxN5eBPhEpxpLEN59x9_zCnTrjMkwI-4WfqPQe7OyKWJfhT6DYtIoEGyd05F3EgLmOaEtgumUIo7vzARmLp5EaPXI7wjqlG_LslMTy1Eg3nZQ4hxthTM1mfMxUuV8Kf8G9F96IdY30/w400-h300/IMG_0668.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Yes.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCdN7r5yxuXor5rfGfVIcylnZynd3jviIpyrCntflg15HzrHmVKib-aWnT5RQiXYvexonzlA5E2hETXgf7rDSpMQVy-mWODQxGNXSfxa9wrS3pFB4r7vxWeRdRb67JmoDeK5mxjwaGVpY/s3264/IMG_0672.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCdN7r5yxuXor5rfGfVIcylnZynd3jviIpyrCntflg15HzrHmVKib-aWnT5RQiXYvexonzlA5E2hETXgf7rDSpMQVy-mWODQxGNXSfxa9wrS3pFB4r7vxWeRdRb67JmoDeK5mxjwaGVpY/w640-h480/IMG_0672.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Take care around these when you need to pass close. They are usually peaceful,
but statistically they are</span></b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span> the
second-most dangerous large animal in England after humans</span></b></span> and their occasional attacks can cause death or serious injury. One should always
pay respectful attention to their behaviour, refrain from antagonising them,
and take especial care with dogs.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0_cMNNaM1p53jdBUAxt93960oboxsteye27TPHmZYi2Q2FoL0v6UBvgPYIfcpWDnWiO2Fu-hXKNlbeNhdAI4KXtAOUX4-NRvhH58m8hzo4p6X-bQhlOB8pAlARNsWGlibmVR4F9FTP30/s3264/IMG_0675.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0_cMNNaM1p53jdBUAxt93960oboxsteye27TPHmZYi2Q2FoL0v6UBvgPYIfcpWDnWiO2Fu-hXKNlbeNhdAI4KXtAOUX4-NRvhH58m8hzo4p6X-bQhlOB8pAlARNsWGlibmVR4F9FTP30/w640-h480/IMG_0675.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Nuuo.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The open grass of this final stretch offers some of today’s best scenery, with good views of the declining Chiltern slopes across the way.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMRplsGIFZT2ny0Jsw7ElPt5liIBR4oxGLIg5rZNDOx6TmuweOpoMggRnM8RVVroJ0iP1pkNhnYWFy36Z7Nq_XXkgDtRaaxs5_WqHfGbc2-UbQI65SfCe2ezYxpL-LslyvjM4YUs2sGD4/s3264/IMG_0678.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMRplsGIFZT2ny0Jsw7ElPt5liIBR4oxGLIg5rZNDOx6TmuweOpoMggRnM8RVVroJ0iP1pkNhnYWFy36Z7Nq_XXkgDtRaaxs5_WqHfGbc2-UbQI65SfCe2ezYxpL-LslyvjM4YUs2sGD4/w640-h480/IMG_0678.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4mEJJ-kQEQzDc5Fa_cuxPpbZfKE5Cmhcy6LcrvPzULYf0dTMlUx2xsqu04N3xj9CXn5CfhoLY_lSNN-7iPgSFOXmRw-KTL6v6pgL-8NMvyHoPkFrZNPNJdEt2QKPId3xZMH5bJkByRnY/s3264/IMG_0680.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4mEJJ-kQEQzDc5Fa_cuxPpbZfKE5Cmhcy6LcrvPzULYf0dTMlUx2xsqu04N3xj9CXn5CfhoLY_lSNN-7iPgSFOXmRw-KTL6v6pgL-8NMvyHoPkFrZNPNJdEt2QKPId3xZMH5bJkByRnY/w400-h300/IMG_0680.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Unlike the parkland close to Reading the riverbanks here seem largely left to
their own devices.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5x7z-nSaNcGyn9WQG20Qe8st8iRCKDvpphZeZi5qbyH4RASe0FUkxt9jPIxHfu48hegJ71DOJlJ2qSHD9XeB2LMhpIKxCMcFMio82LZmfkPXMspfBsqVwBl_dvlkCTIpbQf95sxZM9go/s3264/IMG_0683.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5x7z-nSaNcGyn9WQG20Qe8st8iRCKDvpphZeZi5qbyH4RASe0FUkxt9jPIxHfu48hegJ71DOJlJ2qSHD9XeB2LMhpIKxCMcFMio82LZmfkPXMspfBsqVwBl_dvlkCTIpbQf95sxZM9go/w400-h300/IMG_0683.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPcjvBZDsHovcWGWS5Wjtuhi3fqqrYaLZbcUZcsGiKGGeMvK9VOXcB9c83o_jG7Q0z3PONasNBjcVwqUCY_x9_Irl-T_M_0Eb5yTfvX7J9F7U4iZizyoDkZG-h7TGm_k6RDiqGKUTSmkw/s3264/IMG_0687.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPcjvBZDsHovcWGWS5Wjtuhi3fqqrYaLZbcUZcsGiKGGeMvK9VOXcB9c83o_jG7Q0z3PONasNBjcVwqUCY_x9_Irl-T_M_0Eb5yTfvX7J9F7U4iZizyoDkZG-h7TGm_k6RDiqGKUTSmkw/w640-h480/IMG_0687.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Then appears the landscaped vista of Hardwick House, another <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-9-death-in-willows.html">Toad
Hall</a></u> whose estate dominates the north bank here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Much
like neighbouring Mapledurham, <b>Hardwick House</b> anchors an ancient
Saxon-era estate whose house got upgraded into a big Tudor mansion in the late
sixteenth century. Its story mirrors its neighbour’s in the close
association of its resident Lybbe family with the ruling monarchy, which got it similarly ransacked by the Parliamentary army during the civil
war. The Lybbes got it back but eventually struggled financially and in 1909
they sold the estate to the Rose family, which lives there to this day. Like
the Eystons at Mapledurham they have attempted to branch out their land use, <u><a href="http://www.hardwickestate.co.uk/">in this case into forestry and organic
farming</a></u>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcjG2M6xsPog_GwKBf_NgtggDfd2D77i0asUqi-Z5ynlfm4Mk30zzNtwAKuS12eticfWxMnBC0LaVIbiG9-uIdqOV_GOt66eqnEwNWyUIv8c1_I7zTtbV4IbXLEvTYCXDIuY5c1dcQhBE/s3264/IMG_0688.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcjG2M6xsPog_GwKBf_NgtggDfd2D77i0asUqi-Z5ynlfm4Mk30zzNtwAKuS12eticfWxMnBC0LaVIbiG9-uIdqOV_GOt66eqnEwNWyUIv8c1_I7zTtbV4IbXLEvTYCXDIuY5c1dcQhBE/w400-h300/IMG_0688.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>How are we to assess this local trend of English aristocrats, apparently
transcending a long and deeply oppressive history – violent land enclosure,
links to colonialism and slavery and control of a toxic political system – to champion causes
urgent to and often critical of a problematic modernity? It’s a complex
question, and alas beyond this expedition’s investigative power.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS1Z6Yv3kqRWcok7Pj8O7QREdOe6Sk1ftR0m9WvYk2ELK8wjMv1_Uvaf8YSadsZ9kYopq1bdwhgs3trBBfBQFCSbSBPhgk4pICex_gxtRxeBe0a0T6Z98oQ2eiDr46EMNCPU1iZKojkVQ/s3264/IMG_0690.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS1Z6Yv3kqRWcok7Pj8O7QREdOe6Sk1ftR0m9WvYk2ELK8wjMv1_Uvaf8YSadsZ9kYopq1bdwhgs3trBBfBQFCSbSBPhgk4pICex_gxtRxeBe0a0T6Z98oQ2eiDr46EMNCPU1iZKojkVQ/w400-h300/IMG_0690.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A number of interesting rural concerns dot the orbit of the Hardwick estate.
There’s an alpaca farm over there somewhere.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
approach to Pangbourne leads through its own meadow, a partial
nature reserve which the village manages alongside the National Trust.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs84Qcj97_S8NaqF0c7kteb_qDWhPnlSVheeQKrntyUgDLjbEBReE5dFNCUjhZnqk63D9Lkz5ofEUKMPgpJ2SJXLa47VE9AmrdTFtznrEqLNnxm3EysMoPTx0pXVQ6IGAfIuAlmpU1pHQ/s3264/IMG_0694.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs84Qcj97_S8NaqF0c7kteb_qDWhPnlSVheeQKrntyUgDLjbEBReE5dFNCUjhZnqk63D9Lkz5ofEUKMPgpJ2SJXLa47VE9AmrdTFtznrEqLNnxm3EysMoPTx0pXVQ6IGAfIuAlmpU1pHQ/w400-h300/IMG_0694.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>As helpfully signposted.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLDL6GrGrSdOjI7ldciKdf8j2gQKVVE2yKF5UQalA1NsISu0819IVuPsFNNoUQOteGf15zJke6ghDTwiuO8kacLowNw5-dZZyEtwCK3q7xgIHe1sDJMjDHP-SMTGVadowxUT735r9YySU/s3264/IMG_0698.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLDL6GrGrSdOjI7ldciKdf8j2gQKVVE2yKF5UQalA1NsISu0819IVuPsFNNoUQOteGf15zJke6ghDTwiuO8kacLowNw5-dZZyEtwCK3q7xgIHe1sDJMjDHP-SMTGVadowxUT735r9YySU/w400-h300/IMG_0698.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Natives fish on the banks of Pangbourne Meadow.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Qts2S54zPOrpAPwN2Dw5uC3EY5LGjfLMx-Mx9uqrI-1LvW8dil4ACNkoCU9H5wBycmBELxkkhXmEa-iwqKASI0qmJdPi3FvoPGfchgoV1KPjxfOYTy-U-BrQZUs_Eo9rlf4cd5tLg3k/s3264/IMG_0699.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Qts2S54zPOrpAPwN2Dw5uC3EY5LGjfLMx-Mx9uqrI-1LvW8dil4ACNkoCU9H5wBycmBELxkkhXmEa-iwqKASI0qmJdPi3FvoPGfchgoV1KPjxfOYTy-U-BrQZUs_Eo9rlf4cd5tLg3k/w640-h480/IMG_0699.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Whitchurch Bridge connects the villages of Pangbourne (south) and Whitchurch
(north). Built in 1792 and replaced several times since – the present
steel-lattice structure is a 2014 refurbishment – it its privately-controlled
and charges a toll for crossing vehicles, one of only two traditional Thames
toll bridges still to do so. Inevitably, they still quarrel about the fee. It was doubled in 2009 and hiked further in 2015 to 60p for cars and £4 for
heavy vehicles. Walkers correctly cross for free.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span>Pangbourne</span></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Pangbourne</b>,
along with its opposing village of <b>Whitchurch</b>, is a communications
junction: a minor outlying node of Reading where the
roads converge at a convenient river crossing at the mouth of the <b>Pang</b>.
The Pang is a lush chalk stream, and the <i>bourne</i> to which Pangbourne’s
name refers.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Accordingly
the settlement goes back a very long way. It was on the old road between the
Roman outposts of Silchester (south) and Dorchester (north); the
eighteenth-century railway-builders discovered a Roman cemetery nearby. Its
present name emerged after Anglo-Saxon immigration and is thought to refer to a
local chief call<span>ed Pæga</span>. It then occurs in writing as <i>Peningaburnan</i>
in 844 in a land grant to a certain Bertwulf, king of the central Saxon kingdom
of Mercia which the Vikings overwhelmed a few decades later.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMGxmoqR_zEwVXWi3idlqe-wphZBopnJKVn4tXtBknbVa6pv-F8tb73d6xcJzH6TeVtAdQ3cSjDslJENsZm-Ay-KXSwVNAUYJGh7i2jJjqvKw7f_MHRB6iIo4hazYgfU56VXJHXcq7NXI/s3264/IMG_0710.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMGxmoqR_zEwVXWi3idlqe-wphZBopnJKVn4tXtBknbVa6pv-F8tb73d6xcJzH6TeVtAdQ3cSjDslJENsZm-Ay-KXSwVNAUYJGh7i2jJjqvKw7f_MHRB6iIo4hazYgfU56VXJHXcq7NXI/w300-h400/IMG_0710.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The village sign depicts this Bertwulf, as well as a Viking longship. The book
in between is <i>The Wind in the Willows</i>, commemorating Pangbourne’s
connection to Kenneth Grahame.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin5VvHzM6vAz8Wyna-SfBPuZTeRpuRb8viGD31m8CId_5flZUIaEt58Et6vah_-hut3dmf9SZigZyuKmj5KiiOBsuuEfvkFgPR0_JVwABaNYSd8GdiuUqMpM-OTm5_720BhcCf5DwVBhI/s3264/IMG_0704.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin5VvHzM6vAz8Wyna-SfBPuZTeRpuRb8viGD31m8CId_5flZUIaEt58Et6vah_-hut3dmf9SZigZyuKmj5KiiOBsuuEfvkFgPR0_JVwABaNYSd8GdiuUqMpM-OTm5_720BhcCf5DwVBhI/w400-h300/IMG_0704.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Pangbourne’s high street. It’s a small village, with its centre to the east of
the Pang and railway station to the west.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqxP9rRPuD2cyjaOoMdUQmPumebzIjJMd-ZkCkXQJfQST08Cqja43EhaJ_YhKfOJYBCbqhi3ZAmqA6waw2V2k5VPoVkoilP3AEYoCUs84AS-DHEP6mX9V854QczqOABZofS5nC4wkD63I/s3264/IMG_0707.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqxP9rRPuD2cyjaOoMdUQmPumebzIjJMd-ZkCkXQJfQST08Cqja43EhaJ_YhKfOJYBCbqhi3ZAmqA6waw2V2k5VPoVkoilP3AEYoCUs84AS-DHEP6mX9V854QczqOABZofS5nC4wkD63I/w300-h400/IMG_0707.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The River Pang. This chalk tributary runs into the village through a relatively
isolated valley in the West Berkshire bush. It harbours rich wildlife habitats
and is popular with anglers, but historic over-extraction of drinking water has
damaged its course and prompted renewed conservation efforts.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pangbourne’s
later story unfolded in the dominant shadow of <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2021/06/thames-10-blood-red-junction.html">Reading
Abbey</a></u>, to which it was given by Henry I at the latter’s foundation. Its
manor house (inland to the southwest) was supposedly a popular summer getaway
for the monastery’s abbots. More Englishly it was in its underground tunnels
that the last of those abbots, Hugh Faringdon, was dragged from hiding to be
butchered alive at the Abbey’s destruction in 1539. The violence of the civil
wars also left their mark: the road upriver rises up Shooters’ Hill, apparently
so named for its Royalist artillery fortifications whose cannonballs were dug
up when they built the railway.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM4qIr7jDghs18m9imvN4dQmb_3qGwT52Qcy3Xa5fwzdM-McKgrXeTbWcdkHasJIO4PrH4F8tk05o7DK_aiZgrZj_17MdvS9kdM-QLbZ0HW_hde_4VSDEVG4TwkHMIXukAQaN-LK7w93s/s3264/IMG_0708.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM4qIr7jDghs18m9imvN4dQmb_3qGwT52Qcy3Xa5fwzdM-McKgrXeTbWcdkHasJIO4PrH4F8tk05o7DK_aiZgrZj_17MdvS9kdM-QLbZ0HW_hde_4VSDEVG4TwkHMIXukAQaN-LK7w93s/w400-h300/IMG_0708.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>As a river junction Pangbourne is significant in Thames literature.
Kenneth Grahame, author of <i>The Wind in the Willows</i>, spent the final
years of his life here in the 1920s; while Jerome K. Jerome and his party,
whose humorous voyage documented in his <i>Three Men in a Boat</i> (1889) is
perhaps the English’s best-known Thames expedition, brought their return
journey to an end at a still-extant pub here called <i>The Swan</i>.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s
about it really. Pangbourne seems less a place where big things happen than a
place people pass through on their way to those places where they do. Fitting
perhaps for this margin of transitions, this quiet backstage connection-space
between the Reading and Oxford spheres of influence. You could say it has
transformed a great deal, and is still transforming. Or you could say it has in
fact changed very little, with the river sliding through as it has for as long
as there have been people here to witness it.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But
it wasn’t <i>always</i> here. And if this country’s failure at pandemic
governance doesn’t cause the latest wave of COVID-19 (that is, the
Modi/BJP variant) to go completely out of control in the next few days, the
next stage of this journey will cross the chalk to the time the river cut
through this way in the first place.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0vgtNLdsLyD2WEQFkNbqyJS-fpttD1cdHjT-ruU0yTwIqpK4OK8tQsP0VJ5sV_2GbjS6p9GUkHK8anuxTe45zrQXgoFhWtXbtNoZdRLb3B3HFmYotD_WOlIRABkjvPC_Lh6GcGit2FSo/s3264/IMG_0645.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0vgtNLdsLyD2WEQFkNbqyJS-fpttD1cdHjT-ruU0yTwIqpK4OK8tQsP0VJ5sV_2GbjS6p9GUkHK8anuxTe45zrQXgoFhWtXbtNoZdRLb3B3HFmYotD_WOlIRABkjvPC_Lh6GcGit2FSo/w640-h480/IMG_0645.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Pangbourne, Reading RG8, UK51.4832554 -1.08738623.173021563821152 -36.243636 79.793489236178843 34.068864tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-489790991955611672021-06-20T15:20:00.002+01:002021-06-24T17:52:34.866+01:00THAMES: 10) Blood-Red Junction<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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blood.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The English bleed. Over 125,000 deaths and counting, many
avoidable. Failure – or worse, opportunities seized for blatant corruption – on
practically every aspect of the pandemic response. The single thing that
has actually gone reasonably well, the vaccination programme, becomes a basis to gaslight their population, successfully, into forgetting how far it was political
blundering, not the COVID-19 virus itself, that caused them a year and a half
of abject suffering.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They are eager to get ‘back to normal’, so one hears. Back
to the neo-feudal <i>normal</i> of a country that feeds on its poor and its
different, hurling aside the tethers of truth and care as they follow a clutch
of crypto-fascist killer clowns to a promised land of eternal abuse in a cloak
of hollow vanity, fairytale history and woke-bashing for sport.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They had a choice, the English. A chance to look at their
country in the mirror of this virus and change its course before it was too
late. Perhaps one day they will look back, and wonder if this was when they
crossed the point of no return.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQxLGtBNYc_EX3IKhgSLyi4MSbDFeH5C7WaIF7eFOXAib7Lr2FB_dYxrn1aMjxurF9pLbq1k0FkJSWFtfSjJFum0PTeY-Xf85x_QmMqZNy4CE_n_ASMqyYArudvXR5d72L6zZbOs_PM5I/s3264/IMG_0269.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQxLGtBNYc_EX3IKhgSLyi4MSbDFeH5C7WaIF7eFOXAib7Lr2FB_dYxrn1aMjxurF9pLbq1k0FkJSWFtfSjJFum0PTeY-Xf85x_QmMqZNy4CE_n_ASMqyYArudvXR5d72L6zZbOs_PM5I/w640-h480/IMG_0269.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A return: Henley-on-Thames, after more than a year’s
absence.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It was my hope to continue this expedition once COVID-19
had been defeated. However, with the English administration’s failure to take
it seriously or mount any coherent broad strategy to suppress it (in which they
are far from alone, to be fair), it is quite clear they have
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
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<![endif]--></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">In the
same period my alienation from this country, and quite frankly, disgust at it,
has deteriorated from hellish to terminally traumatic. </span>Th</span>is river journey can wait no longer if it is to
reach completion before I get out of here for good.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Where we rejoin it, the river, too, comes at last to a
crossroads.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Round a bend from the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-9-death-in-willows.html">rowers’
capital of Henley</a></u>, the villages and meadows recede before the largest settlement
on the central Thames. The 150,000-strong town of <b>Reading</b> – really a
city – sits halfway up the Great West Road (now the A4), halfway between thi<span style="font-family: inherit;">s
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The
middle of the middle: a pivotal position, strategically speaking, which
has afforded the people of Reading foremost experience in the fortunes and woes
of the most turbulent movements in English history.</span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAo1tBqOjWUoGFylydNhTsXjvwk24DsGqQARG7ZWdZBDOZH_WyyrvpwTQcHaJsl4RwwfZzRIxz9GWPkkD6mMsRRJawaXn11L1RiJvenvFlvfmsWNQItxkoRohLnVRRNPbuXsO3t9fIk3U/s3264/IMG_0537.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAo1tBqOjWUoGFylydNhTsXjvwk24DsGqQARG7ZWdZBDOZH_WyyrvpwTQcHaJsl4RwwfZzRIxz9GWPkkD6mMsRRJawaXn11L1RiJvenvFlvfmsWNQItxkoRohLnVRRNPbuXsO3t9fIk3U/w640-h480/IMG_0537.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The ruins of Reading Abbey, for centuries one of the
country’s wealthiest and the anchor of Reading's prestige.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz2SBGwX7ToX9en_4-9pHxMHNjD90BbRN05tv9Qjl6YXvOl4Tbih-U6iSAxrK-abtUUTa_NUCQUMwjnnaw7YfOl_EJpZosvYiDRLKbL1e7Ub8PuIjYGfVCfEBhjzlrBlKKEEe6DlJNTnE/s3264/IMG_0466.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz2SBGwX7ToX9en_4-9pHxMHNjD90BbRN05tv9Qjl6YXvOl4Tbih-U6iSAxrK-abtUUTa_NUCQUMwjnnaw7YfOl_EJpZosvYiDRLKbL1e7Ub8PuIjYGfVCfEBhjzlrBlKKEEe6DlJNTnE/w300-h400/IMG_0466.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>In later industrial centuries, new wealth and
prestige was found in biscuits.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;">Reading rises beyond a trek through some of the most
attractive river landscapes so far. To wrestle aside the tarnishing presence of familiar English follies – in particular the cult of property and Enclosure of
huge swathes of riverbank for the private mansions of the obscenely rich – is
to observe that the sun shines, the waters glide, and the dragonflies dance
around local people taking their first tentative steps out of lockdown.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Why, then, is this air so laden with depression?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps it is the anxieties and insecurities of England in
the age of COVID-19 that cast this gloom across the riverscape. To look on
these people today – swimmers and sunbathers, lunchers and boaters – is to sense
a society lost in a despondent limbo: cowering indoors one moment, rushing
out to play defiant on the river the next; divided between those taking shelter in their privileged wonderlands, and those left behind to bear the
worst of the consequences; a people torn between a destructive past that
stubbornly refuses to change, and a future that will never be the same. They
spin before us, this way and that, tugged in all directions at once – <i>back to
normal</i>, <i>new normal</i>, <i>third wave, learn to live with COVID</i> –
till the last sense of a journey together is lost, and all that remains is to
spin on to the depths of an abyss where all that it means to be a society, all
that it means to be <i>real</i>, no longer pertains...</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWwHMLlAXxiOjFnKu7HfqBFGrKSMkwCfxBu6i1D-KVfUDNuSoA_ONCoL2xieOvArRIDC0jYcNSmTMV_xaA2yG-h9LNwa62tQ9EcpVQPUjqphCU8An5hGfbfcIqdC6WC7HQBeRzykS9rFs/s3264/IMG_0371.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWwHMLlAXxiOjFnKu7HfqBFGrKSMkwCfxBu6i1D-KVfUDNuSoA_ONCoL2xieOvArRIDC0jYcNSmTMV_xaA2yG-h9LNwa62tQ9EcpVQPUjqphCU8An5hGfbfcIqdC6WC7HQBeRzykS9rFs/w640-h480/IMG_0371.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The river, at least, is real. Trust it, follow it,
for here we can trust so little else.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaCmIN75Y7PMUxPUGVYbU30NUYdmtjZiPRabMezTx57cxNorTImG5LAd58KOK-9B2kl_BGmvINvQUR43mZ8kOps0ZWucYMGPBd7-hZre3ZRirgcIFSPnDWe8slWUoPrCQSnI6YGDVPi9A/s1779/10%2529+Henley+to+Reading.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1779" height="576" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaCmIN75Y7PMUxPUGVYbU30NUYdmtjZiPRabMezTx57cxNorTImG5LAd58KOK-9B2kl_BGmvINvQUR43mZ8kOps0ZWucYMGPBd7-hZre3ZRirgcIFSPnDWe8slWUoPrCQSnI6YGDVPi9A/w640-h576/10%2529+Henley+to+Reading.png" width="640" /></a></div> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Start:</b> Henley Bridge (<i>nearest station:
Henley-on-Thames</i>)</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>End:</b> Reading Bridge (<i>nearest station: Reading</i>)</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Length: 14.5km/9 miles</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Location: Oxfordshire – South Oxfordshire; Berkshire –
Borough of Wokingham, Borough of Reading</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Topics</u>: Henley Meadows, Shiplake, Sonning, <b>Reading</b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><span><a name='more'></a></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span>Henley Meadows</span></u></b></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is a hot summer’s morning in Henley. The breeze blows fresh
through a cloudless sky.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A handful of locals are out for a stroll. Is that surprising,
with a year’s quarantine instincts telling them they should not? Or is the
surprise that there are so few of them, when conditions like these more usually
send them all out to pack their pleasant green spaces?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsXEYerg5oVTAhVqAcE19yerLIoD5DxTofge9zCy4EfXK1HifxVkLWNKvUEYq0XFoSmjnDVp8DgMGFlHQ2O_NSaBgumgSAUBZ9ado5aDPXahYemHaPC41lv9Hq5QL6TnrOxCtYw8q4jok/s3264/IMG_0271.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsXEYerg5oVTAhVqAcE19yerLIoD5DxTofge9zCy4EfXK1HifxVkLWNKvUEYq0XFoSmjnDVp8DgMGFlHQ2O_NSaBgumgSAUBZ9ado5aDPXahYemHaPC41lv9Hq5QL6TnrOxCtYw8q4jok/w400-h300/IMG_0271.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">The waterfowl are out, puzzled perhaps that there’s
no-one to feed them.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGB8sml02jtzIsSSsW-7cmAKEtqSlBQi5z8UTonGUlsdvIHUBnD6fzcVuUjB0POcXtd9yy9rBOjvz6kb_fQQV-lxZUWQiDZXoQV8NNppNlsSPQ8tMr0AZQrdPmL39cn8OM5TEfDgIBPBg/s3264/IMG_0274.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGB8sml02jtzIsSSsW-7cmAKEtqSlBQi5z8UTonGUlsdvIHUBnD6fzcVuUjB0POcXtd9yy9rBOjvz6kb_fQQV-lxZUWQiDZXoQV8NNppNlsSPQ8tMr0AZQrdPmL39cn8OM5TEfDgIBPBg/w400-h300/IMG_0274.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Along Henley’s southern reach the pleasure-craft sit
dormant down the bank.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpHB6glDt4PKQrp8pDg1Io9-ushfVIsg4JVREkjper4CwZBFd77foCrNV7Bm8b4wEOKRiq1rmUuglvEti0xXVfWzMEO69kk1yEYELzJHtlAkCbqmUkkMXfISJRImbIOs5wmN7JsjInQrc/s3264/IMG_0275.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpHB6glDt4PKQrp8pDg1Io9-ushfVIsg4JVREkjper4CwZBFd77foCrNV7Bm8b4wEOKRiq1rmUuglvEti0xXVfWzMEO69kk1yEYELzJHtlAkCbqmUkkMXfISJRImbIOs5wmN7JsjInQrc/w300-h400/IMG_0275.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Henley’s obelisk. It used to stand in the town
centre and has an unexpectedly convoluted history as both a water pump and a
signpost.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Henley’s recreational parks, the <b>Mill Meadows</b> and <b>Marsh
Meadows</b>, spread up its southern riverbank. The Mill Meadows are the more
formally arranged with lawns, flower beds, playgrounds and kiosks.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjec7tFvDKrWs-WbQ2PMy6InQzXDE-Cuj3tIdjj_WPksdqG3QrPm2TBjYTuMxs08ZKwUe0QaPLojhyphenhyphen2V2IcowlrDEWLCPl7LeqxzYsXA8zFzGp0OLME83id0yghpkZ5q-rFb3r9Fe-V9qU/s3264/IMG_0279.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjec7tFvDKrWs-WbQ2PMy6InQzXDE-Cuj3tIdjj_WPksdqG3QrPm2TBjYTuMxs08ZKwUe0QaPLojhyphenhyphen2V2IcowlrDEWLCPl7LeqxzYsXA8zFzGp0OLME83id0yghpkZ5q-rFb3r9Fe-V9qU/w400-h300/IMG_0279.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Kiosks such as in the world of COVID-19 are typically
found shut. Conveniently for walkers, the public toilets at least have been
re-opened.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx2GHaBjz3W3uw1Dt8lO8vkaTHKFlDSEy2kBcdY7u-7K-sVyOKbhKk2pg_6d_F9q8gCVMVQwGaR_2SaKBcq1yeOMWEhUqIPrK1iTI01RX0oazJOEnu0Bk1KyV04ndL76PpGzFlZlClXkc/s3264/IMG_0281.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx2GHaBjz3W3uw1Dt8lO8vkaTHKFlDSEy2kBcdY7u-7K-sVyOKbhKk2pg_6d_F9q8gCVMVQwGaR_2SaKBcq1yeOMWEhUqIPrK1iTI01RX0oazJOEnu0Bk1KyV04ndL76PpGzFlZlClXkc/w400-h300/IMG_0281.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Henley’s <u><a href="https://www.rrm.co.uk/">River and Rowing Museum</a></u> stands over the
meadows, with impressive exhibitions on both the history of the town and the
sport of rowing.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPz57zOE9NMJQo9goR95MXCe8pdOhpSuG-KGUgojeo66_QebB1LsbFSaFuMOUPt334wZW9kwDgfKeciu7tZDVy5XClINxmJ6u35P_gMgsDRDn53f-7rl8FNujFP0Ynb4YMgoaZPdjxoHM/s3264/IMG_0286.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPz57zOE9NMJQo9goR95MXCe8pdOhpSuG-KGUgojeo66_QebB1LsbFSaFuMOUPt334wZW9kwDgfKeciu7tZDVy5XClINxmJ6u35P_gMgsDRDn53f-7rl8FNujFP0Ynb4YMgoaZPdjxoHM/w400-h300/IMG_0286.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Across the river the east bank begins as it means to
go on: expensive private houses, expensive boats, and large trees symbolic of
expensive ways of life.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj3W04jEhzyckCOcczKwn0BVV0ea4Hh_UbZrb3aNpOqN-odwh7nSGuRDHcgdrojd7nMOviBsIT3tS0-9fY1u8B5DAYvyt-7YQ1FFC_iQ-lUPjamjQEx8RO-4_KNf0EmEQasQ1W0HZs3oI/s3264/IMG_0285.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj3W04jEhzyckCOcczKwn0BVV0ea4Hh_UbZrb3aNpOqN-odwh7nSGuRDHcgdrojd7nMOviBsIT3tS0-9fY1u8B5DAYvyt-7YQ1FFC_iQ-lUPjamjQEx8RO-4_KNf0EmEQasQ1W0HZs3oI/w400-h300/IMG_0285.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Even in undeath, this tree is left with no resort
but to throw up its arm-branches in despair at the political
situation.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Marsh Meadows are a little wilder, with rougher
grasses and hedges and a conservation area.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1kbBROSq5IHr_DpCO3w7_okU8CrXG63G_X2GzK6767g3PnhRjQhtgNu49BX_Z8wFwA4iERZU8Zs9yBbziAJzmZf6JtmearNjghLKxD54ETE4dYqods936He5QVnpR80ZIQZs9F_7vIoI/s3264/IMG_0290.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1kbBROSq5IHr_DpCO3w7_okU8CrXG63G_X2GzK6767g3PnhRjQhtgNu49BX_Z8wFwA4iERZU8Zs9yBbziAJzmZf6JtmearNjghLKxD54ETE4dYqods936He5QVnpR80ZIQZs9F_7vIoI/w400-h300/IMG_0290.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>An assortment of tree species has been planted here
in a ‘healing glade’ to encourage reflection.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh45D3QNwthKeNMA4IwKX3YIdTFanmCFfiSqgZ0_g7nF6ldxiBpNLfejmNI3gi17DTdOzMJFmnIf9gv2aw9hIZYjGHjZSwZcD4MlScy_AeWUFKxsuvq5sdeU9vDsXk2Mu7G24MhpgouSM/s3264/IMG_0289.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh45D3QNwthKeNMA4IwKX3YIdTFanmCFfiSqgZ0_g7nF6ldxiBpNLfejmNI3gi17DTdOzMJFmnIf9gv2aw9hIZYjGHjZSwZcD4MlScy_AeWUFKxsuvq5sdeU9vDsXk2Mu7G24MhpgouSM/w400-h300/IMG_0289.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This tree has been decked in ribbons and the
occasional face-mask. Public art? A commemoration of COVID-19 victims? An
occult ritual? All of the above?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKByCeezZR-pdY58mYu2ysFQP8_hMEAOMASnwy3w3DAP_SbyKEeD-gpfjXSkNtc5-WV0fV91K0QP8MDP4IP-zziMr5FF2HE7kzt8wY6vE7tm0NBijSiqq6NOGZPJpYYl-VYUvOcgABbc4/s3264/IMG_0287.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKByCeezZR-pdY58mYu2ysFQP8_hMEAOMASnwy3w3DAP_SbyKEeD-gpfjXSkNtc5-WV0fV91K0QP8MDP4IP-zziMr5FF2HE7kzt8wY6vE7tm0NBijSiqq6NOGZPJpYYl-VYUvOcgABbc4/w400-h300/IMG_0287.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Narrowboats like these are commonplace among the
vessels parked along here. Many are lived in, being relatively affordable in a
country of impossible rents.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As Mill Meadows’ name implies, the stretch ahead once held
a cluster of mills – corn, paper – on both sides of the river. With them
emerged weirs and locks that existed in rudimentary form for many centuries,
but have now outlasted the mills as the modern <b>Marsh Lock</b>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvykRVAHNEXxWTMRc0MMrvWvUd7Q7ZbMT0ub-O03AEoKSkGfGwkVhL4iT7XsPBLH0kQJDpUN0WYhY5XgJRxMT0Gm6BoXigpv3QJMZpQ-YAnh0jknDGSwu7gGUnxvxeqC-fnn8Ca5DG6pU/s3264/IMG_0298.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvykRVAHNEXxWTMRc0MMrvWvUd7Q7ZbMT0ub-O03AEoKSkGfGwkVhL4iT7XsPBLH0kQJDpUN0WYhY5XgJRxMT0Gm6BoXigpv3QJMZpQ-YAnh0jknDGSwu7gGUnxvxeqC-fnn8Ca5DG6pU/w400-h300/IMG_0298.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Unusually the mills' position forced them to put the
lock on the opposite side to the towpath. The unique result is this long wooden
walkway, originally for horses to pull working barges through the lock but now
used primarily by pedestrians.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVr2Lg0KSWNjFNfzzhIU6E8VdmrEktcdul5b1Wt6be9UdpHRlAoiXGYdeWKF1HxhNnfySN7S88UTFyRA75NYP85W7myZ_NVRXmJUiKYvUur-NMug1s-DPV5DbtetS6nuPI6RQkEx6Mmtc/s3264/IMG_0299.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVr2Lg0KSWNjFNfzzhIU6E8VdmrEktcdul5b1Wt6be9UdpHRlAoiXGYdeWKF1HxhNnfySN7S88UTFyRA75NYP85W7myZ_NVRXmJUiKYvUur-NMug1s-DPV5DbtetS6nuPI6RQkEx6Mmtc/w400-h300/IMG_0299.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The weir itself...</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxT7qaA3uwZprNnZ4LxBsqE7KWuEDCD_-WROUfNiHo9NulI9wznA0z9T6diWFN7Vh18CXQvOTyB9v8-9TqG2jbvR9Rv2MVdOJ6ERrZJfUCyxxqkf2bkm1m-YlSp9nfYpNQGLh5XjziYqA/s3264/IMG_0300.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxT7qaA3uwZprNnZ4LxBsqE7KWuEDCD_-WROUfNiHo9NulI9wznA0z9T6diWFN7Vh18CXQvOTyB9v8-9TqG2jbvR9Rv2MVdOJ6ERrZJfUCyxxqkf2bkm1m-YlSp9nfYpNQGLh5XjziYqA/w400-h300/IMG_0300.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>...and the lock, with a vessel navigating through.
More serious lock structures began to appear here around 1800 during
industrialisation, when the Thames teemed with working barges ferrying goods
and raw materials to the London docks. The lock and weir had dangerous and
unsightly reputations and have been rebuilt multiple times.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHCO-483zCBbVhQXgANM_CZ9PFhcv3YJJI8DgU7hFI98mgPhgfDf10L8Vzj3ilXqfTfRnJJ9xVGxbOBUmmjIq7sSW8g7apj_7DQWcAKI8JzNCzM0h2_pv769SZfBnm4uSDRRQjpEAx4jA/s3264/IMG_0301.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHCO-483zCBbVhQXgANM_CZ9PFhcv3YJJI8DgU7hFI98mgPhgfDf10L8Vzj3ilXqfTfRnJJ9xVGxbOBUmmjIq7sSW8g7apj_7DQWcAKI8JzNCzM0h2_pv769SZfBnm4uSDRRQjpEAx4jA/w640-h480/IMG_0301.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The walkway loops on to wilder pastures upstream.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now we are clear of Henley, and from here shall pursue the
waters as they draw the (imaginary) boundary between Oxfordshire to the north and
the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">Royal
Borough of Berkshire</a></u> to the south.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A stretch of open meadows sets the tone for most of today’s
fare. And yet, the ubiquity of menacing warning signs, posh boats and affluent
properties hijacks what must otherwise be an atmosphere of rural tranquility.
This is still the territory of the monied Tory-voting classes; still the
garland of green and blue about the turrets of the privilege forts of the
Thames valley.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKx73qbiZcc28_lEDb-jcK2_SbxJOdWxZgssi6vbPmzjFCbtY5ySXQEvn5uiPayyCVF0fPYNPo5BszxeETh63rBMUeO84ZvEZb9zX-kK-Dcf79rO41orEvAH6BLqLL_ql7B5U4mv2m-oI/s3264/IMG_0305.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKx73qbiZcc28_lEDb-jcK2_SbxJOdWxZgssi6vbPmzjFCbtY5ySXQEvn5uiPayyCVF0fPYNPo5BszxeETh63rBMUeO84ZvEZb9zX-kK-Dcf79rO41orEvAH6BLqLL_ql7B5U4mv2m-oI/w400-h300/IMG_0305.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Open meadowland beyond Marsh Lock.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9kpbl_m3J37YLlqv1hosuZ9XXwbsh__yUEnZmgx4eNi16YcUl7c38b0etCXZUDfuzHKAXOwEAYqVbyaHMC6bYIfZi2emG3jG8X0ohSfg0-JFwjt2Ts0YmKu_lVBKh0OLmD9RTgKII88/s3264/IMG_0308.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9kpbl_m3J37YLlqv1hosuZ9XXwbsh__yUEnZmgx4eNi16YcUl7c38b0etCXZUDfuzHKAXOwEAYqVbyaHMC6bYIfZi2emG3jG8X0ohSfg0-JFwjt2Ts0YmKu_lVBKh0OLmD9RTgKII88/w300-h400/IMG_0308.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Across the river is glimpsed the eighteenth-century
Conway Bridge, which carries the Henley-Wargrave Road. The bridge is one of
many structures in this area said to have been built from stones scavenged from
the fallen Reading Abbey. The grounds beyond, nicknamed ‘Happy Valley’, are
among the vast lands grabbed for the estate of Park Place, one of the area’s massive
<u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-9-death-in-willows.html">Toad
Halls</a></u> held formerly by the old nobility and latterly by hyper-rich
tycoons.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOZsfznUpftBvwL6lBKR4COVTnQCEer8en1X-dHefO20HJWUWMoTnoktviVH3Nn6BDLzeY_hHd94QDTPZoLVsKuy1CjIgNiCJYiiaVLsIT9Kf1Ymzb0a6I3mWNph4mX-MFW_GGlyendw/s3264/IMG_0312.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOZsfznUpftBvwL6lBKR4COVTnQCEer8en1X-dHefO20HJWUWMoTnoktviVH3Nn6BDLzeY_hHd94QDTPZoLVsKuy1CjIgNiCJYiiaVLsIT9Kf1Ymzb0a6I3mWNph4mX-MFW_GGlyendw/w400-h300/IMG_0312.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Signs about mooring, fishing and camping hereabouts
come in two variations: prohibitions like these, or permissions in exchange for
large fees. For most of history they were free, and likely will so be for most
of the future.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQp2tbgiPdAaRqJJuHAOtqIlWXVeskg3qTxU4Ycj23EUFtvWKYaDLCymbLPQ39WjqOKQrNwEiY7jbIW0f9JPamtyw8u7mc-655x3v0CqvQO34Yg6Y6F-WtV7pd6gegM-gaAR9Ns1VjqlQ/s3264/IMG_0313.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQp2tbgiPdAaRqJJuHAOtqIlWXVeskg3qTxU4Ycj23EUFtvWKYaDLCymbLPQ39WjqOKQrNwEiY7jbIW0f9JPamtyw8u7mc-655x3v0CqvQO34Yg6Y6F-WtV7pd6gegM-gaAR9Ns1VjqlQ/w400-h300/IMG_0313.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfxCG4z06ll1zh6s9P6dCmEgSC0vlkLXnBlsQUq77F9RolKqrHRl6DsSEWxYsCtWdV6_Grb30nQ1HAlLSvd0u-Xd0Ue0oeop-6tnp1QWmMDPERgb5Xfcau2WGnFqC5mk5Nbb838R7_QxQ/s3264/IMG_0316.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfxCG4z06ll1zh6s9P6dCmEgSC0vlkLXnBlsQUq77F9RolKqrHRl6DsSEWxYsCtWdV6_Grb30nQ1HAlLSvd0u-Xd0Ue0oeop-6tnp1QWmMDPERgb5Xfcau2WGnFqC5mk5Nbb838R7_QxQ/w400-h300/IMG_0316.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Alongside the large motorised pleasure-boats, frequent waterborne
recreations here include skiffs, kayaks, and the occasional swimmer.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span>Shiplake</span></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here we come to the corner of the riverbend. Within it
dwells the scattered settlement of <b>Shiplake</b>, which over time has
dispersed into multiple nodes. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is regrettable, at this point, that the affluent
mansions on the far bank now extend their colonial misbehaviour across the
river. In typical scorn for the river’s provision for all people, the English
propertied classes have Enclosed approximately the next mile of its banks and
so excluded the commoner class from access. Where once the populace might have
lived off its fish, reeds and other natural resources, they are now fenced out
for the pleasure of a tiny multi-millionaire minority. So shameless is their
extravagance that in some cases here they have even installed private
narrow-gauged railways on their lavishly-landscaped holdings.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It should be recalled that these land-grabs were not a
spontaneous or cosmically-inevitable process but <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">one
of the most violent and culturally transformative movements in English history</a></u>.
It <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">empowered
a new and exclusionary landlord caste</a></u>, stripped vast numbers of people of
their livelihoods, and turned them into factory meat or the perennial punching
bags of a ruthless new regime of law courts and gamekeepers, fences and
imaginary lines on maps – all designed by and for the new landowners – that
criminalised those locals as <i>poachers</i> and <i>vagabonds</i> for seeking
access to the land they’d always relied on. Thus were embedded the extreme
imbalances in wealth, power and dignity that the English population inherits
today, along with the punitive legal framework and ideological systems of
excuses – of benign aristocracy, of the valorisation of property, of
‘scroungers’ and ‘undeserving poor’ – that perpetuate them still.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBex_UG3OZNu9lnbQJ8Xio5-lolucqFkp98PAEDoVf_tkVAyIx06-Qyg_izCQfjsr54u2xV-n2fnXXYZJqHOeyzIqvIlvkQxLWKlIRiEgrVkbdegTQUB_Xj4tVodwzriSCbHtiOwaZAJQ/s3264/IMG_0322.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBex_UG3OZNu9lnbQJ8Xio5-lolucqFkp98PAEDoVf_tkVAyIx06-Qyg_izCQfjsr54u2xV-n2fnXXYZJqHOeyzIqvIlvkQxLWKlIRiEgrVkbdegTQUB_Xj4tVodwzriSCbHtiOwaZAJQ/w400-h300/IMG_0322.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>So it is that wayfarers are forced from the river onto
this road, where to pass a procession of high walls, sealed gates and hidden security hardware. The troubles of a tormented world are shut outside those
walls, so that the English propertied class may live within in the pretence
that all is as it should be. Such is the English cult of exclusion: not
‘reality’ or ‘human nature’ but a distinct phenomenon that originated within
its history and shall end within it too.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTFAb1Fh6HgPhikpTr_Zfy6Mp7c4tU5JW56W_52eJVT7daY6NyQ97HXaSuU4sT9v6Rf_EcqxA5UamEKuN2oz69gLt1F0d9LIg83w3qNdeDSgJ7TBeGC1l3JRts-eTU3NzVjWzlufq-8Lw/s3264/IMG_0317.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTFAb1Fh6HgPhikpTr_Zfy6Mp7c4tU5JW56W_52eJVT7daY6NyQ97HXaSuU4sT9v6Rf_EcqxA5UamEKuN2oz69gLt1F0d9LIg83w3qNdeDSgJ7TBeGC1l3JRts-eTU3NzVjWzlufq-8Lw/w400-h300/IMG_0317.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>There is evidence of strange relics once installed
on these ways. An ancient anemometer?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf4XDs-gr_9wylu1SfVxGh9j-wD0Sr-wqCHNE4UfsYLt5BUJkls7__PVPV-_PqoFaVKgq1LUUSF_vMA_StucoNGzM0U5v72uC9P1CxbPTjoi8JxneJSEgfIJQu_c7q0-XUj_tcD5ujumA/s3264/IMG_0318.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf4XDs-gr_9wylu1SfVxGh9j-wD0Sr-wqCHNE4UfsYLt5BUJkls7__PVPV-_PqoFaVKgq1LUUSF_vMA_StucoNGzM0U5v72uC9P1CxbPTjoi8JxneJSEgfIJQu_c7q0-XUj_tcD5ujumA/w300-h400/IMG_0318.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A modular one? Customise with your security camera,
radio antenna, gun turret or anti-commoner laser cannon of choice.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmHkVOum1QuNFKIkrMWZWCNLxdTkj96bPsoiG-2PUg6cxXXZNdFX8IGhEuc-ojCH6aIC-VOGbnGHEugNEhypeSF7gWjh1g3fOHrRAUDd3zqyXCRBOLv-XvUc9E8NJtWdta5_-fdsou-I/s3264/IMG_0324.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmHkVOum1QuNFKIkrMWZWCNLxdTkj96bPsoiG-2PUg6cxXXZNdFX8IGhEuc-ojCH6aIC-VOGbnGHEugNEhypeSF7gWjh1g3fOHrRAUDd3zqyXCRBOLv-XvUc9E8NJtWdta5_-fdsou-I/w400-h300/IMG_0324.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The houses further from the riverside are merely
affluent. It looks comfortable, but there is a lonely coldness to these roads.
Life takes place in segregated cells, cut off from each other behind walls,
gates and hedges; any sense of a shared public space in between feels
extinguished.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At the top of the road is Shiplake’s one-platform train
station. The old village centre lies further round the bend, but the coming of
the railways transformed much of its surrounding farmland into housing and so built
this reach into the village’s new economic hub, now known as Lower Shiplake.
Its best-known resident was perhaps the young Eric Arthur Blair, later known as George Orwell.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiqKo3A36m10UPEh7veCpwlbW-b3RPWOY4E0jKJN3QtB6Au-l37E6IAIlmvpwbx1YdHiOT6By9LkTVollq5MAsg2WdMKPjkLSH9nGrFwtqDnZgILDA6aBC07S_ISuIZvk3Np4-HOjSxrg/s3264/IMG_0327.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiqKo3A36m10UPEh7veCpwlbW-b3RPWOY4E0jKJN3QtB6Au-l37E6IAIlmvpwbx1YdHiOT6By9LkTVollq5MAsg2WdMKPjkLSH9nGrFwtqDnZgILDA6aBC07S_ISuIZvk3Np4-HOjSxrg/w400-h300/IMG_0327.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The commercial centre of Shiplake. There’s a butcher, a pub, and a
convenience store with post office.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMbqXENYsZSOXI0zmT87EVFOMIaQspo-H23uy7LIr4h2y5ymAnl_e2yvGae8KsqCSlRs0dwfhQY3Q1ucyMdpDRIhr5BNmgX1z1ini7c3dEJ5baoLfS8KO31SS9rAv2SZg5G2ATAutHZzE/s3264/IMG_0329.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMbqXENYsZSOXI0zmT87EVFOMIaQspo-H23uy7LIr4h2y5ymAnl_e2yvGae8KsqCSlRs0dwfhQY3Q1ucyMdpDRIhr5BNmgX1z1ini7c3dEJ5baoLfS8KO31SS9rAv2SZg5G2ATAutHZzE/w400-h300/IMG_0329.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">A residential street typical of Lower Shiplake.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The name <i>Shiplake</i> emerged in the thirteenth century.
Its meaning might sound obvious, but there appear two theories as to its origin
and both are linguistically counter-intuitive. One holds it as akin to <i>sheep-lake</i>,
“the stream where sheep are washed” in Anglo-Saxon Old English. The other goes
in a Danish direction and interprets <i>lake</i> as <i>lack</i>, giving “lack
of ships”; a suggestion, they say, of Vikings sinking their ships here, possibly
because the river grew too shallow to navigate. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7IbMVPWjfBw1UyWbwQDOCLE6lRYwU2DxFO7AIkAQAufSua4s8kC8ryDECBaIuEAA-bMQptfLg3CfkaKY1LmlCbJKzoT_0-QMxxBa9c43lvlyul3m6GUOgsuY5qsXtLkIGbL6TN4u26BY/s3264/IMG_0330.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7IbMVPWjfBw1UyWbwQDOCLE6lRYwU2DxFO7AIkAQAufSua4s8kC8ryDECBaIuEAA-bMQptfLg3CfkaKY1LmlCbJKzoT_0-QMxxBa9c43lvlyul3m6GUOgsuY5qsXtLkIGbL6TN4u26BY/w400-h300/IMG_0330.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>At last a route back to the river is conceded to the
serfs.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPyUhas90GyUTJ60o4ruvyfhjsiVTBpQhutT4qitC-CtuzbSnaYlXO6XzwicnM_MeaQb9VrvaKuol_vaEQgsjO764iVewEBBuhJHxHlS9TOB9sZukfZS5v46k3eFUWYIEA00BSqKuwNHk/s3264/IMG_0333.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPyUhas90GyUTJ60o4ruvyfhjsiVTBpQhutT4qitC-CtuzbSnaYlXO6XzwicnM_MeaQb9VrvaKuol_vaEQgsjO764iVewEBBuhJHxHlS9TOB9sZukfZS5v46k3eFUWYIEA00BSqKuwNHk/w400-h300/IMG_0333.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>It crosses these pastures. Notice how flat the
floodplain is here; the river runs beneath those houses in the distance.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN_YDFSm546wN3KprkQH506V0xGAWUpbhCIHJRJvx49mcbQ17VSGQ9Mr4mnRA2r3XiiZRYzBV0wlofzZl6LFkEDJRboOZj4Sa5dBSqXwDjeeOhKq3N3TWds2ILtSImJHgNg-rL2qS7lgs/s3264/IMG_0335.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN_YDFSm546wN3KprkQH506V0xGAWUpbhCIHJRJvx49mcbQ17VSGQ9Mr4mnRA2r3XiiZRYzBV0wlofzZl6LFkEDJRboOZj4Sa5dBSqXwDjeeOhKq3N3TWds2ILtSImJHgNg-rL2qS7lgs/w400-h300/IMG_0335.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>There are also more agreeable presences who lack the
humans’ rigid and obsessive fantasies of land-ownership.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1yc93hdI1jBPYKd2bMX2q4sl0fiBngWreGGVR_kZMy-mfDDGitZGz-S3ZTovuot9PWsqU12WLuP4wb9oZTMnR8uj0Yu__DXaJtMeXwEitQRXMf_dwm33PEq616uokucTgB3406I8fGHA/s3264/IMG_0337.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1yc93hdI1jBPYKd2bMX2q4sl0fiBngWreGGVR_kZMy-mfDDGitZGz-S3ZTovuot9PWsqU12WLuP4wb9oZTMnR8uj0Yu__DXaJtMeXwEitQRXMf_dwm33PEq616uokucTgB3406I8fGHA/w640-h480/IMG_0337.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Nuuo.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The river is rejoined at what was once the site of the <i>Lashbrook
Ferry</i>. This too is a story from the English land struggle. Specifically it
concerns Bolney Court, the single mansion which formerly dominated the
riverside now occupied by those monied properties. When it came time to build
the working towpath, the landlord of Bolney Court categorically refused to
allow it to run through his land. Instead the barge crews were forced to take
their cargoes and horses across to the far bank by ferry, where to bypass the
property then cross back – with all the hazards this arduous process entailed. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV6RNkP3Ex1yKUDF7j_p77Km7tIp_XNQR2H6iyofprZoKRUjpqWxoz_h_c7rBqdLqtFDWd6WUiHh9GqLGqNkBoJLAdUPfGbnouDyQtWzHs5ecAjcs6NBvJpEXnq5-9EaLy9etnbKdqnRE/s3264/IMG_0338.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV6RNkP3Ex1yKUDF7j_p77Km7tIp_XNQR2H6iyofprZoKRUjpqWxoz_h_c7rBqdLqtFDWd6WUiHh9GqLGqNkBoJLAdUPfGbnouDyQtWzHs5ecAjcs6NBvJpEXnq5-9EaLy9etnbKdqnRE/w400-h300/IMG_0338.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Site of the former Lashbrook Ferry. Eventually
freight moved to the roads and railways and the ferries disappeared, leaving no
means of reaching the orphaned bit of towpath on the opposite bank.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For now at least we’re clear of their irresponsibility and
can proceed for a while amidst more refreshing riverine scenery.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdg_482MwnPh7V5gsVu1CQ8XrzqchEXxU09MvtR5PjYrmm0Q3QCYo4UtUxr26L4tT7vDYFVw68jx8755jnmz5imw1v0eW6x-Xh7DgW0A_N8xgzOGildNYKNpIv42BFdTiT6zhig_z7vF0/s3264/IMG_0346.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdg_482MwnPh7V5gsVu1CQ8XrzqchEXxU09MvtR5PjYrmm0Q3QCYo4UtUxr26L4tT7vDYFVw68jx8755jnmz5imw1v0eW6x-Xh7DgW0A_N8xgzOGildNYKNpIv42BFdTiT6zhig_z7vF0/w640-h480/IMG_0346.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirlWS_Npl38kKk13GPdIk3GFu6-7kPSquTCfSIOXz9QNnV0qQ7_X0MRAIvxaKfFUKghl6pp45ljwH96yKs2EU88tUqk3GhMHqT0jKAYj7Z2H_P3es96mIX1v4RkbcEyYLflgLOLrF-Sng/s3264/IMG_0347.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirlWS_Npl38kKk13GPdIk3GFu6-7kPSquTCfSIOXz9QNnV0qQ7_X0MRAIvxaKfFUKghl6pp45ljwH96yKs2EU88tUqk3GhMHqT0jKAYj7Z2H_P3es96mIX1v4RkbcEyYLflgLOLrF-Sng/w400-h300/IMG_0347.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The Henley Sailing Club on the outer bank, with
people sitting around licking ice creams out of a kiosk.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCozPB3RLypRHgtaQU4yMJ8_u0bAZmpRpep2neg9IkDbEbzhjXhN7RyMkwSxRTGcS2o3rHKRBfQ8epwc85sYSphExQ_WrEYegTS_uct5GojoMgTVZUkVZwfaVTs2cXkAuF7Gtp3m-Wj3g/s3264/IMG_0348.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCozPB3RLypRHgtaQU4yMJ8_u0bAZmpRpep2neg9IkDbEbzhjXhN7RyMkwSxRTGcS2o3rHKRBfQ8epwc85sYSphExQ_WrEYegTS_uct5GojoMgTVZUkVZwfaVTs2cXkAuF7Gtp3m-Wj3g/w640-h480/IMG_0348.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>These blue damselflies are plentiful around this
bend.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The historic village of <b>Wargrave</b> faces Shiplake
across the river, but for want of a bridge or ferry is beyond our exploration. Supposedly
its name has nothing to do with either wars or graves but rather derives from <i>weir-grove</i>,
that is, a grove in Windsor Forest close to a weir.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzx0rkxyE2Jr29hGUVJ3t3rFjW47cbaRfT-SDF6eHuvwLZeqbrehGY9IrVLe6ji92hS_kBeQ8dJ-Aed48V_HzNDONEYVAgixkxqwjooEeL5qc8UKEbsULqne_2rK9fq9mUYtV5pJv4WA4/s3264/IMG_0350.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzx0rkxyE2Jr29hGUVJ3t3rFjW47cbaRfT-SDF6eHuvwLZeqbrehGY9IrVLe6ji92hS_kBeQ8dJ-Aed48V_HzNDONEYVAgixkxqwjooEeL5qc8UKEbsULqne_2rK9fq9mUYtV5pJv4WA4/w640-h480/IMG_0350.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The George and Dragon pub on the Wargrave side.
Windsor Forest has since been reduced and landscaped into <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">Windsor
Great Park</a>,</u> but the etymology evokes a time when it stretched all the way
out here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Wargrave is larger than Shiplake, easier to reach by road
and rail and thus enriched by its connection to both Reading and the commercial
outskirts of London. Inevitably it too was dominated by another sprawling
propertied domain, that being Wargrave Manor. That one goes back to at least
the Domesday survey of 1086, but its current incarnation is eighteenth-century
and was held till 2020 by the late Sultan Qaboos of Oman.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3wl2b6URvhktXdBo3UOb-463ZGMqqieNGIpPNM1y8kdiVzRSrdaY1Bafr3SZCVHgmvzFfBf3Kzua7HoIhM6sOSs0Uw5QeSnfNuncVQ4Gr1xUpIQ1Pa9FeHbK5BkXxuGg0dPfcrl2rXw4/s3264/IMG_0353.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3wl2b6URvhktXdBo3UOb-463ZGMqqieNGIpPNM1y8kdiVzRSrdaY1Bafr3SZCVHgmvzFfBf3Kzua7HoIhM6sOSs0Uw5QeSnfNuncVQ4Gr1xUpIQ1Pa9FeHbK5BkXxuGg0dPfcrl2rXw4/w400-h300/IMG_0353.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Beyond Wargrave the parade of private residences
stretches on up the Berkshire bank. Hereabouts is held the annual Wargrave and
Shiplake Regatta, which this year, like so much else, has been cancelled due to
COVID-19.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPdXByZc4Xav2Ph8437GTm5QAe8HR-CyzljjEbLrsI4uNywmtPO_nHRNf4hyphenhyphen_zehOhJ92jJGvpZIJoDu_1y45LjjjaO-pXZKvi_jRnMdOzzMiwjP7dPc2dGMitCenewvVdJM_R0IrtRoQ/s3264/IMG_0352.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPdXByZc4Xav2Ph8437GTm5QAe8HR-CyzljjEbLrsI4uNywmtPO_nHRNf4hyphenhyphen_zehOhJ92jJGvpZIJoDu_1y45LjjjaO-pXZKvi_jRnMdOzzMiwjP7dPc2dGMitCenewvVdJM_R0IrtRoQ/w300-h400/IMG_0352.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This appears to be a Depressed Caterpillar Tree,
whose flowers’ disconsolateness increases in proportion to the structural
injustice of the country around it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilUbj7EQhBgcXJtq6953bRS3-XGv-H2Q7WY1zAkS6l09ftiXnAnp0phyphenhyphenKNuiah0PJzRgjeb5UdHGUB4DwlagRZCF4DuIujqnGXX6PMdDxkEn2PGJ9o3n_mQekYCPxWbtRnGZmsvs14nR8/s3264/IMG_0355.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilUbj7EQhBgcXJtq6953bRS3-XGv-H2Q7WY1zAkS6l09ftiXnAnp0phyphenhyphenKNuiah0PJzRgjeb5UdHGUB4DwlagRZCF4DuIujqnGXX6PMdDxkEn2PGJ9o3n_mQekYCPxWbtRnGZmsvs14nR8/w400-h300/IMG_0355.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Here on the Oxfordshire bank the bend is an open
meadow, with damselflies dancing through the air and the occasional red kite high
overhead. The bridge carries the railway south from Shiplake.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKBlz9is2e1esp2NigKu6e1ah3T2v-l4GN79FsrZc-exrDeRfb0EzhcxaVrmbEb3YnGbW72taW1LN4RR5bgA3zmzYw46WjJcPLAgqGI48OBipuzBCI8CkqYfFz8iBWMSIYeVaLlJA5wjs/s3264/IMG_0359.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKBlz9is2e1esp2NigKu6e1ah3T2v-l4GN79FsrZc-exrDeRfb0EzhcxaVrmbEb3YnGbW72taW1LN4RR5bgA3zmzYw46WjJcPLAgqGI48OBipuzBCI8CkqYfFz8iBWMSIYeVaLlJA5wjs/w640-h480/IMG_0359.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A contestation about the effects of Brexit is spotted atop the bridge.
The participant on the right no doubt takes issue with having words put into
its mouth.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Beyond the rail bridge is <b>Shiplake Lock</b>, which like Henley’s
Marsh Lock replaced older, more informal locks and weirs associated with a
bunch of mills. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlAvBY1KM_YWpkTH5W4HRUh9BDwO5T24V6vcWU8nitFQNEKiN_LMaZInieHeAV9SsJKu1uNiaSuqgd1OTA-ykccsRb30NJkF40-pRqofppyD4LzmAXAZi4WKEViBn537C69ImCJHKVVu8/s3264/IMG_0361.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlAvBY1KM_YWpkTH5W4HRUh9BDwO5T24V6vcWU8nitFQNEKiN_LMaZInieHeAV9SsJKu1uNiaSuqgd1OTA-ykccsRb30NJkF40-pRqofppyD4LzmAXAZi4WKEViBn537C69ImCJHKVVu8/w400-h300/IMG_0361.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>In 1961 Shiplake Lock became the first of all the
Thames’s locks to switch to hydraulic operation.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFRZ7t7oAKjcw8KN9-i92T5xhHqQC8KW32WtyR4bTMaY-LAUXEsqs8UomxFsfLdYtb7zExYd0vFEaK6UqfoDo-UFOvKN6NYXegR7M4Ld3V-pXH2Q4DEs3qepBmS1XwistDubwZ5PjOAbE/s3264/IMG_0362.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFRZ7t7oAKjcw8KN9-i92T5xhHqQC8KW32WtyR4bTMaY-LAUXEsqs8UomxFsfLdYtb7zExYd0vFEaK6UqfoDo-UFOvKN6NYXegR7M4Ld3V-pXH2Q4DEs3qepBmS1XwistDubwZ5PjOAbE/w400-h300/IMG_0362.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The lock’s island has been popular for summer
camping holidays since the Victorian period. It is attested, in a reflection of
this country’s misogynistic heritage, that for many years they attempted to
forbid women campers from sleeping on it.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiim7ermb-wTITatQ6uWZJ2AjjVVYM6MYDVujSyQbThkq8Co97e1aPZB_180OuAvFD5fc4uRnioSEAlOCOfZfoR4oUmtfYE6nIjeK1obmXTC5TVHKZQf8sp_tZ2XrihE0J6t6Ha51aSK4g/s3264/IMG_0364.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiim7ermb-wTITatQ6uWZJ2AjjVVYM6MYDVujSyQbThkq8Co97e1aPZB_180OuAvFD5fc4uRnioSEAlOCOfZfoR4oUmtfYE6nIjeK1obmXTC5TVHKZQf8sp_tZ2XrihE0J6t6Ha51aSK4g/w400-h300/IMG_0364.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Recreational vessels queue up to pass through the
lock.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj6N3pbeYmPH4ZBqgI3Gc6UhkP9fiX8oQIaplJlaVAWz0KrkZqkaJfFIVXjNSeA8KuWc2xdnH6gp3YjBsnj394LM3eVX2Zx2hYD9adNDE0BNJ5CjJ4GuNLQOR8H1iZ60CpHvb6_1Wfx2A/s3264/IMG_0367.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj6N3pbeYmPH4ZBqgI3Gc6UhkP9fiX8oQIaplJlaVAWz0KrkZqkaJfFIVXjNSeA8KuWc2xdnH6gp3YjBsnj394LM3eVX2Zx2hYD9adNDE0BNJ5CjJ4GuNLQOR8H1iZ60CpHvb6_1Wfx2A/w400-h300/IMG_0367.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>There are also fluffies.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_7ZbFNLtoFvePnqDnSy0iSDQHbdzWj9gANWaEJf4zg-KiCwycCudd8wSMRhXIJ1NV9y54M8PQepT2tQFDI64KhKATTf3VMTo1St9obPtt288sGTsUlmRAM53cZtQRhMhFzefeCDhIPJU/s3264/IMG_0368.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_7ZbFNLtoFvePnqDnSy0iSDQHbdzWj9gANWaEJf4zg-KiCwycCudd8wSMRhXIJ1NV9y54M8PQepT2tQFDI64KhKATTf3VMTo1St9obPtt288sGTsUlmRAM53cZtQRhMhFzefeCDhIPJU/w640-h480/IMG_0368.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The towpath then passes the closest part of the riverbank
to Shiplake proper, up the hill to the north. This is the historic centre of
the village, centred around its parish church.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKpkPlBBvwvnRpVqdZ9bnm2GvzDCGD2eG0ugHGM3AvFdddH_yn5DExgQ29D-28mUoaiQ2wP6tSA8jwYhsmEL-3PeabgXYKzMvVw5jnFH1RkkHnuTVJRMtbuQBPoifKXiwXgdYelShew5M/s3264/IMG_0372.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKpkPlBBvwvnRpVqdZ9bnm2GvzDCGD2eG0ugHGM3AvFdddH_yn5DExgQ29D-28mUoaiQ2wP6tSA8jwYhsmEL-3PeabgXYKzMvVw5jnFH1RkkHnuTVJRMtbuQBPoifKXiwXgdYelShew5M/w400-h300/IMG_0372.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Shiplake College is a prestigious independent school
located up in the village. This is its boatyard.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8GjHqAtHOzxMmYyGJ0YtV7t4_YudUiG2ZkSd4VZrqk20rBHW7HFZptAt80QlIt002_5jzNusifG1vRx0bJibs25bgMQ6kDExKT9guUSfg3jyHdUCw6jlc539njavwFyiEYeIDPSIFXSE/s3264/IMG_0376.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8GjHqAtHOzxMmYyGJ0YtV7t4_YudUiG2ZkSd4VZrqk20rBHW7HFZptAt80QlIt002_5jzNusifG1vRx0bJibs25bgMQ6kDExKT9guUSfg3jyHdUCw6jlc539njavwFyiEYeIDPSIFXSE/w400-h300/IMG_0376.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The tower of Shiplake’s St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church,
glimpsed beyond the roofs and trees.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From here – at last – the private claims appear to fall
away, and a long progress follows through some of the most isolated reaches of
river yet encountered on this journey. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfsu57_iVQ56M6fKzIzuHPgyRh_Yt9C97xPKCi8iDBOPELd9SzIvb5p1n92LRethvEOsXqGzUQuoEsPakTgszmEyERzszPvQ7-xpKi4Pw2C5g5yCqZrRNSRtNfk-NghFmXvi0qsWG5P8w/s3264/IMG_0370.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfsu57_iVQ56M6fKzIzuHPgyRh_Yt9C97xPKCi8iDBOPELd9SzIvb5p1n92LRethvEOsXqGzUQuoEsPakTgszmEyERzszPvQ7-xpKi4Pw2C5g5yCqZrRNSRtNfk-NghFmXvi0qsWG5P8w/w640-h480/IMG_0370.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Much better.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicABwEWLXeYBfJ5HjC95-VG97hmmmONIXmqt1MTAF0IPO2G09ZofZTLDNSTCxmWbl3s7Mlx0BvOneFrSSwg9zS_1zDKvg8Hzuy0hOicZW1v4KoZqQzlz-_GSWGmw2YrCaYaF0HvI_7YXg/s3264/IMG_0377.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicABwEWLXeYBfJ5HjC95-VG97hmmmONIXmqt1MTAF0IPO2G09ZofZTLDNSTCxmWbl3s7Mlx0BvOneFrSSwg9zS_1zDKvg8Hzuy0hOicZW1v4KoZqQzlz-_GSWGmw2YrCaYaF0HvI_7YXg/w400-h300/IMG_0377.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The towpath keeps to the northern bank as far as the
next village along, adjoining grassy meadows like these.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuxBslxWoU8UtZbW2KIbgD4_qrFXrGdydOoB7MaJXg5UU1BUHZCLwuE_esQE9YPBa1P0Tt1RGlTov1q9DvBgx1ijR3gdhGLQ7IX9uxRaxKGFzq6pNU1l2gK5yC8i2voufSNAdMMvlIMx0/s3264/IMG_0378.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuxBslxWoU8UtZbW2KIbgD4_qrFXrGdydOoB7MaJXg5UU1BUHZCLwuE_esQE9YPBa1P0Tt1RGlTov1q9DvBgx1ijR3gdhGLQ7IX9uxRaxKGFzq6pNU1l2gK5yC8i2voufSNAdMMvlIMx0/w400-h300/IMG_0378.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Reeds and waterlilies hint at a lush riverine
ecology along this stretch.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdAHoKRE7gnlBrXjgZjZLSfh392IK0Q_MUEnvaLDpWeup3UK2E197kqy-tqWb2TWlHxBeFh0i10m030Kk_8FT_EkPMIWErQzdmXnmeg7ZFb6apW_ocI4ZMXw7ApkQfEfj1ja-yVAlVmoI/s3264/IMG_0380.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdAHoKRE7gnlBrXjgZjZLSfh392IK0Q_MUEnvaLDpWeup3UK2E197kqy-tqWb2TWlHxBeFh0i10m030Kk_8FT_EkPMIWErQzdmXnmeg7ZFb6apW_ocI4ZMXw7ApkQfEfj1ja-yVAlVmoI/w400-h300/IMG_0380.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Yet because this is England you are never far from
signs of suspicious activity. What sinister and no doubt gratuitously violent
incident would leave this exact combination of a food packet and three
socks?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhojNlIIbl504i0sWs-lpO3t65UZnHHT9jbWrsGYDYNyRXlXp48KR_nV8rPZT6I4knVv9OsZP58R4HmfwIwLBKoFjk9hz262CJUNDrEDFZRahmGPTNhyphenhyphensftUcT2kj9LofeSE8dcqOd4jQo/s3264/IMG_0381.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhojNlIIbl504i0sWs-lpO3t65UZnHHT9jbWrsGYDYNyRXlXp48KR_nV8rPZT6I4knVv9OsZP58R4HmfwIwLBKoFjk9hz262CJUNDrEDFZRahmGPTNhyphenhyphensftUcT2kj9LofeSE8dcqOd4jQo/w400-h300/IMG_0381.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>While the earlier parked vessels were actively lived
in, those along here show few signs of life.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If your interest in walking is to just get away from these
people then this is about as good as it gets in these parts. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNRmqX3sUHmnjkMM1w82FymYZteAjZSnc9jWmtMwqhih7qeImDIJNMlTySGSyeY2_CAVdaUP62HL_xeqVmrfPJaMQjK0wPR7hx_iKubDe3OlrnsdtTzns2AgkaNNakX0ctsfspILieV8o/s3264/IMG_0383.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNRmqX3sUHmnjkMM1w82FymYZteAjZSnc9jWmtMwqhih7qeImDIJNMlTySGSyeY2_CAVdaUP62HL_xeqVmrfPJaMQjK0wPR7hx_iKubDe3OlrnsdtTzns2AgkaNNakX0ctsfspILieV8o/w640-h480/IMG_0383.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxm-1fd0aiCXE01TxzSybIgCDvB4kyTbvRzJGTcgyVphpN1XLSLLeej0xAuzm1dD_Xkppu7VdT-6k4Gt1xHcd6ww8P6T4krTBkANwTdRiZJytNbabZM6tF0LbiHMjzpPbbLWiocm838-M/s3264/IMG_0382.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxm-1fd0aiCXE01TxzSybIgCDvB4kyTbvRzJGTcgyVphpN1XLSLLeej0xAuzm1dD_Xkppu7VdT-6k4Gt1xHcd6ww8P6T4krTBkANwTdRiZJytNbabZM6tF0LbiHMjzpPbbLWiocm838-M/w400-h300/IMG_0382.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRurKNLPsTavfmJTUchXa4fscwjmTao8NDgIvNGv2gGD5IDTdV5oJcobx-ug1egDEkVfnw7EtfbPVf-fWQ9M0af79bmumg8KOflHoTUavfY2uH-9pb7bvk8h8N6F0_6h6pB0CQZRydxro/s3264/IMG_0386.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRurKNLPsTavfmJTUchXa4fscwjmTao8NDgIvNGv2gGD5IDTdV5oJcobx-ug1egDEkVfnw7EtfbPVf-fWQ9M0af79bmumg8KOflHoTUavfY2uH-9pb7bvk8h8N6F0_6h6pB0CQZRydxro/w640-h480/IMG_0386.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>There might be few humans here, but you can be
assured of other interests lurking around to watch you.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZhLQvi4-UiSM2rF5xoj39r4vX1oMGnnjP_LR3XPCYc6JNeixIRB8AdQg_ZGdlbrbhYuPCl1TORpd3ozCRBBcnipBdId-4uW-B5AmohLTTEUb7GFUXaTSgTgG7mr4tA_HCXpd22r7uwbM/s3264/IMG_0391.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZhLQvi4-UiSM2rF5xoj39r4vX1oMGnnjP_LR3XPCYc6JNeixIRB8AdQg_ZGdlbrbhYuPCl1TORpd3ozCRBBcnipBdId-4uW-B5AmohLTTEUb7GFUXaTSgTgG7mr4tA_HCXpd22r7uwbM/w640-h480/IMG_0391.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZfAKo1eNUoD8hOT-q0kmuBRFI3mHoQS3zc8hCXexH1J6OgZDuhHLcp-zcsVWNfiIMdEjTm42Xk6wQfapx6ec6V7GBt9dPZdWNgL_HoiULBYHpevnHizZAW2nNmKk2AS8fLEJnMHXguSI/s3264/IMG_0393.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZfAKo1eNUoD8hOT-q0kmuBRFI3mHoQS3zc8hCXexH1J6OgZDuhHLcp-zcsVWNfiIMdEjTm42Xk6wQfapx6ec6V7GBt9dPZdWNgL_HoiULBYHpevnHizZAW2nNmKk2AS8fLEJnMHXguSI/w400-h300/IMG_0393.JPG" width="400" /></a></div> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Regrettably, after a few kilometres humanity and its money
percolate rudely back into the scene, heralding the approach to the next
village.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_0X7rKdTF4Yyplrou0xvY30hN1U39ou0pKcsAweg5lHaKYiXct6xs08GLZUglzHEfTBAn4Ew31Nq8hWzWoUHH_WqUn4rX4n8LyXYlKJKAYpIlvEM9hjlzw5mwQ6bDrDcrIW6pdaw9CSU/s3264/IMG_0396.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_0X7rKdTF4Yyplrou0xvY30hN1U39ou0pKcsAweg5lHaKYiXct6xs08GLZUglzHEfTBAn4Ew31Nq8hWzWoUHH_WqUn4rX4n8LyXYlKJKAYpIlvEM9hjlzw5mwQ6bDrDcrIW6pdaw9CSU/w400-h300/IMG_0396.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Here they come again.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGZMPacFS6VYZr4yNukzFCMuDTT7cFTTGuo51iRUTEvsPefnbj4lvBtplT-wGUVzAGmav8dmU5XttqFuL9GSXEHz25aCRM4ynL3ryAOxGpis9iq-D40RcbAJS32s01i564p6lNT9NEfYw/s3264/IMG_0398.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGZMPacFS6VYZr4yNukzFCMuDTT7cFTTGuo51iRUTEvsPefnbj4lvBtplT-wGUVzAGmav8dmU5XttqFuL9GSXEHz25aCRM4ynL3ryAOxGpis9iq-D40RcbAJS32s01i564p6lNT9NEfYw/w400-h300/IMG_0398.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The red-brick Sonning Bridge emerged in 1775. The
vintage thing is only wide enough for vehicles to cross in one direction at a
time, but as the only road bridge between Henley and Reading it gets badly
clogged at rush hour.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span>Sonning</span></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Sonning</b> is a ford of ancient importance and the
centre of a constellation of smaller villages, including <i>Sonning Eye</i>,
which sits on its adjacent river island (or <i>eyot</i>, hence <i>Eye</i>). The
name <i>Sonning</i> refers to the people (<i>-ingas</i>) of the Saxon chieftain
Sunna, who were prominent enough in pre-English Berkshire to give their name to
numerous settlements in these parts, among them <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">Sunbury
which we passed earlier</a></u>. Accordingly they pronounce it <i>Sunning</i> and apparently
used to spell it like that until, being English, they felt compelled to change
it so it looks different to how it sounds.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbHLi6w-L98i3VxXjRKQ2vnKLAPRXkipMCw7ukoR2Cb2PiJW3itpFqHKJpfERNQjCdiDexd7QbmwDKTypO9cPhg0tz2WLs3NIhH7MCP2cA4PmLWbqdU9ojvvtXH3iIg13CezM64kD5Pvk/s3264/IMG_0401.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbHLi6w-L98i3VxXjRKQ2vnKLAPRXkipMCw7ukoR2Cb2PiJW3itpFqHKJpfERNQjCdiDexd7QbmwDKTypO9cPhg0tz2WLs3NIhH7MCP2cA4PmLWbqdU9ojvvtXH3iIg13CezM64kD5Pvk/w400-h300/IMG_0401.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The road into Sonning, with its Great House hotel
and restaurant at left. The village is small, but the historic weight of its
location gave rise to several important establishments here. Many have since
transformed into high-profile services for people with money. This hotel used
to be its inn.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sonning’s significance was driven by the bishops, who found
in it a convenient base for preaching in this region as well as a rest stop when
passing through. Designated an Anglo-Saxon minster in pre-English times, by the
Norman period Sonning was the centre of a diocese with its own cathedral and grand
bishops’ palace, regularly hosting senior church officials, pilgrims, and
travellers in general. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMItC31VzQXDNRsFyhJ4H95i2RCQ4y5pE13t65f8rahafwsXlr5IvjltSfb27LDXv1vSlQVtj9L1_b3RaOyB588f9dGQsMGTvcYAF9s04rs1ubzHxjIFLRiuJVU6X95nshxYWabGP5kRg/s3264/IMG_0403.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMItC31VzQXDNRsFyhJ4H95i2RCQ4y5pE13t65f8rahafwsXlr5IvjltSfb27LDXv1vSlQVtj9L1_b3RaOyB588f9dGQsMGTvcYAF9s04rs1ubzHxjIFLRiuJVU6X95nshxYWabGP5kRg/w400-h300/IMG_0403.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>St. Andrews Church, an 1850s neo-Gothic redesign and
successor to Sonning’s ancient cathedral. Very little remains of the sprawling
ecclesiastical complex that once stood here, but bits of Saxon stonework are
said to persist in its walls.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBeuo0LvUh6Z2oMnOfg6lOzE0mI1wbintPOEXXMHNeH_vSnxOjsZKiE6N1zTmFj1DvEoA35CPci-lwREuASEcyn8Xe3Ufa39o2nEDCJdQOlA7TJU2wK8wFCL52W_t9qPBMdpXpS3Si9lQ/s3264/IMG_0404.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBeuo0LvUh6Z2oMnOfg6lOzE0mI1wbintPOEXXMHNeH_vSnxOjsZKiE6N1zTmFj1DvEoA35CPci-lwREuASEcyn8Xe3Ufa39o2nEDCJdQOlA7TJU2wK8wFCL52W_t9qPBMdpXpS3Si9lQ/w400-h300/IMG_0404.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The Bull Inn, now a Fuller’s pub, stands next to the
church and was historically attached to it as a guest house for visiting
pilgrims. It’s interesting how religion and alcohol tend to be found either
hand-in-hand or as far apart as possible.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In 1574 Queen Elizabeth I bought the Sonning estate off the
Church. The bishops’ complex went into decline, crumbling to oblivion as locals
quarried off its stone for re-use in their houses. <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">The
monarchy’s financial problems</a></u> led Charles I to sell the land into private
hands, and from there Sonning’s manor passed through a series of big titled
names as the village negotiated the uncertainties of a new industrial age. Most
infamously, it got its name attached to one of England’s first lethal railway
disasters when only a year after the Great Western Railway was put through to
the south in 1840, a train ran into a landslide, killing nine passengers.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Being England, there was an oppressive class aspect to this.
The train was a heavy goods transport, but also carried poor itinerant
working-class passengers reduced to riding in dangerous carriages attached to
the cargo wagons. Their deaths led to new legislation in Parliament on minimum
standards of safe carriage for so-called third-class passengers. But the rail
companies, unconcerned for people who couldn’t pay, complied as grudgingly as
they could get away with; that is, with shoddy and uncomfortable <i>parliamentary
trains</i> which ran inconveniently early or late in the day and were so
inferior in quality that they turned into a trope of cultural derision.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubseqIaHD-Xi0ZTmodWCu2a27MhwHgCinOU4RFY7ky6zXNP_ToxhLzwjFFGmtGa1_V3_HKTzR-3JLOgaK25fHKINt_73K9tDBFDTjGyF0pYh-Cscyl05YVWxvcBFZ2hSmEK4Mw6l5rqU/s3264/IMG_0399.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubseqIaHD-Xi0ZTmodWCu2a27MhwHgCinOU4RFY7ky6zXNP_ToxhLzwjFFGmtGa1_V3_HKTzR-3JLOgaK25fHKINt_73K9tDBFDTjGyF0pYh-Cscyl05YVWxvcBFZ2hSmEK4Mw6l5rqU/w400-h300/IMG_0399.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The French Horn, another of the village’s latter-day
wave of luxury hotels and restaurants, this one on the island of Sonning Eye.
Another next door is The Mill, once an actual flour mill, now a dinner theatre.
Behind that is Mill House, a luxurious seventeenth-century mansion bought in
2014 by George and Amal Clooney.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0WbS9rcL2BrKNjYeCdO-PRx41dft-sYHLC9wxHu04ku_hdadORcCELx7unCKZdBY_F4WST-GiMXMYRCCGkwPn9dzbyRNqZ2b2mO0ejvMQuix2O28tZj31pSJ2Q-1EtwRK2PHjaZAMNZs/s3264/IMG_0405.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0WbS9rcL2BrKNjYeCdO-PRx41dft-sYHLC9wxHu04ku_hdadORcCELx7unCKZdBY_F4WST-GiMXMYRCCGkwPn9dzbyRNqZ2b2mO0ejvMQuix2O28tZj31pSJ2Q-1EtwRK2PHjaZAMNZs/w400-h300/IMG_0405.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Sonning Lock, a few minutes’ walk past the village.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Befitting its tap in the Thames romance, <b>Sonning Lock</b>
is one of the more picturesquely done-up of the locks along here. It has
arranged flower bushes and, formerly, a tea garden run by the lock-keeper that
was driven to closure by the Environment Agency in 2019.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dfCj2gAWY8CWD6txuTChWaqg7agezftk1kBT-kfg79ZwjCMIPPn0_zno001IpjErXdFi-023JSU0Ua4C8bKNUBuAd5GhvRWKqz40NSsS2jur93MOvZjdP61MDGeJq0I8QTKvwjpttAA/s3264/IMG_0409.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dfCj2gAWY8CWD6txuTChWaqg7agezftk1kBT-kfg79ZwjCMIPPn0_zno001IpjErXdFi-023JSU0Ua4C8bKNUBuAd5GhvRWKqz40NSsS2jur93MOvZjdP61MDGeJq0I8QTKvwjpttAA/w400-h300/IMG_0409.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Sonning Lock, with somebody taking their craft
through. This too replaced more informal lock and weir structures here in 1773 at
the direction of the Thames Navigation Commission and has been rebuilt or
upgraded several times since.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8nr-6TrNGg01K6xDNefCpdeaYTUZnW4CvUq8p2FoAxmwV-99HpVepAOoJqurssGCyHfKcMvnHK36tuzU1lUwXw4E9u6yHQflXX6RqD8uFFD0-TdhDG7opt1NOUpUFnnQEGExeK2-U1aw/s3264/IMG_0406.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8nr-6TrNGg01K6xDNefCpdeaYTUZnW4CvUq8p2FoAxmwV-99HpVepAOoJqurssGCyHfKcMvnHK36tuzU1lUwXw4E9u6yHQflXX6RqD8uFFD0-TdhDG7opt1NOUpUFnnQEGExeK2-U1aw/w400-h300/IMG_0406.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKwVghkJV-4LarlynO3dgwr9CCDqnb0PkFgXKsRbdoWP24jykqZnOengViBXl-N3QcEMXmkgJbe2YapIHtbZyPH7NLvc3zRWTV1HwxHarD81M6OhjOzpS2ZUSDLNwzaumaBKNPoR7ORRA/s3264/IMG_0411.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKwVghkJV-4LarlynO3dgwr9CCDqnb0PkFgXKsRbdoWP24jykqZnOengViBXl-N3QcEMXmkgJbe2YapIHtbZyPH7NLvc3zRWTV1HwxHarD81M6OhjOzpS2ZUSDLNwzaumaBKNPoR7ORRA/w400-h300/IMG_0411.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>More fluffy river life takes its repose on a
slipway.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYxvASkcjMi5pmGVJm3rH79qQhKATmWYwJcjDFEN2fWke-PIXyrLMhrlM9oPjX1qPjsvI9G25pebZAm66bBvkjZSV22e0YdpYHAZTUS8xW68IClaZrcD2MhbEMGp640FcKMDJ58YIhzww/s3264/IMG_0412.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYxvASkcjMi5pmGVJm3rH79qQhKATmWYwJcjDFEN2fWke-PIXyrLMhrlM9oPjX1qPjsvI9G25pebZAm66bBvkjZSV22e0YdpYHAZTUS8xW68IClaZrcD2MhbEMGp640FcKMDJ58YIhzww/w400-h300/IMG_0412.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And then, beyond the lock, it is all peace and quiet again
– but only in brief this time, for soon surface signs of a redoubtable presence
ahead.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnp00aBuhotvbohTrNdAsvRyeFLrOQspfvhjVOM3s4ZJ5MY0bvRKMRdmpzFQrC3FdgT6VIzFkTaCFbBR03lef84q-ix5mwwqBh6Xa-Hj8Y_PwYLWXb6rRu8AK7ymkDzE5K8XoVWCYPMt0/s3264/IMG_0424.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnp00aBuhotvbohTrNdAsvRyeFLrOQspfvhjVOM3s4ZJ5MY0bvRKMRdmpzFQrC3FdgT6VIzFkTaCFbBR03lef84q-ix5mwwqBh6Xa-Hj8Y_PwYLWXb6rRu8AK7ymkDzE5K8XoVWCYPMt0/w400-h300/IMG_0424.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Proceeding now on the south bank, the riverside
opens up into public meadows.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxDCTrFD83VIdBGvEcx7OgKYYw7_-1pM1f3Av0As4oGzDAonllhp8584cHVklWZqqDwLWVG61xOVSFgFg_Tk8xlNku8rDysDpjlC9PGjretcwCbRZ9zNtYDLzbIZF8b6P7dv7cCork6gQ/s3264/IMG_0421.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxDCTrFD83VIdBGvEcx7OgKYYw7_-1pM1f3Av0As4oGzDAonllhp8584cHVklWZqqDwLWVG61xOVSFgFg_Tk8xlNku8rDysDpjlC9PGjretcwCbRZ9zNtYDLzbIZF8b6P7dv7cCork6gQ/w400-h300/IMG_0421.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The obligatory dog action.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLLFq9nzNlTkFCmZBuni5ejI759eV_QfORXhBsOQOtpuxvRa_j0mC6dqpxz_dqoVTmBS3yjFcG2rMGFo9x4Pa_wlQLzEpQ7Clb1wVP6_s9GFtPBeckZgofAoR1JwE-5TFdvtDDX3Qx7TU/s3264/IMG_0426.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLLFq9nzNlTkFCmZBuni5ejI759eV_QfORXhBsOQOtpuxvRa_j0mC6dqpxz_dqoVTmBS3yjFcG2rMGFo9x4Pa_wlQLzEpQ7Clb1wVP6_s9GFtPBeckZgofAoR1JwE-5TFdvtDDX3Qx7TU/w400-h300/IMG_0426.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>And so they crop up on the horizon: a David Lloyd
sports centre...</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuKSbihUcQrfy-sPq57tziUZ-Ko8H-137GXKzG3Fj74VaMoz8RhXgh4MJteeHP4ZoDj_dvWgZXmpVq4F0LCxf0wTYPhO9zg_QMkAvEn9luPK0yJ6ENnAq5bH7F85fKLDBhJCoh6SkB9Ds/s3264/IMG_0430.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuKSbihUcQrfy-sPq57tziUZ-Ko8H-137GXKzG3Fj74VaMoz8RhXgh4MJteeHP4ZoDj_dvWgZXmpVq4F0LCxf0wTYPhO9zg_QMkAvEn9luPK0yJ6ENnAq5bH7F85fKLDBhJCoh6SkB9Ds/w400-h300/IMG_0430.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>...big bulky business parks...</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPM26s0I2Hb5x1_nTTQONsad6amdW_NHfXYh6GWWZc2Sv8X1zWNAdcPAVJf7CghGdEPSiXW0sHtSAWaqJJMoVlWeoxVzTWGoIq-zDuxRILKF676c1OqAAu47e73HjLS3spat0_OrPrGNk/s3264/IMG_0431.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPM26s0I2Hb5x1_nTTQONsad6amdW_NHfXYh6GWWZc2Sv8X1zWNAdcPAVJf7CghGdEPSiXW0sHtSAWaqJJMoVlWeoxVzTWGoIq-zDuxRILKF676c1OqAAu47e73HjLS3spat0_OrPrGNk/w400-h300/IMG_0431.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>...and industrial relics like this gas cylinder, as
the meadow itself takes on a scattering – if never quite a crowd – of walkers,
campers and sunbathers. Many are younger than your average encounter along this
river, suggesting a university population.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For the first time since escaping London, we draw into the
orbit of a major urban centre. <b>Reading</b>, the provincial capital of
Berkshire, looms ahead.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwhPg519IWPOB7xWHd85vEqZ6bLhkSR3DcCfTp1N8AKmEwRytyOebSAN-X9mhSz4HkDLuxnWr7PI5kk-hSz7TBrze1K_xD2YUGLg_ZPAaHJ1pW4KlOgau2kPMkS0gKQkdnSYrRYriY7Ek/s3264/IMG_0434.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwhPg519IWPOB7xWHd85vEqZ6bLhkSR3DcCfTp1N8AKmEwRytyOebSAN-X9mhSz4HkDLuxnWr7PI5kk-hSz7TBrze1K_xD2YUGLg_ZPAaHJ1pW4KlOgau2kPMkS0gKQkdnSYrRYriY7Ek/w400-h300/IMG_0434.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>A boat club on Reading’s outskirts, apparently
popular with geese and swans.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLebgWi9STFuthZqLQm60M-UlvwZN4ED5pW4NjzwVSsBN_pPjg90bkI8_rukGUi1EwT-ecmXSIuWfvR-EwDbioYQXIrLNB5AGLB3BanFEjRvT1FzL-lKoStWF6MoqliDRP02ygeQuNyTI/s3264/IMG_0437.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLebgWi9STFuthZqLQm60M-UlvwZN4ED5pW4NjzwVSsBN_pPjg90bkI8_rukGUi1EwT-ecmXSIuWfvR-EwDbioYQXIrLNB5AGLB3BanFEjRvT1FzL-lKoStWF6MoqliDRP02ygeQuNyTI/w400-h300/IMG_0437.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The towpath narrows and gains a layer of tarmac on
the approach.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLq0KGkJtc41LGeuWPi7q_3F52W7gEXM6gHX6C3sOu46KaGCuPBBWKatmmTiO41rCsXvSJ0-J2vkDoQkVFYs9W89ej-beFuVEUqj6Pud_flpmC5pmRPozuWRxCGf73dvmCUGe95KSexJI/s3264/IMG_0439.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLq0KGkJtc41LGeuWPi7q_3F52W7gEXM6gHX6C3sOu46KaGCuPBBWKatmmTiO41rCsXvSJ0-J2vkDoQkVFYs9W89ej-beFuVEUqj6Pud_flpmC5pmRPozuWRxCGf73dvmCUGe95KSexJI/w300-h400/IMG_0439.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The boats moored along the bank are no longer the
lavish party-pieces of the propertied classes, but begin to take on a quality
of struggle. It is clear something frightful has happened to the captain of
this one.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span>Reading</span></u></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The settlement of Reading grew up on the confluence of the
Thames and one of its tributaries, the <b>Kennet</b>. The Kennet rises to the
southwest, in the ancient hills of Wiltshire, before flowing through Reading in
parallel with the Thames to join it right here.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBLL585LJ4WAZryo_F9m0M4j2R9-S3N9XKdF8hz9CQKiHLDbr2U8-PrwVExYtOETCMq-JOOOa-WYGdkLIYK5EKiftqEJx93bgiLQievG5EDospXqlitXYTe4XC8ur1eZ9_ulh0ZzcgIko/s3264/IMG_0440.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBLL585LJ4WAZryo_F9m0M4j2R9-S3N9XKdF8hz9CQKiHLDbr2U8-PrwVExYtOETCMq-JOOOa-WYGdkLIYK5EKiftqEJx93bgiLQievG5EDospXqlitXYTe4XC8ur1eZ9_ulh0ZzcgIko/w400-h300/IMG_0440.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The Kennet’s arrival in the Thames. In the 1720s the
Kennet was canalised into the Kennet Navigation, linking it to the Avon further
west as the Kennet and Avon Canal. This bridge over its mouth was built in 1839
and carries Brunel’s Great Western Railway into Reading. The smaller bridge is known
as the ‘Horseshoe Bridge’ for its shape and was added in 1892 for horses to tow
barges across, hence its high sides.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKKeDvy1HCtT50f_fPtPnJeGW1fVRROqsUFdU1ck4_RB-qB7FK9bztQUUlXa2LFT28eg7-RIHv-NnnihlFqJkDTB2pHks4zErbGEEmarQLzJrhjBj9NfCZsVFnRxZdTl-RMih5xRgtHqA/s3264/IMG_0441.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKKeDvy1HCtT50f_fPtPnJeGW1fVRROqsUFdU1ck4_RB-qB7FK9bztQUUlXa2LFT28eg7-RIHv-NnnihlFqJkDTB2pHks4zErbGEEmarQLzJrhjBj9NfCZsVFnRxZdTl-RMih5xRgtHqA/w400-h300/IMG_0441.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>An inhabitant provisions the local waterfowl.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-tXESLpVBRkTSGEACY3T_e-GiJzBdWdnYgZlKYzgjAY3ohgf-sBkQ94WMNhU0v4j0VmhNkvwWCfiLMg1WPFVi7xlCR64Jx-DCxWeF0Y0E8e1eXPXN1sxvWRMwWYcpAoVGBt1it-q8h7k/s3264/IMG_0443.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-tXESLpVBRkTSGEACY3T_e-GiJzBdWdnYgZlKYzgjAY3ohgf-sBkQ94WMNhU0v4j0VmhNkvwWCfiLMg1WPFVi7xlCR64Jx-DCxWeF0Y0E8e1eXPXN1sxvWRMwWYcpAoVGBt1it-q8h7k/w640-h480/IMG_0443.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The far bank appears to have absorbed this ship into
its structure. Note the smaller craft at the back which the river spirits have
animated into a piranha-shark to prevent the larger one escaping.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And here, for the first time in a <i>long</i> while, the Thames
valley’s air of affluence recedes. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Reading is not a privilege fort. It might be better to
think of it as a privilege bucket with holes. It has had its prosperity but
also its perils and pains, for each time it mastered its world, that world transformed
around it. Where the Thames has enriched most settlements along it, Reading is
distinct in the struggle of its position.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the present time, that means that
like most English urban centres a substantial share of Reading’s population has
been inflicted with poverty, such that a faint edginess, muted in the day’s
bright sunshine but tangible in the weight of the air, seems to characterise
its downstream approach.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJK0wdaiUSKjBAL0FRjaneVAWKCwYdAo6XgWs92HTyJOTkjtDCV76DVr3xtoy93FQMghqgRihAX_t90ahh9GP-FD4sOf1fXsgYOQ_m30bc32zKO9XdxCO129_QiIJ-OFsLtWHSxfRG1UM/s3264/IMG_0444.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJK0wdaiUSKjBAL0FRjaneVAWKCwYdAo6XgWs92HTyJOTkjtDCV76DVr3xtoy93FQMghqgRihAX_t90ahh9GP-FD4sOf1fXsgYOQ_m30bc32zKO9XdxCO129_QiIJ-OFsLtWHSxfRG1UM/w400-h300/IMG_0444.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>For lack of investment, the inhabitants are forced
to make do with what resources they can scavenge.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinToG7RDbs74bam1as_iW7t1bF9TPCYrLJVHJpuZaAYQcBC-U2c-bVBmDy1EFYcTO1UzfaTXMUw5GlcwxnO2OsTNqTEUyL4I4N63IXo6-z6WeTzEVd4nI5odoh6C43rQeycAVyu08uFBU/s3264/IMG_0445.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinToG7RDbs74bam1as_iW7t1bF9TPCYrLJVHJpuZaAYQcBC-U2c-bVBmDy1EFYcTO1UzfaTXMUw5GlcwxnO2OsTNqTEUyL4I4N63IXo6-z6WeTzEVd4nI5odoh6C43rQeycAVyu08uFBU/w400-h300/IMG_0445.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This Tesco stands as one of this country’s more
unusual supermarkets in having a berth for customers visiting by water.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt_JMuT22JYn69Aom64YgP7KgYR_fJ1hnmrxxyQnxBWYngXjjVJYsvizanWk4QsUU9_pPUU9-8NumCuELWfjZSeHVUG9-RSzw9wxK-31aQCpn7eewxakdw10uyBL2AsP9m6M4BhR7RnGM/s3264/IMG_0447.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt_JMuT22JYn69Aom64YgP7KgYR_fJ1hnmrxxyQnxBWYngXjjVJYsvizanWk4QsUU9_pPUU9-8NumCuELWfjZSeHVUG9-RSzw9wxK-31aQCpn7eewxakdw10uyBL2AsP9m6M4BhR7RnGM/w400-h300/IMG_0447.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>King’s Meadow, a public park that’s one of the last
things you see before arriving in Reading by river or rail. It got its name to
big up King Henry VIII after he destroyed Reading Abbey and seized this land
off it. Nowadays it is the venue for several of the town’s cultural events,
most notably the annual Reading Pride LGBT+ festival.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9t-cN1X-hABgdkA5JfrCBWAlBuNfEADfwkwl-SFgsTf94UZIQM_355MJy0jUXmcthmSf3z0siq2SRtdvTwJUb1FkcRPPvU7JWPkor8TCIIjXuAb3isYM2uBtLFi3o0KJmxSBtAXdZ24o/s3264/IMG_0449.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9t-cN1X-hABgdkA5JfrCBWAlBuNfEADfwkwl-SFgsTf94UZIQM_355MJy0jUXmcthmSf3z0siq2SRtdvTwJUb1FkcRPPvU7JWPkor8TCIIjXuAb3isYM2uBtLFi3o0KJmxSBtAXdZ24o/w400-h300/IMG_0449.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The “regeneration” brigade hard at work
disembowelling Reading of its precious and colourful heritage, so to replace it
with characterless office blocks for the corporate serfs of a neo-feudal
English modernity.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps its shifting fortunes come with such a location.
Reading has grown up in the dead centre of southern England: in the middle of
the middle Thames, at an important confluence and crossing point, but also at a
crossing of the region’s major land routes: east to London, west to Bristol,
south to Winchester and Southampton, and north to Oxford and Birmingham beyond.
We have come to the junction town, the town at the crossroads, the town where
everyone comes and everyone goes, where every traveller stops to check their map, take their rest
and spend their money...</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">...and in the great English power struggle, the town which
everyone has to control at all costs.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGIfC4eJ2gi4XcC-vl4YxPabwhE67QmEn3x847oEG5rO6aOt3olhzwMB-ntxrac3dAXB4LQWeGwFqBcQxzg67cs9WOdzjuzotw8nDyC7LOosZfF_acyliA_q0yiBLT3cqQpn7d_ZM9488/s1032/Reading+Museum+map.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1032" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGIfC4eJ2gi4XcC-vl4YxPabwhE67QmEn3x847oEG5rO6aOt3olhzwMB-ntxrac3dAXB4LQWeGwFqBcQxzg67cs9WOdzjuzotw8nDyC7LOosZfF_acyliA_q0yiBLT3cqQpn7d_ZM9488/w400-h245/Reading+Museum+map.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>According to this map in the Reading
Museum, we appear to be at the centre of things.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggm7Hy9gsqyP2SysyjGUa-OVpVvBGTr6tzwsjIvAeZUW2AjhiHU9oaNQdzIU7BkxXJ9hatNpGkgu5tP2agaKpgTYc86kB0hihSG6pIyGSSM-ZKcmd5npXaP9Mfa0LoWqHgiD65WpgIJek/s3264/IMG_0462.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggm7Hy9gsqyP2SysyjGUa-OVpVvBGTr6tzwsjIvAeZUW2AjhiHU9oaNQdzIU7BkxXJ9hatNpGkgu5tP2agaKpgTYc86kB0hihSG6pIyGSSM-ZKcmd5npXaP9Mfa0LoWqHgiD65WpgIJek/w640-h480/IMG_0462.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Reading’s old Town Hall. Its current design dates to
1875, around the time Reading became known for its distinct red-brick
architecture. Few of these impressive public buildings have survived. The Town
Hall’s administrative functions were moved away in 1976 and it now holds the
Reading Museum and conference rooms.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeWq8ObX5gvlNRHDIJOSaKFqmJcSsLaOShBhG6PjLH5sFmmqbQ1hCe0HZb_Xn5-DVwthic8ykZq5smTIbhRFyteQ2sjBjYttupHdNmgiluFNbMhPEHePOKTnv9ddlnkpdWvl3FAeCM5W8/s3264/IMG_0453.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeWq8ObX5gvlNRHDIJOSaKFqmJcSsLaOShBhG6PjLH5sFmmqbQ1hCe0HZb_Xn5-DVwthic8ykZq5smTIbhRFyteQ2sjBjYttupHdNmgiluFNbMhPEHePOKTnv9ddlnkpdWvl3FAeCM5W8/w400-h300/IMG_0453.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Caversham Lock. Caversham was a village on the north
bank now absorbed and developed as a suburb of Reading. The current
lock-keeper, Tanya Rosenberg, is one of the extremely few women lock-keepers on
a river where, because of English gender prejudices, almost all lock-keepers
have been male.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Reading’s site was settled long before the invention of
England. Under Roman rule it is thought to have been a trading post for the
major settlement of Calleva Atrebatum (near present-day Silchester down in
Hampshire). Its present name emerged later, following Anglo-Saxon immigration:
it is attested as <i>Readingum</i> in the eighth century, after the <b><i>Readingas</i></b>
who lived here. <i>Readingas</i> likely indicates the people of Reada, in the
same style as their neighbours the people of Sunna; making it somehow apt that
what would become a story of red blood and bricks started with an individual
whose name, it is suggested, meant exactly what it sounds: <i>the Red One</i>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWazDL51JHeWeS4XNZAyMU3nm2Nw8S3rZjupPUPKMhD3ARSahITPrTGqp6MTzEuttvIChSdvI8c8vjW47UNgKuLnJEyPVWTSW-vyhmnTMyiUyDkX4tBk2h1TR6IsHn_F0UhqzBCb0k5M/s3264/IMG_0528.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWazDL51JHeWeS4XNZAyMU3nm2Nw8S3rZjupPUPKMhD3ARSahITPrTGqp6MTzEuttvIChSdvI8c8vjW47UNgKuLnJEyPVWTSW-vyhmnTMyiUyDkX4tBk2h1TR6IsHn_F0UhqzBCb0k5M/w400-h300/IMG_0528.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Another red survivor: built as the Berkshire shire hall in 1911, now the Roseate Hotel. Many of Reading’s landscapes
look something like this, with medieval or Victorian-age holdouts juxtaposed nervily
with the glass chimeras of present-day fashion. This office block brandishing
its architectural dagger over its neighbours is known simply as – guess what! –
<i>The Blade</i>.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Apt too, then, that it enters the written record with its
first of many renowned bouts of bloodletting. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the ninth century what is now England was split between some
half-dozen Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, with the Thames running through an
oft-contested space between them. Then came the Scandinavian Vikings, who after
decades of raids launched a Danish-led invasion in the 860s, overwhelming the
northern and eastern kingdoms in the space of a few years. At the end of 870
they advanced up the Thames valley to begin their attempts on the final one:
Wessex, with its capital at Winchester. This was the setting for their famous
seizure of Reading in 871 under the renowned Halfdan Ragnarsson, where almost
immediately they came under attack by the Wessex army led by its then-prince,
the famous <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">Alfred,
later ‘the Great’</a></u>.<u> </u></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This first Battle of Reading was a bloody defeat for the
West Saxons, whose assault was routed on a Danish counter-attack. The two sides
would drive on into the hills and marshes of the Wessex interior, trading blood
in an eight-year struggle that saw Alfred driven from Winchester but eventually
mounting the comeback the English celebrate so much – as though they existed
yet – that led to the decisive Danish defeat in 878 and the partition between
the Anglo-Saxon lands and the Danelaw.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKIy553n_jCdLUIofvp3Px_Mu0HUaa5_904mCpMXQiZtzcVq5lPjd54HMLZfEkSqaHCMJpYla5zF7t0P8uLPbcXYeN2PKzx1EZoE1BAEEiGkvb-RdEgecX3yX5yxuRbCH2MQ7xLqRnHFU/s2048/IMG_2453.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKIy553n_jCdLUIofvp3Px_Mu0HUaa5_904mCpMXQiZtzcVq5lPjd54HMLZfEkSqaHCMJpYla5zF7t0P8uLPbcXYeN2PKzx1EZoE1BAEEiGkvb-RdEgecX3yX5yxuRbCH2MQ7xLqRnHFU/w400-h300/IMG_2453.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>So it is written in the <i>Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle</i>. This description of violent slaughter is the first known mention in writing
of Reading’s existence.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There would be more Battles of Reading. And more blood, much
of it not so honourably spilt as in battle.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Reading’s rise went hand-in-hand with its singular
landmark: <b>Reading Abbey</b>, whose ruined husk, scarcely a shell of its
former glory,<span> </span>nonetheless dominates the
town centre today. This monastery was special. Unlike other powerful religious
houses on this river such as <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-5-cross-purposes.html">Chertsey</a></u>,
Reading’s was explicitly a creature of Norman state power.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Duke William of Normandy’s crossing of the Channel in 1066 is
regarded by the English as the great watershed moment of their story. William’s
blood-drenched subjection of England, and its combination with his native
Normandy into a single polity, transformed the Anglo-Saxon people here under
Norman cultural and administrative influences which have been part of what it
means to be English ever since (including, to a great degree, the oppressive caste
system and land settlement whose property obsession dogged us all the way here).</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">William’s fourth son was named Henry. His three elder
brothers inherited all the stuff, i.e. England and Normandy, after William’s
death. Left with nothing, Henry responded in typical Norman fashion by building
up a support base and seizing power from his brothers in 1100, after the
eldest, William II “Rufus” (another “Red One”), was killed in a suspicious
hunting accident. This made him <b>Henry I</b>,<span> </span>king of a shambolic mess of territories
teeming with manipulative and power-hungry barons, priests and vengeful elder brothers
on both sides of the Channel. This he held together with surprising effectiveness
– <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">no
small task</a></u> – through some skilled manipulation and violence of his own. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">These were the circumstances in which this first King Henry
took the decision to found a monumental monastery: for the ‘salvation of my
soul and all my ancestors and successors’, in his words, but also, we might
imagine, to cement his culturally foreign and politically fragile dynasty’s
legitimacy in England. In part this meant cultivating supportive voices – and arms – in
the Christian Church, <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">a
serious political force in his day</a></u> and source of quarrels that troubled
much of his reign.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It would be his signature project, this new abbey. His
statement. And of course, there was only one place to put it: at the crossroads
of England, Reading. Its convergence of rivers and roads would make it easy to bring
in the mountains of materials needed for its construction, and thereafter put
it in reach of pilgrims and awestruck visitors from every direction of this
troublesome English realm.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He spared no expense on it. Reading Abbey was enormous.
It had Roman-inspired walls and arches, built both from local flint and finest-quality
limestone shipped up from Normandy and down from Oxfordshire. It housed dozens of monks, and Henry personally endowed it with land from all over the country,
much of it seized and apportioned off the Anglo-Saxon population by William. So
ambitious was the Abbey’s design that it was still incomplete when Henry died
in Normandy in 1135 – at which point, in his final investment in its fame, he
had his corpse brought here and buried beneath its altar.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirfF6YFolk22V7YjQc2PhYC_cXNh53BJWeJIgdgXiQZeNYky0YjgslX9f0B438DCut8B0KyM5mwqETEcEH7eHGVGivuNFiABEb0_G6mmJd9DX-fHhm0nmsekpRc-Em9jv8Q7d69jTYE1E/s3264/IMG_0544.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirfF6YFolk22V7YjQc2PhYC_cXNh53BJWeJIgdgXiQZeNYky0YjgslX9f0B438DCut8B0KyM5mwqETEcEH7eHGVGivuNFiABEb0_G6mmJd9DX-fHhm0nmsekpRc-Em9jv8Q7d69jTYE1E/w640-h480/IMG_0544.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>This large chunk of Reading Abbey is closest to
where its high altar once stood. Henry I’s remains are believed to lie somewhere
under this part. The exact spot is unknown, but has been pursued with renewed
excitement since they discovered the bones of a later king, Richard III, under
a car park in Leicester in 2012.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDamBrlnamZguDxINKwuumjzD8P96RHGVh0EXXnuq3pRXN2DM81uSRgKopZohnynIFQd5XLyBfiyVFvU05b0Dbn_r3dhP2ArOM-rCYqeaZBj9wqAVVRaoSvq2TTY3NhAjO4qn9TMkDY-o/s3264/IMG_0491.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDamBrlnamZguDxINKwuumjzD8P96RHGVh0EXXnuq3pRXN2DM81uSRgKopZohnynIFQd5XLyBfiyVFvU05b0Dbn_r3dhP2ArOM-rCYqeaZBj9wqAVVRaoSvq2TTY3NhAjO4qn9TMkDY-o/w400-h300/IMG_0491.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Floor tiles from the Abbey, on display in the
Reading Museum.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It took thirty more years to get it fit for its grand
opening, held in 1164 under direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury in that
day: a certain Thomas Becket, with a few contributions of his own to make to
the king-church struggles that coloured those centuries. And through those
centuries, the works went on. It is unlikely a edifice on this scale was ever
without repairs or upgrades underway in some part of it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the meantime it
became everything its founder could have hoped for: one of England’s wealthiest
and most prestigious religious houses, pilgrimage sites, relic collections and
– yes – landowners; and a magnet for royal visits, political conferences and
ceremonies and foreign embassies, with a growing list of royal and official
cadavers joining its founder’s beneath it. And on this pile of wallets and
attention, Reading itself grew into one of the most prosperous urban centres in
the realm, integrating a network of marketplaces, mills, bridges and wharves
around the economic and cultural life of the Abbey.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIw8Shk9A53_FJZ4kPmhjsP8mcuyGoZqxGWAm9mOdP_lwiviDjCC_ouq5l_YN9b3QKmAva7sk-qU6zVAOQZILO8gRr5oAhBdlzaev8LAV7VvOH6CUy7W-quDMtqH4SkcMAHb6tPEXX1xk/s3264/IMG_0547.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIw8Shk9A53_FJZ4kPmhjsP8mcuyGoZqxGWAm9mOdP_lwiviDjCC_ouq5l_YN9b3QKmAva7sk-qU6zVAOQZILO8gRr5oAhBdlzaev8LAV7VvOH6CUy7W-quDMtqH4SkcMAHb6tPEXX1xk/w400-h300/IMG_0547.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>As the newcomer structures helpfully point out, this
was once the Abbey’s wharf, on the ‘Holy Brook’ which flows into the Kennet.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYee3Re6v1DCJ91F9O7NwQmtWxgA6FZr4pVTxSh8hxiHA8EJiBnjNaipEvXaKc_e5ueLhfjIhfCP9IHyk543ru8u3CTMutlkF9t1_sficJT_2NKiwy4gGilqA-RSKKDIdtHOSyWddLmkE/s3264/IMG_0496.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYee3Re6v1DCJ91F9O7NwQmtWxgA6FZr4pVTxSh8hxiHA8EJiBnjNaipEvXaKc_e5ueLhfjIhfCP9IHyk543ru8u3CTMutlkF9t1_sficJT_2NKiwy4gGilqA-RSKKDIdtHOSyWddLmkE/w400-h300/IMG_0496.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>And this is what it is supposed to have looked like
in its heyday, as imagined following an archaeological dig here in the 1980s. Most
of the Abbey’s huge quantities of building materials, food and other supplies would
have come in here, as well as Henry I’s body prior to its burial. It also
offers evidence that the Abbey’s relationship with its town was not always
smooth; river traffic on the Kennet had to pay the monks a fee to pass through their
lock, infuriating the local merchants.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglb_q7Es5azg7p-r3btaCX_-E7gYrPsRtA6p4GnXF7iy6McS7ej7VGam1XFPZ4jeXj9S_dgxjns06Snx39oleXlJllKGkQxW6gRawZtYMeEb414erfJkAC94scHradl1fokdFvVBvizEM/s1066/800px-Sumer_Is_Icumen_In_2020-07-10.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglb_q7Es5azg7p-r3btaCX_-E7gYrPsRtA6p4GnXF7iy6McS7ej7VGam1XFPZ4jeXj9S_dgxjns06Snx39oleXlJllKGkQxW6gRawZtYMeEb414erfJkAC94scHradl1fokdFvVBvizEM/w300-h400/800px-Sumer_Is_Icumen_In_2020-07-10.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>One of the Abbey’s lasting cultural
outputs is the song <i>Sumer is icumen in</i>, best known today for its
hair-raising use in the 1973 film <i>The Wicker Man</i>. Likely an older oral
tradition from Wessex, its first known transcription took place here at Reading
Abbey in the 1260s and is commemorated on this relief in the ruined chapter
house. Photo from Wikipedia because that part of the ruin was sealed off for
theatrical rehearsals.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And then, just as it looked like Reading Abbey would stand
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<![endif]--></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">– </span>th</span>ey annihilated it in a
single blow.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As one of England’s supreme monastic houses, Reading Abbey
received commensurately supreme destruction in <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">Henry
VIII’s brutal purge of the monasteries in the 1530s</a></u>. The severity of the suppression
varied across the country, but Reading stands as an example of the Tudor violence at its
ugliest extreme. In 1538 the Abbey’s four hundred years of power over the
junction came to a sudden end, just like that, when Thomas Cromwell’s
commissioners swept in to force its surrender. Its last abbot, Hugh Faringdon,
despite his record of long amenability to the king, was done for high treason
in a political show-trial that lasted less than a day, and then – yes, the English shall face
up to their violence in frank and honest terms – he was dragged around Reading
on a hurdle, brought before the Abbey’s gates, and along with two others,
hanged, taken down while still alive, then had his guts carved out and set on
fire, his head chopped off, and his body cut into quarters and strung up around
the town for display.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Once more the English drenched their crossroads red. <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">Freedom
and democracy, they say. Rule of law and human rights.</a></u> Nah. This culture relishes the cruel abuse of power.<br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyboInMhEcIG6XZFFUoul3uk8_qDZcQbTFDMYK8mXXDgSP67b1kS7i24zJ5SjmrgfZVk6koh8oqixNETPXp9TuEpVbM2YLABdjpy6lHkpsqLY5oFSBnnKVpMr-9JwId6PGKnPasjbRR0E/s3264/IMG_0551.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyboInMhEcIG6XZFFUoul3uk8_qDZcQbTFDMYK8mXXDgSP67b1kS7i24zJ5SjmrgfZVk6koh8oqixNETPXp9TuEpVbM2YLABdjpy6lHkpsqLY5oFSBnnKVpMr-9JwId6PGKnPasjbRR0E/w400-h300/IMG_0551.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The Abbey Gateway, in front of which Reading’s last
abbot was publicly butchered. This gate with the abbot’s lodgings was re-used
for numerous purposes, making it one of the only bits of the complex to survive
intact.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdBSCAeEdnv6liUCKDEEvCEgqpjusP4m7QVEtyP3rto390Bde3LGVFrfzU4r978wrDTmiMx28JMhA1Ci4E8cHZ_Pnllnt4sxQ2Mc86HZ1X030DISlJSbdP7WfKZjiMElq1rxNajpvCtQ0/s3264/IMG_0529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdBSCAeEdnv6liUCKDEEvCEgqpjusP4m7QVEtyP3rto390Bde3LGVFrfzU4r978wrDTmiMx28JMhA1Ci4E8cHZ_Pnllnt4sxQ2Mc86HZ1X030DISlJSbdP7WfKZjiMElq1rxNajpvCtQ0/w400-h300/IMG_0529.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>To this day the Abbey and its ruins dominate Reading’s public imagination, and no part of their story more so than the gruesome slaughter of
Hugh Faringdon. The rehearsal taking place in the ruined chapter house on this
day appeared to be for the play advertised here.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The king’s henchmen scattered the monks and carted away all
the Abbey’s relics and treasures. While many former monasteries were converted
into royal lodgings or facilities, Reading’s was for the most part left to rot,
and in no time its carcass had been stripped of its materials – stone, glass,
lead – by opportunistic looters.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The town at the junction had lost its centrepiece. There
would be no streams of pilgrims or deep-pocketed visitors flocking here now.
Instead, Reading would have to search for new meaning in an England entering a
period of rapid change and fierce political and religious contestation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And yet, this was still England’s junction. Its strategic
importance and steady economic base might have equipped its 5,000-strong
population well – had the aforementioned contestations not brought down this country in flames, and in so doing, turned the crossroads into a battlefield.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the <u><a href="https://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">civil
wars of the 1640s</a></u> Reading was caught bang in the middle of the struggle
between the armed and assertive English Parliament, based in London, and the
Royalist supporters of King Charles I, who having been driven from the capital set
themselves up at Oxford. They held abortive peace talks here in the opening
stages of the war, when no-one could still quite believe what was happening.
But after the king’s failure to drive back into London in late 1642 it became
clear there was no stopping the oncoming storm. Retreating upriver, the
Royalists fortified Reading into a tough garrison at the centre of a
protective screen around their Oxford HQ. Commanding the garrison was a man called
Arthur Aston, by all accounts a despotic bully whose authoritarian methods,
such as forcing civilians to work on building the town’s defences, are said to
have roused great pain and hatred in the local people.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The inevitable Parliamentary response came the following spring
when an army under Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex and chief Parliamentary
commander in the early years of the war, came up to lay siege to Reading. In
the event it was all something of a farce. Aston was injured straight away when
the Parliamentary artillery dislodged a tile onto his head, with command
passing to his deputy, Colonel Richard Feilding. The latter lacked Aston’s
contempt for his own soldiers and civilians, feared the might of the besieging
army and had no idea if his appeals to the king for help would be answered, and
so announced Reading’s surrender. No sooner had he done so than his
reinforcements arrived after all, led by the king in person, and even attacked
the Parliamentary army at Caversham Bridge. Had Feilding led the garrison
forces out to join them they might easily have held the town <span> </span>– only he had already announced its surrender,
and on the grounds of honour resolutely refused to go back on it no matter
what.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And so the junction fell to Parliament, opening the way to
Oxford. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Feilding narrowly avoided getting killed by his
furious king, and so </span><span style="font-size: medium;">the war dragged on, with Devereux eventually overshadowed in the Parliamentary
leadership by the rise of Oliver Cromwell. The authoritarian Aston for his part
recovered and eventually went to fight for the Royalists in Ireland, where he
met an authoritarian’s fate in 1649, supposedly having his brains bashed out
with his own wooden leg in the course of Cromwell’s infamous atrocities in
Drogheda.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYasnXSCdJ1j4ruRR6gCSoQ4NwzTO_yq_iLASHxEA6riJcZxPAZDuVvvKc8mwzj0dJgMO0dVKULJWNNo3gdbuXypatEbtRuFpr3UsRKOOvNwcyCU3EYrPYj7rCefj-rESRtSJJRVoXRik/s3264/IMG_0574.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYasnXSCdJ1j4ruRR6gCSoQ4NwzTO_yq_iLASHxEA6riJcZxPAZDuVvvKc8mwzj0dJgMO0dVKULJWNNo3gdbuXypatEbtRuFpr3UsRKOOvNwcyCU3EYrPYj7rCefj-rESRtSJJRVoXRik/w400-h300/IMG_0574.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Caversham Bridge, where the skirmish between the
Royalist relief force and Parliamentary siege army took place. The bridge
itself was badly damaged in the fighting and remained in disrepair for centuries.
The current structure is a 1926 replacement.</span></b></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As for Reading, its new custodians proved no better than
the old. The Parliamentary soldiers revelled in their victory like typical bad
winners: they sacked the town, especially the taverns, and – sober Puritans all
– drank themselves to disgrace on the contents of their cellars. And this, all
this, was only the first act. The town at the crossroads would change hands repeatedly
as the civil war battlefronts shifted, keeping it ever stuck
in the centre of the chaos. The Royalists retook it in 1643, only to lose it
again the following year, with each successive occupying army further draining
the town’s energy and resources for further fortification.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Imagine the traumatic stress meted out on the populace over
these long years. Getting bullied into giving over their houses and supplies to
a military population almost as large as their own; the total stoppage of the
trade that sustained the town; the sieges and accompanying starvations, the
evacuations, the explosions, extortions, ransackings, the permanent atmosphere
of panic. Nor did the conflict do any favours to their heritage, least of all
the crumbling Abbey, whose stones were alternately abused for the town’s
defence or blown up with gunpowder to prevent the other side from doing so, in
the final instance on the orders of King Charles. For a place founded for
greatness by one of England’s first kings, this decision by one of its last to
hold real power was a sorry but somehow fitting way for the English crown to
sign out of its involvement here.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMnnMXgpXZtAH5Qdu3rvWX2i0I2XS1bcD111FUrM0dTUbE_ZlPU4YBVEjon94wn26LyvUqOdaPuV73qfYNs1kcA6YYLGLfuFf2lxCo6_-Je8nev5oSR2q_oS8Am0FImaMHolMiNewA_ps/s3264/IMG_0538.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMnnMXgpXZtAH5Qdu3rvWX2i0I2XS1bcD111FUrM0dTUbE_ZlPU4YBVEjon94wn26LyvUqOdaPuV73qfYNs1kcA6YYLGLfuFf2lxCo6_-Je8nev5oSR2q_oS8Am0FImaMHolMiNewA_ps/w300-h400/IMG_0538.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The cloister of Reading Abbey ran down this way.
With the battering these ruins took in the civil wars it’s a wonder so much
still stands.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Needless to say, the civil wars devastated the life of this town. It would take generations to recover, in which time
the English’s constitutional struggles would visit yet one more round of
bloodletting on Reading’s streets.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The settling of those struggles, with the shunting aside of
the monarchy in favour of a sovereign Parliament, is considered to have taken
place after the Dutch invasion of 1688, in which Stadtholder William of Orange
did a deal with Parliament to guarantee the latter’s powers in law in exchange
for the throne. The English like to pretend they were never invaded, so
disguise it with the term <b><i>Glorious Revolution</i></b> along with the insistence
that it was bloodless.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It wasn’t. The blood was shed in Reading.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By this time most of the English had turned ferociously
hostile to Catholics, the Irish, and their own king James II for his favouring
of them. Thus there was broad support for the Dutch army that landed in Devon
and moved on London to chase James out, and most resistance melted out of its
path. But at Reading a force of six hundred mostly Irish Catholic soldiers loyal
to James took position to impede the Dutch advance. In the English’s
all-too-familiar racism, panic spread that these ‘Papists’ were about to
massacre the population. Many of Reading’s inhabitants fled; those who remained
appealed to the Dutch to come rapidly to their aid.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They did. A bloody skirmish followed on the town’s streets
in which anywhere between twelve and fifty people were killed, depending on who
you ask. The king’s defenders were scattered, leaving William’s Dutchmen free
to march to London.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Most of this country has forgotten about this bout of bloodshed,
but Reading apparently never did. Its church bells would ring out in
commemoration, indeed <i>celebration</i>, for years to come.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW_ofqOHGFI__e2naRbjVUPAJtlsPJ_7MstR4vmx0IHj_GHwG80ifsImePV1ZAoTF7eK91ELBIzihv9MM_qVtUv_NIfkmhcCtqN9dD2156QKpCmTUaEeFoZ0KlAvrmMxj8AI3jaxFgu1k/s3264/IMG_0527.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW_ofqOHGFI__e2naRbjVUPAJtlsPJ_7MstR4vmx0IHj_GHwG80ifsImePV1ZAoTF7eK91ELBIzihv9MM_qVtUv_NIfkmhcCtqN9dD2156QKpCmTUaEeFoZ0KlAvrmMxj8AI3jaxFgu1k/w400-h300/IMG_0527.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Central Reading. So peaceful, yes?</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Are we to believe, then, that Reading swapped blood for
biscuits?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The town at the crossroads at last rose again under the
industrial revolution. This was the hour of the merchant, and as a town of
merchants Reading could not have found itself better positioned. No longer was the junction merely of roads and rivers. There were canals now, then railways,
the beating bloodstream of a global industrial empire whose breadth of raw
materials and products that infrastructure brought funnelling through Reading's resurrected
marketplaces. In particular the canalisation of the Kennet in 1810 gave Reading
a link to the Avon river, and thus to <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2013/11/bristol-to-bear-unbearable-burden.html">Bristol
with all the blood-drenched returns of the Atlantic slave economy that city was built
on</a>.</u> Thirty years later the trains were in place, putting Reading for the
first time within an hour’s reach of London.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On these opportunities, Reading transformed. A population
of thousands swelled to the tens of thousands. As the town’s merchants made it
big, its traditional market fairs and coaching inns receded into the shadows
of ironworks, factories, and most of all the ‘<b>three Bs</b>’ by which Reading
manufacturing rose to international renown: <i>biscuits</i>, <i>bulbs</i> and <i>beer</i>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6c4qSh7GFoLORpdKSKWd14pH4RZZ3589T4fsqf0Q_Vof8GC19rRC3gS6MKwcGYkSjtT6fEnOVvggV9Hq9HxJg7OJ0slONV1isXdJqEznuc3EPl6ptHh-0s3JybQF-joxfCod0WdhyphenhyphenmMs/s3264/IMG_0475.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6c4qSh7GFoLORpdKSKWd14pH4RZZ3589T4fsqf0Q_Vof8GC19rRC3gS6MKwcGYkSjtT6fEnOVvggV9Hq9HxJg7OJ0slONV1isXdJqEznuc3EPl6ptHh-0s3JybQF-joxfCod0WdhyphenhyphenmMs/w640-h480/IMG_0475.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Huntley and Palmers vintage biscuit tins, on display
at the Reading Museum. Founded in 1822, Huntly and Palmers was the archetypal
English biscuit company. Their tins sat on every middle-class dinner table in
the country, and sailed as exports to every continent, even – they were
especially proud of this – <u><a href="http://www.huntleyandpalmers.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.exe?a=query&p=huntley&f=generic_theme.htm&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&%3Dtheme_record_id=rm-rm-global_content5&s=a34rUpD830A">Antarctica</a></u>.
They rose to become one of Reading’s three industrial giants, along with
Sutton’s Seeds (‘bulbs’) and the H&G Simonds Brewery (‘beer’).</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju_aor0WHJWKBuuHOcKsGPrnJ902GnBFpYEW2jH00oRqeckLaWyZU6-YZxfOVQBU90lWa3jweO0n7i8Bo34fldrxWK1PXCbj0XflZUePuDpzL8hGIp6KOJX-8a8K9uTFNwHvkU_Afd3yM/s3264/IMG_0472.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju_aor0WHJWKBuuHOcKsGPrnJ902GnBFpYEW2jH00oRqeckLaWyZU6-YZxfOVQBU90lWa3jweO0n7i8Bo34fldrxWK1PXCbj0XflZUePuDpzL8hGIp6KOJX-8a8K9uTFNwHvkU_Afd3yM/w640-h480/IMG_0472.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The crossroads’ routes spanned the whole world now.
These posters were adverts for Huntley and Palmers biscuits in China.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">All of which rebirthed the physical town in the image of a
fourth B: <i>bricks</i>. It was now that Reading took on its appearance as a
red-brick town, as local brickmakers like S&E Collier took their experiments
in patterns and compositions onto great public works like the town hall, as
well as factories, shops and workers’ housing.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If red brick sounds more palatable than red blood, let us
not forget the bloodshed that came as part and parcel of this industrial and
imperial exercise: that is, slavery, colonialism, genocide, mass
exploitation, scientific racism, and with them the physical and structural
crimes against humanity on whose basis the English, in the form of the British
Empire, reshaped the world. So much of modernity’s ingrained hatred for the
dissident and the different, indeed, was baked into this world in these kilns,
including the ongoing horror that is the persecution of people who do not fit gender and sexuality norms as rigid as they are arbitrary.<br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Because what else did Victorian Reading’s red bricks build,
on a huge sweep of the ruined abbey no less?</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8kh2wCj9wKtiNqA2vYXRBk3pGAoSHkSpDN4Q1S9FXXT36WBGvKhiGhJBHGGr1D4Emn_T8tyQjc72qDvCkNxekyRAbJk_DBRBOboH_y0KboIsTlqVHXaeA0mo2DL5i4tXWVUgy_tRE5KY/s3264/IMG_0542.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8kh2wCj9wKtiNqA2vYXRBk3pGAoSHkSpDN4Q1S9FXXT36WBGvKhiGhJBHGGr1D4Emn_T8tyQjc72qDvCkNxekyRAbJk_DBRBOboH_y0KboIsTlqVHXaeA0mo2DL5i4tXWVUgy_tRE5KY/w400-h300/IMG_0542.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>You’ve heard of it. Reading Gaol.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Reading Prison</b> was built in 1844, operated all the
way up to 2014, and stands associated in English memory with its best-known inmate
and perhaps most famous of all England’s prisoners of consciousness: Oscar Wilde,
the Irish writer and poet so despised by the English establishment for his
homosexuality that from 1895 to 1897 they put him in prison for it and there utterly
demolished his life. The forced labour and harsh conditions of that
incarceration wrecked his health, and its longest and most ruinous period took
place here at Reading Prison. He would die broken and impoverished in French
exile three years later, but not before immortalising the callous brutality of
the English penal system in his prison writings and subsequent reflections –
most famously, <i>The Ballad of Reading Gaol</i>.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA63xo5C2L2cx-Qi_-DAGBXzw4LAqXJBOuoOXS4ObFmFNlt88ekPyiMuatyv0uYKel9oYJBjbkFxv67eLKV-hVUPT_TQPjvQvm1vg2bMM-KwFQzVp6kE2MF4TA2n3mJtVUmKffxIlXC3I/s3264/IMG_0546.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA63xo5C2L2cx-Qi_-DAGBXzw4LAqXJBOuoOXS4ObFmFNlt88ekPyiMuatyv0uYKel9oYJBjbkFxv67eLKV-hVUPT_TQPjvQvm1vg2bMM-KwFQzVp6kE2MF4TA2n3mJtVUmKffxIlXC3I/w400-h300/IMG_0546.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>The disused prison stands uncomfortably beside the
Abbey ruins. They are still arguing over what to do with it. Most recently a
popular movement led by Reading Council to preserve it as an arts and culture
centre has been turned down by the government, who appear less interested in
heritage than in how much money they can make from its sale.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuVcSFPmUZw9o_c3n-TEN_BsYDW5ps5yZYlXXLZCcIqjUsw_33buRFIvzX3JmEQwuyWnIV5fwi3owWhV9MaagRD9r6NwvDTJxAX2rZ7AL6eKNvfyu0OPIkk33Po9mmxY_VdQQCD-Wfb5w/s3264/IMG_0530.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuVcSFPmUZw9o_c3n-TEN_BsYDW5ps5yZYlXXLZCcIqjUsw_33buRFIvzX3JmEQwuyWnIV5fwi3owWhV9MaagRD9r6NwvDTJxAX2rZ7AL6eKNvfyu0OPIkk33Po9mmxY_VdQQCD-Wfb5w/w640-h480/IMG_0530.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>During the late nineteenth century the old outer
court of the Abbey was transformed into Forbury Gardens, central
Reading’s main public park. The lion statue commemorates the deaths of more
than three hundred Berkshire soldiers in the humiliating Battle of Maiwand in
1880, from the second of this country’s three imperial wars against the
Afghans. More recently, on a June evening last year, three people were killed
here in a terrorist stabbing attack by a Libyan extremist.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When it came time for further bouts of destruction, this
time in the World Wars, Reading escaped the worst of it despite taking a nasty hit
from a <i>Luftwaffe</i> bombing raid in 1943. Nevertheless, like most of
England’s manufacturing centres it has since had to swallow the slow
disintegration of the industrial and imperial projects.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By some measures it has done better than most in its
embrace of the change in economic winds. Its post-war reconstruction boom drew
in large numbers of immigrant workers from the Indian subcontinent and the
Caribbean, bestowing it with a lasting multicultural character. Its red bricks gave
way to the glass and concrete monoliths of today as it joined the pursuit of a
new modernity in the service sector. The Huntley and Palmers biscuit factory was reincarnated as insurance company offices; Sutton’s Seeds, as a business park; H&G
Simonds Brewery, as the Oracle shopping centre. Most of all it is in IT that the
junction town has sought its latest future, attracting a sprawling range of
international technology companies to its campuses and business parks. These
are its present-day successor to the Abbey complex: a temple city to the
techno-capitalist creed of our times. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiocBe5pS2XRnUO5cWcThZefo9NmuaGjhpjn5kONx-uH16U88jnPIW33O5l_-HzL5XrOQv6AZZ2vVEMggi6pq8Ya60SLz0nFuoDzFpODoNLKB5DTGvv4pAQ7qczLDJu3jZlhOqNgD7PTU/s3264/IMG_0526.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiocBe5pS2XRnUO5cWcThZefo9NmuaGjhpjn5kONx-uH16U88jnPIW33O5l_-HzL5XrOQv6AZZ2vVEMggi6pq8Ya60SLz0nFuoDzFpODoNLKB5DTGvv4pAQ7qczLDJu3jZlhOqNgD7PTU/w400-h300/IMG_0526.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Central Reading, with its St. Laurence’s Church at
left and obligatory statue of Queen Victoria. The flint church goes right back
to the Norman period but has been rebuilt several times and was damaged by
German bombs during World War II.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As for actual meaning in life, latter-day Reading has also
generated a noted cultural scene. The annual Reading Festival has grown since
1971 into one of the largest music festivals in the country, in a town vibrant
with musical and theatrical performances and grassroots art. These of course
have been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which perhaps informs the demoralised mood that seems to linger in the air here today.<br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5B2YEHA-FaskDWsKhTYIaH4eEJMEiJEKjphdc4EqcMk6w6YOGLDdW6KGVBfVxlBtkrGvFLi-A1sg9endXjwX4JUfVk2nX9d8hGE3wusmdYYwC9fhaf23UcHCAAjCrVe_grQORxbfTnsg/s3264/IMG_0460.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5B2YEHA-FaskDWsKhTYIaH4eEJMEiJEKjphdc4EqcMk6w6YOGLDdW6KGVBfVxlBtkrGvFLi-A1sg9endXjwX4JUfVk2nX9d8hGE3wusmdYYwC9fhaf23UcHCAAjCrVe_grQORxbfTnsg/w400-h300/IMG_0460.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Reading has shared a similar fate to
many English cities in watching its characterful physical heritage stripped
away in the name of the development faith. The bits that hold out are often
found cowering into the shadows of the new temples, awaiting their turn to be
devoured by the cranes and bulldozers.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGnrAcdPsE0n1q1jAgzBINj3TcnS005kEiCaiIy5QQnsNEF8aAx_v0p28X-a8LMVLQWaiqwxMVdZAuQnt4Krbb7V27i78ZQErImP9PdsC05V8lhmZVQrUq4bzSIjUQvy3EC5dKVagV2E0/s3264/IMG_0459.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGnrAcdPsE0n1q1jAgzBINj3TcnS005kEiCaiIy5QQnsNEF8aAx_v0p28X-a8LMVLQWaiqwxMVdZAuQnt4Krbb7V27i78ZQErImP9PdsC05V8lhmZVQrUq4bzSIjUQvy3EC5dKVagV2E0/w400-h300/IMG_0459.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Present-day Reading also hosts the primary
headquarters of Thames Water, the private company given control of water
supply and wastewater treatment for most of south England in 1989. It is known
for its repeated pollution disasters and sewage leaks, which continue despite a
neverending string of huge fines. Large shares of it are currently owned by,
among others, the principal sovereign wealth funds of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, and the
People’s Republic of China.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A red town, named after a red chieftain and built on a heritage of blood
and bricks.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> A town at the centre, a crossing of tracks in earth and water. Its mood feels strange, and not solely on account of a year of
lockdowns and virus-enhanced deprivation. The sense one gets in Reading is of a place neither here nor there, that might be one thing or another but isn’t
any one of them for sure. A crossroads in time as well as in space, where scenes
from different eras shift into the picture whichever way you look, such that its
timestream never truly feels stable.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps that’s the nature of a crossroads.
But the concentrations of poverty, bloodshed and unreckoned cruelties in its
ingredients? Those, surely, are what mark it out as an <i>English</i>
crossroads.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And now this river expedition which here attains its
halfway point stands at its own crossroads. I shall not deny that the
demoralisations of struggling on in this country in its present condition have
brought me close to giving up on any further attempt to engage with it; rather,
that is, than considering it a write-off for the whirlpool of callous absurdities
– the relentless lies, the carnival of ignorance, the deportations and wardrobe of disguises for modern eugenics;
the dogged persistence of racist and sexist bigotries, some of whose
permutations, such as the horrific wave of hostility to trans people, seem so
ridiculous as to appear no more than prejudice for its own sadistic sake – the
whirlpool, to which the nation’s inurement through years of austerity and
Brexitification, seems to have committed it to spiralling down to a hell it
might never escape again.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For all these explorations, I do not believe I will ever
truly understand this country. I no longer believe it can solve its own
problems; there are those here who want to, those who sincerely and
passionately care, but the critical mass, the <i>centre</i>, has shattered to
dust. Frankly I seek a way out at the earliest opportunity. I do not
know therefore if I will complete this journey up the Thames. Already a new
wave of infections breaks, further challenging the safety of these
explorations. If I would like to see them through, then that is owed to the kindness
and patience of the river itself, which is older than any country and guilty of
nothing.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A crossroads whose paths lead everywhere – but I, for one,
see no path home.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHWhs-yt1AmBInYV5fvUxK4ilN69MVkDpOirNwVMW291c4D6Ed6zsvkOPZJcJCsCwwGS_YgHTM6RHwsd86ZyjVQioniWM3bYvONRAbyYjeceuxUyRpfTG_pym6OppTyx6w2kNyPhqVQU/s3264/IMG_0541.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHWhs-yt1AmBInYV5fvUxK4ilN69MVkDpOirNwVMW291c4D6Ed6zsvkOPZJcJCsCwwGS_YgHTM6RHwsd86ZyjVQioniWM3bYvONRAbyYjeceuxUyRpfTG_pym6OppTyx6w2kNyPhqVQU/w640-h480/IMG_0541.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Multiple layers of history crowd together for this
final snapshot of the junction town. Which way to go? To live at the crossroads
is to live in that question in perpetuity, to know no answer will settle it for
good. As for whether that is a blessing or a curse – that’s up to them.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvT9G_6Hgj90FtkXsBpJTDvtY-Eu331OQLuXv0Yfbd4DfQFyrUchuGREZqRzgmpkXrJMHFyOYl31nCMDMkPDHAm8t73JE4TSdJ-txCUjTbgZN5NAtI3M4QaWhXboTTy_h7-1dtlKKkMx0/s3264/IMG_0554.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvT9G_6Hgj90FtkXsBpJTDvtY-Eu331OQLuXv0Yfbd4DfQFyrUchuGREZqRzgmpkXrJMHFyOYl31nCMDMkPDHAm8t73JE4TSdJ-txCUjTbgZN5NAtI3M4QaWhXboTTy_h7-1dtlKKkMx0/w640-h480/IMG_0554.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span>Rrrr.</span></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Many thanks to the <u><a href="https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/">Reading Museum</a></u> for some of the
information in this section, as well as for its great efforts to offer safe and
rigorous access procedures in pandemic conditions.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i> </i></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span>Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Reading, UK51.4542645 -0.978130330.428616803978109 -36.1343803 72.4799121960219 34.1781197tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-56791588995793131772021-06-04T10:45:00.001+01:002021-06-04T10:45:59.945+01:00June 4th 1989<p><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN03KaOrVboplBrySTIOZy-PvoV2ZtzdevcnxrtPLiPQ-M24pCzIKWgnSrwNx6i61hufJmFnX-Bsu6mdyN41G3O8z6SJhF1Sp9xxIH8p3djMf952r3BSDxUkVHNILo4zsjum8oloYTAWM/s3264/Tiananmen+%2528dark%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN03KaOrVboplBrySTIOZy-PvoV2ZtzdevcnxrtPLiPQ-M24pCzIKWgnSrwNx6i61hufJmFnX-Bsu6mdyN41G3O8z6SJhF1Sp9xxIH8p3djMf952r3BSDxUkVHNILo4zsjum8oloYTAWM/w640-h480/Tiananmen+%2528dark%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Remember June 4th 1989.</span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Remember the students, workers,
intellectuals and citizens slaughtered not only in Tiananmen Square, but in the
homes and streets of Beijing and other Chinese cities on that night of carnage,
and in the hunts of the years that followed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Remember not only those unnumbered
casualties, but those still to follow. The future of humankind was murdered
that night.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Consider. The story of human
modernity has been written in white-supremacist horror. European conquerors and colonisers raised a vision of the human
future rooted in unspeakable violence: the violence of genocide, slavery, human
disposability, relentless and systemic otherisation, exploitation and abuse of power at all levels of society, and
neverending cycles of conflict between and within populations soaked in trauma, and at last, the plunder of the planet itself to breaking point.<br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That corrupt modernity is now dragged
to its reckoning. First to rise to global power from beyond it have been the
Chinese.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The People’s Republic of China had the first true chance to challenge that
order at a comprehensive level. The opportunity, and responsibility, were huge:
to offer the world a real alternative to the cruelty of white modernity. A
better vision. A better conception of power than that the Chinese themselves
knew so well for the century of torments it visited upon them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Instead, it is now beyond doubt that
they have chosen merely to emulate it in their own image. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">To look on the behaviour of the China
of Xi Jinping – the Uyghur genocide, the thoroughly colonial repression of Hong
Kong, the totalitarian surveillance, the erasure of crimes like the Tiananmen
massacre from historical memory, the hypocrisy, platitudes and relentless butchery of the
truth by organised trolls and “wolf warrior” diplomats – is to see them doing exactly
the same thing all over again. Unleashing it on the world once more – only now in
a time of interconnected global peril when the stakes could not be higher.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Was the 1989 massacre the threshold,
the signal, the event horizon? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It took generations for the Chinese
to emerge from a hundred years of horrific pain: colonial humiliation, total war,
revolutionary upheaval. The catastrophic atrocities of the Maoist period can
arguably be seen as the spasms and meltdowns of an utterly traumatised society.
1989 was different. It was the conscious choice of a leadership which claimed
to be steering their country out of post-revolutionary
turmoil. To be re-entering the world as they set about building a stable,
confident and respectable Chinese future.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And at the crossroads of 4th June
1989, they baptised that future in blood.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">After the initial shock, the rest of
the world decided it was okay with it. And so the endless nightmare of the
white supremacy is set to play out again in a new format. Further centuries of
the same abuse of dissidents and people seen as different,
the same contempts, the same authoritarian bloodthirst, the same towers of lies
dressed up as timeless truths, the same mountains of corpses, nameless,
forgotten<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– all of it, all over again. They,
too, in their millions, will be victims of the choices taken on 4th June 1989.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Remember Tiananmen. We are all stood
in it now.</span></p>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-25114968104114834392020-07-20T17:04:00.003+01:002020-08-30T22:12:48.324+01:00Five Empowerments from Video Games in Troubled Times<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span face=""><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUp8jPIXxVoALssIFwio6JMpgr2bYBmRc-8fngAarin35OxTirSL1mmCK6rpHPOb5sGoxQ9Q5zey0QrJBKfLPItdVf6KBp3JCLaVk4lHA4h5jdb7eT6aQJ6J355QUj9pM9-KyP4bs4-RM/s1600/01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUp8jPIXxVoALssIFwio6JMpgr2bYBmRc-8fngAarin35OxTirSL1mmCK6rpHPOb5sGoxQ9Q5zey0QrJBKfLPItdVf6KBp3JCLaVk4lHA4h5jdb7eT6aQJ6J355QUj9pM9-KyP4bs4-RM/s640/01.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s 2020. COVID-19, lurching authoritarianism, mass atrocities. Chances are the political and human rights conditions of your country – or the one you are stuck in, like England – have become so farcically obscene that you are challenged
to hold together the sanity, let alone the words, to coherently critique it.</span></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">For the majority of reasonable
people, the recent years have been anywhere between troubling and downright wretched. What
we are experiencing is no less than the breakdown of the promise, indeed the <i>premise</i>,
of modernity: of a world where tomorrow is supposed to be better than yesterday. Instead we have let yesterday's darkest horrors return and put our tomorrow at their mercy.</span></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span face=""></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We each do what we must to survive
and make meaning in this nightmare. For me it has meant looking once more to
video games, which are </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2011/09/in-defence-of-video-games-artistic.html"><u><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">full of such meaning</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> and </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-10-game-challenge.html"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></a><u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-10-game-challenge.html"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">have helped me so much to navigate
the madness of humankind before</span></a></u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-10-game-challenge.html"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">. Here I would like to pay respects to five of my recent discoveries, and explore some of the power they offer to struggle on
through an impossible world.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">There may be <b>mild spoilers</b> in
this article for each of these games.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">1) The Power of <u>Freedom</u>: <i>The
Legend of Zelda – Breath of the Wild</i></span></b></span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">2) The Power of <u>Perspective</u>: <i>Fire
Emblem – Three Houses</i></span></b></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">3) The Power of <u>Distance</u>: <i>Animal
Crossing – New Horizons</i></span></b></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">4) The Power of <u>Presence</u>: <i>Assassin’s
Creed – Odyssey</i></span></b></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">5) The Power of <u>Will</u>: <i>Xenoblade
Chronicles</i></span></b></span></div>
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</span><span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span face=""> <br />
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<span face=""><b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">1) The Power of <u>Freedom</u>: <i>The
Legend of Zelda – Breath of the Wild</i> (Nintendo, 2017)</span></b></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span face=""><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVqUgS5apqwbCLFWjySfxzLbVXkWf0J5a4iUVEdtVyLObEjq97lvrIpFqNq80QOfVIKrfu-1CcIHaeMLxBi8hhKE7kNs-CK0DgmJqI_T45hrvzBuXdyImWdWPcI7rJrZvjt2WipCo7rzY/s1600/01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVqUgS5apqwbCLFWjySfxzLbVXkWf0J5a4iUVEdtVyLObEjq97lvrIpFqNq80QOfVIKrfu-1CcIHaeMLxBi8hhKE7kNs-CK0DgmJqI_T45hrvzBuXdyImWdWPcI7rJrZvjt2WipCo7rzY/s400/01.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">You can go anywhere. That is the
basic principle of the latest in Nintendo’s venerable <i>Legend of Zelda</i>
series, which drops you in a vast and stunning post-apocalyptic wilderness then
more or less leaves you to it. </span></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The<i> Zelda</i> games have done me
considerable service over the years. Their recurring journeys to confront
authoritarians contrast so starkly with the exasperating tendencies of populations
in this world to prostrate themselves before the abusers of power while blaming
their victims for their own suffering. But <i>Breath of the Wild</i> takes this psychological
liberation to a whole new level. Its title, which it never explains, captures
it best: it provides a world in which to <i>breathe</i>. And what a world.</span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face=""><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZfBR7VxE467bHl8rn1ysQhr_501mSuDhAgKwDxRaV0D5X-Ab5cJljmmgKeWSfbtRPK8oTavR04Vdg3XsBedlEu9cQJMQC5wuH9sRTRcj_2XOUhp3ucCXju3yNbjHMl6C_fMq8AIEgQQw/s1600/02.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZfBR7VxE467bHl8rn1ysQhr_501mSuDhAgKwDxRaV0D5X-Ab5cJljmmgKeWSfbtRPK8oTavR04Vdg3XsBedlEu9cQJMQC5wuH9sRTRcj_2XOUhp3ucCXju3yNbjHMl6C_fMq8AIEgQQw/s400/02.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Everything
you can see here, that is to say, absolutely everything, can be reached and explored.</span></b></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face=""><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW5p7tVjuNHfdKqj2tvj1FkhntnCxCBqhu7XwQ2ooSVPJhyg0yDk2QmkQOEuxuBny-1NV-GFAD-rkWCnf1gRcwSIwLqjC5LJTAKsOkbNdLYVkKlgL7IJ3P2jX-SsrzrUvrKdCZrvMKlpQ/s1600/03.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW5p7tVjuNHfdKqj2tvj1FkhntnCxCBqhu7XwQ2ooSVPJhyg0yDk2QmkQOEuxuBny-1NV-GFAD-rkWCnf1gRcwSIwLqjC5LJTAKsOkbNdLYVkKlgL7IJ3P2jX-SsrzrUvrKdCZrvMKlpQ/s400/03.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">In every environment there are views to take
in, plants and materials to forage, deep geological histories to ponder, and
secrets to unearth – humorous secrets, chilling secrets, profound secrets, and
secrets that will stay with you long after. Also there are wild bears.</span></b></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">This wilderness was <i>Zelda</i>’s
Hyrule as you had never seen it: a full-resolution massiveness of fields, forests,
mountains, lakes, rivers, ridges and deserts more akin to the random enormity
of the wild places of Earth than the attractive but typically more abstracted
subzones of the <i>Zelda</i> tradition. And where its earlier games tended to
nudge you along a fairly linear plot and character growth trajectory, <i>Breath
of the Wild</i> dispenses with those altogether. If you can see it, you can
reach and explore every corner of it in any order you please – so long, that
is, as you can shows the strength, ingenuity and equipment to survive a world
whose tough rocks and sharp teeth better bring to mind Alaska than the Hyrule
that returning <i>Zelda</i> players thought they knew.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
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<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">They would typically learn this the
hard way early on at the hands not of fearsome monsters but of physics itself,
which, so suppressed for the convenience of players for more than thirty years,
finally exacted its long-pent-up revenge. Where people unbothered to climb down a tower might have simply leapt off, expecting a deft forward roll and mere
one or two hearts’ worth of damage like in the old games, they instead got a
crunch and a Game Over screen. Those who got over the shock of that could look
forward to hours of blowing themselves up with their own bombs, getting
one-shot by lasers after accidentally waking up ancient death-machines, or
rolling ignominiously down hillsides when shoved by even minor monsters if they
weren’t paying attention to positioning. This was freedom like you had never
known, but with it came beautiful responsibility. Just as the old restrictions
had gone, so too had the ability to take your survival for granted and you now
had to sneak, scavenge, forage, cook and calculate your every step of the way
up the hero’s path.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face=""><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN7dEnvNOK6b1N2blP-2jeIVsaEVvzSPriyP1RnsfksQQmorGrK2XyobtNoT6jYMheGOIlx8PVI0gxJyDy5rlaObMaXEg8cfyOFCWx7m8MY7mtNoQZZp454dfw35D1e7Kr99pbMsy-QPA/s1600/04.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN7dEnvNOK6b1N2blP-2jeIVsaEVvzSPriyP1RnsfksQQmorGrK2XyobtNoT6jYMheGOIlx8PVI0gxJyDy5rlaObMaXEg8cfyOFCWx7m8MY7mtNoQZZp454dfw35D1e7Kr99pbMsy-QPA/s400/04.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Abstract hearts no
longer drop from monsters or grass to replenish your health. Freedom means
actually learning to prepare food now. You can cook any of dozens of mushrooms,
meats, fish, fruits, condiments and monster parts you obtain out in the world,
and some combinations bestow bonuses like extra endurance or temperature
resistances that help explore more challenging environments.</span></b></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face=""><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkA83bL_M3ohrLfStLwy2BH-kKKH7fHiv4rVVbd4kHwbJuKrg51l4lw7fc7IcaY7jzkIzu-vWoq7f8pesWzqoDe29VZxIQQGPDg66ziUacYKjiN6gmPpiR-VmSdA0mVObJzh_DTzVJwUI/s1600/05.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkA83bL_M3ohrLfStLwy2BH-kKKH7fHiv4rVVbd4kHwbJuKrg51l4lw7fc7IcaY7jzkIzu-vWoq7f8pesWzqoDe29VZxIQQGPDg66ziUacYKjiN6gmPpiR-VmSdA0mVObJzh_DTzVJwUI/s400/05.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">A later update added the ability to track your movements on the world map. This was mine after about a
year.</span></b></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And yet, this was still <i>The Legend
of Zelda</i>. It had enough familiar elements to root you in the classic <i>Zelda</i>
experience: the diverse characters and cultures (many likewise explored in
finer resolution than before, from Zora inter-generational caste politics to
the Gerudo desert economy); the aesthetics, motifs and symbols; the explicit narrative
connections with the preceding games; and of course, the overarching framework
of a heroic struggle to overthrow a world-ruining dictator. Most of all, the
gameplay held tight to the same sense of underlying fairness in spite of its hurling
open to the bruising wilds, making the effect refreshing, indeed breathtaking,
rather than cruel.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
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<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s possible this game saved my
life. After a full-scale mental demolition in Japan, it was to this demolished
Hyrule that I managed a retreat to piece the shattered fragments of my psyche
back together. I recall reading in the same period of many other traumatised
people finding relief and healing in <i>Breath of the Wild</i>’s wild wild
winds of freedom: a case, yet again, of video games making up for the mental
health failings of governments and societies.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
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<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Three years later, that title – <i>Breath</i>
– acquires yet another layer of meaning in the mounting reckoning for our racist
world. It hardly seems coincidence that the phrase <i>I can’t breathe</i>, with
its origins in white police officers literally choking people to death for
being black, has become such a resonant expression against both structural
racism and the broader atmosphere of oppression in our time. We have created a
world which suffocates people – so honour and respect to anyone who creates air-pockets
like <i>Breath of the Wild</i> for them to come up to breathe.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">2) The Power of <u>Perspective</u>: <i>Fire
Emblem – Three Houses</i> (Intelligent Systems, 2019)</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">‘Both arguments are acceptable’, said
the ancient Chinese lawyer and philosopher Deng Xi, who represented both sides
in legal cases and, it is said, upset those who believed in fixed standards of
right and wrong by demonstrating that through skilled manipulation of words and
definitions all sides of an argument were defensible. </span></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Such relativity is not comforting in a world where, to take just one example, many seem convinced that
COVID-19 is some imagined conspiracy spread using 5G phone masts and possibly
orchestrated by George Soros. Yet there is always, even here, another side of
the story. Though there may be one common reality, people experience it differently,
and from these divergent paths grow different narratives and different frames
of reference. The conspiracy theorists might be blatant in their errors, but
their beliefs <i>make sense to them</i> as framed within the rules through
which they have learnt to interpret the world. </span></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">A failure to grasp this, a
preference instead to insist to the point of violence that one’s own story alone is
correct, is found behind every conflict in human history. Who has ever gone off
to fight while believing themselves to be the villains?</span></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">To bridge these differences requires empathy, a resource in which our societies find themselves impoverished (never minding how they enjoy to boast in the faces of autistic people about its imagined plenty). </span></span><span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Even with the best of intentions all round it is not easy to reconcile the
stories which grow from people’s contradictory experiences. This is
demonstrated, spectacularly, in <i>Fire Emblem: Three Houses</i> when its world
collapses into total war.</span></span></div>
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<span face=""><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Three Houses</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> is a turn-based role-playing
strategy game in the Japanese <i>Fire Emblem</i> series, known for taking the
player on an epic journey through the hopes and tragedies of a world at war alongside
a growing roster of characters, exploring along the way their relationships and
personal journeys amidst great political and military upheaval. It has been suggested
that <i>Three Houses</i> is three games in one, but perhaps it is more accurate
to call it one game from three perspectives, because what it shows is precisely
the power thereof: how even a slight shift in viewpoint can invest
you in completely different attitudes to the same story, leading to radically
different choices on your part and outcomes for the world. </span></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In this game you are a mercenary who
gets a professorship at the Officers’ Academy of the Garreg Mach Monastery, a
place </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html"><u><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">in the long tradition of artistic treatments of English public schools</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">. Your role is to instil the military and magical arts into the
aristocratic children – along with a few token commoners – of the three great
powers that dominate the game’s continent of Fódlan. These begin at relative
peace, and you and the students build rapport and fight alongside one another
over a year of instruction. But Garreg Mach is a privileged bubble, not
necessarily reflecting the poverty and injustice of the world on whose highest
peaks it is perched. Dark clouds gather, and events transpire; eventually all
hell breaks loose. After a five-year timeskip you are brought back to find the
circumstances have changed classroom buddies into bitter enemies, crushed
youthful dreams into grim determinations, and derailed gallant scions into
unhinged maniacs. Your position in this conflict, and its outcome, are
determined by the choices you have made but there is no holding back the
broader chaos of war. Inevitably, you must soon cross swords with former
students and colleagues attempting to kill you by means of the very skills you
taught them.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJnBMkhSOBOVJvLXp7Orq9PU0Zc379Zpfaa2YxOVt15d1A8movpXhtSoth97pdCb-r-P4aSG3Hu0Hmu2Y001lD3_bXyEbyxgAyPw_WtpU4FOj_-OG8h6dAmDW7skOUK-c1FMp6k4jfYN8/s1600/03.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJnBMkhSOBOVJvLXp7Orq9PU0Zc379Zpfaa2YxOVt15d1A8movpXhtSoth97pdCb-r-P4aSG3Hu0Hmu2Y001lD3_bXyEbyxgAyPw_WtpU4FOj_-OG8h6dAmDW7skOUK-c1FMp6k4jfYN8/s400/03.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Garreg Mach
monastery, where you spend time in each chapter to develop relationships with
staff and students and make decisions that affect their performance on the
battlefield.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj85s7Vui2_KxQo9aDjc3UO5aSgYQfwi-R2BjxZmrlWf228I8pDJiJ-9Z-Y7pFaAudHMYlO5H4Qr6-TdXe3yjLz274k3zahMkTkoemoABT22GZYTnHAzVy91iB7JEpBGql_tE778J-5EVk/s1600/04.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj85s7Vui2_KxQo9aDjc3UO5aSgYQfwi-R2BjxZmrlWf228I8pDJiJ-9Z-Y7pFaAudHMYlO5H4Qr6-TdXe3yjLz274k3zahMkTkoemoABT22GZYTnHAzVy91iB7JEpBGql_tE778J-5EVk/s400/04.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Battles take place
via the latest version of the <i>Fire Emblem</i> series’s turn-based battle
system, in which your grasp of choices and consequences is put to high-stakes
test. You are responsible for keeping your students alive.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Three Houses</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> carries this off compellingly
because aside from a few obligatory sinister cults and suchlike, its story has no
caricature villains. Fódlan is an oppressive, violent, prejudiced and
profoundly unequal land trapped in the abusive power structures of a magical feudalism,
in response to which different characters, often driven by their own traumatic
experiences of that world, each come up with conflicting analyses
of its problems and visions of how they ought to be solved. Your choice of
house to run at the start, so seemingly innocuous, determines which of these
visions you end up responsible for as things unravel: that is,
which you will feel committed to fighting for even as its shadow of corpses and
war crimes lengthens; and which you must seek to vanquish, even when it means
striking down those who once trusted you and question you to the last with
disgust as to how you could possibly side with “those monsters”.</span></span></div>
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<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">The seminal decision: Edelgard
of the Adrestian Empire, Dimitri of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, or Claude of
the Leicester Alliance? None is exactly what they seem. Your choice of which
one’s house to lead has far-reaching repercussions.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s also effective because of how well
it intertwines the personal and the political. Because in <i>Fire Emblem</i>
it’s <i>very</i> personal: you witness the story through the individual
experiences of the students and faculty, the knights and clergy, and the very
human web of relationships that grows up between them. But these are shaped, if
not dictated, by the complex and shifting politics of the world which, to the
game’s credit, it refuses to dumb down, rather trusting the player’s
intelligence to take on board the dynastic intrigues, competing factions and
unburied historical grievances that pockmark all three nations’ political
landscapes. These directly bear on the interactions of a student body comprised of
heirs to some of their most powerful families, leading to all kinds of uncomfortable
my-dad-killed-your-dad situations and their like. At the heart of these
political struggles is Fódlan’s suffocating class system and the heavy-handed
theocracy that maintains it, to which every character has to work out his or
her response, often from a place of life-changing suffering on its account. Indeed,
the game has received much commentary for how it handles a range of the sorts
of complex mental health problems you would expect such a world to produce.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd_CJEZg_t3fcSWmfyQxvQpY5PubROnjFNRCvCaZG4NJAVMi-4gjfE9g3yL1ReX6eqe_Ahhi-S23z2_S34IadoQGI3KWou2FvqLr4HLT52LxU1EMyqTwlihoqZoL6hIgRecSDDxIYteD0/s1600/06.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd_CJEZg_t3fcSWmfyQxvQpY5PubROnjFNRCvCaZG4NJAVMi-4gjfE9g3yL1ReX6eqe_Ahhi-S23z2_S34IadoQGI3KWou2FvqLr4HLT52LxU1EMyqTwlihoqZoL6hIgRecSDDxIYteD0/s400/06.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Prince Dimitri, a
gripping study in trauma. Some of this game’s most potent characterisations can
be considered Shakespearian. Trauma underlies so many characters’ behaviours in
the world of <i>Three Houses</i>; making sense of it could be good for your
empathy in the world outside it.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">As you might expect from all this, <i>Three
Houses</i> is emotionally hard work. I am one of no few people that its tougher
experiences brought to the verge of tears. At one point, stuck in what was
supposed to be a glorious revolutionary war against a corrupt system that had
in fact started to mean a war against old students and friends, I had to put
the controller down for an hour, psychologically unable to go on, as I
reflected on what the hell I had done. Which is not, make no mistake, an
argument against revolutions – yet one can only imagine how much better our
actual revolutions might have gone had their participants had the chance to give
this game a go and factor its lessons into their struggles.</span></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It is no surprise that debate between
players about which of the three nations has the best case, or what actual historical
figures their leaders correspond to, has raged ever since and will likely never
conclude. <i>Three Houses</i> claims to be set in Fódlan but is as much as
anything about Earth, and with its multiple perspectives on complex realities
it is the perfect work for our time of mass retreat into silos of Us and Them,
each with its own story of why it is right and all the others are wrong.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_qpFdzF-qGEqYE7NTUiczOhbHgPeec3pc6yfLnVDFGXc4StzNjDRsoJvfMsqPR8xBVqmD9wIQwpqyBYif23JTIBd0gnZnXhR0b3ywy7NhKeEl2A_SeJNy1O9uZhTj-AIF7Jkf5U0u4DM/s1600/07.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_qpFdzF-qGEqYE7NTUiczOhbHgPeec3pc6yfLnVDFGXc4StzNjDRsoJvfMsqPR8xBVqmD9wIQwpqyBYif23JTIBd0gnZnXhR0b3ywy7NhKeEl2A_SeJNy1O9uZhTj-AIF7Jkf5U0u4DM/s400/07.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Although, if
you ever cause someone to tell you 'your dismissiveness regarding cake is inexcusable', they are probably right.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Of course, no level of empathy can
excuse the atrocities of some of the barefaced evil to which humans have handed
power whether now or in the past. There can be no accommodation with those who
would deny the humanity of marginalised groups or wilfully inflict cruelties to
get their way. Yet even in their cases, standing in their shoes if even for a
moment is vital for understanding the conditions of pain and fear that created
them – conditions we are each and all responsible for. Then, and only then, will
we find the healing power to walk together toward that essential though as yet
never-fulfilled aspiration: <i>never again</i>. </span></span></div>
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<span face=""><b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">3) The Power of <u>Distance</u>: <i>Animal
Crossing – New Horizons</i> (Nintendo, 2020)</span></b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifUqSGQN9LrtET4_yD6D4ZI3W8tZ3nxiq3WcNdboBbJZWbc1QjBQDbQvU5l5arvPOxt_uIJrxDIk1JINt0w2x87Y2t8vx4DzjJ9oXiSpeEtbzBVrGoV0hqtXLVk-Zv-W5TCIQGoKhWqCs/s1600/02.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifUqSGQN9LrtET4_yD6D4ZI3W8tZ3nxiq3WcNdboBbJZWbc1QjBQDbQvU5l5arvPOxt_uIJrxDIk1JINt0w2x87Y2t8vx4DzjJ9oXiSpeEtbzBVrGoV0hqtXLVk-Zv-W5TCIQGoKhWqCs/s400/02.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span face=""><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Escapism</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">. In the rain of prejudice against
videogames this is a most common drop of disdain. The term carries a brutal
stigma. It is a charge of immaturity, of cowardice, treachery even: of a
failure to live in “reality”. </span></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">But is that fair in a fraudulent reality
manufactured brick by brick by the collective psychopathy of our kind – built,
that is, specifically in order to break people? Is it justified to heap shame
upon those who, if merely in order to survive, reach for other realities – any
reality other than this! – any more than to slander the child who escapes abuse
or the dissident who flees from jail? </span></span></div>
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</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Perhaps the dramatic events of this
year have shifted many minds on this matter. For as COVID-19 dumped unto our sorry
arrogances a new reality of lockdowns, curfews and stay-at-home
regulations, all of a sudden millions of people discovered a new meaning to the
desire to <i>escape</i>. On top of that, when questioned on where they would
like to escape <i>to</i>, only a marked few – what a surprise! – seem to want
to go back to the old “reality” whose pretensions this virus has done in.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">By way of witnesses, we could do
worse than call on one Mr. Tom Nook: esteemed and disarmingly friendly <i>tanuki</i>
(Japanese raccoon dog), estate agent, respected financier and wealth creator
and by no means a sinister corporate godfather of the Nook Inc. conglomerate
with secret control of skyscrapers, helicopter fleets, mafia organisations and
the sovereign debt of half the nations of the world. This charming fellow popped
up in March – by complete coincidence, just a week after COVID-19 had grown
menacing enough to be declared a pandemic – and offered anyone with a Nintendo
Switch a simple proposition: a package deal to escape to their own deserted
island in the middle of nowhere. (The only catch, so reasonable of course as to
go unstated, was that they then developed that island as they saw fit, with
Nook Inc. naturally the sole and trusted partner in all matters of credit,
capital and infrastructure).</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Within two months, more than thirteen
million people around the world – the same world that disdains videogames for <i>escapism</i>
– had chosen <i>tanuki</i>. </span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-NqbpV_vHa7qvhl7lYW8Usu8E6dA_l_SYQlozQNQUqb5Q-oO3DErvBr7AL3tPpSljnNAab-htxpwgcH7e9PvtNqk_8-ZJ0_8t_wfrsCmOivwahGVtD9RRPVIcVennBhtURKX_j-7GJHs/s1600/03.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-NqbpV_vHa7qvhl7lYW8Usu8E6dA_l_SYQlozQNQUqb5Q-oO3DErvBr7AL3tPpSljnNAab-htxpwgcH7e9PvtNqk_8-ZJ0_8t_wfrsCmOivwahGVtD9RRPVIcVennBhtURKX_j-7GJHs/s400/03.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuLRWdB-VIY4LtPrweBSdqZzzeFhYJHUli7Z2H96vWoJzB8CM5kW6FaFt95R_SfJSPYEXiAA2barXwZ0dDmnPDVVNmpVT9k4sUU0sW8USsyylCYBZHvwrDF44Gur0XxJGxsr6urqTjjVw/s1600/04.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuLRWdB-VIY4LtPrweBSdqZzzeFhYJHUli7Z2H96vWoJzB8CM5kW6FaFt95R_SfJSPYEXiAA2barXwZ0dDmnPDVVNmpVT9k4sUU0sW8USsyylCYBZHvwrDF44Gur0XxJGxsr6urqTjjVw/s400/04.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">This is how it
begins: just you and your tent on an island covered in bush.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><span face=""></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">New Horizons</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> has been <i>the</i> artistic face of
the COVID-19 world. Its persuasive formula follows in the footsteps of its
predecessors in the seminal <i>Animal Crossing</i> series: you, a
cutely-rendered human, set up in a remote village or wilderness and build it from
the ground up into a thriving community of anthropomorphic animals. Every
aspect of this life – your appearance and clothing, your house, your
community’s layout and landscape, the animals you invite to live in it, even
its flag and anthem – is yours to shape out of the nigh-limitless DIY recipes
and customisation options available to you. The experience is open-ended, there
is no finish line or win condition: how often and for how long you proceed is
entirely up to you.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Retreating to your own island might
sound, well, insular, but this could not be further from the truth. Your island
comes with its own airport and registered seaplane, manned by two dodos with rigorous
experience in the aviation sector. They are your gateway to any of the millions
of islands on which other players have likewise established themselves, and you
can visit one another’s islands to take notes and marvel or gloat at their
unique and colourful development ideologies. Each island has its own native
flowers and fruit, which you can trade to diversify the natural resources grown
on yours. With a network of island-hopping friends and a little imagination,
there is no limit to the trading, scheming, fishing, bug-catching, raving or
shooting-star-watching events you can hold together in your happy archipelago
of exile.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixn5aHGumpBEE9V4NT4tlXX672uAazqM5_lL-TBDzRwa5aXvwq794hP9yYaWhA71iKIN3mVxYTgEJ5P8djl_oCn5oVahoGcBve9dyzMFjNLg4ekvVpP_d2hz1lJc9uuMvlCW8aHMG3evg/s1600/05.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixn5aHGumpBEE9V4NT4tlXX672uAazqM5_lL-TBDzRwa5aXvwq794hP9yYaWhA71iKIN3mVxYTgEJ5P8djl_oCn5oVahoGcBve9dyzMFjNLg4ekvVpP_d2hz1lJc9uuMvlCW8aHMG3evg/s400/05.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Come to my island instead of
England. England doesn’t have coelacanths.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOUOhMijcNIiNlalyLLVMSbb3SN_hWf-tq9F-hpXq-qhqGEcm2brEJhU4V28CMy9PuXEYO0Ggk8xu74f9pvlupK1BMAucZT80HwBurno7zl5r6Hx3jGApsDhkcnk1X2bvj9pSuHr1B-lw/s1600/06.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOUOhMijcNIiNlalyLLVMSbb3SN_hWf-tq9F-hpXq-qhqGEcm2brEJhU4V28CMy9PuXEYO0Ggk8xu74f9pvlupK1BMAucZT80HwBurno7zl5r6Hx3jGApsDhkcnk1X2bvj9pSuHr1B-lw/s400/06.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Arriving in England,
you get abused and deported because of your skin colour. Arrive on my island instead and you get bears.</span></span></span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I took up Mr. Nook on his deal in
April at the same time as countless other people stuck in quarantine. In a
period when people who consider video games beneath them have been gleefully
handing power to murderous macho-clowns who don’t believe in face masks and
call tens of thousands of preventable deaths a success, I do not feel alone in
attesting that my sanity, mental health and thus ability to operate in (and
against) that corrupt reality outside have been done tremendous good by having
this island of good works and charming animal friends to retreat to when
needed.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">My approach has been relatively solitary: I have kept a step back from the
community to build a space that reflects a peace unique to my experience. It
has been small but indispensable comfort, after a given day of raging and
suffering, to be able to return to this pocket of reality and perhaps commission
a new bridge here, rearrange some flower beds there, every touch making small
improvements to a lasting expression of my time in this world, as, I suspect,
most people’s islands are of theirs.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIlBboHbYA2LWoIr8QsRMHMIwH8PfezcW9n7-nc6qdLki1iALFmOjGglMdMkEJ0igjwaSLUP0KhpnDXoChVdmvMUp5Pc6PH3nPkEm0DEwWUS_stHZN6mV7-KLkuYjwYzQjD7xS_2Wm7YM/s1600/07.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIlBboHbYA2LWoIr8QsRMHMIwH8PfezcW9n7-nc6qdLki1iALFmOjGglMdMkEJ0igjwaSLUP0KhpnDXoChVdmvMUp5Pc6PH3nPkEm0DEwWUS_stHZN6mV7-KLkuYjwYzQjD7xS_2Wm7YM/s400/07.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">If you cross the bridge out
of my island’s town and head for the hills you will find yourself in the Rawr
Rawr Woods.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqGMgJDjIkoUMuh1MIk4M2qOsRWQaaqjxefUB59H4f-knfBI7Oy2zsLaeN4uezOiMNXg-V0pamV2litY8HP_KsR4wzqrNdI13Bva0c8KXPCwm8lOUTY8n_Pqpq292Zgv1lY88aSgirutY/s1600/08.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqGMgJDjIkoUMuh1MIk4M2qOsRWQaaqjxefUB59H4f-knfBI7Oy2zsLaeN4uezOiMNXg-V0pamV2litY8HP_KsR4wzqrNdI13Bva0c8KXPCwm8lOUTY8n_Pqpq292Zgv1lY88aSgirutY/s400/08.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">In the upper reaches, a Memorial
to the Victims of All Authoritarianism.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWlTQjxj12J75goRhlpIIkK3n4wNjYE0-ayHFyXdJjUuv3wpTnGQR3fAlAAD781PjddKsvnkhttR2lb6j3YetXxEiG7xPBUKeMhp5_XhixsScdRR8W4O7OU_scGYxSwuYw2Y3m4xK07UA/s1600/09.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWlTQjxj12J75goRhlpIIkK3n4wNjYE0-ayHFyXdJjUuv3wpTnGQR3fAlAAD781PjddKsvnkhttR2lb6j3YetXxEiG7xPBUKeMhp5_XhixsScdRR8W4O7OU_scGYxSwuYw2Y3m4xK07UA/s400/09.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">This one is the Memorial to
All Victims of a Gendered World.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQLcVulNlUwHc7auL4KbSJ7cq0OlBNSoDWw38XNWsKu4dLo2rr3VC-kIp7nKVyExt7XmDD7UniJNohJNLrVsQghdLl-fawM_rr-0HK1CEV0arrnvNNlz2F5aM_a7ZnWffvBkLt3RNqDGY/s1600/10.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQLcVulNlUwHc7auL4KbSJ7cq0OlBNSoDWw38XNWsKu4dLo2rr3VC-kIp7nKVyExt7XmDD7UniJNohJNLrVsQghdLl-fawM_rr-0HK1CEV0arrnvNNlz2F5aM_a7ZnWffvBkLt3RNqDGY/s400/10.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">And this? This is </span><a href="http://www.worldheritageireland.ie/bru-na-boinne/built-heritage/newgrange/"><u><span style="line-height: 107%;">Newgrange</span></u></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span></div>
<span face=""></span><span face=""></span><span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The politics of <i>Animal Crossing</i>
– because </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-fall-of-world-of-warcraft.html"><u><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">everything is political</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> – is delightfully light-hearted. It
has not escaped veterans of the series that its gameplay is at its core a
capitalist exercise. Much of your time is spent extracting raw materials –
plants, fruit, fish and so on – to sell to the little raccoon twins Timmy and
Tommy, who run the community’s shop on behalf of Nook Inc. and categorically
deny any dynastic relation to Mr. Nook despite looking exactly like him but
smaller. You do this in order to amass the funds to buy fixtures and
infrastructure off Nook himself while paying off the chain of mortgages he has so
charitably granted you (at zero interest, to be fair to the fellow) to expand
your house. What is this game’s charming genius, indeed, by which it manages to
make paying off a mortgage <i>fun</i>?</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">As you invest in your island, more
dimensions open up with further enticing political food for thought. On
reaching a certain administrative complexity Nook brings in his number two, the
cheerful golden Shih Tzu dog Isabelle who is really the perfect expression of
the Japanese office lady: an eagerness to serve with a butterflies-and-sunshine
smile that never fades, even as it surely conceals the mountain of pent-up rage
that has made her the utter terror of the fighting game <i>Super Smash Bros.
Ultimate</i>. Soon a marvellous museum also sets up in your village, run by the
ever-informative owl Blathers who will unload on your brain the latest in
scientific knowledge (plus a healthy dose of his personal opinions) on the insects,
fish, dinosaur fossils and artworks you acquire to fill its collections –
raising all sorts of questions, incidentally, on the welfare of large sharks
stuck in tanks and </span><a href="https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/05/museum-experts-weigh-in-on-animal-crossing-new-horizons-museum/"><u><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">art pieces you are sure have been stolen from prominent museums (when not stolen by them from colonised peoples in turn)</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">. Eventually
your island will gain the prestige to attract the wandering musician K. K.
Slider, a mellow white dog who has mastered seemingly every musical genre
possible and hands his music out for free (now there’s a politics if there ever
was one). Finally, stick it out and you will be granted terraforming
privileges, allowing you to rearrange your island’s rivers and cliffs to your
heart’s desire or even flatten the whole thing into a gigantic desert or lagoon
if that is what so possesses you.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6nXJByobRnoi_PZsZUl4mAIKt7RSs97pNb5QzzuORyhsiO4i4hJO8T-mN0PbikYdyXNnf6N9-dzvsgM6TRq6APzxg46oK1Uhk2pe7w8ScwjzbEevsE8DfPx2eSoX0PEJx6GJQQMHn6rQ/s1600/11.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6nXJByobRnoi_PZsZUl4mAIKt7RSs97pNb5QzzuORyhsiO4i4hJO8T-mN0PbikYdyXNnf6N9-dzvsgM6TRq6APzxg46oK1Uhk2pe7w8ScwjzbEevsE8DfPx2eSoX0PEJx6GJQQMHn6rQ/s400/11.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Or, as I demonstrate here, to
cut a water supply for a biscuit factory.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLGWEaNrlECrLMCNYfs9DIaBCe3di48LM2iOUv7QeO0Qkebx-J_5qT9082lSAorNVlqynhNGg-BIQvpeBuwDMJkRwIs3wQVbewchuqeQw38cHVf_8HaINPJ1luClVd7a28zipgdnv7n0s/s1600/12.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLGWEaNrlECrLMCNYfs9DIaBCe3di48LM2iOUv7QeO0Qkebx-J_5qT9082lSAorNVlqynhNGg-BIQvpeBuwDMJkRwIs3wQVbewchuqeQw38cHVf_8HaINPJ1luClVd7a28zipgdnv7n0s/s400/12.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">The museum has four wings. Everything
in the fossil wing has been dug up on the island, identified by Blathers and
summarily put on display instead of notifying the public authorities for significant
finds. As well as complete dinosaur skeletons they include some of the most
ancient material record of life, as well as more recent specimens that might yield
crucial information on the ancestry of modern species. But this is my island and
its public is better than yours, so no your police can’t come in.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGGAfKAYo63Bv05QgZ05TVzObO-lvYTftZFuucSO5RXNUKyArszMqroZXc3J0WTiM3Jcn1s5PSzqbdzEZCHSXNaaCE2C4svCfKQDvikrcD0eK1CRIECUupPoFBCYUVZqnSNkSsipYjui8/s1600/Isabelle+meme.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="921" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGGAfKAYo63Bv05QgZ05TVzObO-lvYTftZFuucSO5RXNUKyArszMqroZXc3J0WTiM3Jcn1s5PSzqbdzEZCHSXNaaCE2C4svCfKQDvikrcD0eK1CRIECUupPoFBCYUVZqnSNkSsipYjui8/s400/Isabelle+meme.jpg" width="230" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Isabelle: one of the
most frightening psychological phenomena in the history of art?</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""></span><span face=""></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Ultimately it is the villagers
themselves who bring your island to life. As someone for whom animals have long
been vital solace and a contrast to the irrationality of my own
supposed species, I find a comforting nostalgia in the homeliness and
hospitality of neighbours like these. From the gentle pink gorilla and
exercise-crazed green horse who took their chances with my island from the
outset, my community has expanded to include, among others, a blue rhinoceros
who says ‘schnozzle’ and likes sweets, a delightfully grumpy old lion, and a
ridiculously cute tiny chubby white thing who I think is meant to be some kind
of hamster. It is saddening to think that one day each will likely move on from
my island, as no doubt must I, but already I do not expect to ever forget them.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvWDJup2WOvPlUIuadH2S5GmsRG86_vL1Gv1vfRURIgIL-oUSksBJm6Q5kqqCdpdYjHmRj9QW23ggNWWybrYGM5t3LtOZEY2C1N30ZZI1yrWkSqAJaI1_UgCkJY1CnHHjJ1MMjheQIw4Y/s1600/13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvWDJup2WOvPlUIuadH2S5GmsRG86_vL1Gv1vfRURIgIL-oUSksBJm6Q5kqqCdpdYjHmRj9QW23ggNWWybrYGM5t3LtOZEY2C1N30ZZI1yrWkSqAJaI1_UgCkJY1CnHHjJ1MMjheQIw4Y/s640/13.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In a year of confinement, <i>Animal
Crossing: New Horizons</i> has given so many people the chance to escape an unlivable
reality. Far across the sea these
exiles can rebuild their lives and look back in reflection as the crumbling
hollowness of that so-called reality is laid bare. The one thing a fish knows
nothing of is the water (at least, at any rate, till some islander catches it
and puts it in Blathers’s aquarium). There is power, that is to say, in
travelling to where you can scrutinise a reality from outside it.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And don’t the keepers of corrupt
reality know it. After <i>New Horizons</i> players began </span><a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/animal-crossing-hong-kong-protests-coronavirus"><u><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">using their islands for virtual protests against the Chinese authorities’ violence in Hong Kong</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">, the game was pulled from sale in
China. Which goes to show: when people slander you for video game <i>escapism</i>,
it’s not because they think it’s weak and beneath them. On the contrary: they
fear the power it gives you to heal, express yourself, and undermine
the authority of people like them.</span></span></div>
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<span face=""><b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">4) The Power of <u>Presence</u>: <i>Assassin’s
Creed – Odyssey </i>(Ubisoft, 2018)</span></b></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">At other times the reverse is true. From
a distance their power appears woven in the cosmic fabric, and the way to
loosen its threads is to get right up in its face.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJndtvlOtHLL7A_h6F0NybX6tDwTqFUlrdfQVVl2LyAfpeqc_bygg1D3i2bz4Yz9Zh8JiNyAUQX-sRioKBmFMGy0yjSevw5EH5DSC0LeYZX1I4M0C-wv5Tih4MebvpCUOj4_CLckMZSHI/s1600/01.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJndtvlOtHLL7A_h6F0NybX6tDwTqFUlrdfQVVl2LyAfpeqc_bygg1D3i2bz4Yz9Zh8JiNyAUQX-sRioKBmFMGy0yjSevw5EH5DSC0LeYZX1I4M0C-wv5Tih4MebvpCUOj4_CLckMZSHI/s400/01.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span face=""></span><span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span><span face=""></span><span face="">
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The lived experience of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War"><u>Peloponnesian War of 431-404 BCE</u></a>, between the ancient Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta,
might as well be as far away as the moon for most people, but its imaginative
power looms unspoken behind the twenty-first century world. This
was the conflict out of which Athenian general Thucydides wrote <i>The History
of the Peloponnesian War</i>, widely regarded as one of humanity’s first works
of rigorous history. Like much that came out of classical Greece, this text has
since been oft re-interpreted to serve the agendas of those who
claim to the legacies of that world. Most explicitly, Thucydides was seized on
by that tradition in International Relations (IR) that has the breathtaking
presumptuousness to call itself <i>Realism</i>. From the author’s sober reflections
on a conflict that brought out so much of the worst in all parties to it, these
academics derived a philosophy – often disguised as science – of human nature
as inclined to a permanent competition of all against all, manifest in a world of
self-interested states forever locked in a ruthless power struggle. <i>Might makes
right</i>, they claim; or, in their favourite selection from Thucydides in
which the Athenians arrogantly threaten the island of Melos before massacring its
people: ‘the strong do what they can, and the weak do what they must’. </span></span></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Naturally this is an enormous
cop-out. Such behaviour is not a timeless principle but a political choice, and
one for which in 2020 the human race remains as far as ever from taking
responsibility. Yet as an individual you might forgivably feel limited in your
options on what to do about it. You can ignore it, if you are fine to live out
your time in this world as a historical passenger. Or you can sit there awed
into silence by what seem sweeping historical forces which crush you
beneath the stares of those sculpted, bearded marble statue-men that textbooks and
museums would have you imagine all ancient Greeks must in fact have been. </span></span></div>
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<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Or, thanks to video games, you can rampage
across that world in the wonderfully unstoppable body of a big tough mercenary
woman, carving and slicing and bashing a trail of devastating revenge for that poisonous
inheritance upon the whole damn <i>malákes </i>lot of them.</span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJX8fHilavRGMY7gmK8oUYOfmNfTc7prMR4V7aA1gq-JfZSW37tvrpy5OQr_90qpuNwOFz8L3AMeiheijCp6C-vNQROLMI6ZLj7MYWLyUv8ZnQILljYXO0v_99X7S6cimpDaWbyY3bURc/s1600/02.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJX8fHilavRGMY7gmK8oUYOfmNfTc7prMR4V7aA1gq-JfZSW37tvrpy5OQr_90qpuNwOFz8L3AMeiheijCp6C-vNQROLMI6ZLj7MYWLyUv8ZnQILljYXO0v_99X7S6cimpDaWbyY3bURc/s640/02.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Athens. This is where the
likes of the English and Americans think their democracy comes from. Never mind
that neither really have a clue about democracy and its meaning has constantly
changed anyway, now you can go into the concept’s birthplace and experience
street by street, mob by mob, slave by slave, intrigue by intrigue, how
Athenian democracy was not the glinting political paradise it’s often imagined
as but rather every bit as violent and corrupt as its hyper-militarist Spartan
rival.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> is the latest in the <i>Assassin’s
Creed</i> series of action-adventure games featuring the open-world exploration
of richly-depicted historical settings. The game’s choice of title
captures the ambition of its portrayal. Homer’s Odyssey in Greek mythology is
the ultimate archetype of the epic journey in Western imagination, so immense
in its reach that even the great Mario has </span><a href="https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/super-mario-odyssey-switch/"><u><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">doffed his hat to Odysseus’s footsteps</span></u></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> in recent years. Well here we have
another Odyssey, set in the world whose imaginations – like so many
imaginations today – were most immediately shaped by the havoc Odysseus and his
fellow mythic archetypes made in the Trojan War, and it begins right next door
to his legendary home of Ithaca on the larger island of Kephallonia.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">This time the journey belongs,
canonically, to a certain Kassandra: a <i>misthios</i>, that is to say a
mercenary, with her own legend to carve out of a fractious and hostile Greek world that
nonetheless insists on the merits of its cultural achievements. Kassandra
herself is an absolute unit, well-adapted in body and temperament to push her
way across this tapestry of violence. This is in part explained by her Spartan
upbringing, with her relationship with that supposed homeland taking centre
stage in a story of the complex problems of family, identity and belonging. </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvMJcil0EemKl_Lj126StcJXIuSJFOU0GE2VeyaFF5U-0N4PM1jrZIDvV0uldKs3YCzq-qTUb_C2JRrWHVoCcqy-cOrvWFvUwiUfI_3aSx-AjEdFGBQIqRQjCC6po7lbN5ywFF2RjY0H8/s1600/03.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvMJcil0EemKl_Lj126StcJXIuSJFOU0GE2VeyaFF5U-0N4PM1jrZIDvV0uldKs3YCzq-qTUb_C2JRrWHVoCcqy-cOrvWFvUwiUfI_3aSx-AjEdFGBQIqRQjCC6po7lbN5ywFF2RjY0H8/s400/03.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">She’s probably bigger than Odysseus was.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9IDWYh-H-QK7Y0za33z8bdT5q9ZYlvd4Q4uUvEfhdqw8FQzOBfyo4vr1BdUEW_j1Nj01xdFbvCJVUVb6C7-XDfRXxQ0WhIniU0i1w3Yb5SkpObazFeTSk_p1PQWiLdab9KgQSuARkUSM/s1600/04.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9IDWYh-H-QK7Y0za33z8bdT5q9ZYlvd4Q4uUvEfhdqw8FQzOBfyo4vr1BdUEW_j1Nj01xdFbvCJVUVb6C7-XDfRXxQ0WhIniU0i1w3Yb5SkpObazFeTSk_p1PQWiLdab9KgQSuARkUSM/s400/04.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">The stage for this drama
is no less than the entire fifth-century-BCE Greek peninsula. Regions and
cities whose names served for so long to make English-speakers who pronounced
them wrong sound cleverer than they were, have been reborn as vibrant and
integrated game zones for you to explore, complete with questlines and recommended level ranges.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">A mercenary protagonist is a feature<i>
Odyssey</i> shares with <i>Fire Emblem: Three Houses</i>, and perhaps that is
significant. These two games are very different, yet alike in asking you to look
on the conflicts of their worlds’ warring factions as an independent outsider; to
exercise your own agency in who or what you decide to fight for, what future you
choose to shape. In the European tradition mercenaries are an unpopular
archetype, reviled for forsaking higher loyalty to flag or principle in order
to heed, apparently, the baser calls of wallet and whim. Their reputation has
never really recovered from their pasting by Machiavelli, who vilified their behaviour
in his likewise fractious and divided Italy (and who is another favourite in
the canon of old authors appropriated by the IR “Realists” to insist they were
right before they even existed). Yet times have changed. In our broken
modernity perhaps it is exactly such expectations of blind loyalty, of brazen
commitment to one nation’s superiority over others, that have landed us in the
present authoritarian cock-fight in which people of competence and good
judgement are kept from power in favour of those with the most deferential
genuflections and mouths most bilious with prejudice. When better for these
games to prevail on us to reconsider the mercenary archetype? </span></span></div>
<span face="">
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<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In such an era there is value in the
mercenary’s non-alignment. There is power in the so-called <i>citizen of
nowhere</i>’s refusal to bow in allegiance to anyone; in the detachment to
consider the merits and flaws of all sides for yourself; in the choice to lend
your strength to causes you, on your own two feet, decide are worth it, all the
while reserving the right to part ways and go fight with someone else if your
first choice does not meet your standards; and of course, to develop <i>family</i>
and <i>belonging</i> in a way that works for you, rather than dismember your
heart to fit your society’s coercive cookie-cutters.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
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<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Kassandra’s awkward relationship with
Sparta reflects this. Raised in a Spartan family under a cultural ethos in
which every individual is a resource to be forged to maximum potential for the
war effort, Sparta made Kassandra the juggernaut she is and is evident in her
every interaction with the world. Yet it quickly transpires that her life has
been defined by acts of tremendous cruelty both by and upon her family for
which that same Spartan culture is at least part responsible. Whatever threads
bind Sparta to Kassandra’s heart thus hold only so far on her mind, and still
less on her sword arm. Hers is a journey in which she will happily walk
alongside Spartans when she identifies with them or finds her and their
interests aligned, just as she will with the Athenians – but conversely will
not hesitate to clean Spartan hoplites out of their fortresses, crush them by
the dozen on the battlefield or ram their ships to splinters when they stand in the way of her journey.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg01w0Bq1aS4Ru76N__7SAkLrBUf6_MOZ6Y3PHQ_BvOtCnofGxrLKrvHNa5PUbXHpnTH1MGSystUBNyJwARhGa0q0V4tJCX7kd63JzeBFB4fLUF5v71frjar70thOHbHFy0vchZQxru2Q/s1600/05.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg01w0Bq1aS4Ru76N__7SAkLrBUf6_MOZ6Y3PHQ_BvOtCnofGxrLKrvHNa5PUbXHpnTH1MGSystUBNyJwARhGa0q0V4tJCX7kd63JzeBFB4fLUF5v71frjar70thOHbHFy0vchZQxru2Q/s400/05.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">If she ever finds her
way into <i>Smash Bros.</i> and comes face-to-face with <i>Animal Crossing</i>’s
Isabelle, then we’re all in serious trouble.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7IR6phyZmFxTefE-o-To7141OFEfWxHDSoQ28vgAE2_dg_59UVgcUyy83Z3SWoWvOwgVKT9LqCo-60lDG9uKsWBfUjblRRmuwj6FNEtrgQrJMhdRRcMRXzSi6idMVcmtzDB0aZDIfCvo/s1600/06.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7IR6phyZmFxTefE-o-To7141OFEfWxHDSoQ28vgAE2_dg_59UVgcUyy83Z3SWoWvOwgVKT9LqCo-60lDG9uKsWBfUjblRRmuwj6FNEtrgQrJMhdRRcMRXzSi6idMVcmtzDB0aZDIfCvo/s400/06.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Because it’s Greece, this
game has a rousing naval dimension. You can dominate the high seas in a ship
that's yours to upgrade and customise along the journey, including a wide
selection of crews who sing Greek sea shanties and cheer with excitement when
you come on board.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The power in this comes from the
utter immersion of doing it in as thorough and exhaustive a likeness of the
ancient Greek world as perhaps has yet been assembled in human history, and
which the interactive nature of videogames makes them uniquely suited to
attempt. The strength of the <i>Odyssey</i> team’s effort is plain: to conjure
an ancient Greece made not of two millennia’s accumulated baggage of
stereotypes, but of the sights, sounds and smells of a real and complex culture
lived in by real and complex human beings. Of great effect to this end is that
they seem to have bothered to get actual Greek people to do most of the voice
acting, and the result is a believably enlivening spoken environment, with
Melissanthi Mahut’s outstanding Kassandra the pinnacle of its accomplishment. </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">On top of that, the game takes that whole daunting stone-faced roster of Big Names that have intimidated generations of students and laypeople
from their plinths and pages, and invites you to imagine them instead as
flesh-and-blood human beings. Perikles, Herodotos, Aspasia, Sokrates, Kleon, Hippokrates,
Brasidas, Lysander, Alkibiades, Phidias and their like, even (for reasons the
plot makes apparent) half-legends from an earlier age like Leonidas and
Pythagoras, are brought to life to induce, as apt, your mirth and frustration, suspicion
and respect, as well as your personal involvement in the great political and
cultural currents they are remembered for shaping.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8nGnwBFKFg-fGWCHl92XmE8V5D_yE3su_yCQRtHFqGNWH_NzXX2tizQSm0rw3LiP_vxuYgAE6cwOD-z6SLhvD0Wkzu0KkI12FmfRX30ZhTeZg6Xo9oYJKdaVwjlsH10ZxbUs8BB_Ad2M/s1600/07.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8nGnwBFKFg-fGWCHl92XmE8V5D_yE3su_yCQRtHFqGNWH_NzXX2tizQSm0rw3LiP_vxuYgAE6cwOD-z6SLhvD0Wkzu0KkI12FmfRX30ZhTeZg6Xo9oYJKdaVwjlsH10ZxbUs8BB_Ad2M/s400/07.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Sokrates. The
Socratic Method feels very different when it is not some abstract dialogue in a
textbook but an interruption innocently applied by his grinning face to every
encounter with strangers. You decide whether he’s
trying to promote your critical thinking or just drive you up the wall.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">A work like this necessarily draws
scrutiny over its accuracy. Inevitably, it takes liberties. In the interests of
smooth gameplay a degree of abstraction is applied to the warring factions, or to
the association of regions and islands with given industrial or cultural themes
– the salt mines of Lokris, the military sweatshops of Messenia, the purple dye
of Kythera, or the tackification of the already ancient Minotaur legends to
dupe tourists in eastern Crete (which contrasts nicely with encountering the
actual Minotaur when you find it). Representations of such historic individuals
and events are necessarily a work of imagination, especially as and where the documentary
record is partial or plain lacking. On top of that, it takes a respectably bold
cheek to take daunting and consequential landmarks in history – the death of
Perikles, the Battle of Amphipolis, Kleon’s attempt to punish the people of
Mytilene – and re-cast them as plot points in a drama that frames the
Peloponnesian War as itself merely the manifestation of multi-millennial conspiracies
slithering in the darkness of history’s backstage.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet consider this. The
artists and storytellers of the Western world have rearranged the memory of Ancient
Greece through all the centuries since, and all too often in the service of far unworthier
agendas. The entire concept of Ancient Greece as the cradle of some supremely
cultured, morally progressive Western civilisation is amusing when you consider
that the idea of <i>Western</i>, even <i>European</i>, let alone what they tend
to really mean – <i>white</i> – did not exist at that time and would not emerge
in human imagination till centuries later. After so many layers of imagining
and re-imagining, any attempt today to penetrate to that ancient world must
want for <i>accuracy</i> just the same as two and a half thousand years’
worth of shifting cultural viewpoints and vested interests. At the extreme
least, a videogame that gives it a go in good faith merely continues that
tradition and is far from the most suspect of its participants.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXGdntaO4kXL2yqum3zScISDrQk6M6bHWV9QagOkdjI-SlYrTTxNUATAQwnAHtUZEVJoq0EvaDaho0lI5PXq_Oirz1zDCg5RBLH0bn-Cl_uUcebnXYVOdqtRZKz9MCxi0rvVQ1D7Vh9Zk/s1600/08.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXGdntaO4kXL2yqum3zScISDrQk6M6bHWV9QagOkdjI-SlYrTTxNUATAQwnAHtUZEVJoq0EvaDaho0lI5PXq_Oirz1zDCg5RBLH0bn-Cl_uUcebnXYVOdqtRZKz9MCxi0rvVQ1D7Vh9Zk/s400/08.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">An excellent
bonus is the <i>Discovery Tour</i> mode that comes attached to the main game.
It can be bought separately and is designed to offer an immersive instruction
in Ancient Greek history, culture and daily life through tours curated by
professional historians. Characters from the main game introduce these
tours but all its narrative content and violence are set aside, letting you wander
into military installations without being attacked or go up to wild bears in
the countryside.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Nowhere can this challenge have been
greater than on gender and sexuality: that is, how to portray a violent and
misogynistic era for an audience in a different kind of violent and
misogynistic era, while holding both to account, as humans must, in ways that chime
with the climates of both worlds. This was an area where Ubisoft had previously
been found wanting, especially after a controversy over non-inclusion of a
playable female protagonist in an earlier <i>Assassin’s Creed</i> game upon a
feeble excuse about it being too much extra work for animations and costumes. </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">But
the treatment they pulled off in <i>Odyssey</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> was masterful </span></span></span><span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">–</span></span> not least judging by the uproar it caused among the
masculinist extremists that dominate Ancient Greece’s self-styled inheritor
cultures today, who adore what they imagine as that world’s hyper-violent male
dominance. Ancient Greece certainly deserves all the notoriety it gets for the
crimes of its patriarchal culture, but as in all societies these were far more
complex than sometimes portrayed and </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Odyssey</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> maintains deft footing in exploring its
cracks and contradictions. There is that world’s relative sexual fluidity, to
which modern rigid sexuality categories and concepts of straightness would have
been alien, and behaviours considered queer today familiar at least to
particular social circles; the peculiarities of diverse regional cultures, not
least the relative opportunities available to Spartan women in their otherwise brutally-reputed
social structure; and as in most times and places, the overlaps between the
power differentials of gender and class, and the ways the latter so often
trumps the former.</span></span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8yRdYAW8HHFlS5Kq5MudBrRYvouuzetEJ6hGCh3gK3VygjkP7I-MR7qovYc0WzMCsWPZxFvJidCjJ6292FHj6JUJ90ZJfQqMkAXXFAwCOcpGHx1VyVp89I66M_L3lnQsxnnbg5NWir9U/s1600/09.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8yRdYAW8HHFlS5Kq5MudBrRYvouuzetEJ6hGCh3gK3VygjkP7I-MR7qovYc0WzMCsWPZxFvJidCjJ6292FHj6JUJ90ZJfQqMkAXXFAwCOcpGHx1VyVp89I66M_L3lnQsxnnbg5NWir9U/s640/09.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Kassandra is an inspiration. Would that the entire notion of femininity, if allowed to exist at all, be re-forged around the magnitude of her example.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This game
was a chance encounter for me, but its appeal was quick to work and called for
much shuttling between the Aegean Sea and that other ocean where I built my island
retreat in </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Animal Crossing</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">. There is much that could be
explored in that appeal – of roaming the cities and wildernesses of a tainted
yet still beautiful ancient land</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">; of the profound example set by Kassandra’s own character,
whether as woman or as independent mind in a splintered world; or of getting
one’s own back on the arrogance of Athens, the callousness of Sparta, and the
guilt of both in saddling future generations with the memory of a pointless and
futile war, not to mention the clay it dropped in the hands of irresponsible
political theorists. But perhaps the real power <i>Odyssey</i> offers is to get
up close and personal with an ancient Greek world too often interpreted through
the misleading permanence of marble, the deceptive twirling of ink, and imagine
it instead for what it was: a messy, chaotic, living jumble of humanity with its
hopes and fears, dreams and insecurities, virtues and flaws – a world, perhaps,
not so far from our one after all.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span face="">
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">5) The Power of <u>Will</u>: <i>Xenoblade
Chronicles</i> (Monolith Soft, 2010/2020)</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></span></div>
<span face="">
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<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Is
it in our power to <i>change the world</i>? Or has everything already been decided, as though each particle
of reality dances to a pre-determined script programmed into it at the
universe’s creation?</span></span></div>
<span face="">
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<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">As our world is swept by colossal
forces that seem beyond our control – wars, plagues, mass hatreds, or the runaway
power of big data – it is easy to feel overwhelmed into impotence. Perhaps it
is no coincidence that all of these games’ power revolves round the sense of
agency they give back to you. They remind you what it feels like to travel
freely, to fight the fight you want to, to create, to reshape the future. <i>To
choose</i>. Yet this is a conflict as old as thought
itself; one which troubled no few of those old Greeks in the last game, yet
on which their debates would hardly have been the first. Do humans
happen, or get happened to? Are we subjects, or objects? Are we shapers of
events, or at their mercy? To what does this universe move: <i>Fate</i>, or <i>Will</i>?
This is the question to which <i>Xenoblade Chronicles</i> brings its attention.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC-R6GQ6ShOpprlb0g-b0fvobfVdJLEK3WJga-_rOtceq4Vgj-X1IboPbpX_PbcOtNZ2hK2ia1WO6WpEQbOJg6METKESvOy-JCsOcO9RY0u3Vphzsbp_JvYiHHx0oJbcs2GMRUXVrysUk/s1600/01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC-R6GQ6ShOpprlb0g-b0fvobfVdJLEK3WJga-_rOtceq4Vgj-X1IboPbpX_PbcOtNZ2hK2ia1WO6WpEQbOJg6METKESvOy-JCsOcO9RY0u3Vphzsbp_JvYiHHx0oJbcs2GMRUXVrysUk/s400/01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span face=""><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Xenoblade Chronicles</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> is the oldest game on this list. It
received a much-enhanced <i>Definitive Edition</i> remaster this May, but its
original release year of 2010 already feels like a former age. This game was
created, and its story written, in a world where phenomena like Donald Trump,
the Brexit cult, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi had yet to ejaculate to power and
commit their countries unequivocally to madness. The world of a decade ago was
tormented and apprehensive for sure, but not yet floundering in today’s all-consuming
anxiety that absolutely everything is fucked. Perhaps that is why this game
conveys such a sense of clarity. Unencumbered by the 2010s’ minefield of
traumas, it feels a fresher, purer reflection on timeless themes.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
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<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Which is not to say it is any gentler
on your nervous system. <i>Xenoblade Chronicles</i> is an action-oriented
Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG) <i>par excellence</i>, exhibiting all the
features that people familiar with that genre, especially its most
distinguished paragon, the <i>Final Fantasy</i> series, have come to expect of
it. This is an epic story of a group of heroes travelling through a vast world,
negotiating its diverse biomes and complex political problems in an ultimate
struggle against world-threatening evils – but also exploring, inseparably, the
protagonists’ personal journeys, friendships and conflicts in the midst of
great philosophical problems and high-cultural references. </span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAaZSHCmnV9sEZmr3SIJrKXi6LA2BgPkRHby0qn33ZjYbo2cc5kCMcbG7xEoDcRqG9YxWdj-c6MDDSOBMxp0Eyw74oePyM9TmDiyR5XYmoVolRORUbG2o5B-XknM2CiN8YOh1RTDj2N_8/s1600/02.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAaZSHCmnV9sEZmr3SIJrKXi6LA2BgPkRHby0qn33ZjYbo2cc5kCMcbG7xEoDcRqG9YxWdj-c6MDDSOBMxp0Eyw74oePyM9TmDiyR5XYmoVolRORUbG2o5B-XknM2CiN8YOh1RTDj2N_8/s640/02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">One of the many
sweeping landscapes you explore in this game. This early-game grassland
comes with the obligatory gigantic stomping red creature who is about sixty
levels higher than the zone average and will effortlessly tread on your party
if it spots you.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The game’s premise
is a mythic clash between two titanic beings – one organic, the <i>Bionis</i>,
and the other mechanical, the <i>Mechonis</i> – in a world of seemingly endless
sea and sky. Evidently it is more than a myth, for the dormant husks of these
two continent-sized entities make up the physical world in which this story
unfolds. It begins with a few humans (or <i>Homs</i> in that world) in a
settlement near the base of the Bionis’s leg; specifically, a young mechanic
called Shulk, whose fate is intertwined with a mysterious <i>kanji</i>-flashing
red weapon called the <i>Monado</i> that is the game’s central motif. </span></span></div>
<span face="">
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhae4eGwPb3znsXOr9IAwkzhS5Te4oeu-ZRAp9BLmUDtSMKJ6fRac6MunkD_DSvX4L-hWEAxa3_J3VAQ_WuPooWeXXhAoP4ayeZm1g2jTAONbiylBzxHNFj6LqUMgsLOg_pbs3GsxW6S1Q/s1600/03.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhae4eGwPb3znsXOr9IAwkzhS5Te4oeu-ZRAp9BLmUDtSMKJ6fRac6MunkD_DSvX4L-hWEAxa3_J3VAQ_WuPooWeXXhAoP4ayeZm1g2jTAONbiylBzxHNFj6LqUMgsLOg_pbs3GsxW6S1Q/s400/03.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Monado’s
name evokes the <i>Monad</i> in cosmic philosophy: the notion of a singular
supreme concept or being, with echoes of Gnosticism and the enigmatic mathematical
mysticism of our old friend Pythagoras. This of course is not a coincidence.
Coincidence does not enter into <i>Xenoblade Chronicles</i>.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4a932XqenDazphxVB7Xr5kwZvPnp1t-0nTSMhQ-UOPTWph1ciJxXL9Snd6lC18FVr4IvWW8OomOnm3MPMZPk-Ntmm7IO1aI_br67FWkPTFV3AIfeMbv81optrFxVd8by5LhxSGv45g8E/s1600/04.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4a932XqenDazphxVB7Xr5kwZvPnp1t-0nTSMhQ-UOPTWph1ciJxXL9Snd6lC18FVr4IvWW8OomOnm3MPMZPk-Ntmm7IO1aI_br67FWkPTFV3AIfeMbv81optrFxVd8by5LhxSGv45g8E/s400/04.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Floating islands and
seas in the sky are just a handful of the unusual settings that make up this
world.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span face=""></span><span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It transpires that though the two
great titans’ movement has ceased, the conflict between the Bionis’s inhabitants
and the robotic beings that swarm off the Mechonis has not. Dramatic events
ensue that shatter the peace of the human colony and set the protagonists’
journey in motion within what at first appears to be a framing thesis of
organics versus synthetics. This is itself a mighty philosophical challenge,
existential to humans as a technology-dependent species and more relevant than
ever in this age of oppressive algorithms and automation, of murder-drones and genocide-enabling
social media. Most people will likely have some familiarity with its long interrogation
by the arts, in video games perhaps most memorably by the <i>Mass Effect</i>
series but with a lineage at least as old as <i>Frankenstein</i>, if not indeed
Prometheus. </span></span><span face=""></span><span face="">
</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span face="">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet as the story unfolds, new
characters and civilisations get involved and the revelation of expanding
layers of truth rolls open a far more complex picture. Your party is joined by
members of the Bionis’s other factions, such as the fuzzy and bouncy
Nopon and the proud and aloof High Entia, and the Mechonis likewise emerges as
not the simple nest of killer computers it might have appeared. Subtly but
surely, themes of ecology and environment, war trauma, historical inheritance
and racism all bubble to the surface. The deeper in you are drawn, the further
out you find the picture-frame extended. Steadily the stakes rise, and what
started as a personal quest for vengeance grows into a political struggle and
eventually a reckoning with supreme cosmic forces over the greatest questions
of all – the meaning of life, the nature of godhood, and always, once again, that
existential conundrum: Fate, or Will?</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc6BogJJ5_XZHM8JFjfk-aj7RR45q3NFRjMtdZoBnB-2vns8CWgGeuPE8v9FPuhb3YTL14bDTvhU20TC25tRF9ckZ-nffVx_YrHHta87Wza-9GLi8bxb2ohnQ0_N1U9TMA4tI-h8-SPcE/s1600/05.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc6BogJJ5_XZHM8JFjfk-aj7RR45q3NFRjMtdZoBnB-2vns8CWgGeuPE8v9FPuhb3YTL14bDTvhU20TC25tRF9ckZ-nffVx_YrHHta87Wza-9GLi8bxb2ohnQ0_N1U9TMA4tI-h8-SPcE/s400/05.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">Nopons are cute, and
the game knows well how to play that cuteness for affection and amusement to
bely the sophistication of their society. Said cuteness makes them accepted
among most species, with the result that their wandering merchants and broad
diaspora give them an extensively-connected information network and
considerable economic nous – and you bet there are Nopon who turn this to
invidious advantage. They’re endearing even when they do that (and they know
it).</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">There are people in
our world who obsessively insist that people smile in photographs. In fact it
is every person’s right to choose the facial expression he or she wants, or
indeed whether to look at the camera at all. That is called bodily sovereignty.
It would do the smile-obsessives well to learn this now rather than later,
because there are also individuals, as varyingly evident here, who in response
to their demands would teach them this lesson the hard way.</span></span></span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">This core theme is built into the gameplay, in particular the combat
system. Imagine the tank-healer-DPS mechanics of multiplayer RPGs like </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-fall-of-world-of-warcraft.html"><u><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">World of Warcraft</span></i></u></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">, but mercifully, with the AI
controlling the other party members so you don’t have to rely on actual humans
who will leave the keyboard at random moments or wreck your evening with their
swaggering ineptitude. Something about the Monado, it turns out, gives you
visions of the hard-wired future – armed with which knowledge you are thus
empowered to take action to change that future, such as a well-placed shield or
stun to avert a monster’s smooshing of one of your party members a few seconds
later.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In the main storyline this
determinism-versus-free-will struggle speaks obviously enough for itself, but
it also stands out in the side-pursuits that dominate most of the game.
Through its affinity chart system, the game encourages you to interact with an
enormous supporting cast that populates its various settlements, most of whom
have little to no role in the main story but whose innumerable (i.e. nearly 500) little
sub-quests bring the <i>Xenoblade</i>
world to life. These are sometimes funny and charming, sometimes dark and
thought-provoking; there are the obligatory kill-something-here or
gather-something-there quests, but also family breakdowns, research
breakthroughs, squabbles over political differences of opinion, and more than a
few superb moments of madness: a ferocious restaurant rivalry, ancient battles
between giants and spiders, and of course a certain matter of a Nopon pollen-drug
cartel. As you make your way through these people’s dramas you can observe
their relationships changing on the affinity chart, hopefully for the better,
but always in reflection of the fact that your choices have rippling impacts on
the world. </span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIE18fOdTltQEv_8fWvu5JFyFXw9scEEnPk3ZVx1i8DD0kEV_HvIe2JNVr5JU1fTbslG69cUOhD8dRsxOavYeTwLmeK_WWFZHwsRNYqNxRYMyjuY0EKb2EmNtTTWVPzIgINrXeUNWvr9U/s1600/07.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIE18fOdTltQEv_8fWvu5JFyFXw9scEEnPk3ZVx1i8DD0kEV_HvIe2JNVr5JU1fTbslG69cUOhD8dRsxOavYeTwLmeK_WWFZHwsRNYqNxRYMyjuY0EKb2EmNtTTWVPzIgINrXeUNWvr9U/s400/07.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">A small part (yes) of
the Affinity Chart. Different choices in some quests can have drastically
different effects on people’s relationships, giving the Chart multiple
potential outcomes. Improving your own party’s relationships with these
communities unlocks more quests and makes them willing to trade
better items with you.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">It is that experience, specially
deliverable by a role-playing videogame, that reminds you that questions of
fate or will are not an abstract theoretical problem but one that makes or breaks real people’s lives. Its consequences in this game are
played out not in equations scribbled on paper but in the loves and losses,
hopes and despairs of individuals and entire civilisations. <i>Xenoblade
Chronicles</i> is an emotional meat-grinder. If it succeeds at investing you
into caring about its characters (whether helped or hindered by voice acting
which is, peculiarly, <i>very</i> English rather than American), you are in for
a heart-stretching, nerve-crunching ride up and down a story that, while
sometimes predictable, knows how to draw out its suspenses, keep hopes and
fears on slow boil, and deposit disturbing suppositions in your consciousness
that will trouble it long after you switch the game off. There are body and
memory alterations, dark genetic secrets, and perhaps the main drawback to being
blessed with visions of the future in a troubled world: that pretty much every encounter
with someone new comes with an immediate visualisation of their violent death (which
of course remains in your psychological baggage whether or not you manage to
prevent that future).</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I happened to give this game a go at
a time of mental instability, and at times had to wonder whether that was such a
good idea. In the end I believe it was. The overall tendency is still for
anguish to find catharsis, for cruelties to be forestalled and tragedies assuaged,
or at least unfolded to resolution at some higher level of complexity – in
other words, for Will to prevail in its battle with Fate. Maybe that’s also why
the game’s relative genderedness as a jarring creature of the 2000s doesn’t shipwreck
the experience either. There is certainly head-rearing by the likes of
mono-normative nuclear family assumptions and the masculine-feminine axis of
behaviours and relationship norms, not to mention that classic bugbear of RPGs
in which a given piece of armour, when equipped on a female character, appears
to magically lose about 95% of its visual mass despite somehow affording the
same protection. For this, too, is a function of choices people have made, not
of inevitable destiny, and it is up to us to self-interrogate, to reflect and to choose a better future.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoe3lB7FBVI7pPxBHOdWRsvrgN6-knep5oiz8QfNg1ApMRnVkdxfHaG3o6-PvUGqO44CwlwbXgxv5af7CBO5QAKifch641EGCxnHjFs1hTaYe9whRAdOO15ijWPXn1JdVNcPRPyLT0mng/s1600/08.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoe3lB7FBVI7pPxBHOdWRsvrgN6-knep5oiz8QfNg1ApMRnVkdxfHaG3o6-PvUGqO44CwlwbXgxv5af7CBO5QAKifch641EGCxnHjFs1hTaYe9whRAdOO15ijWPXn1JdVNcPRPyLT0mng/s400/08.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span face=""><span style="line-height: 107%;">To be fair on it this game
makes a very worthy showing on strong and complex female characters. One of its
most important and philosophically compelling narrative journeys is that of
Shulk’s friend Fiora, though for reasons you know if you've experienced the
story yourself, it would be prudent here to say absolutely nothing more.</span></span></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""></span><span face=""></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The same is true of all the apparently
cosmic gales that have swept down to shatter our lives, like the nationalisms,
the bigotries, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the grand abuse of data and
technology. Will, not Fate, has landed them in our path, and it is Will, not Fate,
that will decide whether we push them back off it. We each have a share of
agency in choosing how to respond to such a world, that is, in whether we put the
weight of our own Monados into enabling its wreckers’ bloody visions, or
rejecting them to build a future for everyone. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The impact of that will might be
small for any one of us, but its power is still the most important, for all
other power flows from its foundation while if it is absent there can be no
power at all. If a game like <i>Xenoblade Chronicles</i> can help awaken that
awareness by equipping its players to think at such a level, then that, too, is
power it would be folly to overlook.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Conclusion</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Breathe. Feel and experience (not
only see) things from multiple directions. Escape to a place where it is safe to
reflect and express yourself. Soar back into the faces of vast destructive
forces and expose that their grip on reality is not so absolute after all. Raise
your awareness that reality is not <i>just there</i>, but has been cobbled
together by countless large and small acts of will, and that yours, too, has real
and potential cobbling power.</span></span></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<span face="">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Those who have sunk our world into
its present tribulations do not wish you to do these things. They seek to
suffocate you (so you<i> can’t breathe</i>). To close your feelings to all
alternative perspectives. To leave you no escape. To convince you that they,
they alone, are reality. To make you feel your life, your will, counts for
nothing.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">That is why they fear videogames. They fear everything that helps give you back your reality.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span face=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
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<![endif]-->Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com2London, UK51.5073509 -0.127758351.1912379 -0.7732053 51.8234639 0.5176887tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-91138044593313837452020-04-12T17:25:00.002+01:002020-04-12T17:30:30.153+01:00COVID-19 is Not the True Enemy<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8xzmoZpFxEuUGCZ6RCLiKQ1VQwyGhjCl7z8y4aG5hecLgd1DQ0ne1QqU5f43EGqWT-Np0VJtbUnONL7n1tsw7_yIhpYhLdW-SY9SIsgWfSc_7EPSO8Y70Piqp0tAlpHUmE8XJyAfTOhE/s1600/COVID-19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8xzmoZpFxEuUGCZ6RCLiKQ1VQwyGhjCl7z8y4aG5hecLgd1DQ0ne1QqU5f43EGqWT-Np0VJtbUnONL7n1tsw7_yIhpYhLdW-SY9SIsgWfSc_7EPSO8Y70Piqp0tAlpHUmE8XJyAfTOhE/s400/COVID-19.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption">Image: <i>New Scientist</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
COVID-19 pandemic is a common threat to all humankind. Much has been said about
the need to put politics aside to unite against it. If only. For in this world
of our making, COVID-19 is extremely political and is becoming the gateway for
something far deadlier.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
pandemic was not unpredictable. Warnings and precedents have been there for
years. It has only done its damage because of the political and cultural
failure of all countries to build and protect strong public healthcare systems;
to prepare even when they knew COVID-19 was coming; to tell the truth about it;
to mount an informed and effective response; to cooperate with one another against
a challenge to them all; and most fundamentally, to value real people, with real
lives, over abstract totems like “the nation” and “the economy”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But the
problem goes beyond failing at a pandemic. The problem is one of power. It is
of how human societies, for years, even decades, have been handing their power
to those who could not care less about human death and suffering; and that
these <b>Trolls</b>, as we might call them, are finding in this virus a springboard to
launch their abuse of humankind to unstoppable heights.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
Trolls take many forms. Authoritarians, nationalists, gender-policers, and the
cultists of the market all stand among them. There are many well-trod roads to
Trolldom, often from opposing directions, but two characteristics bring them
together: </div>
a) The belief that <i>life should serve power</i>,
rather than power serve life;<br />
b) The subordination of all things, even truth
itself, to the pursuit of that power.
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
sum of the Trolls’ threat far exceeds, and will long outlast, that of COVID-19.
This is not to trivialise the death and agony the virus wreaks as we speak. But
COVID-19 <i>will</i> pass, as even the deadliest pandemics in history did. By
then it will have killed hundreds of thousands of people. The Trolls, for their part, killed <i>hundreds of millions</i>
in the twentieth century alone. They will do so again if we allow them to claim
the twenty-first. And by that point they will have compromised our response to
the challenges of climate change, making their threat, unlike the virus’s,
existential.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Consider
some of what has been happening in this pandemic so far.</div>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"></span></span></span>The UK, US and China and many other countries
have been threatening and punishing their medical professionals for telling the
truth about the spread of COVID-19, or for speaking out about their countries’ blunders
in responding to it (such as failing to supply them with sufficient protective
equipment).</li>
<li>Manipulation of COVID-19 statistics for
political purposes has become standard in many countries.</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"></span></span></span>In much of the world the pandemic has provided a
pretext for racist attacks on Chinese people (or people seen as appearing
Chinese). US leaders have purposefully referred to the “Chinese virus” and
sought to shift blame onto China for the whole pandemic.</li>
<li>The Chinese government has responded in kind,
blaming the US for COVID-19’s spread and casting the virus as a foreign menace
as attention there turns to preventing its re-introduction from abroad. The
severity of the pandemic looks likely to owe at least some part to the punitive
silencing of Chinese medical professionals who warned of it in its early
stages.</li>
<li>Hungary and Cambodia are among countries which
have passed emergency laws to give the authorities sweeping powers with no time
limits, checks or balances. </li>
<li>In Hungary, prime minister Viktor Orbán has
instantly followed up by using these new powers to threaten journalists and
draft a law to forbid legal recognition of trans people. Ugandan police used
social distancing laws as a pretext to arrest 20 homeless people in an LGBT
shelter in Kampala. Several US states have similarly taken advantage of the
emergency to restrict abortions.</li>
<li>India, Kenya and the Philippines are among
countries where lockdowns and special powers have provided an excuse for police
brutality and arbitrary power-tripping, including beatings with sticks, use of tear
gas, and humiliating punishments.</li>
<li>Jair Bolsonaro, president of Brazil, has shamelessly
put its population in mortal danger by effectively roaring with laughter at the
virus and shaking the contents of his penis at it.</li>
<li>The World Health Organization (WHO) has failed
to acknowledge the epidemiological existence of Taiwan, and is excluding its
efforts against COVID-19 (some of the most capable of any society’s so far)
from statistics and international cooperation. Even for the WHO, political
submission to the government of the People’s Republic has evidently taken
precedence over reality-based cooperation against a virus that has no interest
in political borders, as exemplified in WHO advisor Bruce Aylward’s pretence at
not hearing the questions about Taiwan in his now-infamous interview with the
Hong Kong media. </li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
None
of these behaviours are new on account of COVID-19. For years the Trolls have
been seducing populations, capturing governments, smashing institutions,
punishing love, corroding the very concept of truth, and killing and violating
with impunity whether for power, profit or prejudice. Even before COVID-19,
they were mounting into the single biggest challenge to humankind in its
history.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
point, however, is that though some Trolls were initially wrong-footed by the
crisis, their concern since has been to seek every possible way to exploit its
grief and suffering to advance their ruination of the world. The longer the
crisis goes on, the more organised and systematic the Trolls’ efforts have
become. They know well that COVID-19 is political.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
So
far, there has been little or no corresponding political mobilisation to stop
the Trolls. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
There
have been cheering signals: people pulling together and supporting each other
through grassroots community efforts; heroic labours and sacrifices by medical
staff and workers in the bloodstream of everyday socio-economic infrastructure,
often the least recognised or rewarded people in their societies; and a
re-affirmation of how important our relationships are, with each other and with
the natural world. But these do not, in themselves, amount to a movement for
political change: for change in our societies’ arrangement and use of power.
They are necessary, heartwarming even, and a genuine fount of energy for
bringing about the more humane world that the pandemic has awakened so much
hope for, but this will not take place unless the Trolls are expelled from
their positions of power over and within all societies. Healing and learning
cannot take place so long as its instruments are controlled by abusers and
bullies comfortable in their ignorance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Change
will not come about automatically. Only by marshalling organisation and
political will, together, at least to a level that matches the Trolls’, can a
movement for change be built, and that in turn requires a consciousness
of COVID-19 as a political struggle. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
A consciousness
that first and foremost is alert to the Trolls’ tactics and strategic vision.
Look out, for example, for the following things:</div>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>Deliberate manipulation, suppression or misuse
of COVID-19 statistics;</li>
<li>Intimidation or punishment of doctors,
journalists or other professionals for speaking out about the impact of
COVID-19 or about problems in the response to it;</li>
<li>The extension of authoritarian powers over
speech, movement, association or other aspects of life, and especially of
digital surveillance methods, with a view to keeping those powers in place
after the crisis passes;</li>
<li>Attempts to scapegoat foreigners or unpopular
groups for COVID-19, and use it as cover to create us-versus-them narratives or
further otherise and subordinate the world, such as in environmental destruction,
enforcement of sexual and gender conformity, or persecution of immigrants and
other vulnerable sections of the population;</li>
<li>Prioritisation of abstract ends – the “economy”,
“security”, national pride etc. – over people’s lives;</li>
<li>Battlefield analogies and feelgood rhetoric
about the heroic struggle against COVID-19, in so far as it is deployed to
distract from problems and shame critical voices into silence;</li>
<li>And all the Little Bullies in the cracks and
dark places of society who exploit the atmosphere to get away with
power-tripping on an everyday level: domestic abusers, abuse of police power, unethical
behaviour by employers and landlords and so on.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Beyond
expelling the trolls, the struggle is also to take back this world from
Trollish values and practices. For the Trolls are not an external “other” but a
potential tendency in all our hearts, which can only be restrained by building
a public environment that heals pain, calms fear, and enlightens ignorance.
Only then will we stop producing Trolls and handing them power.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
COVID-19
represents what may be our last opportunity to bring down the Trolls before
they deal irreversible damage to the human future. What it has exposed about
their indifference to human suffering is news to no-one. What is new, what
makes this moment white-hot, is the shock, among many hitherto comfortable and
insulated people, about just how far the Trolls are prepared to go: not only by
failing to deploy their power against a predicted and manageable pandemic, but by
so shamelessly exploiting that outbreak, and all the grief and panic it
entails, as a political tool to expand and indulge in that power.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
That
shock, that moment, will not last. By the time another such moment comes, it
will be too late. If the Trolls do not finish us directly, they will do so by
destroying our responses to far worse challenges to come, from still deadlier
pandemics to climate change. We must confront the way of the Troll not some
time later, when the crisis has passed, but now – right now – and everywhere,
in all countries and at all levels of society.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
If
nothing else, we must undertake the following, relentlessly and with courage:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>1)
Support, communicate, organise</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Caring
for one another, building our relationships, leaving no-one behind – all these
are inherently political actions in a world where the Trolls have sought to extinguish
them from what it means to be human. Where states have failed, locals communities
must stand up with a strengthening and broadening political consciousness in
their actions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>2)
Pull down totems, raise up people</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
virus is indifferent to nationality, gender, or political or religious
opinions. No-one is safe from it. It shows us what really matters: real people
and their real relationships. It has shaken up everyone’s sense of reality, and
in moments when it has taken the Trolls aback, has even forced them to instantly
concede uses of power they have insisted were impossible for years. It is right
now that the illusions of national ego, and market dogma, and imaginary mobs at
the gates, are at their most fragile. Smash them. Criticise them, ridicule
them, and do not let them get back to their feet. Where they stood, raise
instead real people, and rearrange every instrument of power to better their
lives.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>3)
Tell the truth</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
Trolls’ power is built on their towers of lies, which have grown so high as to
cast the very ground of truth out of sight. Even in the midst of a crisis whose
solutions can only be built on a grasp of social and epidemiological realities,
the Trolls have not come down off those towers but continue to stack them
higher. Now their centres of gravity are at their most precarious – every word
of truth shakes these towers and makes them feel threatened. Speak out. Speak
the facts of COVID-19, and of what your society is getting wrong in response to
it. When they threaten you for it, speak out that they have done so. Support
others whom they hurt for speaking out. Bury the Trolls in the wreckage of
their lies.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
There
can be no return to “normal”. Normal is gone forever. What follows is either an
upward path of healing and learning, or a descent into a permanent winter of
tyranny and abuse for the rest of human existence on Earth. Here and now is the
best chance we will ever have to bring about a <b>Great Spring</b>. It is also the
last.</div>
<br />
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0London, UK51.5073509 -0.127758351.1912379 -0.7732053 51.8234639 0.5176887tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-87157625100547447942020-03-29T16:20:00.000+01:002020-03-29T16:20:23.227+01:00THAMES: 9) Death in the WillowsAfter
every storm comes the calm. And for the moment, what a calm.
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXIFcufvt1j6Rqq_E00kJhwo3fR7Gfde25l9CfH6-ATjQx_qTor3J5uenLcFjUEA_ltvXt6Mq6p0Hkq6-ara4x7pmy8EiMBusx6CvUVf4FRE8RcB-4Z0UdaTsRL4k2KQd9GymzetX8A-g/s1600/IMG_0160.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXIFcufvt1j6Rqq_E00kJhwo3fR7Gfde25l9CfH6-ATjQx_qTor3J5uenLcFjUEA_ltvXt6Mq6p0Hkq6-ara4x7pmy8EiMBusx6CvUVf4FRE8RcB-4Z0UdaTsRL4k2KQd9GymzetX8A-g/s640/IMG_0160.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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The
river’s been holding out on us. Not anymore. The floods and clouds recede over a flawless dreamscape. The Chiltern hillsides erupt
in fresh spring blooms, the screech of red kites slices the air, and
through it all the everlasting ribbon of
crystal-smooth water glints in the sunshine. Welcome, it says, to <i>Wind in
the Willows</i> territory.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>"Nice?
It's the </i>only<i> thing," said the Water Rat solemnly as he leant
forward for his stroke. "Believe me, my young friend, there is
nothing—absolute nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in
boats. Simply messing," he went on dreamily: "messing—about—in—boats;
messing—"</i></div>
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<i>"Look
ahead, Rat!" cried the Mole suddenly.</i></div>
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<i>It
was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous
oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air.</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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And so the dream crashes to a thousand splinters.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Oh make
no mistake, this dream, in this place, on this day, is reality. You can walk in
this gorgeousness, immerse all your senses in it, feel better for the fact it
exists – and then you can weep. Because realities constantly change, and all
realities are in contact with each other. All that this is, indicates all it is
not. And what this is not, it will be soon, for this is the calm before the most terrible storm in their lives.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHzvmilwVCIt6xsEBpj7gQ7WkJRK5o-9DMHt47A7F6pF4Kko3rfKAa-7QapwsM-jtk3p7UQlF2ODzs_vGKdO-NawoFyz5NQA4nvRQYXN_38RNiN45XAu00PAtXQTzvGEEWdqN2u478Mo/s1600/IMG_0120.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHzvmilwVCIt6xsEBpj7gQ7WkJRK5o-9DMHt47A7F6pF4Kko3rfKAa-7QapwsM-jtk3p7UQlF2ODzs_vGKdO-NawoFyz5NQA4nvRQYXN_38RNiN45XAu00PAtXQTzvGEEWdqN2u478Mo/s640/IMG_0120.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>So beautiful. But a thing a) is usually more than it seems – especially in
England – and b) by existing, implies the existence of its opposites.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The
picture has four sides. Underneath lurks English class violence in the ruins of
modernity. To the left, upriver, up the flow of time, the winter tempests rage
and the floods rear up to claim their due. And to the right, it careens down
the stream of time toward the doom that has now arrived: COVID-19, the
pandemic that has laid bare to the English, and all humankind, the disgrace of their
social and political arrangements. All that is needed to complete this sorry
meta-picture is the alien civilisations off the top, studying us with alarm and
concern and wondering how the hell, with a planet so abundant as this, we could
have got it so wrong.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Yet
in the dreamscape of the Thames valley, many have found it easy to tune out
what lies beyond its frames.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>"Beyond
the Wild Wood comes the Wide World," said the Rat. "And that's
something that doesn't matter, either to you or me. I've never been there, and
I'm never going, nor you either, if you've got any sense at all. Don't ever
refer to it again, please. Now then! Here's our backwater at last, where we're
going to lunch."</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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But now the
coronavirus has come in for its lunch.
Though invisible to the eye, it pinches all one’s senses round the picture-frame
of this progress through the best of the Thames valley so far, undertaken just before
the pandemic exploded. Walkers leave the paths to semicircle round each other
at wide berths; nervous conversations are overheard in pubs and parks. Most
telling of all, the water itself is empty of people. </div>
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<br /></div>
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That
is unthinkable, because this stretch ends down a long and famous straight in
the settlement of Henley-on-Thames. Henley is the command centre and primary
base of the English rowing establishment, a juggernaut we first
encountered on its <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">University
Boat Race</a></u> in London and must now confront in its nest. As such,
one would expect the Thames here to teem with boats, bristle with oars and
erupt with the grunts, heaves, hollers, sweat and megaphone-assisted admonishments
of an activity tethered to English national pride with the toughest of ropes
and regimented to military extremes as they drill for their lives…</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2FOSLFTzUynOWWtI6yuSo93RiPc1LnA9CdRJPEn7Rf8IDc0rz6u9z4RA9EZqhpxRDKmvH8jFIi5yKk4wskb8bW0kM0EOgstt6TlGGRi-869WY_XNh0pV4R-zjBdubDNWw0GGFPRsR4g0/s1600/IMG_0173.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2FOSLFTzUynOWWtI6yuSo93RiPc1LnA9CdRJPEn7Rf8IDc0rz6u9z4RA9EZqhpxRDKmvH8jFIi5yKk4wskb8bW0kM0EOgstt6TlGGRi-869WY_XNh0pV4R-zjBdubDNWw0GGFPRsR4g0/s640/IMG_0173.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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…but
not today. The river is silent. And when an enemy is fearsome enough to confine
the boats and paddles of Henley to their racks, you know it heralds the end of
an era.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj5fE8gB0jKu-eWsB-nWIBiHG5WT4-88Vq7Y820s82CsNv9F0XssjcCPv3RyS5yxA8kcCRNJwo2aA5mc96Zdyex6Df1kNnwaaB0ipu3ksVp1_cu56zpmraGVW0quRNYf-8P-fCPixn2jo/s1600/9%2529+Marlow+to+Henley.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="782" data-original-width="1600" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj5fE8gB0jKu-eWsB-nWIBiHG5WT4-88Vq7Y820s82CsNv9F0XssjcCPv3RyS5yxA8kcCRNJwo2aA5mc96Zdyex6Df1kNnwaaB0ipu3ksVp1_cu56zpmraGVW0quRNYf-8P-fCPixn2jo/s640/9%2529+Marlow+to+Henley.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>Start:</b>
Marlow Bridge (<i>nearest station: Marlow</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>End:</b>
Henley Bridge (<i>nearest station: Henley-on-Thames</i>)</div>
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Length:
13.6km/8.5 miles</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Location:
Buckinghamshire – Wycombe; Berkshire – Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead,
Wokingham; Oxfordshire – South Oxfordshire </div>
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<br /></div>
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<u>Topics</u>:
Bisham Abbey and the Temple Mills, <b>The Wind in the Willows</b>, Hurley,
Medmenham and the <b>Hellfire Club</b>, Remenham, <b>Henley-on-Thames</b> and
the <b>Plagues</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
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<br /></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bisham</span></u></b></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></u></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcasQ2moqNt0fK1iiSZ8EQqWw6id2VEBktrkYnBFtS3cxbmla7wogPqE29HvgQqQxd3AdzoesSfEy1_6-ViJK8VKw23gkKcEapKmd9jZ776WFXdJi9L9iKkU1WV7Fxj_EVFvzYrImPjYY/s1600/IMG_9950.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcasQ2moqNt0fK1iiSZ8EQqWw6id2VEBktrkYnBFtS3cxbmla7wogPqE29HvgQqQxd3AdzoesSfEy1_6-ViJK8VKw23gkKcEapKmd9jZ776WFXdJi9L9iKkU1WV7Fxj_EVFvzYrImPjYY/s640/IMG_9950.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>West up the Thames from Marlow Bridge. So peaceful. You wouldn’t think it’s all
about to get capsized by a microscopic obstacle.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To
set off upriver from Marlow is to pass through its recreational riverside. On
this bright spring morning it exudes a serenity. Children run
around on the grass. Elderly people take their morning walks, feed the swans, or
watch said swans' bark-and-hiss contests with their dogs.
</div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL8Zlr8adu5DpYC1LWND5Q_SEfqlu92vVoCmhdcWCpKr1viOHGU0-_5N6UnaJHBfV0z16Z0nad2DnDyhPxaXc7pmHB-cTU5ymE-4-ELin3fWF1bi2pOfaGN-aDcbcnBpYOEfMXG7eb0dA/s1600/IMG_9954.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL8Zlr8adu5DpYC1LWND5Q_SEfqlu92vVoCmhdcWCpKr1viOHGU0-_5N6UnaJHBfV0z16Z0nad2DnDyhPxaXc7pmHB-cTU5ymE-4-ELin3fWF1bi2pOfaGN-aDcbcnBpYOEfMXG7eb0dA/s400/IMG_9954.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Marlow’s public moorings along the waterfront of Higginson Park. The park is
named after General George Higginson (1826-1927), a son of Marlow who served as
an officer in the Grenadier Guards, fought in the Crimean War, and lived to one
hundred years old.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgd6gyoSjTG5CRu7VCQcW-gcQUZwvOoutmezA9QOuWB98LvxZCZfXML9kw__Bjw_ZeQ7aOsjzJX0O0Gw_s0AwHhLC913Tr-sYmTj1difbL2AwXHjOF2QLyRL2tDWA6xPKQZv2xLQGZCVE/s1600/IMG_9959.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgd6gyoSjTG5CRu7VCQcW-gcQUZwvOoutmezA9QOuWB98LvxZCZfXML9kw__Bjw_ZeQ7aOsjzJX0O0Gw_s0AwHhLC913Tr-sYmTj1difbL2AwXHjOF2QLyRL2tDWA6xPKQZv2xLQGZCVE/s400/IMG_9959.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Human and bird life bond over breakfast.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivQl1mpqXjCgpTdyXMgmbCkebVZDv9Vyhmh_DidXzUnE88IXAbRR0ak-Do7rYUZkHwoBCMOHQ0cZHm_0G8B03viKDHtEmXn7lsOJLK72_jVjwktIh7nOge8jHCT333wp57BDp8ZsdrFQM/s1600/IMG_9956.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivQl1mpqXjCgpTdyXMgmbCkebVZDv9Vyhmh_DidXzUnE88IXAbRR0ak-Do7rYUZkHwoBCMOHQ0cZHm_0G8B03viKDHtEmXn7lsOJLK72_jVjwktIh7nOge8jHCT333wp57BDp8ZsdrFQM/s400/IMG_9956.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>There is also bird life that will satisfy itself for the breakfast without the
bonding.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2MeA1-9tR6bxk3p5IylUPGetWqYK7qeP8lrYsT2ijPoagOxpCJ9m7y2k5Ajta2Z_Xb6jk38mCJkFHbhzxtiwwlS2Mb29WALdmt167LHvj7tIFyb0hY11udDTWGFkhoPPdOUHqUwtiSG0/s1600/IMG_9953.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2MeA1-9tR6bxk3p5IylUPGetWqYK7qeP8lrYsT2ijPoagOxpCJ9m7y2k5Ajta2Z_Xb6jk38mCJkFHbhzxtiwwlS2Mb29WALdmt167LHvj7tIFyb0hY11udDTWGFkhoPPdOUHqUwtiSG0/s400/IMG_9953.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>At the centre of the park is Court Garden (at right), whose 1760s house was designed
by a certain Dr. William Battie. Dr. Battie was a
physician who heavily critiqued the prevailing views on mental illness. His
efforts helped advance the shift from the imprisonment and torture of people
with mental health problems, towards supporting them in healthier and more humane
environments – a struggle that still continues, <u><a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201919/jtselect/jtrights/121/121.pdf">far
from resolved</a></u>, in England today. It is said the derogatory term <i>batty</i>
for people with mental health problems originates from Dr. Battie’s name – not
from his work, but because when he designed the house he spectacularly forgot
to include a staircase to the upper floors, thus requiring an external one to
be added later.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
With
that it is farewell to Marlow as the river strikes west. From here it winds
through its remotest landscapes yet, along the base of the <b>Chiltern Hills</b>:
that chalk escarpment that is the closest thing (at about 250m high, not really
that close) that the English south has to mountains. Here the fields and woods
unfurl, and the timelines, no longer bound to strong urban anchors, shift
insecure.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigbOySvJNRkcRBKB28dNbEhdoikWdnWfQxzqjzoPnYC6kOYELrgunVCZ1viaNJYD8eayek4LBHOg_vvQRUTHToR2H4J-xTtNTFQ7VkiUuKK_BV-CWjStK6Bui-pRtj1IDqhMLLLB0VtoI/s1600/IMG_9961.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigbOySvJNRkcRBKB28dNbEhdoikWdnWfQxzqjzoPnYC6kOYELrgunVCZ1viaNJYD8eayek4LBHOg_vvQRUTHToR2H4J-xTtNTFQ7VkiUuKK_BV-CWjStK6Bui-pRtj1IDqhMLLLB0VtoI/s400/IMG_9961.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Enjoy a final view of Marlow, with its towering steeple and <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-8-river-shamans.html">bridge
to Budapest</a></u>. At ri<u>g</u>ht is a bloody suspicious white thing that could be
either a ship or an outbuilding.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDRAbIwYuxzTe682nRyJw0HIYZ-bEYK5gMD1M7vvdFaKwFHVlzv0QWmIARPHNt-jzel_X3IJRsIkRL1sWiWx7e2ySODsNLqAyzPdG2xmDGQ21ZtlOmKHfii93aD_2oYyFXrQedjLznfQ/s1600/IMG_9975.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDRAbIwYuxzTe682nRyJw0HIYZ-bEYK5gMD1M7vvdFaKwFHVlzv0QWmIARPHNt-jzel_X3IJRsIkRL1sWiWx7e2ySODsNLqAyzPdG2xmDGQ21ZtlOmKHfii93aD_2oYyFXrQedjLznfQ/s400/IMG_9975.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Inland the town gives way to floodplain pastures. The Chiltern ridge begins to
poke up in the distance, dappled with the paler greens of young spring
growths.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
short order a stocky Norman church, with its twelfth-century Go-Away tower, asserts
itself on the opposite riverbank. It is the All Saints Church of <b>Bisham</b>
village, which will be familiar if you have been following this journey because
it was <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-5-cross-purposes.html">where
the monks of Chertsey Abbey gave it a final go after Henry VIII broke up their
monastery</a></u>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1PLPw2gUy63jARLs-zJuzr67ePir4DW3g7xYphRhWaKedopleDm3MD4y0FwPpcoYEzEddfYTi4MvbW0nIdc5fAi14QBnmE0rcOiHsdkBOM6K_OLckwezM3HIVzk2gOFPLJHOSDMQwtT4/s1600/IMG_9972.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1PLPw2gUy63jARLs-zJuzr67ePir4DW3g7xYphRhWaKedopleDm3MD4y0FwPpcoYEzEddfYTi4MvbW0nIdc5fAi14QBnmE0rcOiHsdkBOM6K_OLckwezM3HIVzk2gOFPLJHOSDMQwtT4/s400/IMG_9972.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Bisham’s church is an unmissable landmark here. The tower is
the oldest part; the rest has been added to and renovated numerous times. It
has particular associations with the Hoby family of English nobility under the
reign of Elizabeth I.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz_TyJkQc1n5_C3uDe2a-xd3ajiiPUvb6GZLs5YszxBc5Wcs7HiodDL_yGBAYQbyycck80yHjolxus_JRzydE6mFkfv0oU_n7LxQ80nPnh7a4s4FqeLbPaXiCiwy0aN1M9esMCN-CKC2c/s1600/IMG_9974.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz_TyJkQc1n5_C3uDe2a-xd3ajiiPUvb6GZLs5YszxBc5Wcs7HiodDL_yGBAYQbyycck80yHjolxus_JRzydE6mFkfv0oU_n7LxQ80nPnh7a4s4FqeLbPaXiCiwy0aN1M9esMCN-CKC2c/s400/IMG_9974.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>It has eyes and is looking at you.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw9lEy1R87d4amD0KUowK4LAAFXUH_FTLZ98zaoVRyLiAQ8hWt_dcjnBGeX_6NEtJQagxvB4W8fT7aen8mSI6Hc5lL3pgAFWYzVthlggjbFC0asrFkjYhTFbGn8_44x6C1MqrOUXKqvas/s1600/IMG_9981.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw9lEy1R87d4amD0KUowK4LAAFXUH_FTLZ98zaoVRyLiAQ8hWt_dcjnBGeX_6NEtJQagxvB4W8fT7aen8mSI6Hc5lL3pgAFWYzVthlggjbFC0asrFkjYhTFbGn8_44x6C1MqrOUXKqvas/s400/IMG_9981.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This one doesn’t have eyes, but is not the kind of plant to have differences of
opinion with.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
monastery complex was built just upriver, and centred on a manor
house which survives to the present day. The manor came first, built for the
formidable Knights Templar, but they were brutally suppressed in 1307 as the
European kings feared their growing power. From there Bisham passed through
various titled hands till it ended up with the Earls of Salisbury, who founded
the Bisham Priory monastic community around it. Like the other monasteries it
was crushed under Henry VIII’s purge in the 1530s, but unusually got a short
second lease of life – when the Chertsey monks retreated here – before
getting broken for good in 1538, after which all the monastery buildings were torn
down.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNB0cwFf_Jz3g2U2pUKizIgDI0KtaZuBNUnFSZF73QTtEomMqdFVCLc7PTt3RcrtZa1kdfkbfcfiOfkp_DK-_ZQxPF-GEcFztw-G6OpmmrYnlbLBcKNih74TMivah9CQ0cyKGsyw1aOYs/s1600/IMG_9982.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNB0cwFf_Jz3g2U2pUKizIgDI0KtaZuBNUnFSZF73QTtEomMqdFVCLc7PTt3RcrtZa1kdfkbfcfiOfkp_DK-_ZQxPF-GEcFztw-G6OpmmrYnlbLBcKNih74TMivah9CQ0cyKGsyw1aOYs/s400/IMG_9982.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Bisham Priory’s manor house is all that remains of the complex.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoMjwzwLbX3G0ouBESWTiQyMu5NFOz3VzOjGIbdIyiIaq1qd4lCyRQiVGFIszTqEs-o7sSDJUYYpmGQEKQCBrScuegXs6NN6xvWGpVUuv1rca5jkPjpPFCruqZa1wjVu7F4qNRl2YYB-Q/s1600/IMG_9978.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoMjwzwLbX3G0ouBESWTiQyMu5NFOz3VzOjGIbdIyiIaq1qd4lCyRQiVGFIszTqEs-o7sSDJUYYpmGQEKQCBrScuegXs6NN6xvWGpVUuv1rca5jkPjpPFCruqZa1wjVu7F4qNRl2YYB-Q/s400/IMG_9978.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The north bank facing it is known as Bondig Bank, whose willows the Bisham
monks harvested for osiers to make fences, baskets and fish traps. Bondig is an
Anglo-Saxon name and could refer to an even earlier occupant of this land.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But to
look closer at the manor house’s grounds is to spot land uses one identifies
with neither manors nor monasteries: tennis courts, squash
courts, football and hockey pitches, a golf course and a sizeable gym. This is
because Bisham Abbey – which
still keeps that name – has fallen into the hands of <a href="https://www.sportengland.org/"><u>Sport England</u></a> as
one of its three <b>National Sports Centres</b>. These are serious world-class
facilities dedicated to nurturing English elite sporting efforts, including its
national football and rugby teams.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg61tuatAPh8yqWZSGjaNMnv_nnxdczSdqAUjsJ1kGTHEFRXL4C7MqpXm7-QCx8QiN-I4RsGYqXjjWhmoBhyphenhyphenuCto3wHDfNEcGlCokcLxt_OiUpg6cxJSVezyftRwln70Xe0_aZMprV0GmY/s1600/IMG_9983.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg61tuatAPh8yqWZSGjaNMnv_nnxdczSdqAUjsJ1kGTHEFRXL4C7MqpXm7-QCx8QiN-I4RsGYqXjjWhmoBhyphenhyphenuCto3wHDfNEcGlCokcLxt_OiUpg6cxJSVezyftRwln70Xe0_aZMprV0GmY/s400/IMG_9983.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The sailing arm of Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre, today demonstrating the
English sluggishness at taking up social distancing in the face of COVID-19.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
fate of Bisham Abbey exemplifies two themes that colour the banks ahead. One is
the ruins of worlds gone by, moved into and repurposed anew: abbeys and mills
and forts turned to offices, cultural and educational facilities, or the usual
unaffordable housing. The other theme is the decidedly sporty turn the river is
taking, sustained by a constellation of rowing and sailing clubs till it
crosses its white-hot finish line at Henley.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitfuBy99N9ThWacGzU6HcCXJhkCnZYgTKwZAMka0JDcnIQ5L2cUI63X_5PZzF8FCzMSu82PexNwxVpdNCk1TUVz2I8lLMCfrElXSa9ITn5CAVGW1DZ46f6939esm55s70abTyR8AT0NQg/s1600/IMG_9985.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitfuBy99N9ThWacGzU6HcCXJhkCnZYgTKwZAMka0JDcnIQ5L2cUI63X_5PZzF8FCzMSu82PexNwxVpdNCk1TUVz2I8lLMCfrElXSa9ITn5CAVGW1DZ46f6939esm55s70abTyR8AT0NQg/s400/IMG_9985.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Meanwhile, on the northern side, there are sheep.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik4sB6wb9NlKqqBAgdnwmbJvImgBgc0I_NggEnHre0nR9pglZA6PULrKcNQ1xr_Y2h6XamnVK-B99eP-So6YrMD4UcuK8cHowyu7_vYrw8wCjQ310iAn1X1vo_aW2mU67-1sM3FrPFqDg/s1600/IMG_9986.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik4sB6wb9NlKqqBAgdnwmbJvImgBgc0I_NggEnHre0nR9pglZA6PULrKcNQ1xr_Y2h6XamnVK-B99eP-So6YrMD4UcuK8cHowyu7_vYrw8wCjQ310iAn1X1vo_aW2mU67-1sM3FrPFqDg/s400/IMG_9986.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A stone by the river commemorates Giles Every, who ran the Marlow rowing
regatta from 1968 till his death in a car accident in 1984. The Marlow Regatta
used to run along here but was moved in 2000 to <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html">Eton
College’s purpose-built Dorney Lake</a></u>.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Temple
Mill Island</b> also fell within the Bisham monastery’s sphere of influence.
Conveniently the ‘Mill’ refers to the watermills which stood on it, as mills do
on river islands, since long before the monastery came along, while the
‘Temple’ descends from the old Knights Templar presence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
mills outlasted both them and the monks. Indeed, mill owners’ control over the
river gave them considerable power, blocking its course with their weirs and –
in the days before the present ‘pound’ locks – holding traffic at the mercy of
their ‘flash’ locks. Those were basically gates in the weir for boats to
dangerously ‘flash’ down or get hauled up, with the millers typically charging
their captains through the nose to use them (which upset the City of London big
merchants the latter worked for, part of the reason <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">the
Magna Carta was so concerned with regulating mills and weirs on the river</a></u>).
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
When
the monastery was demolished, the mills remained and struck out on their own.
After lifetimes in the tranquil service of agriculture, they too transformed
beneath an industrial sky into clanging, sweaty foundries of copper and brass,
astonishing a passing Daniel Defoe in 1722 with their kettles and pans. They
boomed through the British imperial wars till around the 1840s, when they
switched to paper-making, but the decline of industry a hundred years later
finally finished them off, and by the end of the 1970s Temple Mill Island for
the first time had neither Templars nor Mills.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2JnuU1J0RVSkOmmr7r8VNbAnhp1m740FmrWXJF8P0O0LyStHcr_IsckrtSt6T1hhK_vYKO7p95vtXjJvP0CK24Jt3JCG3Fp73BnaNlG2xVnS0IJ_8yTyOvV0V-3Y0-4y1T1RGDplkv0I/s1600/IMG_9987.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2JnuU1J0RVSkOmmr7r8VNbAnhp1m740FmrWXJF8P0O0LyStHcr_IsckrtSt6T1hhK_vYKO7p95vtXjJvP0CK24Jt3JCG3Fp73BnaNlG2xVnS0IJ_8yTyOvV0V-3Y0-4y1T1RGDplkv0I/s400/IMG_9987.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Temple Mill Island is now, of course, affluent housing. It has a marina too.
Perhaps in one thousand years they’ll call it Housing Speculator Marina
Island.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWuko378upLdrC-RL9EOpU8fpFjj9Jrv7nsuPgg_dld-GugDfGdIPDJLUXYGdtMekA3k77KFzsxrcPEhAoHATxP-wUvbrzYLpqnGVgRsBSYlmwGtEcY2MnXugNJCJLtqA9WZbAyQqhBes/s1600/IMG_9994.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWuko378upLdrC-RL9EOpU8fpFjj9Jrv7nsuPgg_dld-GugDfGdIPDJLUXYGdtMekA3k77KFzsxrcPEhAoHATxP-wUvbrzYLpqnGVgRsBSYlmwGtEcY2MnXugNJCJLtqA9WZbAyQqhBes/s400/IMG_9994.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Since 1773 the island has had Temple Lock to go with it, though this was
rebuilt in 1890.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNO1QXrtRHPUXKQPaUegrOGQdDxGYtXamaE3HfxTC8aHY0w4YdRPT14X56iaWsWoNHd3_B5s8wHRp3oTjoiFR4dCYt-d2-y8ti7UbZLRc30KNEeBGXKiq6Atj3eqApZA8SrGcFprNz9rw/s1600/IMG_9996.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNO1QXrtRHPUXKQPaUegrOGQdDxGYtXamaE3HfxTC8aHY0w4YdRPT14X56iaWsWoNHd3_B5s8wHRp3oTjoiFR4dCYt-d2-y8ti7UbZLRc30KNEeBGXKiq6Atj3eqApZA8SrGcFprNz9rw/s400/IMG_9996.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Beyond the island the Temple Footbridge links the Buckinghamshire and
Berkshire banks. Supposedly the longest hardwood footbridge on the island
of Britain, this is a recent creation, built in 1989 specifically for walkers along
the river following local activism. Here we must cross south, for the north
bank is about to leap into inaccessible cliffs.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Wind in the Willows</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
So
far the usual fate of these leafy spaces has been to get taken over by people
with too much money, aligning their pretentious Private Properties along the
waterfront and asking the river what it’s going to do about it till it answers
in inundating ways they ought to have expected. So here they take things up a
level. These reaches were or are the domains of individual country mansions,
raised or set back from the water with spreading blankets of field
and membranes of wood. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisLmH5iEvjmynRlpnbVrI2hKA4E25Zu8_7Ry8zu1XKwDN8lXzCHv9xCYQLGk-vN3OT3ZmWblI67TSZsAk6BKc6RuAWpzrc36Ke-zadydS7eJsyJ2SnaGSD27qHFb4i8EbMn4zcurLSaJI/s1600/IMG_0003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisLmH5iEvjmynRlpnbVrI2hKA4E25Zu8_7Ry8zu1XKwDN8lXzCHv9xCYQLGk-vN3OT3ZmWblI67TSZsAk6BKc6RuAWpzrc36Ke-zadydS7eJsyJ2SnaGSD27qHFb4i8EbMn4zcurLSaJI/s400/IMG_0003.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A lusher prospect from atop Temple Mill Bridge, though half of it has been
carved out to build a marina.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVokh-iviIQegyMDRA8CqTA0kyxoXcGFPka12r2ZIDKjJnI0CI869HwfwpSmbT-unTWA8m9JxszBITnXBQ_GeBhm5v8JBlh0vyymBO6KATb8_Sea1u0qGnY94KJ9Pwb-s6ImVkI-XfP4/s1600/IMG_0006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVokh-iviIQegyMDRA8CqTA0kyxoXcGFPka12r2ZIDKjJnI0CI869HwfwpSmbT-unTWA8m9JxszBITnXBQ_GeBhm5v8JBlh0vyymBO6KATb8_Sea1u0qGnY94KJ9Pwb-s6ImVkI-XfP4/s400/IMG_0006.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The natives, driven back to their quays, desperately hold the line against COVID-19.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOu19H7Z2Rbll-8p151KWSZPX4RWE3H8WAV2DIGws0S3x0U9UYGYfVv3eJK_Bqp6KJAtlkHOsNHoEUoltXpk6MUeiLHPcWoI13RjWd93Twwj2NsUZ8sQqrEOUXaJnEdtO5aB7FPnB2slQ/s1600/IMG_0007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOu19H7Z2Rbll-8p151KWSZPX4RWE3H8WAV2DIGws0S3x0U9UYGYfVv3eJK_Bqp6KJAtlkHOsNHoEUoltXpk6MUeiLHPcWoI13RjWd93Twwj2NsUZ8sQqrEOUXaJnEdtO5aB7FPnB2slQ/s640/IMG_0007.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Scenes like this, glimpsed through the woods, begin to build a sense of enchanting currents adrift in the air.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
perception of other worlds explored <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-8-river-shamans.html">round
the Cookham bend</a></u>, layered above or below this one yet ever blending into
it, returns here. They amount to an emotional confusion: the carefree romance
of the rustic Thames does not mix easy with the blooded spikes of class and
market forces, nor with the spectral undercurrents of devastation by plague
which have always lurked as one of the river’s dark secrets.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Perhaps
they jar so much because the rustic romance is at its strongest in these parts. So it was for a young Scottish boy called Kenneth Grahame who,
growing up hereabouts in the 1860s in the anguish of having lost his mother to
post-natal illness and his father down the bottle (the latter still lived but
would abandon him), found precious sanctuary in the magical otherworld of the
Thames. While Stanley Spencer opened a way to that world with his paintbrush,
Grahame would build the portal with his pen. That portal, <i>The Wind in the
Willows</i>, has ever since invited the mundane English into one of their most
treasured dream-journeys on the itinerary of English
transcendence, and perhaps the Thames world’s most familiar of all:
one in which the animals talk, enjoy the comforts of home and harvest, and
participate in (or in one gloriously infamous case, run rings around) the good
old public institutions of the English countryside.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6E1lKGaosYQPgATWM5bM_ONKnI5nIUoXqWYtqa-RNGD6ulu4VL-QRU_h-F-syghp0ta7YjChg7uGZteJyLbfFiIvwk1lm7In_jkb2JknvNsFsOi_ay0OnaWxCY-K_Sn2T7gVCEVapp54/s1600/IMG_0009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6E1lKGaosYQPgATWM5bM_ONKnI5nIUoXqWYtqa-RNGD6ulu4VL-QRU_h-F-syghp0ta7YjChg7uGZteJyLbfFiIvwk1lm7In_jkb2JknvNsFsOi_ay0OnaWxCY-K_Sn2T7gVCEVapp54/s400/IMG_0009.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><i>"Believe me, my young friend </i>(said the Rat),<i> there is
nothing—absolute nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in
boats.”</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSG7tL6U4j64SvR6kyIK_Gnf4bz8XwNL1ujggqd23weTVBf4x0f6woioEErbVw-PfUEDU3q-VNkrKFerY21isujv0qBStdVJ19FeL2qnx8P-rEeuktuR_iNJRLufc_LydG4-2L5-kc0Ks/s1600/IMG_0008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSG7tL6U4j64SvR6kyIK_Gnf4bz8XwNL1ujggqd23weTVBf4x0f6woioEErbVw-PfUEDU3q-VNkrKFerY21isujv0qBStdVJ19FeL2qnx8P-rEeuktuR_iNJRLufc_LydG4-2L5-kc0Ks/s400/IMG_0008.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><i>"There's Toad Hall," said the Rat; "and that creek on the
left, where the notice-board says, 'Private. No landing allowed,' leads to his
boat-house…” </i>Oh yes. You have to jump across more than one dimensional
boundary to escape the claws of English class avarice. Virtually the entire river
from Marlow to Henley has been claimed by people who believe they have the
right to make others pay up for mooring their boats. In time the floods will
pull down these signs if the humans don’t do so first, and once again the river’s
natural services will be open to everyone.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlpR0aU_F0Vld99jFA7fcy976v8ehwpyMpwnwU-6UpQ5ZKIopsYxaLRJpM2WMotHvpM9UK0cFtnrGjKI1n6LAcuXzIxVEgiyJVTpp5Np4XXWCy1C9Ab_3qDY4hlbk-fcjlW_U2cH3Stb4/s1600/IMG_0011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlpR0aU_F0Vld99jFA7fcy976v8ehwpyMpwnwU-6UpQ5ZKIopsYxaLRJpM2WMotHvpM9UK0cFtnrGjKI1n6LAcuXzIxVEgiyJVTpp5Np4XXWCy1C9Ab_3qDY4hlbk-fcjlW_U2cH3Stb4/s400/IMG_0011.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Harleyford Manor: in this layer of reality, an eighteenth-century mansion for
rich Sir-people, since converted for use as offices. But it is also one of several near here said to have inspired Toad Hall, home of a certain freewheeling,
car-crashing kleptomaniac in Grahame’s book who also happens to be, well, a
toad.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>The
Wind in the Willows</i> is the paradigm of the Thames pastoral fantasy. It
centres on the adventures of a small group of furry friends: the everyman
Mole, the rustically cultured and comradely Rat, the gruff and
scary-but-actually-kind hermit Badger, and the rather more problematic Toad who
warrants his own treatment at length. “Adventures” really means faffing around
in boats, delighting in the warmth of the burrow and the treasures of the
well-stocked larder, getting lost in the woods, and other such experiences of
the natural cosiness and tranquility of their Thames valley home. One of the
book’s standouts is its copious descriptions of that nature, which Grahame’s prose rolls
and cascades across at such length, like the tributaries of the river
itself, that publishers today would surely flick the contents of
their haughty nostrils at it. Yet it is precisely these tumblings down the reedbeds and
rabbit-holes that made the work such a vessel for the mythscape of the rural
Thames in English imagination, so bringing it to life down the generations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Naturally
it is the river itself – ‘a babbling procession of the best stories in the
world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable
sea’ – that threads through the length of this dream and binds it all together
with its ribbon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-e2cS7eQbDAsGSfUYnHKtrmXdPTsw-W8h94ZSY7y5SXzzXCqDbyzHlE6gNdj72Bz1LJtXjgdMT5YZE_eMbrGNDcWDLUbACp5P59cl_odBAax4xWJKn9zX_DHCdR5Od1Y-oi3vC5oJH2k/s1600/IMG_0020.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-e2cS7eQbDAsGSfUYnHKtrmXdPTsw-W8h94ZSY7y5SXzzXCqDbyzHlE6gNdj72Bz1LJtXjgdMT5YZE_eMbrGNDcWDLUbACp5P59cl_odBAax4xWJKn9zX_DHCdR5Od1Y-oi3vC5oJH2k/s400/IMG_0020.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><i>All was a-shake and a-shiver—glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and
swirl, chatter and bubble.</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
this is not a separate world. Grahame portrays these anthropomorphic animals as
living across both realities as though they are one. They have their animal world, but also operate within that of the humans who seem totally unfazed by this curious
state of affairs. The result is a real charm in the unremarkability of the animals’
use of human shops, pubs, and post offices, and by far most of all in Mr. Toad’s
seamless – if to him quite unwelcome – interactions with the police, courts and
prisons (in which he ‘passed his days and nights for several weeks, refusing
his meals or intermediate light refreshments, though the grim and ancient
gaoler, knowing that Toad's pockets were well lined, frequently pointed out
that many comforts, and indeed luxuries, could by arrangement be sent in—at a
price—from outside’). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Perhaps
it is by building this dream not in a separate dimension but on this liminal
space at its edge, overlapping with this reality, <i>reachable</i> from it,
that Grahame achieved his work’s ready appeal. These animals really do inhabit
the riverbanks after all, with relationships and ways of life mysterious to
humans yet physically significant to the shape of this landscape. Even if an
otter isn’t about to enter the pub and order a few pints in literal terms, depictions
like that still offer the Thames’s human inhabitants ways to relate to their
environment, to make shared meaning with it, and – if all goes well – to value
and interact healthily with it at a heartfelt depth that empirical
understanding of its ecology, however vital, struggles to reach on its own. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Consider,
for example, this speculative psychology of bird migrations as told by a
sparrow:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>"First,
we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come the recollections
one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter through our dreams at night, they
fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each
other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as
one by one the scents and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="Page_228"></a>sounds and names of
long-forgotten places come gradually back and beckon to us."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
is <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/03/thames-8-river-shamans.html">shamanic</a></u>
work<u>,</u> which every now and again wanders well off the Thames towpath into all-out
mystical territory. In a chapter often omitted from adaptations (perhaps due to
monotheistic fragility?), the animals encounter a ‘piper at the gates of dawn’:
a horned, hoofed demigod figure who seems to represent a helping and healing
force in nature’s narrow places, his pan-pipe melodies carrying like wind through
the reeds. At other times they ruminate on philosophical fare, as in the
Badger’s explanation of his remarkable house, built into subterranean ruins:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>But
as a matter of fact I did none of it—only cleaned out the passages and chambers…I
see you don't understand, and I must explain it to you. Well, very long ago, on
the spot where the Wild Wood waves now…there was a city—a city of people, you
know. Here, where we are standing, they lived, and walked, and talked, and
slept, and carried on their business. Here they stabled <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="Page_101"></a>their
horses and feasted, from here they rode out to fight or drove out to trade.
They were a powerful people, and rich, and great builders. <b>They built to
last, for they thought their city would last for ever</b>."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>"But
what has become of them all?" asked the Mole.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>"Who
can tell?" said the Badger. "People come—they stay for a while, they
flourish, they build—and they go. It is their way. But we remain. There were
badgers here, I've been told, long before that same city ever came to be. And
now there are badgers here again.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Emphasis
added, because this sounds like the sort of scenario to which a certain virus
acquaintance might have something to contribute.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaEVZYtj-jVFIfplm6Y0FsFnL_6A6NiKDOjaLw5w8L0wLC2ccNttruGNXLMXpast4XriPHTH5Qi0IO_8AVbB3SLUTL80EZ2kcZChxWOYon3sHpMiB0ojGFeWgDH197NGwxiEcoQgGE00A/s1600/IMG_0013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaEVZYtj-jVFIfplm6Y0FsFnL_6A6NiKDOjaLw5w8L0wLC2ccNttruGNXLMXpast4XriPHTH5Qi0IO_8AVbB3SLUTL80EZ2kcZChxWOYon3sHpMiB0ojGFeWgDH197NGwxiEcoQgGE00A/s400/IMG_0013.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
If
the setting still sounds somewhat twee, another presence in the narrative
bone-marrow is felt not three paragraphs in, when the Mole, on his way out, is
accosted by a rabbit who demands <i>“Sixpence for the privilege of passing by
the private road!”</i>. Class, as performed through such propertied behaviours,
is everything in England, and causes the tenor of <i>The Wind in the Willows</i>
to change dramatically when it turns to follow the figure through which it is
most humorously explored: the hilariously conceited Toad – ‘<i>Toad at his best
and highest, Toad the terror, the traffic-queller, the Lord of the lone trail,
before whom all must give way or be smitten into nothingness and everlasting
night</i>’. When he’s not scorching a wake of accidents, fines, arrests and
hospitalisations through his obsession with speeding around in stolen motor-cars,
still a novel technology at the time, he lazes around, splurging his inherited
wealth on satisfying his crazes (which he cycles through arbitrarily) from the
comfort of his mansion, <b>Toad Hall</b>, an archetype of those massive estates
which dominate such huge swathes of riverside land in these parts. It is “an eligible,
self-contained gentleman's residence, very unique; dating in part from the
fourteenth century, but replete with every modern convenience. Up-to-date
sanitation. Five minutes from church, post-office, and golf-links…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
…as
he later describes it to the warden’s daughter while languishing in jail. His
collisions with the apparatus of the law dispense with the darkness of both
sides of this English equation – the guffawing impunity of the high-propertied,
versus the vicious and prejudiced cruelty of ‘law and order’ in the age of
Oscar Wilde – to set up a fair contest between the two in which one is left at
times pitying the jollified public officials in their pursuit of this slippery
menace, and at other times hoping for their frustration, if only because the
Toad cycles between such comically over-the-top self-celebration in victory and
abject wallowing self-pity in defeat that the effect is most splendid when the leap
or fall from one to the other occurs over the greatest distance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiXSPVpQxCU2eiM2pSNU9jQ6ic-V4gXkLss76DmxuHlP4W1LIuYllJPPljKldTgyFbb6_OwfAmyB07QBjRruEQmKkGiVwh4OLbtZjVM9BcatPXsze-d3uEO-Vd2Ych5bWYC6X7572iwyI/s1600/Wind+in+the+Willows+-+Toad+Prostrate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="571" data-original-width="420" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiXSPVpQxCU2eiM2pSNU9jQ6ic-V4gXkLss76DmxuHlP4W1LIuYllJPPljKldTgyFbb6_OwfAmyB07QBjRruEQmKkGiVwh4OLbtZjVM9BcatPXsze-d3uEO-Vd2Ych5bWYC6X7572iwyI/s400/Wind+in+the+Willows+-+Toad+Prostrate.jpg" width="293" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>In one of the early editions, from 1913, the text was accompanied by
naturalistic illustrations by Paul Bransom such as this depicting the Toad in
prison: ‘He lay prostrate in his misery on the floor’.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Domesticated
as these ruinous English class phenomena may be in this work, there is more
than the occasional subtle dig at, say, the pretences of officialdom and <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">questionable
integrity of the rule of law</a></u>. Take a look at how Toad receives his sentence,
with a few discretionary emphases added:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>“…he
has been found guilty (said the Chairman of the Magistrates), on the clearest
evidence, first, of stealing a valuable motor-car; secondly, of driving to the
public danger; and, thirdly, of gross impertinence to the rural police. Mr.
Clerk will you tell us, please, what is the very stiffest penalty we can impose
for each of these offences? <b>Without, of course, giving the prisoner the
benefit of any doubt, because there isn't any</b>."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>The
Clerk scratched his nose with his pen. "Some people would consider,"
he observed, "that stealing the motor-car was the worst offence; and so it
is. But <b>cheeking the police undoubtedly carries the severest penalty</b>;
and so it ought. Supposing you were to say twelve months for the theft, which
is mild; and three years for the furious driving, which is lenient; and <b>fifteen
years for the cheek</b>, which was pretty <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="Page_163"></a>bad sort of
cheek, judging by what we've heard from the witness-box, even if you only
believe one-tenth part of what you heard, and I never believe more myself—those
figures, if added together correctly, tot up to nineteen years—"</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>"First-rate!"
said the Chairman.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>"—<b>So
you had better make it a round twenty years and be on the safe side</b>,"
concluded the Clerk.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
class commentary continues as Toad escapes from jail in the disguise of an
elderly washer-woman – a relative of the warden’s daughter, who takes pity on
the wretched creature. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>To
his horror he recollected that he had left both coat and waistcoat behind him
in his cell, and with them his pocket-book, money, keys, watch, matches,
pencil-case—all that makes life worth living, all that distinguishes <b>the
many-pocketed animal, the lord of creation</b>, from <b>the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="Page_208"></a>inferior
one-pocketed or no-pocketed productions</b> that hop or trip about
permissively, unequipped for the real contest.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
this impersonation of a cleaning lady, falling in his mind many rungs beneath his
social position, does not come easily to him. The result is a catalogue of
ludicrous ordeals he brings on himself while on the run, most often in
encounters with the labouring classes to whom he speaks in suspiciously pompous
diction and, when upset, cannot resist bursting out of the persona his freedom
depends on to vituperate at them with high-caste condescension.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Mr.
Toad’s lovable rampages, deceptions and histrionics contrast with the seamier
end of the class spectrum: the coarse and violent ne’er-do-wells that are the
weasels, stoats and ferrets of the Wild Wood. This is the menacing
working-class slum of the <i>Wind in the Willows</i> world. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9MLoc_AkCs2k7PStkUrdZb9WqEAFhXLxmmsM5wdvpbA0l-1XzsNS29bT7xIwmXOBuEItHWyHazBABWVRW6kxXdbln9PmPSMmife2GqeGSh3nXPrKy4mVh9Ue3LckZLgf4Mb_T7Kd6p5o/s1600/IMG_0012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9MLoc_AkCs2k7PStkUrdZb9WqEAFhXLxmmsM5wdvpbA0l-1XzsNS29bT7xIwmXOBuEItHWyHazBABWVRW6kxXdbln9PmPSMmife2GqeGSh3nXPrKy4mVh9Ue3LckZLgf4Mb_T7Kd6p5o/s400/IMG_0012.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>…<i>funguses on stumps resembled caricatures, and startled </i>(the Mole)<i>
for the moment by their likeness to something familiar and far away; but that
was all fun, and exciting. It led him on, and he penetrated to where the light
was less, and trees crouched nearer and nearer, and holes made ugly mouths at
him on either side.</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
While
Toad is off slipping around in disrepute, these furry proletarians organise,
take up arms and seize control of the vacated Toad Hall, much to the
consternation of the bourgeois Rat and Mole as well as the unbridled fury of
Toad when they are at last reunited. But of course, English class order is
restored when the friends mount a stealthy assault, send the squatters packing,
and mark the mansion’s recapture with a splendid banquet in which some of those
weasels resume their subservient compliance as servants and couriers. Finally,
Toad resolves, seemingly sincere this time but you never know, to mend his ways
and behave at last with a respectability and decorum worthy of his station.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Thus
the English natural romance is injected with a dash of the English class-order romance.
And yet, Grahame is not content to let this sit as a closed world. Recall Rat’s
earlier statement of how he holds no interest in the affairs of the Wide World
beyond. Such is the terrain from which Brexit sprung, one might feel, until Rat
meets a wayfarer on the road and is transfixed both by his account of his
voyages and the globalist perspective from which he tells it. With a few
junctures for thought highlighted by yours truly:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>"I'm
a seafaring rat, I am, and <b>the port I originally hail from is
Constantinople, though I'm a sort of a foreigner there too</b>, in a manner of
speaking. You will have heard of Constantinople, friend? A fair city and an
ancient and glorious one. And you may have heard too, of Sigurd, King of
Norway, and how he sailed thither with sixty ships, and how he and his men rode
up through streets all canopied in their honour with purple and gold; and how
the Emperor and Empress came down and banqueted with him on board <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="Page_236"></a>his ship. When Sigurd returned home, many of his Northmen
remained behind and entered the Emperor's body-guard, and my ancestor, a
Norwegian born, stayed behind too, with the ships that Sigurd gave the Emperor.
Seafarers we have ever been, and no wonder; as for me, <b>the city of my birth
is no more my home than any pleasant port between there and the London River. I
know them all, and they know me. Set me down on any of their quays or
foreshores, and I am home again</b>."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
historical reference is to Sigurd I Magnusson, King of Norway (1103-30), who
went crusading against Muslims in the Mediterranean and Middle East but left a
ton of treasure and ships for the Byzantine Empire along with soldiers for its
famous Varangian Guard. Here Grahame has drawn up the Thames the tail of one of
the most complex and consequential episodes of migration and globalisation in
human history: the Viking expansion out of Scandinavia as far as what is now
Russia, the Middle East and North America, which together with this Sea Rat’s
citizen-of-nowhere pronouncements amounts to the last perspective you might
expect to find in this festival of snug Thames-valley localism.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I never stick too long to one ship”, the
seafaring rat throws in; “one gets narrow-minded and prejudiced.” Ever more
entranced in his tale as it bounces from the seascapes and shellfish of one
Mediterranean port to another, the Rat of the river comes right to the verge of
heeding the call to adventure himself and leaving this story altogether.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE31IobWk2QqHwvNegd67pNm8VQztLVHFQiiN9aP2R8dhp82ydn9Vm0WzD5rtTfGMKZeMdcCyyCL2ljkDZey2pVK25EE8hCL63PJDBDmxRysHhH2F1IFGnMud9UxDpjvoBPX6L52eBn7s/s1600/IMG_0041.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE31IobWk2QqHwvNegd67pNm8VQztLVHFQiiN9aP2R8dhp82ydn9Vm0WzD5rtTfGMKZeMdcCyyCL2ljkDZey2pVK25EE8hCL63PJDBDmxRysHhH2F1IFGnMud9UxDpjvoBPX6L52eBn7s/s400/IMG_0041.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The red kites, too, ought to be asked for their broader perspective on the Wide
World.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
If
the abiding picture of <i>Wind in the Willows</i> is its representation of a
safe and idyllic England, passages like this reveal a more turbulent riverbed.
Those who are happy with their world rarely find need to devote such energy to
searching for other worlds through their dreams. Kenneth Grahame, for his part,
had every reason to do so, for his was a life cursed with spectacular torment. He
lost one parent to illness, the other to drink, then his brother to a lung
infection at fifteen. Setting his sights on Oxford University, inadequate
financial support shunted him instead into the Bank of England, where he felt
bored by the work, quarrelled with his bosses, and was shot at three times by
an intruder. Perhaps because his ability to relate to people was wracked by his
tumultuous childhood, especially in an England of ferociously repressive social
scrutiny of relationships and sexuality, he fell into in an instantly unhappy
marriage. It is in this context that his difficulties writing about women (all
the main animal characters in <i>Wind in the Willows</i> are male, though their
behaviour is not particularly gendered) might perhaps be understood. To complete this nightmare, his son, Alastair a.k.a. ‘Mouse’, was born blind in one eye, bullied
through school, and struggled at university before being found dead on an
Oxford railway track at the age of twenty.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
was from Kenneth’s bedtime stories for the young Alastair, featuring talking
animals perhaps imagined up by the son, and set in the father’s memories of the
Thames of his own childhood – a dreamscape of safety and tranquility, fun and
friendship, where so much of the pain did not yet exist – that <i>The Wind in
the Willows</i> seems to have originated. As he put it to paper, publishers and
critics did what publishers and critics do to compound his misery, rejecting or
filleting his work before it managed to trickle through to a more admiring
public. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Beware,
therefore, the positing of this book for the simple totem of an English rural class
utopia for which it has oft been taken. In its unspoken depths lurk death,
sorrow and alienation, under the effect of whose gravity one well appreciates
the tension, both personal and political, at the heart of this world of talking
animals and in its links with others. There is a darkness
beneath the contemplations of humans building their cities in the delusion they will
last forever; of the call to sail far away; of the pan-pipe music from the
gates of dawn. Is this an affirmation of paradise that springs from this
English homeland, or the longings of a tortured soul for a world where he might
actually belong? Is it a conservative allegory, championing the stable
community and loyalty to one’s friends while shaking a fist at the looming
shadows of dirty, noisy technology and revolutionary socialist stoats and weasels? Or
a radical wish unto the universe, if only for such community and camaraderie to
truly exist in this world, or if not, to journey far from the humans, to where
the enchanting melodies of the reed-pipes, from a layer of pristine reality
beyond them all, at last blow forth on the wind that whistles through the
willows?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJWHyXVrNNpbyGflsEqjxh0kR6J6fgJwAtWqJkbRb1X9Uczv7ZGzpzmlQNux3-Z_5C-4E9f4VxS2YEHUygJLqvFkT1nyS3-nkyTHv3oNoJ_r3Fgh9ZYcyS6z0iuvGiORiyVXEgrditBvc/s1600/IMG_0015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJWHyXVrNNpbyGflsEqjxh0kR6J6fgJwAtWqJkbRb1X9Uczv7ZGzpzmlQNux3-Z_5C-4E9f4VxS2YEHUygJLqvFkT1nyS3-nkyTHv3oNoJ_r3Fgh9ZYcyS6z0iuvGiORiyVXEgrditBvc/s400/IMG_0015.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Most things are deeper than they look on the surface. Did you know, for example
(thanks Environment Agency), that 'rivers are deep, cold and fast-flowing'?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hurley</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
was important to part those willows and delve beneath, till the multi-layered
complexity of reality came to the forefront of our vision. This is because we
are soon to come upon some of the Thames’s most breathtaking displays, an
environment which at its broadest justifies every publisher-offending waterfall
of words with which Kenneth Grahame embraced it. Basking in its splendour, it
becomes too easy to forget the realities with which it is juxtaposed: the
oppressions endemic to these Conservative Party heartlands, and more
immediately, the plague of reckoning to which they have now flung open their
nation’s gates, for its scythes, too, are sped by the river in their passage.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Each
of those slices of reality is complex in itself. Holding them in mind together might
feel like carrying several diverse, non-tessellating suitcases in your arms and
fumbling not to drop any. But reality <i>is</i> complicated, and to understand
it, let alone build a decent society within it, requires we learn to
find our balance with <i>all</i> those suitcases, resisting the urge to hurl
one or two off the bridge to make it easier.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnDd443s0NpVxPahzYwA1NqB-gTI0GyPiTaesdxKSbnb8oBfmYX4nFUySbL-TjFABK6vaIyddLkNeDO6t2_5IlY_d0zJUpvNYhnh8fi07nXb3QiOMY33XzzriF_CXhKh-HJUFZ4tKP9M/s1600/IMG_0014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnDd443s0NpVxPahzYwA1NqB-gTI0GyPiTaesdxKSbnb8oBfmYX4nFUySbL-TjFABK6vaIyddLkNeDO6t2_5IlY_d0zJUpvNYhnh8fi07nXb3QiOMY33XzzriF_CXhKh-HJUFZ4tKP9M/s400/IMG_0014.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>It looks pretty, but have a think about all the realities hidden within walls,
hulls, branches and – of course – water. How many worlds overlap in this scene?
How many stories?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU499gsONdi5BLHSX2YrrEdIbP1AYRywWN7Rf2bSBktlo0kB_zhTSXT_GPpB6APlqqxokxPw541OG_9IpfvhZulCPBGPnIbekgn-83byagzFAzHiHcQdJqqT-RdqS85ioid7hCG2QXjTU/s1600/IMG_0019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU499gsONdi5BLHSX2YrrEdIbP1AYRywWN7Rf2bSBktlo0kB_zhTSXT_GPpB6APlqqxokxPw541OG_9IpfvhZulCPBGPnIbekgn-83byagzFAzHiHcQdJqqT-RdqS85ioid7hCG2QXjTU/s400/IMG_0019.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>If that’s too much for you, how about metamorphosing into a lion? Look – there
are facilities here for doing just that. Join this club and ‘become a lion
today’! Then you can give furry and cuddly ‘help at events, make friends &
have lots of fun’. You can probably eat Tory voters too. Actually you shouldn’t
do that. Maybe just a very small bite, with the soft part of the mouth. Okay, a little harder than that. Rawr
rawr.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Here
is Hurley Lock, which till its opening in 1773 appears to have been the scene
of particularly grumpy conflicts between boat operators and the great intensity
of milling interests that brought their weirs, flash locks and hefty
what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it tolls to these parts. And then – look there.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13zZiV90n8Ex3OwDs3cklIJf00dpadDtv7RcGL-nDzGi-BCGn8zQLDPz1SvuTqhCOltuzXpHuyTzaPFZzXrCCZotE_TSp2TmM5AOXJ2dYHs_XhLP9SVZWyfvOmWywUCwD-jecSbYycCU/s1600/IMG_0033.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13zZiV90n8Ex3OwDs3cklIJf00dpadDtv7RcGL-nDzGi-BCGn8zQLDPz1SvuTqhCOltuzXpHuyTzaPFZzXrCCZotE_TSp2TmM5AOXJ2dYHs_XhLP9SVZWyfvOmWywUCwD-jecSbYycCU/s400/IMG_0033.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It’s
a secret passage. Shall we see where it leads?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwHTLjtjYg4TFyZN-EV6Ar0Q0xJzKA_I_V8mU3dFtuJLW3tG8_LtxRct6K8cRgjjYJ8-yWf03E_llypITaZ8VJ-FU2_vF29UYgZ_hghazqsvnxwGCjRAIox_9m_bip3FiiKCl9aiwerx0/s1600/IMG_0028.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwHTLjtjYg4TFyZN-EV6Ar0Q0xJzKA_I_V8mU3dFtuJLW3tG8_LtxRct6K8cRgjjYJ8-yWf03E_llypITaZ8VJ-FU2_vF29UYgZ_hghazqsvnxwGCjRAIox_9m_bip3FiiKCl9aiwerx0/s400/IMG_0028.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Look
at that. It’s a secret village. Isn’t it nice to be somewhere you can stumble
on that kind of thing?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
is <b>Hurley</b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">, which appears to have
grown up around a Benedictine monastery from the time of the Norman invasion.
Here in Berkshire the name (and its variants, especially the town of Earley) is
common and seems to originate from a family of Norman knights handed lands
hereabouts by William the Conqueror. As expected the monastery was consumed by
Henry VIII’s purge in the 1530s, yet the village remains, tiny and beguiling in
its rustic architecture, like a patch from a bygone era sewn incongruously in
near the corner.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzzir84g5t4eKeXExXXGbC9qTkH-flHbcARswWZXIjnUnk-i2woMZnpu_JfAKHYEX3wxe0XGYc4UfRDLFlr9w2NJTZKIvdsBtVsEGKsB1rf4CqPzOrhFt0eHf2qZ-YzqEP1lEa5J_U2kU/s1600/IMG_0030.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzzir84g5t4eKeXExXXGbC9qTkH-flHbcARswWZXIjnUnk-i2woMZnpu_JfAKHYEX3wxe0XGYc4UfRDLFlr9w2NJTZKIvdsBtVsEGKsB1rf4CqPzOrhFt0eHf2qZ-YzqEP1lEa5J_U2kU/s400/IMG_0030.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This is the high street. There is a
little village shop with post office desk. And a barber shop. And this inn, <i>The
Olde Bell</i>. It is supposed to have been founded in 1135 as the monastery’s
guesthouse, giving it a claim to be one of the oldest surviving hotels in the
world.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbw2NqvDohQrX_22ECJHJlntguMJKCpd_amuTUTVPkLnQy6s_zylanncNmHRLPhEjQxpuQjHh0WglClZTRSiVtjqG_wZl7DKVMGX3l05YO4DLXes7XcgQJvef1NPiDJL6gXO7GqLeTcY/s1600/IMG_0024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbw2NqvDohQrX_22ECJHJlntguMJKCpd_amuTUTVPkLnQy6s_zylanncNmHRLPhEjQxpuQjHh0WglClZTRSiVtjqG_wZl7DKVMGX3l05YO4DLXes7XcgQJvef1NPiDJL6gXO7GqLeTcY/s400/IMG_0024.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Monks’ Barn, an honest medieval
structure that was probably exactly what it says it was. It’s now rented out as
an event space, especially for (urgh) weddings.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdxEWpPMDukUO7M1_qBnbfkx3Vn7VKGm6KjlX2Fd1bo7P1OCuqB7KBud9cPfMtJuCPbSP_Q6FeFQsW3wnNTZmFLO8zor453WPvKwyhbrVlwx2fL93ia1iF2zDvh0ILsRpgrU_8t6hbnHo/s1600/IMG_0026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdxEWpPMDukUO7M1_qBnbfkx3Vn7VKGm6KjlX2Fd1bo7P1OCuqB7KBud9cPfMtJuCPbSP_Q6FeFQsW3wnNTZmFLO8zor453WPvKwyhbrVlwx2fL93ia1iF2zDvh0ILsRpgrU_8t6hbnHo/s400/IMG_0026.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There is evidence that some
traditional professions still survive in Hurley. Another local institution is
Peter Freebody and Co.’s boatyard, whose family is said to have run it since at
least the thirteenth century. It sounds like exactly the place you’re looking
for if you want to repair or upgrade your vessel in preparation for a boss
fight ahead.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And yet, secret villages like this can be
more connected to the <i>Wide World</i> than they first appear. There are people out there
with reason to actively seek out these secret spaces, after all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4_xR8Tfrd9JA2VWakfdMTagKPW81hNVOdbnLvcEQrIqSjn6nwrkfgWOaA8yOr9IuTJJMlpus3h5s5OKdE9C4LVz9vIIXfQZDJMzccafYQV01XAb4ZBDjsV61gGp4RT5NE_PB5AQvnse4/s1600/IMG_0022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4_xR8Tfrd9JA2VWakfdMTagKPW81hNVOdbnLvcEQrIqSjn6nwrkfgWOaA8yOr9IuTJJMlpus3h5s5OKdE9C4LVz9vIIXfQZDJMzccafYQV01XAb4ZBDjsV61gGp4RT5NE_PB5AQvnse4/s400/IMG_0022.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Hurley’s church goes back to the
Anglo-Saxon eighth century, though has transformed many times – possibly sacked
by the Vikings, then built up as the core of the Norman monastery complex,
which in turn was broken by Henry VIII’s sledgehammer. What was left of the
church was later restored to its present condition…</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_dGjLTpaVcUWiD6HaqEigersZTlSkycN66xe1YjmnJdNBQPCF1xRYDnS8VnT3EprR2N-UlPDvELOICXeHJciMZ0-4sGBwYABSdS01uazuKUbPAIAdxoMI4dbLIZSz2pU8iYZ9QTbYsqc/s1600/IMG_0021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_dGjLTpaVcUWiD6HaqEigersZTlSkycN66xe1YjmnJdNBQPCF1xRYDnS8VnT3EprR2N-UlPDvELOICXeHJciMZ0-4sGBwYABSdS01uazuKUbPAIAdxoMI4dbLIZSz2pU8iYZ9QTbYsqc/s400/IMG_0021.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">…while the ruined monastic buildings
were rebuilt as a private mansion, housing the influential Lovelace family in
the time of Elizabeth I. This in turn was later demolished, but its crypt,
which apparently is still there, is said to have been used by the plotters –
among them the Lord Lovelace of the time – who overthrew King James II in the
Revolution of 1688. It has a secret passage, much used by the conspirators, to
the cellar of <i>The Olde Bell</i> pub.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9QJOymLOnBQ-mP1swMF2CgCDFDn2gnSIr6vlWcYzzmfZlkijE0Gh00kmCnx1dW_jNlKRFngBxptLAQqoS_kxZY-r6mbjhRfrxLz8_FjzV-gqNJru8rTG5yt2jW4zdgLOee0lE3h5jF0Y/s1600/IMG_0029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9QJOymLOnBQ-mP1swMF2CgCDFDn2gnSIr6vlWcYzzmfZlkijE0Gh00kmCnx1dW_jNlKRFngBxptLAQqoS_kxZY-r6mbjhRfrxLz8_FjzV-gqNJru8rTG5yt2jW4zdgLOee0lE3h5jF0Y/s400/IMG_0029.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">More bulky secrets. During World War
II the Americans crept into Hurley’s shaded boughs to establish a clandestine
communications and intelligence centre. There are reports of Prime Minister
Churchill coming here to meet Presidents Roosevelt and Eisenhower on occasion.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Not bad for a tiny hamlet hidden down a
secret passage. And a good lesson: there really is no walling out the Wide
World. All realities are connected.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Back to the river, whose floodplain now opens
once more.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMsled673PKnF4TXAyJEI7pSdT4lsFy8RNWtL-H3F4GNNkRwKE0_jmQl1OKeWfH4XanhFdD4t4CnEyQYVCvfO3jcWb_sDV-33mggGUP9FCmMZ0ezIrGI2Z3uV-LMi3qCU8uEAWVT-_oKE/s1600/IMG_0035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMsled673PKnF4TXAyJEI7pSdT4lsFy8RNWtL-H3F4GNNkRwKE0_jmQl1OKeWfH4XanhFdD4t4CnEyQYVCvfO3jcWb_sDV-33mggGUP9FCmMZ0ezIrGI2Z3uV-LMi3qCU8uEAWVT-_oKE/s400/IMG_0035.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">At Hurley’s weir. The chomps of
erosion are very visible down the rim of the bank ahead.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-H3xQH5807qyv7nc2JQdK6mDDfb5qX3-_WQ1Y82M41jaF-L0Kjc32BuZFe2Issiy-n96AdwARysfymwcgtJVrlZbs5OLryi0gZO1g7WAXvfhoIsUMZakxDC9rUhKijASjkkgUeeCtyc/s1600/IMG_0036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-H3xQH5807qyv7nc2JQdK6mDDfb5qX3-_WQ1Y82M41jaF-L0Kjc32BuZFe2Issiy-n96AdwARysfymwcgtJVrlZbs5OLryi0gZO1g7WAXvfhoIsUMZakxDC9rUhKijASjkkgUeeCtyc/s400/IMG_0036.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Persisting flooding on the inland
side. Beyond it is Hurley’s holiday park, which originated, the story goes,
with Londoners fleeing the Blitz here in World War II and camping out in
temporary shelters. These evolved into caravans and bungalows, thus becoming
fixtures of this riverbank before the arrival of planning restrictions.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAp2fHqnq5E3NelUTUjUWGhRVxSjurg-RixxP5tnZHYccppZ99QukE7JY0qeln67TZggLf9qlXMcu46WCnaGju9bBrARMrCDyeiKM759G7G-WrIjiBa6JJjvXx3k7FKy9yOh1sZVoiGl8/s1600/IMG_0037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAp2fHqnq5E3NelUTUjUWGhRVxSjurg-RixxP5tnZHYccppZ99QukE7JY0qeln67TZggLf9qlXMcu46WCnaGju9bBrARMrCDyeiKM759G7G-WrIjiBa6JJjvXx3k7FKy9yOh1sZVoiGl8/s400/IMG_0037.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Evidence of animistic rituals,
probably held here at night. The image does not show the jubilant cries of a
group of kayakers splashing around under the weir – likely one of their final
outings before COVID-19 put paid to these communal activities.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Medmenham</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The north bank now towers into sheer chalk
cliffs. Peeking out through their curtain of trees and climbing fauna, their
alabaster crags catch well the bright spring sunshine. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgARF0BQEkP7s1hDUB7fAwJlJobCHkgID_AyEGSUXsstiBarP3CFDbkTYglvsvFe6eDCwfPN9fTUSXxuvvw9ZUUXHuJJmgP693nYKOnoWuKhO2eWeGckvDZbPuHfYD2gTDbAbhV9QLJLKc/s1600/IMG_0049.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgARF0BQEkP7s1hDUB7fAwJlJobCHkgID_AyEGSUXsstiBarP3CFDbkTYglvsvFe6eDCwfPN9fTUSXxuvvw9ZUUXHuJJmgP693nYKOnoWuKhO2eWeGckvDZbPuHfYD2gTDbAbhV9QLJLKc/s400/IMG_0049.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The cliffs seem to mark where the
Chiltern Hills have stretched an appendage right up to the riverbank.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimscqwE5R238BNBe5fPtkWYGhey8hyphenhyphenjMPRuorkhOHsQh9hyphenhyphenrMHZE7PyrC0SzzgEhNuNKTjRZly6EEzwHCOAT_TrPb0AWvEi8Dt1tigMToeoz69MjVzha7rUp5oluFkvceIzMzne_oxP1g/s1600/IMG_0076.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimscqwE5R238BNBe5fPtkWYGhey8hyphenhyphenjMPRuorkhOHsQh9hyphenhyphenrMHZE7PyrC0SzzgEhNuNKTjRZly6EEzwHCOAT_TrPb0AWvEi8Dt1tigMToeoz69MjVzha7rUp5oluFkvceIzMzne_oxP1g/s400/IMG_0076.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">They’ve been here a while too. On
their plateau is a hotel the locals call Danesfield, whose name attests to its site’s
former use as a fortification by the Danish Vikings when they rampaged along
the floodplain in the ninth century. Earlier finds from Anglo-Saxon and Roman
settlements, Iron Age hill forts, and even a 5,000-year-old Neolithic presence
point to the great strategic importance of this clifftop, with its sweeping
views up and down the river and access to the Chilterns. It sprouted this
mansion in 1901, but World War II reawakened the older tradition by turning it
into an RAF station for analysing aerial photographs, in which capacity it
discovered and helped hinder some Nazi V-2 rocket production. The tradition
continues in its present use as a high-end hotel, where the monied classes can
enjoy themselves while making use of its vantage to see Jeremy Corbyn coming.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The plateau is administered as part of the </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Medmenham</b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> area. The name in Old English is simply akin to ‘medium-sized
homestead’, and no I don't have a clue how they pronounce it. The area ahead has
several names like this designed to trip the tongues of strangers into tangled
heaps of defeat.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">But here on the south side, if you can forgive the caravan park, there is at last a sense of nature’s ascendancy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9IagBLS7ykPO3r9iZd-24zkl1M5d68tL0IxnbtyHZOUE1-ln3kJMEaajftd4RmachWeMts_YRImSSbRhZ7Gp3O_in4N728dVjEwzNAZowc0djAYzNMEjWxhIoBZLnUv1jFz0LM1k4OYk/s1600/IMG_0048.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9IagBLS7ykPO3r9iZd-24zkl1M5d68tL0IxnbtyHZOUE1-ln3kJMEaajftd4RmachWeMts_YRImSSbRhZ7Gp3O_in4N728dVjEwzNAZowc0djAYzNMEjWxhIoBZLnUv1jFz0LM1k4OYk/s400/IMG_0048.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Closer to inhabited areas, the sight
of a single red kite hovering in the distance may be a cause of excitement.
Here the skies are taken over by an entire community of them, wheeling around
in political discussion and filling the wind with the aquiline screech of wild
high places.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSXvNtsFXcusPyrxUyb6BJe1lLL_EfL2Z8imoSxdGwUACurrw-EL3PPQYJayxYChQYOWvV_IgrxLkLDriTuQ1UX2C7q2ab81ZYw7Or0dbkVEclsLWiaZBtjhjtz8Rq9PzbuT-HLCIJewE/s1600/IMG_0052.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSXvNtsFXcusPyrxUyb6BJe1lLL_EfL2Z8imoSxdGwUACurrw-EL3PPQYJayxYChQYOWvV_IgrxLkLDriTuQ1UX2C7q2ab81ZYw7Or0dbkVEclsLWiaZBtjhjtz8Rq9PzbuT-HLCIJewE/s400/IMG_0052.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Despite the greenery, this is still a
human-occupied and at least partially managed setting. Yet the wild earth
leaves no doubt who is really in charge, such as with this evidence, at bottom
left, of people it has eaten whole.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWckutWiSx3ezc6wZ4ZcOqNE2ae_bNnmO-9Bb1ZhdXWe_GT3zEZ0DdnZB21dTV-VGYWh8IsyGRx8wwsMLLEZD-9_dvNGNXSrimcFrSwX1NTUbavMZyaI__nf9v_2uiwl_QmOyrTngXo2w/s1600/IMG_0054.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWckutWiSx3ezc6wZ4ZcOqNE2ae_bNnmO-9Bb1ZhdXWe_GT3zEZ0DdnZB21dTV-VGYWh8IsyGRx8wwsMLLEZD-9_dvNGNXSrimcFrSwX1NTUbavMZyaI__nf9v_2uiwl_QmOyrTngXo2w/s400/IMG_0054.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There are some impressive trees along
here. Most are bare from the winter but beginning to reawaken.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiR1DubBU1dshIT48S60U43n3FjVFw5kXDQ446QnjXmMX3gVuebOrsZSTiAKpUn1rnDBN2vjMiwGYrIWOa2P0y6RdOR1iM9zChx8l-9RsPNjZ9h14tefh44KVFKfBLcbePSmBoPgillTg/s1600/IMG_0055.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiR1DubBU1dshIT48S60U43n3FjVFw5kXDQ446QnjXmMX3gVuebOrsZSTiAKpUn1rnDBN2vjMiwGYrIWOa2P0y6RdOR1iM9zChx8l-9RsPNjZ9h14tefh44KVFKfBLcbePSmBoPgillTg/s400/IMG_0055.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5F3hxKZBEWRc90y33-x0wGZyLqnfZ5wknert6MBhBkJKmKCN5jJufFFUtqXBHiK5xIxO-rihiReH0mdZYflkARVHQOVjLQ9XvvR2vXw8-5NJdc8XQGIXTXHJqASEEtJKFd6C2GtPBdtw/s1600/IMG_0062.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5F3hxKZBEWRc90y33-x0wGZyLqnfZ5wknert6MBhBkJKmKCN5jJufFFUtqXBHiK5xIxO-rihiReH0mdZYflkARVHQOVjLQ9XvvR2vXw8-5NJdc8XQGIXTXHJqASEEtJKFd6C2GtPBdtw/s400/IMG_0062.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And these are Up-Up Trees, known in
traditional societies as an indicator of the political health of surrounding
human communities. When the quality of governance declines, their branches grow
vertically up in the most efficient direction for getting away from it.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It’s nice out here. Is it possible to
appreciate that niceness while at the same time remaining conscious of the
not-so-nice realities to which it necessarily connects?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRz-VVwEbuiPFnSjB5au95AeSWQ2b_3OeUI5TpD1AS1UwyfCc8csoSvI8KHMhX6iM1DHmNYcY-Gf9jKWOuVag9IsGcXU6zjwvyZ8swcbsXVXC1ooQrb5xWnmnu-wH-va3ONjLuxBK6nCI/s1600/IMG_0061.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRz-VVwEbuiPFnSjB5au95AeSWQ2b_3OeUI5TpD1AS1UwyfCc8csoSvI8KHMhX6iM1DHmNYcY-Gf9jKWOuVag9IsGcXU6zjwvyZ8swcbsXVXC1ooQrb5xWnmnu-wH-va3ONjLuxBK6nCI/s400/IMG_0061.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">One can imagine worse places than this
for self-isolation during a pandemic. But when lots of people do that imagining
all at once, it’s bad news, which is why large numbers of the English have been
fleeing to places like Wales, Cornwall, the Lake District and the Scottish
Highlands, bringing the virus with them and threatening those places’ gravely
constrained healthcare capacity.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNF1MdISG9xRKOV-_eiorm-bnZBFkmshTEHywJPozESO1roXyAnqe4VAsYO1X1MsCRn3EkQ_KTmv8qhYQ1exxJ-2powxGb3AyqoQOI6v_akMsHyIuV7jrgYCnxY9V5xA6_WRWIZqsAnJQ/s1600/IMG_0064.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNF1MdISG9xRKOV-_eiorm-bnZBFkmshTEHywJPozESO1roXyAnqe4VAsYO1X1MsCRn3EkQ_KTmv8qhYQ1exxJ-2powxGb3AyqoQOI6v_akMsHyIuV7jrgYCnxY9V5xA6_WRWIZqsAnJQ/s400/IMG_0064.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Some ducks and geese demonstrate the
proper application of social distancing as they enter the water.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDe5TOA6NBXG8ffCqgUv8NvhKdfxxFoHZJKXH3x1L_U4y44z8zUGGJ3MfDr9ZDy7YF9T3fA4SKCHSfsctT5yPc7hU05zCyysMnOBWTxKn8q6Yz5MbBc9LhTjli5MhPyTSJg5q86cu_Fs/s1600/IMG_0066.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDe5TOA6NBXG8ffCqgUv8NvhKdfxxFoHZJKXH3x1L_U4y44z8zUGGJ3MfDr9ZDy7YF9T3fA4SKCHSfsctT5yPc7hU05zCyysMnOBWTxKn8q6Yz5MbBc9LhTjli5MhPyTSJg5q86cu_Fs/s400/IMG_0066.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Also unfortunate is this great
profusion of blood-red Butchering Cummingsbush, which flourishes in response to eugenicist
influences on policymaking.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeE1jOszKufzAb8y344K-SyyU5pyk97unS8PiedsvevOyTNxNadfwd8FvIxfp5mAZAv5bd3EJ6Prw8mBSYqAzx30melvQD9xAWuz1mWls8i0BFKy-bJqhvOoFPsI_10kLWp-R18f5ntpU/s1600/IMG_0068.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeE1jOszKufzAb8y344K-SyyU5pyk97unS8PiedsvevOyTNxNadfwd8FvIxfp5mAZAv5bd3EJ6Prw8mBSYqAzx30melvQD9xAWuz1mWls8i0BFKy-bJqhvOoFPsI_10kLWp-R18f5ntpU/s400/IMG_0068.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The living Earth is really trying hard
to help us here. The mud here responds to the average political inclinations of
those who step through it, and secretes this Green Incorrectbloom in proportion
to the unpreparedness of their mindsets for public health emergencies.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQEPfGVFfP9Jtyu-mvAQ7CyJMSGLJTvICq7LTpkFlPGtcmAXaxCUEMq5IFCN2K8O8kTLOdLyMEDewh7rdlkzDF63U4DFFzcbE1yHpUKCw69K5njJG0Ho3VqOoQ2VbkadwyUkj6WIHlhCw/s1600/IMG_0070.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQEPfGVFfP9Jtyu-mvAQ7CyJMSGLJTvICq7LTpkFlPGtcmAXaxCUEMq5IFCN2K8O8kTLOdLyMEDewh7rdlkzDF63U4DFFzcbE1yHpUKCw69K5njJG0Ho3VqOoQ2VbkadwyUkj6WIHlhCw/s400/IMG_0070.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This, for its part, appears to be a
dog.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Hurley bungalow park now lays a final
tentacle along the riverside before more permanent habitations return. They are
not a village, nor really even a hamlet, but a single street called </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Frogmill</b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> with some well-to-do flood-prone cottages.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8HuqfJIH7ds-SKW2bDijhNKm4rm30i0ZgdDx628K9Tj76WFzFgJ8F335fye95YWHvHrlxRpkzQVE6-hsb_hBUDJy58adC8I1VTm31mUYznmssUYhnTX0_fIvNepto1IUMJx8fhd7k4IQ/s1600/IMG_0078.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8HuqfJIH7ds-SKW2bDijhNKm4rm30i0ZgdDx628K9Tj76WFzFgJ8F335fye95YWHvHrlxRpkzQVE6-hsb_hBUDJy58adC8I1VTm31mUYznmssUYhnTX0_fIvNepto1IUMJx8fhd7k4IQ/s400/IMG_0078.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The bungalows appear quite fancy along
here. Notice the evidence of an army of moles about to tunnel in and bring them
crashing into their foundations.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijvOQ2ahFxOZ2PjsFOommUM-V1Vu4YHOKH5daCBwsF_xmmw9ek1_IkP0MHcE6_EDzyIt4PeHCTYgcAGisE340UHpX4_JtwEWiBmyyPpSHfvKU5eJjtFM93trvB6BdBiKXRDmtlkgeupaY/s1600/IMG_0080.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijvOQ2ahFxOZ2PjsFOommUM-V1Vu4YHOKH5daCBwsF_xmmw9ek1_IkP0MHcE6_EDzyIt4PeHCTYgcAGisE340UHpX4_JtwEWiBmyyPpSHfvKU5eJjtFM93trvB6BdBiKXRDmtlkgeupaY/s400/IMG_0080.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The bank approaching Frogmill. Insert
your own comment about displays of nationalism here.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjksrNuPAuEyIHKsMYuH0mmlgM1ik1VaBqc2pLO3SutzlmybQly5z5D70dfcRzs6oyUIAysZOY77SVsv0D8okR_GabOszBnbLQdFBbftpG6wWak_qkfEpzFEDNHW4coNa28b-fH5PKdJxc/s1600/IMG_0082.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjksrNuPAuEyIHKsMYuH0mmlgM1ik1VaBqc2pLO3SutzlmybQly5z5D70dfcRzs6oyUIAysZOY77SVsv0D8okR_GabOszBnbLQdFBbftpG6wWak_qkfEpzFEDNHW4coNa28b-fH5PKdJxc/s400/IMG_0082.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This is the typical outcome of
attempting to photograph a red kite in flight.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM7FpNpMywtzbNsrAYnB8N5OxVDx7v7PkOE8PvZyShyn6IOOwCwUQ7xnCXnE4j8t3TBcc-wivGUyx36izyvdaPYZlCEyEpti2wvlhHYIZT3ohc2ZSCU8lvQXlOAum72DlvFxCPKhxLg04/s1600/IMG_0085.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM7FpNpMywtzbNsrAYnB8N5OxVDx7v7PkOE8PvZyShyn6IOOwCwUQ7xnCXnE4j8t3TBcc-wivGUyx36izyvdaPYZlCEyEpti2wvlhHYIZT3ohc2ZSCU8lvQXlOAum72DlvFxCPKhxLg04/s400/IMG_0085.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Larger inhabitations on Frogmill. It is said that in Norman times one of the people who lived here was
the <i>poisson duc</i> – that is, the official who governed this part of the
river on behalf of the manorial lord. A millennium later the English have done
what the English do and one of the houses here is now called <i>Poison Ducks</i>.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Then the humans withdraw as fast as they
came, leaving the wayfarer to delve into more wooded riverbanks. To brave the
mud is to be rewarded with a glimpse into another window through time. In it
can be found another killed-and-reincarnated monastery, this time of Medmenham.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXVMIWhunpG8lRcnK7Sh4b3o_AYaFxvVXV4b3ea8rBNCe08lFX4VmlXKMoKnTAYtkUATofZXPSTct6c3PrVguOdDklHf3av8u0kESNE0_XjT9-gAmcTPJwPB7dkNaS2gBFjsDwL_iPQc/s1600/IMG_0090.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXVMIWhunpG8lRcnK7Sh4b3o_AYaFxvVXV4b3ea8rBNCe08lFX4VmlXKMoKnTAYtkUATofZXPSTct6c3PrVguOdDklHf3av8u0kESNE0_XjT9-gAmcTPJwPB7dkNaS2gBFjsDwL_iPQc/s400/IMG_0090.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Medmenham Abbey was a twelfth-century
establishment of the Cistercians, the ‘White Monks’ who split off from the
Benedictine ‘Black Monks’ because Christianity is complicated. This abbey seems
to have been a quieter concern than some of its neighbours. Its records are
uneventful till it got Henry VIII’d in 1536, by when only the abbot and one
other monk lived there, though let it be insisted that that does not in any way
mitigate that king’s egregious wrongness. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Once again though it is its afterlife that
stands to notice. Other ruined monasteries on today’s route have found new work
in the nurture of sporting endeavours in one case and violent regime change in
the other – not too much, perhaps, for the old monks’ ghosts to stomach. This
one however might have breached their limit because of the penchant of its
new set of ‘Monks of Medmenham’ to whoop around drenched in alcohol and bodily
fluids while sacrificing to Greco-Roman deities, inserting their genitalia into
each other, and decorating its underground caves with symbols evoking said
genitalia under the name of the </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Hellfire
Club</i></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNz97Fc5hB3hlbe39uPCeTorGXPuDd8AqEDM8YxJlYpxwuf8eouT-NrFyphkeabcEUx7lFnWPiWfzbtNPBV3XiCYTLK175-Po7eUykNeMMKSPKmvShABwU8f9ZUraGD7epxVcG9EbkOGo/s1600/IMG_0089.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNz97Fc5hB3hlbe39uPCeTorGXPuDd8AqEDM8YxJlYpxwuf8eouT-NrFyphkeabcEUx7lFnWPiWfzbtNPBV3XiCYTLK175-Po7eUykNeMMKSPKmvShABwU8f9ZUraGD7epxVcG9EbkOGo/s400/IMG_0089.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Today an expensive private residence
(how’s £10 million sound?), little remains of either the original monastery or
the secrets of varying viscosity that some time dribbled down its walls.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Hellfire Club, or to give its – ahem –
respectable name, the <i>Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe</i>, was
the brainchild of a certain Sir Francis Dashwood, eleventh Baron le Despencer:
a rich and titled high-society Londoner (<a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html"><u>via Eton of course</u></a>)</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> well-known as a gadabout when not occupied
by his side-job as Chancellor of the Exchequer. On a youthful voyage round Europe
in the 1720s – whose highlights included impersonating the King of Sweden,
bothering the Russian Tsar’s daughter and getting thrown out of the Papal
States – he appeared to decide, between inhalations of high art and culture,
that the way the majority of people did religion offended his sense of what nature
and reason required it should be, and so set out to have a better go at it
himself. A string of experiments in creating exclusive secret societies led to
Dashwood’s collaboration with a clutch of top-of-society friends, in particular
the fourth Earl of Sandwich, whose product was the ‘Monks of Medmenham’ – as
they became known when they moved into the ruins of this abbey, having shaken
the fruits of their magic money trees into its restoration and installed, above
the entrance in stained glass, their motto: <i>Do What Thou Will</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And they did. Not that there is anything necessarily
wrong about activities of a blasphemous or fornicative nature so long as no-one
is hurt, only this was not Bacchanalia but class-performative English
Bacchanalia, powered by the profuse minds and wallets on the top tier of the caste
system to celebrate unto each other’s orifices their entitlement to get away
with absolutely whatever the fuck they wanted. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhge9vkXgowVoMeWdZ4pJJ2lYjcN5t3Kljx-Qv4yQbfIkB0kaP67Tgaz7QuHHGQti3B5k1Hf2kX-n6XPu-dB-lxqPibpMWQlOehlv1HAixXmdT81kf9SfLTmQGU4VDarcFXSOR1GFkpA2c/s1600/Hogarth_Dashwood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="788" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhge9vkXgowVoMeWdZ4pJJ2lYjcN5t3Kljx-Qv4yQbfIkB0kaP67Tgaz7QuHHGQti3B5k1Hf2kX-n6XPu-dB-lxqPibpMWQlOehlv1HAixXmdT81kf9SfLTmQGU4VDarcFXSOR1GFkpA2c/s400/Hogarth_Dashwood.jpg" width="295" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">A 1750s Hogarth depiction
of Francis Dashwood, portraying him parodically in the likeness of St. Francis
of Assisi with the Bible replaced by erotic literature.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Medmenham was and is an out-of-the-way
country village unused to that level of excitement, and rumours of disquieting
goings-on in the cloisters of their hallowed ruins were soon spreading round
the community. Tales leaked out of casks of booze, profane shrines and altars,
riotous singing and revelling into the night; of the likes of Venus and
Dionysus walking among the costumed “brothers” and prostitute “nuns” who
amassed round “High Priest Francis” in mock Christian rites beneath murals
depicting these “monks” in alternative versions, to say no more than that, of
Christian mythology – almost as though the entire setup was a deliberate parody
that had stuck its hand in a time-rift, pulled out <i>The Life of Brian</i> and
drenched it in steroids. Rumour mushroomed into scandal. Satanism and
demon-worship were spoken of. Weighty names got mentioned in the same sentence
as this ‘Hellfire Club’ – the Earl of Bute (later Prime Minister), the Prince
of Wales, the Duke of Queensbury, even Benjamin Franklin – which played to
fears of secretive, likely seditious political conspiring within this
necromantically-raised perversion of the Medmenham monastery. Its high priests’
reputation did not improve when the Earl of Sandwich released a monkey into a
local church service, prompting screaming worshippers to scatter for their
lives. By the 1760s the game was up but the peacocks had had their laugh, and they
packed up their club and moved on to the greater privacy of what remain known,
thanks to them, as the Hellfire Caves up in Wycombe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Perhaps we shall never know for sure what
went on in here, not least with the tendency of later English commentators,
especially those on fearful moralistic Victorian high horses, to embellish such
episodes with all manner of judgemental exaggerations. Was this a conclave
summoning abominations out of pits to advance the interests of the Pope or the
independence of the American colonies, or just a bunch of fellows being silly? This
much, at least, is clear: that class is everything in England (<i>Do What Thou
Will </i>indeed, but be sure to be rich and white while doing it); and that if
the realities of the Cistercian monks and “St. Francis of Wycombe” must share the
same ruins, then what unthinkable realities could one day be reached from
yours? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheUumzv61vwNUYPQcKpqm8Q0DhUmnRE1ZOWksUPszMvPK0fsxJskZ6qeBKFdUKsg1z4SsxJTdczNLS4f86EIvtrijvEoYK6J8SyJ74tbVfQh28O6muxWO4PyVdmKGpzk2J6Bfty3K9ti0/s1600/IMG_0091.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheUumzv61vwNUYPQcKpqm8Q0DhUmnRE1ZOWksUPszMvPK0fsxJskZ6qeBKFdUKsg1z4SsxJTdczNLS4f86EIvtrijvEoYK6J8SyJ74tbVfQh28O6muxWO4PyVdmKGpzk2J6Bfty3K9ti0/s400/IMG_0091.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Some willows are perhaps best left
un-parted.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA-wJVYG8fmhg-dRONm-GaqHHbOHgDdk2hrXnCRXnYXVS1DZyl61sGDJwV4Pb9x7IWn6l_lmhZJ2OBHThmVhxjVrfd7OoSXbJivMCK595wbelMAcOBbosmpZ91Y8wNHLBBn2Nyq1eJsrc/s1600/IMG_0088.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA-wJVYG8fmhg-dRONm-GaqHHbOHgDdk2hrXnCRXnYXVS1DZyl61sGDJwV4Pb9x7IWn6l_lmhZJ2OBHThmVhxjVrfd7OoSXbJivMCK595wbelMAcOBbosmpZ91Y8wNHLBBn2Nyq1eJsrc/s400/IMG_0088.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This local was approached for an
interview about the Hellfire Club, but no comment was given.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Oh and incidentally, Francis Dashwood never
made the most popular Chancellor either. During his tenure under the short
administration of his mate the Earl of Bute (1762-3), in which he built a
repute for not having the faintest clue about financial affairs, he is best
known for sending the farming provinces into uproar by tabling an excise on
production of cider and perry.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">That’s right. An alcohol tax. From this guy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNr-_CrRUQPjDoY_ylSWrLQFh5uMBHonelMUdWJ2FPkyo8umtFqKCfzQYeC8F1LBaCdIYA7X-rs7PIkorq_jZoZJyJpGLwhIB8CKdPVuJFDtSEGnzV8gXb16Yfz0vVsL76nZQdxCDELA/s1600/Dashwood+%2528turban%2529.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNr-_CrRUQPjDoY_ylSWrLQFh5uMBHonelMUdWJ2FPkyo8umtFqKCfzQYeC8F1LBaCdIYA7X-rs7PIkorq_jZoZJyJpGLwhIB8CKdPVuJFDtSEGnzV8gXb16Yfz0vVsL76nZQdxCDELA/s640/Dashwood+%2528turban%2529.webp" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Cheers.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Remenham</span></u></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There was a ferry here too. Someone wanted to
restrict it to private use, if the memorial over there is anything to go by. It
asserts that a certain Hudson Kearley – later Lord Devonport, first Chairman of
the <a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-1-tides-of-time.html"><u>Port of London Authority</u></a></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> – fought a successful court action to keep
it as a public service. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtPs5ncgFabN2wyxi3_8S6AGv56B_scbPg1z2n0UnRH-DDE_1OkDHG7uvT62APQGK-Vcz4lL72SqHv21uceRcgTuz_Vzf0HPUlHBJZ0LpP6YNOIfh1IjA1jfmRVVqKjCG7LaUvPgJr8Ws/s1600/IMG_0092.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtPs5ncgFabN2wyxi3_8S6AGv56B_scbPg1z2n0UnRH-DDE_1OkDHG7uvT62APQGK-Vcz4lL72SqHv21uceRcgTuz_Vzf0HPUlHBJZ0LpP6YNOIfh1IjA1jfmRVVqKjCG7LaUvPgJr8Ws/s400/IMG_0092.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The same Lord Devonport would later
cause a sensation by getting put in the House of Lords despite refusing to pay
the customary bung to his political party, threatening to expose their
conversation to the newspapers unless they went through with it.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Public or not, the ferry is gone, but the
nicer walking is on this side anyway on the Remenham peninsula. No I don’t have
a clue how to pronounce that either. The instinct is surely to read it as <i>Remainham</i>:
perhaps a recent temporary settlement, the last stand of this
valley’s holdouts who voted to Remain in the EU.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Remenham itself is a tiny village out on the
west side, but administrative inertia from manorial times keeps its parish spread
across the inside of this river bend.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioAGyvSTJ0bhVxEWTuO18lRwI96KkzfosZd3Z3abaU7mI-9n7SVijts9WfNuN8nPWrMGX0sviYUTM3Yn5nmf4dwLpyj02_1nLDdIHqPbiENd_WqxxwlN1oWxr63Ib7hSQ09TMD_STOxxk/s1600/IMG_0095.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioAGyvSTJ0bhVxEWTuO18lRwI96KkzfosZd3Z3abaU7mI-9n7SVijts9WfNuN8nPWrMGX0sviYUTM3Yn5nmf4dwLpyj02_1nLDdIHqPbiENd_WqxxwlN1oWxr63Ib7hSQ09TMD_STOxxk/s400/IMG_0095.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">More signs of mysterious nocturnal
rituals involving antlers, eldritch geometry, arm-waving and suspicious
beverages – all corroborating the evidence of the Hellfire Club that this is a
good place to get things under the radar.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs3BU0azoW5ZQH7adUAbSZ7D-BampaKq9i7YwEjoow0aiOVefb1XRUTuYhH6tt4DVinaah50qv4UxkLHwqdBojOwulhyphenhyphen7iMBxxsO72fCaOqpHhiYll9rzq9p6Uk_femgNbDRcBEE1mj-U/s1600/IMG_0096.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs3BU0azoW5ZQH7adUAbSZ7D-BampaKq9i7YwEjoow0aiOVefb1XRUTuYhH6tt4DVinaah50qv4UxkLHwqdBojOwulhyphenhyphen7iMBxxsO72fCaOqpHhiYll9rzq9p6Uk_femgNbDRcBEE1mj-U/s400/IMG_0096.JPG" width="400" /></a></b></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The last time they did the ritual
something went wrong. Whatever they summoned had to be quickly banished, though
not before projecting its ichor into the river where it now washes up,
congealed with the beer consumed in excess then vomited back out in the
proceedings’ aftermath.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBiajLzb52tCV5SsB5EswAs9xsUJqdBl0_n__tIsfqC_Pc6FFQ1lB1y1_JAgeulxenVx-93eRBBy5_CF261gOgMJY1zHj_9OQTseHGA0uMcGbsd76wDVF5LeBO6tuMl79jXvX4bSgtJIA/s1600/IMG_0097.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBiajLzb52tCV5SsB5EswAs9xsUJqdBl0_n__tIsfqC_Pc6FFQ1lB1y1_JAgeulxenVx-93eRBBy5_CF261gOgMJY1zHj_9OQTseHGA0uMcGbsd76wDVF5LeBO6tuMl79jXvX4bSgtJIA/s400/IMG_0097.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Not all of the creature fit back
through the portal.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Remenham peninsula centres on a steep and
chalky hill, to the frustration of drivers heading up this way on the Henley
Road. But where the slopes drop off, they leave the best of their scenery
sweeping round the low-lying riverbend – only because this is England, we must
cross someone’s massive private land-grab to see it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmS4Ym8Z2X2N9vrXfbNt-VHrjcfDfmStMcB1IlNC9C9dkf2UBNJJSSu9pwqHFLvN-aSr3vmSCFAZA9AM_F6BjDDcGQE6JHrLflm0GtARlcAPgPd88K-NTjf1UK5qBSTrOM2dVuOgyt2jE/s1600/IMG_0098.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmS4Ym8Z2X2N9vrXfbNt-VHrjcfDfmStMcB1IlNC9C9dkf2UBNJJSSu9pwqHFLvN-aSr3vmSCFAZA9AM_F6BjDDcGQE6JHrLflm0GtARlcAPgPd88K-NTjf1UK5qBSTrOM2dVuOgyt2jE/s400/IMG_0098.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Remenham Hill at left, also known as
White Hill for its participation in the chalky tendencies of the local
geology.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNhKRY3BNKm9S229-f7LdSJ6RQv1HypoOY9pVBaUP4CF0dtShM7gI9ZypCU-YvJl9Ou9-82LcxWy-_tQphX4s06-cjZXTYy9-ZRIlFIJKgzwsTcPs3uivuNgvDetKgUZiB-ia_NdkI9LQ/s1600/IMG_0105.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNhKRY3BNKm9S229-f7LdSJ6RQv1HypoOY9pVBaUP4CF0dtShM7gI9ZypCU-YvJl9Ou9-82LcxWy-_tQphX4s06-cjZXTYy9-ZRIlFIJKgzwsTcPs3uivuNgvDetKgUZiB-ia_NdkI9LQ/s400/IMG_0105.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Wanderers are shooed away from the
riverbank here, but because it is a protected wildlife area so that is okay. Huge
numbers of geese can be heard quacking their beaks off about religion and
politics in there, so it seems to be working.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-EyD8klzw2vFf_UqX_CY55rKiRUrsSYZty6Tq_vKVPCBVEprnAnIDs7F-34raXAzitkNQ6Wa83Q4KKpkazPhe0txjO_IGlT0vJRRyH9Stg_Ah1DifTSUx1zzLAnD9t1Ra7DxCy5oPmQ/s1600/IMG_0109.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-EyD8klzw2vFf_UqX_CY55rKiRUrsSYZty6Tq_vKVPCBVEprnAnIDs7F-34raXAzitkNQ6Wa83Q4KKpkazPhe0txjO_IGlT0vJRRyH9Stg_Ah1DifTSUx1zzLAnD9t1Ra7DxCy5oPmQ/s400/IMG_0109.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Culham Court, the massive Toad Hall at
issue.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This is a suspicious
one. Built in the 1760s on a longer history of prestigious occupation, it seems
this </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Culham Court</b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> has always been the lair of one branch of
the hyper-rich or another. To make matters worse, they have tended to be from
that stratum that makes their fortunes by fuelling mass oppression,
impoverishment and atrocity: Caribbean sugar plantations (based on slavery),
property speculation, newspaper ownership and dodgy financial products have all
featured in its story, whose latest instalment stars a Swiss billionaire who
recently pocketed it for £35 million. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoy2EHjzoRJ0NToDun0UZmD-i0csOO8VQccYYaq9L5erEoGrNsFhriBYWnvdd_wWFktC3YCqHDJQt6Q6wcdRK0acbhsCQeBAAWzLuvrA5ttz_vIvA3tnW77FtNMMRRLNRMpMkkYemRkVM/s1600/IMG_0107.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoy2EHjzoRJ0NToDun0UZmD-i0csOO8VQccYYaq9L5erEoGrNsFhriBYWnvdd_wWFktC3YCqHDJQt6Q6wcdRK0acbhsCQeBAAWzLuvrA5ttz_vIvA3tnW77FtNMMRRLNRMpMkkYemRkVM/s400/IMG_0107.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This appears
to be one of the mansion’s outbuildings, positioned on raised ground to allow
space for an elevator-accessed underground vault, nuclear bunker and submarine
dock.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXQhm5OZ02tXRGqMU96SD0SEBUH8_cAOrS-oMcbyX1BFkWbfIjzlLx8aaTscUj_L4NLir8Iu7zo8t-7LaGwMSzfAlRSurwh40JrDlv9PNaFzwMUrLZCn19tpNptdzmqGCSDczNz9CRyXY/s1600/IMG_0112.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXQhm5OZ02tXRGqMU96SD0SEBUH8_cAOrS-oMcbyX1BFkWbfIjzlLx8aaTscUj_L4NLir8Iu7zo8t-7LaGwMSzfAlRSurwh40JrDlv9PNaFzwMUrLZCn19tpNptdzmqGCSDczNz9CRyXY/s400/IMG_0112.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And what is
that naked mass of white over there?</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipnpkpxQ-1QqWMuDmw_X2VBa_IPKPm5V8G3fclJOxfCkI-1Mjap2Swo4fogZQlNRbgaK4DhN8ECwNu-SEDeYrW74Q4S60-DIhH0sX2yiR1z-2DJTygwcedxDO-fHHDeOeENkKM1X9YNUE/s1600/IMG_0113.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipnpkpxQ-1QqWMuDmw_X2VBa_IPKPm5V8G3fclJOxfCkI-1Mjap2Swo4fogZQlNRbgaK4DhN8ECwNu-SEDeYrW74Q4S60-DIhH0sX2yiR1z-2DJTygwcedxDO-fHHDeOeENkKM1X9YNUE/s400/IMG_0113.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">White deer?
Well then.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Fortunately the
river is real where money is not, and has prevailed on the occupants to not
dare interfere with the cosmic right of all people to access its water. Not all
the hyper-rich have the sense to accept that, so let’s acknowledge the decency
of these ones by reciprocating an act of politeness: we shall refrain, on this
occasion, from besieging the house and seizing its land for the common
interest.</span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzAWiS6RCIk643o6xPRAHr0ElXC_PPmNWoKn4ZmTH3SdHyOruUrIWu56G9-b2U5CaJ7dVvqzSjrCjpsLzzI-AcizM0kDVwszyB17SlAeHuazHUAl8eYB72C2gQI8JtDM-xtcySTmdrWgA/s1600/IMG_0117.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzAWiS6RCIk643o6xPRAHr0ElXC_PPmNWoKn4ZmTH3SdHyOruUrIWu56G9-b2U5CaJ7dVvqzSjrCjpsLzzI-AcizM0kDVwszyB17SlAeHuazHUAl8eYB72C2gQI8JtDM-xtcySTmdrWgA/s400/IMG_0117.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And it’s just
as well they don’t try to stop people crossing. The front of their property
looks out on some of the best views to be had in those parts, and it is right
that those should be accessible to everyone.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqQh-86j3fKlSX2pR1fCVuSg_z6PGuUfEd18moM4VOel5FSdMH8T8pqtlA6TBkpQxg5pHxbPyj7CCJhVr0edlwZ6onyL8EVOBVbI5iJ78upSWaCYF4CBdlf3zuGy9VBHfPWdsU4wWNiE/s1600/IMG_0119.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqQh-86j3fKlSX2pR1fCVuSg_z6PGuUfEd18moM4VOel5FSdMH8T8pqtlA6TBkpQxg5pHxbPyj7CCJhVr0edlwZ6onyL8EVOBVbI5iJ78upSWaCYF4CBdlf3zuGy9VBHfPWdsU4wWNiE/s400/IMG_0119.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">They’ve
plugged a lawn in it for rolling their seaplanes down onto the river.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmmzVcdWzMxcgEfCyVun-rwnYp-geJqViLjmXoZaS1FLLqD1iVaUtz6d4hhlgtZ8TkigVhZUbTmahQAiw7rMJ_PgeaWTkMD1GnT0xS1iu9y8o8XpA3ZltvTRfMMFIqjotVox8D0moRdw8/s1600/IMG_0121.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmmzVcdWzMxcgEfCyVun-rwnYp-geJqViLjmXoZaS1FLLqD1iVaUtz6d4hhlgtZ8TkigVhZUbTmahQAiw7rMJ_PgeaWTkMD1GnT0xS1iu9y8o8XpA3ZltvTRfMMFIqjotVox8D0moRdw8/s400/IMG_0121.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The tiny
settlement of Aston makes its appearance up the valley.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbO5GOuSmoaOoxwFMhf53M73p9jUFjdZenELf_O-kdQpG1pgD8LLLq9js8-Lxr3AL2sNyK65yuJ4cha4ZwIHY5TqDL_NcAX5NOlujn3KxPe8wE11fNGJHnuN-LtGDzaJ04fFGgr2fbKJo/s1600/IMG_0123.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbO5GOuSmoaOoxwFMhf53M73p9jUFjdZenELf_O-kdQpG1pgD8LLLq9js8-Lxr3AL2sNyK65yuJ4cha4ZwIHY5TqDL_NcAX5NOlujn3KxPe8wE11fNGJHnuN-LtGDzaJ04fFGgr2fbKJo/s400/IMG_0123.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">All the while
the red kites whirl. The class hierarchies, floods and pandemics that humans
invite to trouble themselves are literally beneath them.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">At last Culham
Court’s assertions drop off, and just as well. For here, now, just as a virus, that
tiniest of existences that barely even qualifies as a lifeform, threaten to bring
a chapter of this society’s story to a pestilential close, the Thames valley
hurls its wings wide open. Here, where the water is halfway down and the
traveller is halfway up, tragedy and beauty join as one. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF3s-43zm7oxtoztxgk4Xk0kbu9gKmYibdGusV8a_SfhFdrNnUrUxElpZCaLAmGUrZx2rCgEIgOVyeABmaOmO3zosssIL6h6EiFZChDk1szQhq_3Xoc6gsfise-7_yDHTlISMeESQ1IaM/s1600/IMG_0130.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF3s-43zm7oxtoztxgk4Xk0kbu9gKmYibdGusV8a_SfhFdrNnUrUxElpZCaLAmGUrZx2rCgEIgOVyeABmaOmO3zosssIL6h6EiFZChDk1szQhq_3Xoc6gsfise-7_yDHTlISMeESQ1IaM/s640/IMG_0130.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It’s not the
Yangtze, nor the Amazon. But it has a character uniquely it own, and here
perhaps comes a first glimpse of its full potential.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It might not look
like much in a photo. But as a sensory environment, with the wind blowing, the
sun shining and kites screeching on high, this was the place, for myself at
least, where the river first touched on something connected to awe. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">No, make no mistake,
not because that <i>Wind in the Willows </i>vision of a harmonious ‘green and
pleasant land’ was true after all. Rather because the scene enabled the imagination
that it <i>could be</i>; brought the <i>what if</i> so close to the boundary of
this reality that you could just about reach out and touch it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Just about – but
not quite. The feeling was bittersweet. It was this: that if they had this
– all this, right here – but without the heap of pointless nothings they have
invented out of nowhere to hurt each other for no reason; without the terrible
governance, the manufactures of race and gender, the class structure, the
conviction that competition is the natural way and care is weak; if they had
never sullied the fabric of this reality with such pointless cruelties, and
instead made proper use of the abundance and freedom given to them by this
landscape here, then it is not hard to imagine, on top of shrugging off the
likes of COVID-19, that they could in fact have a bloody good world here to
show the rest of the universe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Instead the most
monumental screw-ups have sent them cartwheeling into a new millennium on their
knees, the English and all the rest of them, and that alone is why this country,
this, here, with all its genuine potential, is instead on its way to becoming
one of the bloodiest feasts in the world for a virus whose tens of thousands of
victims, with all the resources and lessons of history available in this world,
they really had no possible excuse not to protect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">They cannot travel
now. They are confined to their houses in lockdown and almost everything has
been shut. But when it is safe to do so, let them come back here to imagine
what could have been.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It still could be, if they want it. But they are running out of time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA5ovOpgbaB9AIHBvn2Q1teuBZi0JvlJojhlrkf9n4ekFjJaXUglSogkZyklymNS_GLpWTHklRpRae6-zMZM4rxLCldhw3kGwXsEDeOccBiz2E8N4ubgMSN_QR6eqsFI7cLzGJhgJHUdU/s1600/IMG_0127.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA5ovOpgbaB9AIHBvn2Q1teuBZi0JvlJojhlrkf9n4ekFjJaXUglSogkZyklymNS_GLpWTHklRpRae6-zMZM4rxLCldhw3kGwXsEDeOccBiz2E8N4ubgMSN_QR6eqsFI7cLzGJhgJHUdU/s640/IMG_0127.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk9nGmsB5WUihpS8uZjrmfREgukx4JnzhC2vgsN3ggYoMDELgjQfzm9tsaXjEUvo282peHARwJMAcxItko5ep9UWoEW_FgDfBBcVuiEV1rqgyfiTS4qDJlkj2gMw3fc5C0cgel9F7emPw/s1600/IMG_0126.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk9nGmsB5WUihpS8uZjrmfREgukx4JnzhC2vgsN3ggYoMDELgjQfzm9tsaXjEUvo282peHARwJMAcxItko5ep9UWoEW_FgDfBBcVuiEV1rqgyfiTS4qDJlkj2gMw3fc5C0cgel9F7emPw/s400/IMG_0126.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It even has
one of these. Those who have recently travelled in Hyrule via <i>Breath of the
Wild</i></span> will immediately know what to do with this. There will be
another in this area, identical except for one missing block. The block will be
somewhere nearby, perhaps fallen into the river. You are supposed to extract it
with a magnet and slot it into the correct place so the two structures match,
whereupon a Korok will appear and reward you with a seed.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhffubLuypijR48jQKZcs0ChkL3ZQcoPQGdRK1Zh9lyTIqiMSUrCRP6JPa_7LtHY55xmSdzDV1IVh1d21JXIFSn52-Typ36uyRQRBJKsR1yF3prEQ-QHqMcw613bo9BR4uofWCp3PblsVg/s1600/IMG_0131.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhffubLuypijR48jQKZcs0ChkL3ZQcoPQGdRK1Zh9lyTIqiMSUrCRP6JPa_7LtHY55xmSdzDV1IVh1d21JXIFSn52-Typ36uyRQRBJKsR1yF3prEQ-QHqMcw613bo9BR4uofWCp3PblsVg/s400/IMG_0131.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">A lone
cottage on the hillside. It looks like each piece was added in a different
era.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Down the slope is
the tiny hamlet of </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Aston</b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">. A satellite of the Remenham manor, it seems
to owe its existence to another ferry which has since ceased to run. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZSY72ORt96URVN_Tg5MTbm3r-vNOaO1OyKCwtgcVyAoWkHwW5Th5vKKmL__KIhjjoeT5pXhfVbpO3LnAP2bEkdOHWzVs1Smk8raOPh6-WOsUwRVibaRzc2VrArZeHovCh80sDFuNS_2k/s1600/IMG_0132.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZSY72ORt96URVN_Tg5MTbm3r-vNOaO1OyKCwtgcVyAoWkHwW5Th5vKKmL__KIhjjoeT5pXhfVbpO3LnAP2bEkdOHWzVs1Smk8raOPh6-WOsUwRVibaRzc2VrArZeHovCh80sDFuNS_2k/s400/IMG_0132.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i>The Flower
Pot</i>, Aston’s pub. The story goes that this is where you would find the boat
operator if you needed to cross the river, but like most Thames ferries this
service disappeared in the twentieth century after trains and motor cars made
it commercially unviable.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-dp_-Kp6fg9mCDTNDJMH17hEYASalKE2P27IwOZvuq8Klw4zESYjqibtyKUwYP7thvvz0QukcowNeGmC6RM7BmYk8V7vAbfA4Q6lSayAjy2vrBWH0pTdos382iunW12JdpFxd-sQAnI0/s1600/IMG_0134.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-dp_-Kp6fg9mCDTNDJMH17hEYASalKE2P27IwOZvuq8Klw4zESYjqibtyKUwYP7thvvz0QukcowNeGmC6RM7BmYk8V7vAbfA4Q6lSayAjy2vrBWH0pTdos382iunW12JdpFxd-sQAnI0/s400/IMG_0134.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>At first this might appear a typical scene in English rural life – people
enjoying a relaxed pub lunch by the river. Not anymore. A few days later every
pub, café and restaurant in the UK was closed to slow the rocketing spread of
COVID-19. As things stand, the way of life depicted here no longer exists. A
photograph of an everyday scene has become a historic document of a pre-pandemic
world to which there is no return. By the time people flock to these tables
again, it could well be (and had bloody better be if they know what’s good for
them) a very different England.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
I
wonder if the flocks of red kites still circle this pub at low altitude, now
that these tables lie deserted.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiacJh4YuSwn9muiCZ9Jx9ts7zTw6MJZO4sxHGBOtthkpVQcf-ysQdsxRr0MmRtNvUK4OCJOBUnfuFlXIOdMVABQDP9P86g4zaYrqCbUm2XHq0GIzyTuw4VsAObYxE2irQITpdBl-Zc-K4/s1600/IMG_0141.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiacJh4YuSwn9muiCZ9Jx9ts7zTw6MJZO4sxHGBOtthkpVQcf-ysQdsxRr0MmRtNvUK4OCJOBUnfuFlXIOdMVABQDP9P86g4zaYrqCbUm2XHq0GIzyTuw4VsAObYxE2irQITpdBl-Zc-K4/s400/IMG_0141.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>It seems they do in fact land sometimes. You probably wouldn’t see this
downriver.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOzR24oMpCyMnUOTH0rIzxqheJ0P_E3LjKK4XgVnZoznoPW_pxRsP-t9kKJWETSXk7Gx2JDJOLQIhfDfuyfjkN_S-kpQE6IP3FwB9NxylO9eCem4o2ZiRJDAIDUaRsSaC_fGFyiglCVGo/s1600/IMG_0144.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOzR24oMpCyMnUOTH0rIzxqheJ0P_E3LjKK4XgVnZoznoPW_pxRsP-t9kKJWETSXk7Gx2JDJOLQIhfDfuyfjkN_S-kpQE6IP3FwB9NxylO9eCem4o2ZiRJDAIDUaRsSaC_fGFyiglCVGo/s640/IMG_0144.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>And this is unlikelier still.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg786VpxndWo4qcn6vkIJi1tsVxQEqJrb1MZTGy7uBOvA2OAQQqSCGgKzdq6yrXyhSBptBvqscDQr9FjT0PLWNgjTfsh_FBefQfnKHSqqukGuuvI5HGbLBPtBulMfaG6I9XJ2XSYWV_Gj0/s1600/IMG_0145.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg786VpxndWo4qcn6vkIJi1tsVxQEqJrb1MZTGy7uBOvA2OAQQqSCGgKzdq6yrXyhSBptBvqscDQr9FjT0PLWNgjTfsh_FBefQfnKHSqqukGuuvI5HGbLBPtBulMfaG6I9XJ2XSYWV_Gj0/s400/IMG_0145.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Life erupts on the fields and branches, a reminder of all the lovely spring
walking that will be missed this year while languishing in quarantine.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAvkMg3AKKvz5uz012XDAUM5mBfJR_LYWJHNs43cxjhLstQfgv6m3xIJ9U2wkqPX9bDqTr3tVFkRZ8R46cN7bAevyaaWalQ1zp0SxTy0WZdWK1IT1J5YJ2z7k2YZO-sPlQ4A7F1anZDqk/s1600/IMG_0147.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAvkMg3AKKvz5uz012XDAUM5mBfJR_LYWJHNs43cxjhLstQfgv6m3xIJ9U2wkqPX9bDqTr3tVFkRZ8R46cN7bAevyaaWalQ1zp0SxTy0WZdWK1IT1J5YJ2z7k2YZO-sPlQ4A7F1anZDqk/s400/IMG_0147.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And here’s where the ferry was. If you shift to a different timeline it might
still be there, though rubber boots remain recommended.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Then
it’s out into the fields to walk in the dream again, past the remains of a
major flour mill.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw5yfmKViQUPmXJej0jLxXwmnVFXDIPzD3pmuttnU9hvhPMKAHFkoyd6qGpF37ZsAB-E1xb2EzHgYkPao0hjq5G3b6k1EmvLy01mbzo2ZnoRnJvuZfwsvekVWiTlmrB6CdY2aMPy6Q39w/s1600/IMG_0149.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw5yfmKViQUPmXJej0jLxXwmnVFXDIPzD3pmuttnU9hvhPMKAHFkoyd6qGpF37ZsAB-E1xb2EzHgYkPao0hjq5G3b6k1EmvLy01mbzo2ZnoRnJvuZfwsvekVWiTlmrB6CdY2aMPy6Q39w/s400/IMG_0149.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Somewhere in here is a good metaphor for the inevitable fate of human nations'
imaginary borders.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRHfuMADtJstfwv1JPMY5HXBhrnRI06Nzgn8_Ic9d2kZaRMFr3V_BK6QujM14iYZMwceaEOX_KjE2p7477aKQ61-opWP4DPjmNxfWrs290Cq1HmAGBWWqkwfjl7-rzswd_txHJ6NCjdM8/s1600/IMG_0150.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRHfuMADtJstfwv1JPMY5HXBhrnRI06Nzgn8_Ic9d2kZaRMFr3V_BK6QujM14iYZMwceaEOX_KjE2p7477aKQ61-opWP4DPjmNxfWrs290Cq1HmAGBWWqkwfjl7-rzswd_txHJ6NCjdM8/s400/IMG_0150.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Beneath the
western end of the Chiltern Hills nests what used to be Hambleden Mill,
protected by a yellow mechanical brachiosaurus.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8dq3L5g9jHsHShDzSAmICu6RZ9mHBx2tUX55BEA1sW_zBLbrp32Tab3azPlKGHplR21zLcZ2IwCqgWtAmSJcTq9qu9-cixlHZDf_O4Gskk7zGxPNyfRJ-2uA5pVqe-Vd3KMnECnG1OYk/s1600/IMG_0153.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8dq3L5g9jHsHShDzSAmICu6RZ9mHBx2tUX55BEA1sW_zBLbrp32Tab3azPlKGHplR21zLcZ2IwCqgWtAmSJcTq9qu9-cixlHZDf_O4Gskk7zGxPNyfRJ-2uA5pVqe-Vd3KMnECnG1OYk/s400/IMG_0153.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">A mill has
occupied this strategic position since at least the Norman surveys, but this
white timbered incarnation is a creature of the industrial eighteenth century.
Later it was upgraded further, its old waterwheel replaced by a shiny new
turbine and its millstones with state-of-the-art steel rollers. By now you know
where it goes from there: in the 1970s its service of a thousand years was no
longer considered useful and it was converted to flats.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Drz1wS4bzXUUz14Ne0HFL8WxmpYJ1MfLTv3rs-bK2Zg8Osf_c2q2fw8Epg6iDJa9fC5h6Kxd6muGvllurCzf5F-76kKr7TGi2t4WbJaWLdmRdpeC-2qPSSC4QyxCkYzOTUe-QlposrQ/s1600/IMG_0154.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Drz1wS4bzXUUz14Ne0HFL8WxmpYJ1MfLTv3rs-bK2Zg8Osf_c2q2fw8Epg6iDJa9fC5h6Kxd6muGvllurCzf5F-76kKr7TGi2t4WbJaWLdmRdpeC-2qPSSC4QyxCkYzOTUe-QlposrQ/s400/IMG_0154.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Hambleden
Lock, built in 1773, accompanies the mill’s venerable weirs.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2YYYJTPdndRmF82pkfd1bQwzFKH4u26VyWrXWg3vfoZTts-gqZ6xFeAkSzkuH0OwxAeoePprI3LdP58eTbeHRGibK8QvRszifeDvIly9y5SLA4VY6wVi72Oj_0F5PNjWYS2GxaQPM0to/s1600/IMG_0155.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2YYYJTPdndRmF82pkfd1bQwzFKH4u26VyWrXWg3vfoZTts-gqZ6xFeAkSzkuH0OwxAeoePprI3LdP58eTbeHRGibK8QvRszifeDvIly9y5SLA4VY6wVi72Oj_0F5PNjWYS2GxaQPM0to/s400/IMG_0155.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And these
pointy terrors accompany the lock.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
Henley Reach</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Formally
this is still Remenham, but along this bend all narrative gravity draws
unstoppably into the boatyards of Henley. Round the corner it is easy to see
why.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGW_wZi36LTU9WrvCISOMJszAuzKu0uPtfLHWPVdYqroTsZ6ackuQ5olnRVXuoQ1XR4ZLbhNl3NjFPG8Bl75OF7zi4OqmFFvspy-PmTztHzvJ6wG1hmqzI1uZKbNwAGIHLGyN5bVB9lbk/s1600/IMG_0158.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGW_wZi36LTU9WrvCISOMJszAuzKu0uPtfLHWPVdYqroTsZ6ackuQ5olnRVXuoQ1XR4ZLbhNl3NjFPG8Bl75OF7zi4OqmFFvspy-PmTztHzvJ6wG1hmqzI1uZKbNwAGIHLGyN5bVB9lbk/s400/IMG_0158.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The final curve, with an incongruous proletarian platform.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrafR3irQpVBREPsc5NoVukoQqvPohm7b9bFX1xaVIm7fyy039juGCzBmMUsUAPQHgOj4wZPY1RDSen0vscw2f8cQI2b3cT9afjTv-tYmnbY5nTGSJZu1RDF7F0WacfkbX3bhr5d4Res/s1600/IMG_0159.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrafR3irQpVBREPsc5NoVukoQqvPohm7b9bFX1xaVIm7fyy039juGCzBmMUsUAPQHgOj4wZPY1RDSen0vscw2f8cQI2b3cT9afjTv-tYmnbY5nTGSJZu1RDF7F0WacfkbX3bhr5d4Res/s400/IMG_0159.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>By now there are regular encounters with upriver lifeforms exotic to the
metropolitan lower reaches. Anyone know what this is?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHYsOzrG8kizHyTsObRIZ3PUUzKrhvJL25j8hIDSbQ1PCPCcChFHHHBSQkkHucN0SjzKyAdE-YMe3ExPrLZZp9SOL2EvqSRN9Y7ItuYkemlmv0NIZP7NIL3SzX52Sxet_sg0Y3XSeaUvM/s1600/IMG_0161.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHYsOzrG8kizHyTsObRIZ3PUUzKrhvJL25j8hIDSbQ1PCPCcChFHHHBSQkkHucN0SjzKyAdE-YMe3ExPrLZZp9SOL2EvqSRN9Y7ItuYkemlmv0NIZP7NIL3SzX52Sxet_sg0Y3XSeaUvM/s400/IMG_0161.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Greenlands, as this house is called even though it has nothing to do with
Greenland, is another old aristocratic pile whose best-known occupant was
probably William Henry (“W.H.”) Smith, who took over his family newsagent in
the 1840s – guess what it was called – and rode it to gigantitude on the idea
that the new railways’ stations might be a worthwhile place to sell newspapers.
The mansion is now used by Henley Business School, an arm of the University of
Reading.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibISzI5kLspkskoV37m4TLph1dSlCWzZTibiJZFOLH3pVypaI6RDY7rgdzCUkGjLoHzAgsG3vKiIsuRweprj_5xbrO2GQ1WwDpxxWlJgBDTTkMEnPhxhD7-xfAJSFUxj44wo1PKWH4eLk/s1600/IMG_0162.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibISzI5kLspkskoV37m4TLph1dSlCWzZTibiJZFOLH3pVypaI6RDY7rgdzCUkGjLoHzAgsG3vKiIsuRweprj_5xbrO2GQ1WwDpxxWlJgBDTTkMEnPhxhD7-xfAJSFUxj44wo1PKWH4eLk/s400/IMG_0162.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Sunshine. Cottages. River. Hills. Plague.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI4zv3BcKVIBlCl9OOdHOClraHhBGwRtyXiwyelFyfKmwrxrWD9U06dhMHmwe7Swayt9XEhBpOjz7WOBx1Y7BggD2h1rMW75S8P3IubjLq4PPu83hAydb9SuYb-91nT_gQUXKUk7KiV4Q/s1600/IMG_0168.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI4zv3BcKVIBlCl9OOdHOClraHhBGwRtyXiwyelFyfKmwrxrWD9U06dhMHmwe7Swayt9XEhBpOjz7WOBx1Y7BggD2h1rMW75S8P3IubjLq4PPu83hAydb9SuYb-91nT_gQUXKUk7KiV4Q/s400/IMG_0168.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>And then it shoots off in a straight line all the way to Henley.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
Henley Reach covers two kilometres of suspiciously straight river. It is as
though the water spirits specifically sculpted it for the pleasure of the
rowing establishment, which is why a <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_determinism">geographical
determinist</a></u> might tell you that Henley, of all the Thames towns, emerged as
its nerve centre.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
I am
obliged to declare my biases before taking another step. Back downriver I was
for some years <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">involved
in punting</a></u>. In that activity, the rowers emerged as our natural adversaries
in a struggle for supremacy on the river whose driving force came entirely from
them. While we in our punts merely sought immersion, exertion and honourable
contests by the grace of the river’s generosity, we were rarely spared the
invasion of the rowers in their bristling and roaring centipede-boats which nuisanced
our punts with their wash before the inevitable dictator-in-a-motorboat came spluttering
through in their wake, bellowing humiliations at the crews through a megaphone
as though the blustering pretensions of a professional navy are any way to
behave on a common waterway.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
I
have nothing against rowing in and of itself. I respect its potential to do good
when undertaken in a safe and consensual way, and especially celebrate its
capacity for the physical and social empowerment of women, whose battle for the
right to participate in it has been an enormous plank of its story in a
gendered England which robbed so much of women’s power in the first place. I
only mean to say that, though it be far from my place to make requests on how
that power is used, there might be a case to avoid scenarios like that time in
Thames Ditton when a group of young girls, drifting along in their vessel as
they awaited instructions, happened to ram into my punting instructor as he
stood starting a race in his canoe, thereupon capsizing it and plunging the
poor fellow into the river.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJMUmiDaoHZ7FByb4oc-At_eTXywAZGdOVUlyEJsK1xrJAKue8l01lkohlvY6cHjEpm3_tT-Yhf35WPbSAC4AaQNkJ2EzRKaOPgYIj4ky2jeW9cRKGXWnajDa1c3TvDVs76JZPbOIuPcI/s1600/IMG_0174.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJMUmiDaoHZ7FByb4oc-At_eTXywAZGdOVUlyEJsK1xrJAKue8l01lkohlvY6cHjEpm3_tT-Yhf35WPbSAC4AaQNkJ2EzRKaOPgYIj4ky2jeW9cRKGXWnajDa1c3TvDVs76JZPbOIuPcI/s400/IMG_0174.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Henley-on-Thames in the distance, our destination for today and the finish line
for the course of its rowing regatta.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht2oAZrVbVmHOWIvBKHxolV2Jq5qOeh2fNJVo2dWlk-U1P3pcHRE4okEnwfZbSpcSWzaUdrqeNWj6iwGffw79Z8CF8gWyryd2C4tDG1jHz6dy_eRTKsrFdYFKODufSWm_4nKaGiryyDFU/s1600/IMG_0169.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht2oAZrVbVmHOWIvBKHxolV2Jq5qOeh2fNJVo2dWlk-U1P3pcHRE4okEnwfZbSpcSWzaUdrqeNWj6iwGffw79Z8CF8gWyryd2C4tDG1jHz6dy_eRTKsrFdYFKODufSWm_4nKaGiryyDFU/s400/IMG_0169.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br />
At the downstream end sits this island, exactly where it would be had it been
deliberately placed to mark the start of a rowing course that ends beneath
whooping crowds on Henley Bridge. For reasons in plain sight they call it
Temple Island, but this temple is not a facility for religious observance, nor
was it built by the rowers themselves in an attempt to appropriate the weight
of divine authority for their sport. Its truth sits once again in the English
class system: the island was controlled by another big mansion, Fawley Court on
the opposite bank, and built in a style inspired by Roman Pompeii as a fishing
lodge and focal object for views.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Henley’s
rowing authorities managed, after decades of attempts, to prise the island out
of the landowners’ hands for an eye-watering sum. They now hold it on lease and
appear to rent it out for expensive private functions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyLKheuZWuD1xHz7lEdtQYasMbmhIlwySYlaxpha207T0UE283x6RxjBtHMzH5dC0-wvN2fSPA4cKd1mNfkuc5pwj0xpiQ9NHmTh8sKmTCmH-w2bQT_iYFgo5T8PAizQNphSoc5T97hz8/s1600/IMG_0172.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyLKheuZWuD1xHz7lEdtQYasMbmhIlwySYlaxpha207T0UE283x6RxjBtHMzH5dC0-wvN2fSPA4cKd1mNfkuc5pwj0xpiQ9NHmTh8sKmTCmH-w2bQT_iYFgo5T8PAizQNphSoc5T97hz8/s400/IMG_0172.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>I believe this is a <i>nymph</i>, as they call her species. She probably
prefers punting to rowing.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
final waypoint on this approach is <b>Remenham</b> itself. The village’s tiny
footprint on the riverside belies the procession of big landed names who have
swaggered in its domain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-G9-re3mClhfeglwjURHEKfmOd33uo5QyRbSNDi9XRRLXw6YHwjofeVR7NFi__G3cPDXPibcv_Lfq9zHokR7Ey3WF0XEu5UCTZwup-rBy-jscVABz115NKdPQQMlQylhsIr3qSAGkBfc/s1600/IMG_0177.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-G9-re3mClhfeglwjURHEKfmOd33uo5QyRbSNDi9XRRLXw6YHwjofeVR7NFi__G3cPDXPibcv_Lfq9zHokR7Ey3WF0XEu5UCTZwup-rBy-jscVABz115NKdPQQMlQylhsIr3qSAGkBfc/s400/IMG_0177.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Remenham. Its wider holdings were farmland, with most of the present village
buildings originally part of the farmstead. The farm is still active, but the
rise of the rowers in Henley has since plugged most of the village into the
regatta’s hospitality opportunities.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjakSKtUonI-soyDv42gR1olZcLlBDlv889JawsYrkwlb2nFrl8tahzN8o4h2paNAW_S6mfgClBd76aHjRhDp0OLP9dJaQNpjald8cLlRnomvv44gLtoIIRcfH6ILIeRGg6dMUEzkIN4oU/s1600/IMG_0181.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjakSKtUonI-soyDv42gR1olZcLlBDlv889JawsYrkwlb2nFrl8tahzN8o4h2paNAW_S6mfgClBd76aHjRhDp0OLP9dJaQNpjald8cLlRnomvv44gLtoIIRcfH6ILIeRGg6dMUEzkIN4oU/s400/IMG_0181.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Remenham’s church is Norman, if much restored, but has been a sacred site since
before Christian times. Hence the theories about the village’s bizarre name: it
might refer to the ancient Remi people of Celtic times, or to ravens, the
symbol of the Anglo-Saxon god Woden (more familiar today by his Norse name,
Odin).</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6YXsL7C_SS4ZqPOes7ANlslClq32c80uojKwzmnocs-dOVQqOgQ-1mxw-txmhDehCDtIqvRc-VQiZ57qd1e9MwQkaTMoO-NUv9fJZfVRrtWoB__4sOXcWugaQ7O04WJ1JLb7WAinydo/s1600/IMG_0179.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE6YXsL7C_SS4ZqPOes7ANlslClq32c80uojKwzmnocs-dOVQqOgQ-1mxw-txmhDehCDtIqvRc-VQiZ57qd1e9MwQkaTMoO-NUv9fJZfVRrtWoB__4sOXcWugaQ7O04WJ1JLb7WAinydo/s400/IMG_0179.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And this is Fawley Court, the last in today’s string of Toad Halls and the one
for whose gratification Temple Island was arranged. It too took a unique and
unanticipated turn: after World War II it became a school for the children of
exiled Polish people, growing into a cultural centre with an enormous
historical archive that got it the nickname <i>Poland-on-Thames</i>. Its sale
to a property investor in the 2000s generated huge controversy amidst a tangle
of bitter lawsuits and disputes over large sums of money.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Now
it might be that Remenham’s tiny size is simply a relic of days when small
numbers of obscenely rich and powerful individuals controlled lands far too big
for them. Listen closely though and you hear far more sinister whispers,
offering an alternative explanation that now gurgles back to anxious relevance. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Remenham
used to be a lot bigger, they say. Then came the plague. It wiped out almost
all of the village’s population. And they have never grown back.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
Great Plague of 1665-6, England’s last catastrophic outbreak of bubonic plague,
is mostly associated with London where it took down one hundred thousand
people, about a quarter of the city's population. Most of those – and all this is
worth reading with the filter of 2020 on top of it – were poor and vulnerable people
living precarious livelihoods in crowded and unsanitary accommodation, but the
plague also spread to the countryside as panicking rich people fled there,
bringing the bacteria with them much as they have lately ferried COVID-19 to
Snowdonia and the Scottish Highlands. Records for the impact in remoter places
are patchy; most famous is the story of the quarantine of Eyam which always
does the rounds here during public heath emergencies. But in Remenham, all that
can easily be found is a single line, which takes all the agony of its most traumatic experience in history and reduces it to a bland, phlegmatic piece of trivia:
“most of the population was wiped out by the plague”. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
is a statement of stories forgotten rather than remembered. But I wonder if
deep in the collective memories of the people who live there today, communities
like this each feel the echoes of what they went through in the great pandemics
of the past; and if in any significant way, even subconsciously, those memories
still move their feelings and actions in the face of the current one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 201.6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Henley-on-Thames</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>…the
Mole was very full of lunch, and self-satisfaction, and pride, and already
quite at home in a boat (so he thought), and was getting a bit restless
besides: and presently he said, "Ratty! Please, I want to row, now!"</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>The
Rat shook his head with a smile. "Not yet, my young friend," he said;
"wait till you've had a few lessons. It's not so easy as it looks."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Nope.
Not easy at all when you’ve been stopped from leaving your house except for
basic necessities, medical needs and one form of exercise per day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLIoJ3zGPvszpp2rdNX_Jz_HEf-3ZUrFkWUWnJLf6ZLp4LvJEi4dthcmH42J5w7m-TZcA3EkshZF6ozqD18WRA7dkKCaJg6xhmfgDc-qIf6JHpZ0DDo78Y6iSEeyGrPbQZ4r3_DdwWKwc/s1600/IMG_0191.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLIoJ3zGPvszpp2rdNX_Jz_HEf-3ZUrFkWUWnJLf6ZLp4LvJEi4dthcmH42J5w7m-TZcA3EkshZF6ozqD18WRA7dkKCaJg6xhmfgDc-qIf6JHpZ0DDo78Y6iSEeyGrPbQZ4r3_DdwWKwc/s400/IMG_0191.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Those will be staying on there a while I think.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAcYnrw1g_ORDma3USGlbsMzzczmU6OuFhVwN9sAJmxIRCKdn1QcK3fEp7PrPcStdZ-Aq-XBT4CUdYXBR7yue0HHGdpiUTjboTwiuPegRNcem-gb7JsSm4EVAtvriRCxYFJkxAzh-hikc/s1600/IMG_0190.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAcYnrw1g_ORDma3USGlbsMzzczmU6OuFhVwN9sAJmxIRCKdn1QcK3fEp7PrPcStdZ-Aq-XBT4CUdYXBR7yue0HHGdpiUTjboTwiuPegRNcem-gb7JsSm4EVAtvriRCxYFJkxAzh-hikc/s400/IMG_0190.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This is clearly some weapons-grade world-domination apparatus in use by the
rowing establishment, but whatever forbidden materials used to blast around
within it have been hurriedly locked away for the duration of the emergency.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY2JoBa5FQTpeC3XVYEmDEyA96XjZcu1dyxLJXslfZcF2vgR7ou4K5l5cTD98iDAFObX-NJmXTIQe1CpKt45pvWHZPffqxQo8ZaSXlut6R7tRm-xwFa5h8SangvvLw3yW80fNCjE0b1xM/s1600/IMG_0195.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY2JoBa5FQTpeC3XVYEmDEyA96XjZcu1dyxLJXslfZcF2vgR7ou4K5l5cTD98iDAFObX-NJmXTIQe1CpKt45pvWHZPffqxQo8ZaSXlut6R7tRm-xwFa5h8SangvvLw3yW80fNCjE0b1xM/s400/IMG_0195.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>On the Henley waterfront, rowing barracks disguised as innocent unaffordable
housing have their true purpose betrayed by how their boatyard doors line up
along the river, ready to disgorge armada after armada at a moment’s notice –
but today they are closed, for neither the ram of a hull at full speed nor the
cry of a megaphoned admiral is any use against an army of microorganisms.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Nope.
Thought this was going to be about rowing, did you? History is still going, and
today it has other ideas. You want to hear about the time 60% of Henley’s
population got killed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Once
again the terrible toll of microbial slaughter – the heartbreak, the terror,
the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the stench of piles of corpses – is compressed in the accounts to a
banal one-liner. In Henley’s case the horror in question was not the plague of
the 1660s but the really big plague, the matchless rotting shadow which has
never ceased to drip-drip-drip on the English national consciousness since it ripped
its scythe through humankind: the pandemic of the 1340s and 50s, better known
by its colloquial name, the <b><i>Black Death</i></b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QBGfmqPAVs9xrD3X-URlr7av4pp3uS0OYLhU-V8Wegxh-K5OXeEAY6UYfAPbkxQFombryVwVA0el2zomnN9ci_CEfK-JpCEXB-XhDVrlfccDZkoeCr8Fd6qIqtaIG9rUtnpB3MLNKKQ/s1600/IMG_0208.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QBGfmqPAVs9xrD3X-URlr7av4pp3uS0OYLhU-V8Wegxh-K5OXeEAY6UYfAPbkxQFombryVwVA0el2zomnN9ci_CEfK-JpCEXB-XhDVrlfccDZkoeCr8Fd6qIqtaIG9rUtnpB3MLNKKQ/s400/IMG_0208.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Central Henley, with the last residues of bustle before everything shut down.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The worst
plague in the English’s and many others’ history devastated every place it
touched, but a little background establishes why a town like Henley was so
vulnerable. This was always a pivotal location on the river with all aspects of
life and identity shaped by its waters. Its lack of defensive features in this
contested middle ground between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Wessex to the south
and Mercia to the north (and for a time the Viking Danelaw to the east) delayed
its permanent settlement till after English unification. By then its drawbacks
had turned to advantages. So easily accessible by river just before it rose
into the navigationally hazardous upper reaches, Henley flourished as a market
town and grew into the principal food supplier of a burgeoning London. It
attracted the interest of monarchs and City of London big merchants, with many
of the latter installing mansions and warehouses here to better drink off this
vital trade.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
other words, it was a sitting duck for <i>Yersinia pestis</i> as it rampaged up
and down the river on rats in the barges, fleas in the grain, and in the
bloodstreams of the human traders themselves.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijwS2yaS0oYV1U2U94ME7Xwr8V-vilOCOtgVrTXjVfs-GOY979K40wQIZkdfZvmET_a3jDOX8pbf-5HUg9txmNMpY41YN2sDoaC4UItzlXAygkTdJnK07L2xq0UWeVCh_X-2taMMkW1Qk/s1600/IMG_0204.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijwS2yaS0oYV1U2U94ME7Xwr8V-vilOCOtgVrTXjVfs-GOY979K40wQIZkdfZvmET_a3jDOX8pbf-5HUg9txmNMpY41YN2sDoaC4UItzlXAygkTdJnK07L2xq0UWeVCh_X-2taMMkW1Qk/s400/IMG_0204.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Henley’s Church of St. Mary, a thirteenth-century construction but enlarged
several times. In societies big on religion but bad at science like the England
of that time, it has been intuitive to interpret killer disease outbreaks as spiritual
phenomena: divine caprices, punishment for human sins, or heralds of the end of
the world. In nastier cases they scapegoat unpopular groups for it: there is a
direct historical continuity between the white civilisations’ current assaults
on Chinese people (let alone Trump’s rhetoric of “Chinese virus”), and their
ancestors’ massacres of Jews, lepers and poor people whom they blamed for the
Black Death. Even in a supposedly more scientific age, pandemics necessarily do
much of their damage at an emotional, psychological and spiritual level, and
people must be supported at that level so that that fear and pain does not get
manipulated for destructive political ends.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
Black Death was by no means the first bubonic plague pandemic. The disease had
been around for eight hundred years already, at least since the Plague of
Justinian which smashed the eastern Mediterranean in 541-2 (whose namesake,
Emperor Justinian I of the Byzantine Empire, also contracted it but got
better). Nor was it the last, as Remenham found out to its soundless agony in
the 1660s. But in England it remains the paradigm of killer pandemics, leaving
its name of <i>plague</i> as a colloquialism for any deadly mass outbreak,
whatever the disease, and spawning the cultural archetypes of crow-masked
plague doctors (much like medical staff today as they struggle for protective
equipment) as well as Death as a
friendly scythe-toting wandering skeleton: the sole democrat in a violently hierarchical land, reminding its people that everyone is equal after all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
COVID-19
is not bubonic plague. Its death rate, still horrific in absolute numbers and
in the individual sufferings each statistic represents, does not compare to <i>Yersinia
pestis</i>’s massacre of an estimated three to four million people in an
utterly unprepared England and 100-200 million worldwide during the Black Death
pandemic alone, wiping out up to a third of the world's population. Nor does it
produce bubonic plague’s most visibly harrowing symptoms like necrotic
blackening and the lymph node swellings or <i>buboes</i> that give it its name.
Nor did the Black Death reach the Americas, now among the most exposed of
COVID-19’s victims because of their fragile healthcare infrastructure and
capture of their governments by science-hating maniacs like Trump and Bolsonaro
– though infectious diseases, especially smallpox, would become a defining
civilisational trauma there by a different route when brought across by
European colonisers. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Nonetheless
the echoes are inescapable. Like COVID-19 the Black Death came from an
invisible, impersonal source with complete disdain for imaginary borders,
social ranks and political or religious beliefs. It wrought havoc in China
before travelling west to make a new epicentre in Europe. It broke too the
border between life and death, spilling rot and decay and wagons that rattled
with corpses into the daily realities of the living. It caught societies
unawares even though the history was there and they should have known better,
and instead got abused to blame and persecute vulnerable groups. It is the
index model of a phenomenon in the human story unique in its character,
horrible in its carnage, and perpetual in how it lingers round the margins with
the promise that, though you’ll never know when, it will come back. Thus is it
the shadow of the Black Death, with its doctors in masks, bodies in pits, and
grinning skeletons walking the land, that now chills the English as they
contemplate what has fallen upon them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCdyAY6qTZxGDjborWpSALqpmlTQrzyBm4KmhUl1DSiKShGGNLO4Zxb6b3RA9lc5mKn5gpSMTudkrsasuEcyL4LQZjN4mSCd2MutwKKFr3RWACXit6NRm-JS20ywkWqholqyKS4v1Ysl4/s1600/IMG_0203.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCdyAY6qTZxGDjborWpSALqpmlTQrzyBm4KmhUl1DSiKShGGNLO4Zxb6b3RA9lc5mKn5gpSMTudkrsasuEcyL4LQZjN4mSCd2MutwKKFr3RWACXit6NRm-JS20ywkWqholqyKS4v1Ysl4/s400/IMG_0203.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>“Social distancing”, English style.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifBRcBchKCBb3BQH56rHLi-6Sgw6_QeigrseYf17dxgFixRkLHTiDFPcTxizjQAV5Ud8uAraBl33J1BgHMs9WnyFCPxFkjY4Pd-EuhJD-jYfin8JMS6cFDLOyfpQaSbDLPm2pRJM0dB28/s1600/IMG_0200.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifBRcBchKCBb3BQH56rHLi-6Sgw6_QeigrseYf17dxgFixRkLHTiDFPcTxizjQAV5Ud8uAraBl33J1BgHMs9WnyFCPxFkjY4Pd-EuhJD-jYfin8JMS6cFDLOyfpQaSbDLPm2pRJM0dB28/s400/IMG_0200.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>People can only interpret things through their own experiences. Just as anyone
who has experienced the <i>Bayonetta</i> games can only look on these faces and
imagine them coming massively to life and disgorging projectiles at you, so can
the English only parse disease outbreaks through the collective trauma of what
pandemics did to them before.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
one might ask: didn’t they recover? Even with some half of its people wiped
out, didn’t Henley, for example, rise back up as a renewed agricultural
breadbasket, which despite getting wrecked again as a battleground in the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">Civil
Wars</a></u> found still greater prosperity as a junction for stagecoach journeys,
then railway ones in an industrial blossoming of wool, glass and hearty brews?</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVlwYeWUlondK7_rDYmNtoftNLlI_qsFqUh3VsXqhReAEf5hJ4QnDMzLtIzFWni_xgTCVXcMdpULA4cJlo9xYmeOyTntI9Iox1Wlu66SgHOgmtfDfFilRnK4i_CA8AIBQLvBGrpczcIc0/s1600/IMG_0237.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVlwYeWUlondK7_rDYmNtoftNLlI_qsFqUh3VsXqhReAEf5hJ4QnDMzLtIzFWni_xgTCVXcMdpULA4cJlo9xYmeOyTntI9Iox1Wlu66SgHOgmtfDfFilRnK4i_CA8AIBQLvBGrpczcIc0/s640/IMG_0237.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><i>Henley-on-Thames from the Wargrave Road</i> in the Henley River and Rowing
Museum, painted by Jan Siberechts of Antwerp in 1698. A vivid depiction of what
looks like a Henley well-recovered from the plague and on its way back to
prosperity. This painting has fascinated historians for its great deal of
commentary on Henley’s landscape and ways of life at the time, including its
old wooden bridge.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcdAnQ0duzBDpWKqe4V4Fag4rht0AhnLD8cbUjo17FK8-kwElDh1983GwANSd7294jQ6BY5YgrDflCkgHb0MRl7fEaiHQUs_DucXTbBogPJ2_eVZUTJQVz91Qb3z7trp_0CYFhTGvz_YE/s1600/IMG_0210.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcdAnQ0duzBDpWKqe4V4Fag4rht0AhnLD8cbUjo17FK8-kwElDh1983GwANSd7294jQ6BY5YgrDflCkgHb0MRl7fEaiHQUs_DucXTbBogPJ2_eVZUTJQVz91Qb3z7trp_0CYFhTGvz_YE/s400/IMG_0210.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Henley Bridge dates to 1786, though wooden and stone remains in the river
indicate far older structures.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mkRYceiBEQU_1gnUD_u9J2oH6aGCAW8rYAgMXon62yii9DipJKtDeke8Dx9aSpRd-AMoib_n65yOkf-7EwQBgQA7rjmb-Z9NAxyvLVFuZtRkPxDiFfvA971NJHZyP0Ea9iNe2pNBuXA/s1600/IMG_0207.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mkRYceiBEQU_1gnUD_u9J2oH6aGCAW8rYAgMXon62yii9DipJKtDeke8Dx9aSpRd-AMoib_n65yOkf-7EwQBgQA7rjmb-Z9NAxyvLVFuZtRkPxDiFfvA971NJHZyP0Ea9iNe2pNBuXA/s400/IMG_0207.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Henley’s old town hall, built for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee (sixty years
on the throne) in 1901.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_XSBY1mtTSNL547MbHQtjEebbGzT3pVr8ZfgcVQGZeSNYnSDjS_YbNVCGdbO4tdxPTwrMUQKflyUpOVaUjFv09yyIQIzhVsdljDneY9yxFQKPjtPLjujRKjPEXEoXgLss2IU-Z3md8Zw/s1600/IMG_0196.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_XSBY1mtTSNL547MbHQtjEebbGzT3pVr8ZfgcVQGZeSNYnSDjS_YbNVCGdbO4tdxPTwrMUQKflyUpOVaUjFv09yyIQIzhVsdljDneY9yxFQKPjtPLjujRKjPEXEoXgLss2IU-Z3md8Zw/s400/IMG_0196.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The old Brakspear Brewery in the rear which made Henley a celebrated centre of
beer fermentation through the nineteenth and twentieth century. Today Brakspear
mainly runs pubs under new ownership; the brewery was closed in 2002 and is now
apartments.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDJV0PAISt2XZ9BNgzB6VDvlTEqmHqGG8fKUEeLFPhBvRSy2rDJe4_jFmm4KORq8CavLARKpjf5QIvb-BJQhVHa-N8I1XJhGbIFZeLKBJsUTldnQVLjhtUw8hGkmITTYkh-yoRws8tx8s/s1600/IMG_0201.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDJV0PAISt2XZ9BNgzB6VDvlTEqmHqGG8fKUEeLFPhBvRSy2rDJe4_jFmm4KORq8CavLARKpjf5QIvb-BJQhVHa-N8I1XJhGbIFZeLKBJsUTldnQVLjhtUw8hGkmITTYkh-yoRws8tx8s/s400/IMG_0201.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And there is the rowers’ command centre, the Henley Royal Regatta HQ. The rowing
story here begins with the first University Boat Race in 1829 before it <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">moved down
to Putney</a></u>. The regatta itself was founded in 1839 and gained the
prestigious ‘Royal’ affix twelve years later when Victoria’s consort Prince
Albert took interest. Henley is now a core engine of English rowing efforts in
the Olympic Games and has hosted that tournament’s rowing events when held in
England, but unforgivably its regatta was barred to women until the 1980s. The
rowing story might have held pride of place in this exploration but for the
coming of COVID-19, which a few days after this walk would force them to <u><a href="https://www.hrr.co.uk/2020-regatta-cancellation-statement-coronavirus-covid-19">cancel
the Henley Royal Regatta of 2020</a></u> – the only time in history they have done
so aside from the World Wars.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
No –
it is too simple to say that after the great pandemic they got better. Beyond
its deathly shadow over the imagination, the Black Death wrought far-reaching
changes on the structure of English society much as it did in all the lands it
rampaged. Populations took centuries to grow back to pre-plague levels. Its
cultural shockwaves were seismic, with the most ambitious interpreters seeking
to trace them through to the Italian Renaissance (through its impact on art and
philosophy) and the Protestant Reformation (through its demolition of the
priests’ authority). In England the strongest structural effect is extremely
relevant today: the Black Death upended its economic power relationships. With
so many labourers dead, the survivors could charge much more for their work,
and if their employers in the nobility didn’t like it then the labourers could simply find
one of the many others who better twigged that the situation had changed. To
say that the bubonic plague bacterium broke the back of English feudal serfdom
is to risk oversimplification, but the point stands: <b><i>pandemics are political</i></b>.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In England this much is blatant in the prejudiced attacks on
Chinese people; the nauseating (and at any rate mistaken) relief that
COVID-19 “only” threatens elderly and immunocompromised people, as though they
don’t matter; the chorus of wails from big corporations for public bailouts
because their business models can’t stand two weeks of closure without collapse,
in a society which mocks and sneers at its poor as it blames them for
mis-spending their money rather than saving; the lack of concern for
self-employed and gig-economy workers with precarious livelihoods, or for abuse
victims stranded in their abusers’ houses; the spate of “coronavirus assaults”,
with people actually coughing and spitting on others on purpose; and the frontline
doctors, nurses and carers left unsupplied with protective equipment and effectively sent to their deaths. If, after so
many experiences of the relentless recurrence and true traumatic horror of pandemics, a society <i>still</i> does not arrange its power to protect its
population from them, then that is an indictment not on the pathogens, but on the society. The
reflection in a mirror cannot be blamed for its honesty about the reflectee.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
For
that is the historical significance of COVID-19. It is holding up a mirror to the abject
failure of societies, including this one, in their self-important delusions of
modernity. The world we saw earlier – of the willows, the red kites, the <i>green
and pleasant land</i> – has given them everything they need to build an
informed society which values people as people, not as fodder for hyper-rich
landlords and capital holders; in which a virus like this might well still kill
people but not the tens of thousands it would not have if not for their
cannibalised healthcare systems and concession of power to crypto-eugenicist
killer clowns. A virus cannot be blamed for behaving like a virus, for that is
the only way it knows. But when humans behave like viruses, and moreover build
societies that celebrate and reward such behaviour, then that is another matter
altogether.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
COVID-19
is not a punishment, then, but a consequence, the kick up the arse that was
always coming to cap the hubris of the English and wider human depravities of
the 2010s, and in historical terms it is a remarkably light one too. There is
no reason, least of all within that obsolete illusion they call <i>modernity</i>,
that COVID-19 might not have killed half or two thirds of those it infects as
the bubonic plague did. A future plague still might. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Oh, the
English! They whose river we have hiked halfway up while they whooped and cheered
at the triumph of Brexit nationalism following the general election of 2019, splashing
contempt on those they left behind as they revelled drunk on their conviction that
theirs is an exceptional isle, wreathed in golden mists, home to a superior
race immune to the malaises of the wider world. They had chance after chance to
get off this mine-cart ride to doom, yet they stubbornly refused. Now Death
itself is come unto the English, whose national ego, after years of shovelling
away the victims of its persecutions of poor and vulnerable people and its
racist deportations, is now itself to be buried in a mountain of corpses. If
that is not enough to burst that ego once and for all, to humble the
nationalists into the dirt for giving the boast of a great country precedence over
building actual greatness, then what in the world is left that could do so?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
For
now their politics remains in the hands of authoritarian nationalists and
free-market cultists whom, after all, a critical mass of them did vote into
power just this winter. But even those are having their totems smashed by
COVID-19, finding that they <i>must</i> cooperate with the wider world, <i>must</i>
intervene in the economy, lest the virus’s killings splatter their name forever
as the <b><i>Coronavirus Party</i></b> which let the pandemic happen. On the other
hand, those tricksters’ entire mindset is geared for manipulating crises like
this for political advantage, seizing emergency powers and extending digital
surveillance here, blaming marginalised groups and fiddling data there, and in
the world of their making where truth itself is flimsy and belief is its own
justification, the populist wave might yet crest high enough for them to pull
it off. The world will have changed after COVID-19, but the conflict to harness
that change will be more tempestuous still: that which decides if humanity
steers itself at last to a better place, or plunges into a tribalistic abyss
from which it never emerges. It is a choice, one every person in the
world will have to make, and the English, too, will have to choose what part
they wish to play in that struggle.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
That
struggle has already begun. To those who feel lost and bewildered in the face
of these monumental forces, take power in knowing this. You might not be able
to switch off the pandemic. You might not find shelter from its rain of death. The
pain is real. But what you <i>can</i> do is understand that this is not a random
whim of luck or fate thrown in from an inscrutable higher world beyond your comprehension. No: it is the result of specific political chains of cause and consequence
in a history which is always present, which it is folly to believe one could
ever outrun, but which has changed before and by your determination <i>can</i>
change again. Death is not the true enemy here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRsoYiWTLTy4u9N4lvjDxgdKlzs3o68T7E-WrKZszNNSxxBBZj4WpxQr5e-ggxr4eDQB4xW8g3Js5cSSYbxwUQ2T-sl2xn9N7sQKB5Bvit4n2h6JfRtz3NUz7be5t_iIdK3a6NfTx9oGs/s1600/IMG_0182.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRsoYiWTLTy4u9N4lvjDxgdKlzs3o68T7E-WrKZszNNSxxBBZj4WpxQr5e-ggxr4eDQB4xW8g3Js5cSSYbxwUQ2T-sl2xn9N7sQKB5Bvit4n2h6JfRtz3NUz7be5t_iIdK3a6NfTx9oGs/s640/IMG_0182.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><i>The Rat got hold of a scull and shoved it under the Mole's arm; then he did
the same by the other side of him and, swimming behind, propelled the helpless
animal to shore, hauled him out, and set him down on the bank, a squashy, pulpy
lump of misery.</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Watch
this plague. Watch its effects all the way up and down your society’s power
relations, and look out for weak points it exposes to hit your oppressors where it
hurts. Speak what needs to be spoken, speak for those who are not being heard,
demand your rights in this world of plenty and support the people around you,
and for goodness’s sake, give me better things to write about in this country
– unless Death comes by to say I am needed in other worlds – when it is once more safe to carry on this journey.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
For
after the storm, whatever is gone, the sun and the river remain. It is for you
to choose what goes in the space between them: an <b>English Spring</b>, or a winter that
never ends.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><span style="color: red;">[This decision will drastically change the story.]</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Special
thanks to the Henley River and Rowing Museum for much of the information and
insights in this section and for special consideration afforded in these
difficult circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Henley-on-Thames, UK51.535764 -0.90289451.4962565 -0.983575 51.5752715 -0.822213tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-49173828041094553502020-03-15T16:44:00.000+00:002020-03-17T11:51:17.914+00:00THAMES: 8) River Shamans<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
river rages. It has had enough.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
An
unsettled winter has broken on England in a sequence of devastating storms. The
Severn watershed in the west of the country has borne the worst of it, but the
Thames next door is also on the warpath. Even now the rear end of February’s
onslaughts rampage down this valley of privilege with no concern for where the
humans think its banks should be. The ferryman dares not cross, the trembling
resident watches the water lap over his windowsill, the farmer beholds her
flooded fields and clutches her face in despair, and the professional dog
walker cannot find the way to go.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs491HzOG8g5QSPVSkQedtSxEHmUwxlOhzyzn6Ugbz38Q8NpHDQQAdrE6tkPDVZNzzc9z0ehHCrxxVN5T3J0dNFFzAA3CUrrhHI6PDCgRtlt2QPSqtZsoJPcsfIi1e3S6dWmQ4gQNWnYI/s1600/IMG_9746.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs491HzOG8g5QSPVSkQedtSxEHmUwxlOhzyzn6Ugbz38Q8NpHDQQAdrE6tkPDVZNzzc9z0ehHCrxxVN5T3J0dNFFzAA3CUrrhHI6PDCgRtlt2QPSqtZsoJPcsfIi1e3S6dWmQ4gQNWnYI/s640/IMG_9746.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>North from Maidenhead Bridge. Maidenhead is protected by the Jubilee Channel
but even here the riverbanks are at their limit.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
England
is a flood-prone country, and for thousands of years the Thames has made this
abundantly clear to anyone who dares settle on its floodplain. Yet this latest
round, in the midst of both acute political degeneration and a global climate
emergency, has washed down to a graver sense that something is seriously
wrong. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Then
just in case people weren’t getting the message, along has come COVID-19. This
virus has held up a mirror. In it, instead of rigorous, calm and informed
international cooperation and care for one’s citizens, we see instead the
posturing hollowness of the authoritarian ego-trips which now pass for
governance among prejudiced and panicking populations. It has laid bare a world where human
beings are not the authors of the social contract, but disposable meat
for the macho cannibals, free-market cultists and eugenicists who
have overrun their politics. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Modernity,
the human future, was never supposed to look like this. After the horrors of
the twentieth century there was no excuse. A reckoning is sure to follow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
That
said, a reckoning will do no good unless it offers a way to come out on the
other side: on a path of healing, of rebuilding the togetherness they should
have got right the first time. Humankind, including the English, must build
systems that empower their compassionate natures rather than their nasty ones,
and become a presence worthier of this world and this universe. If they wish to
stick around in it there’s no other choice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpcrmZ9_FmP4pCbiynE2B2JEpUP20QAoopWZiDEm712ppVwrbTTGpL5j_Z53DuG_l15ERM5nKWxjmCgr0YKSTlokkd1J9EwidvSxOZiWuG129pMvdQ-nBGCBj6rgq35IMD4AovNqxQOsw/s1600/IMG_9753.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpcrmZ9_FmP4pCbiynE2B2JEpUP20QAoopWZiDEm712ppVwrbTTGpL5j_Z53DuG_l15ERM5nKWxjmCgr0YKSTlokkd1J9EwidvSxOZiWuG129pMvdQ-nBGCBj6rgq35IMD4AovNqxQOsw/s640/IMG_9753.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
involves obvious practical measures. For the English, an immediate end to
austerity and deportations, and the prosecution of those policies’ architects,
would be a good start. But the damage of these depredations goes beyond the physical. It has cut deep into individuals' and societies' souls, so the journey is also a necessarily
<b>shamanic</b> one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
English are not known for their shamans. A shaman bridges the ordinary world
with all those other worlds that transcend it – cultural worlds, emotional
worlds, spiritual worlds, or worlds further still. Across the shamanic bridge,
relationships are built that heal and enrich their participants, and valuable
things are exchanged, things unmeasurable and far more meaningful than the
narrow range admitted by that fantastical chimera, <i>the economy</i>. On the
shamanic journey, prejudice and panic are left far behind as the human
consciousness pushes past its perspectives, travelling to the very furthest
places it can reach.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
some societies, in particular many indigenous ones, the shaman who opens the
way to these places fulfils a formal role. In England, as in many nations which
believe their modernity makes these journeys no longer necessary, the office of
shaman does not exist.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
that does not mean there is no-one who tries.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7uwqOxUTpwVcEU1lJOza8Vxm6dbpGRAZPHCu8aRit0pHNbMDxNqtGgs8W_Fjw_T3nLJm8m7J2Xbirx3_65L0m5_lO0207ow4p0PJ7Sw9jBRh-duYPgp_4VB_HF-nMjSX7ZRGFSH0kVCw/s1600/view-from-cookham-bridge-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="600" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7uwqOxUTpwVcEU1lJOza8Vxm6dbpGRAZPHCu8aRit0pHNbMDxNqtGgs8W_Fjw_T3nLJm8m7J2Xbirx3_65L0m5_lO0207ow4p0PJ7Sw9jBRh-duYPgp_4VB_HF-nMjSX7ZRGFSH0kVCw/s400/view-from-cookham-bridge-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Stanley
Spencer’s <i>View from Cookham Bridge</i> (1936). At one level, a scene of
perfect ordinariness in an English riverside village. Yet the longer you look on
its colours, its patterns and lights, the more the simultaneous presence of
other worlds comes crawling up your bones…</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There
are few great overarching constitutional dramas on this section of the Thames.
A parade of towering castles and extravagant palaces, elite public schools and hallowed legal
texts has lined this valley all the way from London, but here they shall fall
away as the water itself resurges to centre stage.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
is the river, after all, that must be supreme in any shamanic considerations in
reach of it. It shapes and dominates its peoples’ physical reality, yet is
constantly on the move between that reality and others. Just as it has carried these
people from town to town and spun the wheels of their mills, has it not ferried their
consciousnesses to far further destinations? Has it not powered their mills of
imagination to create what could not have come from this reality alone? What
magic in this water has the English Christians still pouring it on foreheads for their
baptismal rituals, or shapes the bridges of their engineer-heroes from mere functional
crossing points into artistic masterpieces that bring their pride to tears?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
These
floods have created many temporary ponds and lakes along this subtler stretch
of the Thames. Perhaps they can be windows on some of that magic.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQMgOpctBsvNtNuc2-fEFYRU28hpS6gYf_aglWiExOZdmepFLdWhxoy2k3rOnICjMi_LEbglQ5OYOCuKh65XZDog4E4y02Q6rMsfjEJlZCFpjf_puKitEFPo7EWq7WwlNSna_TdWhIug/s1600/IMG_9882.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQMgOpctBsvNtNuc2-fEFYRU28hpS6gYf_aglWiExOZdmepFLdWhxoy2k3rOnICjMi_LEbglQ5OYOCuKh65XZDog4E4y02Q6rMsfjEJlZCFpjf_puKitEFPo7EWq7WwlNSna_TdWhIug/s640/IMG_9882.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr91HzKzY4ZuQYOeZg0gQZc2IbSMuqcaRNX_eCJ1Dr_2FJAkPh-TYFMjpaPApB21J_AHXquQNPxqmqNG-LB21B3aVRA_UoMuFov3GyuxvuwEh5Ob4qDCsEWlmXcEn3z48VRNaY4LdBgWo/s1600/8%2529+Maidenhead+to+Marlow.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1141" data-original-width="1600" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr91HzKzY4ZuQYOeZg0gQZc2IbSMuqcaRNX_eCJ1Dr_2FJAkPh-TYFMjpaPApB21J_AHXquQNPxqmqNG-LB21B3aVRA_UoMuFov3GyuxvuwEh5Ob4qDCsEWlmXcEn3z48VRNaY4LdBgWo/s640/8%2529+Maidenhead+to+Marlow.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Start:</b>
Maidenhead Bridge (<i>nearest station: Maidenhead</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>End:</b>
Marlow Bridge (<i>nearest station: Marlow</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Length:
11.2km/7 miles</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Location:
Berkshire – Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead; Buckinghamshire – South
Bucks</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<u>Topics</u>:
Boulter’s Lock, the <b>Cliveden Set </b>and <b>Profumo Affair</b>, Cookham and <b>Stanley
Spencer</b>, Cock Marsh and Winter Hill, <b>Marlow</b> (via Budapest)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Boulter’s Lock and Cliveden</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
goal of today’s walk is the settlement of Marlow, an old market town at the base of
the <b>Chiltern Hills</b> whose drainage into the Thames makes its contribution to the
locals’ flood woes. Having penetrated down through those hills, the Thames
embarks on a northward detour and it is between Marlow and Maidenhead that it
returns, on today’s meandering ninety-degree bend, to continue its march to the
sea.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjovvMGD9UKMJJzjXuVH47QDj_KZMHax2VWqMPztos6pZd9H5AIrHHA3Q_NQJzlNd_cuetLugrugZA6nFbY5Ew9a8wQdP2f0MI-1PYns2WYeEQm9zhiuCWP14j77U1_zcYZlI5vN-jQEKs/s1600/IMG_9751.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjovvMGD9UKMJJzjXuVH47QDj_KZMHax2VWqMPztos6pZd9H5AIrHHA3Q_NQJzlNd_cuetLugrugZA6nFbY5Ew9a8wQdP2f0MI-1PYns2WYeEQm9zhiuCWP14j77U1_zcYZlI5vN-jQEKs/s400/IMG_9751.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Maidenhead Bridge, with the first of many water birds we will find enjoying the
floods along here.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7BBJc4KJw4Td5JbOtkiLtnGOTwNO5GpMYHfFHnRbX7vNz1KQU4dDRsF9kwOjDWIdbka-D2JaxuSyU1Qz2Ea5xf1Dz92FjrnvWkSY0U317WV9SGaoLatTJ30hEGOzUxbhc_KpUOEi4F64/s1600/IMG_9754.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7BBJc4KJw4Td5JbOtkiLtnGOTwNO5GpMYHfFHnRbX7vNz1KQU4dDRsF9kwOjDWIdbka-D2JaxuSyU1Qz2Ea5xf1Dz92FjrnvWkSY0U317WV9SGaoLatTJ30hEGOzUxbhc_KpUOEi4F64/s400/IMG_9754.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Maidenhead’s residential outskirts follow the river some way north. These
apartments along Chandler’s Quay gaze wary at the rising water. It’s not clear
if the name comes from a person called Chandler or from that surname’s own
origin in candle-making.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuBlNMdn1sG5k4AHhpcPaf9m8D1VZ_myDjJu4JspENJfCgyQkDU0lSEVE4d2BJBoxnmjKNw1jrYK5rWh9ITCMRwqxgGI-VuGhfyCOeLnwieV_-vwLqv2rHE09zjeJPP6q916Or2qJ7s60/s1600/IMG_9755.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuBlNMdn1sG5k4AHhpcPaf9m8D1VZ_myDjJu4JspENJfCgyQkDU0lSEVE4d2BJBoxnmjKNw1jrYK5rWh9ITCMRwqxgGI-VuGhfyCOeLnwieV_-vwLqv2rHE09zjeJPP6q916Or2qJ7s60/s400/IMG_9755.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>This little tributary, all but swallowed by the housing, appears to be called
Clapper’s Stream.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Beyond
Maidenhead the river is wrathful and unyielding. On the far bank it menaces the
village of <b>Taplow</b>. The name is Anglo-Saxon and refers to <i>T</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">æ</span>ppa’s
barrow</i>, a burial site whose excavation in the 1880s uncovered the most
extravagant set of Anglo-Saxon grave goods yet found in England at the time. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR4WfDgCjdBBcE07U752UzHkUT0Tz0JMgFugk729P6Rb5MoeoPbFzWAFLzJq74i6MzQNEln_qv_CJIRhhkM9Rr4Di14KP4QbUEDfqbk9pdCVumTo9HoRKgjYBBalcSqic0mpKL979M8rg/s1600/IMG_9757.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR4WfDgCjdBBcE07U752UzHkUT0Tz0JMgFugk729P6Rb5MoeoPbFzWAFLzJq74i6MzQNEln_qv_CJIRhhkM9Rr4Di14KP4QbUEDfqbk9pdCVumTo9HoRKgjYBBalcSqic0mpKL979M8rg/s400/IMG_9757.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Taplow residences appear on the east bank. The islands in the river, partially
submerged, hint at the area’s wilder growths that push through wherever the
humans have not built.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPCX3H7X3fs4NAoNBLpEk_9JiiSTiNcP9t__2RI-csHte4NmHfjrThHm3ANVTjF1Kf3IwAbUYXgkPfheJcG6d26y-nJL6BvkZo_hDLFnAZT_aj7U3V2GSPCxdhMbeEF5UAQPpq6O4n0us/s1600/IMG_9758.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPCX3H7X3fs4NAoNBLpEk_9JiiSTiNcP9t__2RI-csHte4NmHfjrThHm3ANVTjF1Kf3IwAbUYXgkPfheJcG6d26y-nJL6BvkZo_hDLFnAZT_aj7U3V2GSPCxdhMbeEF5UAQPpq6O4n0us/s400/IMG_9758.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Alas, it appears austerity has taken its toll on the English navy. Is this all
that is left?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdE0aPk5bu-SMBOK0StZkCIpXN9mAVdGrBOMAkxvlgyzHjGwh0hkuh38uJMbLDnSgxlWf87NvmMgkqpWEEsBdIiZPuovTZh6jR1mRcMU71gdf5jTbuU3oDJVf0Jy6bn_kL2u8djh8PWno/s1600/IMG_9759.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdE0aPk5bu-SMBOK0StZkCIpXN9mAVdGrBOMAkxvlgyzHjGwh0hkuh38uJMbLDnSgxlWf87NvmMgkqpWEEsBdIiZPuovTZh6jR1mRcMU71gdf5jTbuU3oDJVf0Jy6bn_kL2u8djh8PWno/s400/IMG_9759.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>From here the dwellings on both sides reek of affluence. And they are going
to need every last crumb of it, for the river is set to punish them for the
folly of building right there on its banks.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
short order we reach <b>Boulter’s Lock</b>. At first this looks like it could
be any of the other forty-five or so locks on this river, but in its
day this one had a claim to be most famous of them all. It began innocuously enough: <i>boulter</i>
is another word for <i>miller</i>, with the lock accompanying a weir for a long
lineage of local flour mills. But in the industrial period this area’s
combination of river islands, residences and holiday homes full of rich people,
including celebrities on the way to the Royal Ascot horse races, the Cliveden
estate and assorted carnivals and regattas, made Boulter’s Lock a magnet for the
pleasure-boating craze which crammed its narrow channels to breaking point. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8MhT43csLQZVB_3-DSQDt2lWjunpgB8VodK_pKmlQT95Mo8I0qaZc1TUbX1XYs4UIGIbJMtfziDZ06HWhio6t6ZHegjtiIDW1m5BQs8IcfRLtNk_w-k3WdA54UOy51gx7qalSI7BOZQc/s1600/IMG_9761.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8MhT43csLQZVB_3-DSQDt2lWjunpgB8VodK_pKmlQT95Mo8I0qaZc1TUbX1XYs4UIGIbJMtfziDZ06HWhio6t6ZHegjtiIDW1m5BQs8IcfRLtNk_w-k3WdA54UOy51gx7qalSI7BOZQc/s400/IMG_9761.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Boulter’s Lock. In its corner (out of view) stands an ice cream stall, tragically closed this morning.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZz6_NN9VsVZt0vyhvPVOhU4GxH-TQxV5QZh6pSxGtd-sW9c_79kd08IHTpuni5dsyoBKYG6_2J7KVk1FN3tJXXgeY9L_7VVPHyJStkpzFjeQk03SVeQLOtHaFYc8dr8AS6haNnXVPlwI/s1600/IMG_9366.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZz6_NN9VsVZt0vyhvPVOhU4GxH-TQxV5QZh6pSxGtd-sW9c_79kd08IHTpuni5dsyoBKYG6_2J7KVk1FN3tJXXgeY9L_7VVPHyJStkpzFjeQk03SVeQLOtHaFYc8dr8AS6haNnXVPlwI/s400/IMG_9366.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And this is how the painter Edward John Gregory portrayed it in <i>Boulter’s
Lock, Sunday Afternoon</i> in the 1890s (this version hangs in the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html">Maidenhead
Heritage Centre</a></u>). Look closer, for this cluster of leisure-class revelry
belies a disaster in the making. The bridge and most boats are dangerously
overloaded, their passengers sit in reckless positions, long pointy oars and
masts and umbrellas are sticking out everywhere, those responsible for steering
are not paying attention, and such is the momentum to all these moving parts
that calamity can no longer be averted.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidY1oj7H-MGwSYIolBGbIRAtsZfKHQTB81lFiKqvIS4luKT74WLHJ1gzF9jgiXnaUNBVxRAXimkvtyggJHmi5LOifxz0qHLNoIpbVqCgTk5FMSSLNcpOJw39ITZj-uj2rssDlkLGAjGE0/s1600/IMG_9760.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidY1oj7H-MGwSYIolBGbIRAtsZfKHQTB81lFiKqvIS4luKT74WLHJ1gzF9jgiXnaUNBVxRAXimkvtyggJHmi5LOifxz0qHLNoIpbVqCgTk5FMSSLNcpOJw39ITZj-uj2rssDlkLGAjGE0/s400/IMG_9760.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The old flour mill is now <i>The Boathouse</i> pub and restaurant. Behind it
are Boulter’s Island and Ray Mill Island, the latter named after the local Ray
family of millers and lock-keepers.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
lock continued to receive upgrades and expansions in the face of such hazardous
overcrowding; most of its current form dates from 1912. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVYusf6PCrQPkeWRC5yECL-SMmyYDEke1SWEbm3xglG3pOSKiHC1zzJd8GgS4T3YP3kQxPtDhUU3j1e71GipPs_2ee3x5jWhXpw-u4pbh5janv3Jagx1AOrFy_h8RSfGw1sylbG-nZWs8/s1600/IMG_9766.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVYusf6PCrQPkeWRC5yECL-SMmyYDEke1SWEbm3xglG3pOSKiHC1zzJd8GgS4T3YP3kQxPtDhUU3j1e71GipPs_2ee3x5jWhXpw-u4pbh5janv3Jagx1AOrFy_h8RSfGw1sylbG-nZWs8/s400/IMG_9766.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Boulter’s Island also shelters a few private houses. Most notable among them is
this, former home of BBC broadcasting legend Richard Dimbleby (1913-65),
whose sons David and Jonathan carry on his service to present-day TV and
radio.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The length
above the lock is reputed as one of the most pleasantly attractive segments
of the Thames. Known as <b>Cliveden Reach</b>, what is today a tranquil stretch
between woods and fields used to heave with monied persons faffing about in
boats, helping account for the pressure that built up at Boulter’s Lock. No surprise
therefore that ludicrously fancy houses for people with too much money have
colonised its riverbanks.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_YWUvP0gC8Ihyx-WAG6oz-F6n_3Rxz61WXRjjFKVVIX3V7yDdhiGgiAEjuC_wC6whYQwsLjfcSpm5YwJOn7e2O4f0XxFXyeBYWNmZ1OK4A0meKnHDiPL_BnsS8OwjQk_OMofJ1Uyje8A/s1600/IMG_9769.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_YWUvP0gC8Ihyx-WAG6oz-F6n_3Rxz61WXRjjFKVVIX3V7yDdhiGgiAEjuC_wC6whYQwsLjfcSpm5YwJOn7e2O4f0XxFXyeBYWNmZ1OK4A0meKnHDiPL_BnsS8OwjQk_OMofJ1Uyje8A/s400/IMG_9769.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The sorts of houses where one might hear: “Austerity? What’s that?”</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvkAv825V1SaNcuB4VcR9o-WjApY8TJcHBYlG4NnsJv6jHGbmFUfPXkVRVLp_69NZAemPZwL32AbCt9n2G9NRBbZvItY7icK9rFC1PzIS8L3yT_taJ7aXeRwppkWzP3yJuDyR3j7qud5s/s1600/IMG_9770.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvkAv825V1SaNcuB4VcR9o-WjApY8TJcHBYlG4NnsJv6jHGbmFUfPXkVRVLp_69NZAemPZwL32AbCt9n2G9NRBbZvItY7icK9rFC1PzIS8L3yT_taJ7aXeRwppkWzP3yJuDyR3j7qud5s/s400/IMG_9770.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Class is everything in England. Some of the most beautiful riverscapes so far
are ruined by the endless notices about private property and what will happen to you if you fail to respect it. Some are almost laughably over-the-top. This one
for example states: ‘THESE PREMISES ARE PROECTED BY LASER SECURITY. IF THIS
LAND IS ENTERED YOU ARE LIABLE FOR PROSECUTION. THE POLICE WILL BE NOTIFIED AND
YOU WILL BE RECORDED ON CONCEALED VIDEO ONCE THE BEAM IS BROKEN’. What sort of
human being is seriously comfortable residing on those terms?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Wj0vWLOTugCbgvzPluajYE4I9LAr_U_Wy_Kbkbijjb4BWbntp0-UZWoKS_hISc2qkQX329IK8dNea8EWhvkePvc92n4p8F0Y_58_aYYLwGbJYkjd8DhiPCupBBafJy_LRYME4qUArZg/s1600/IMG_9771.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Wj0vWLOTugCbgvzPluajYE4I9LAr_U_Wy_Kbkbijjb4BWbntp0-UZWoKS_hISc2qkQX329IK8dNea8EWhvkePvc92n4p8F0Y_58_aYYLwGbJYkjd8DhiPCupBBafJy_LRYME4qUArZg/s400/IMG_9771.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The east bank looks like bush but is administered as part of the massive estate
which once sat at the peak of Cliveden Reach's residential pyramid.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74LUhidprYV3caSJLv5__cUXF3-Hs0YSokzCe6Q21KIcED1TSNdW-1u-fGoMvn5EhalWRVurBmFVBcLdsyVrrT8dugcIofCHGI6vNFeSWJCQTCiX1V-ag4CpzkYQ1ZdZgV3zblNXihuU/s1600/IMG_9773.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74LUhidprYV3caSJLv5__cUXF3-Hs0YSokzCe6Q21KIcED1TSNdW-1u-fGoMvn5EhalWRVurBmFVBcLdsyVrrT8dugcIofCHGI6vNFeSWJCQTCiX1V-ag4CpzkYQ1ZdZgV3zblNXihuU/s400/IMG_9773.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Natural structures can be more refreshing. Here the weight of a tree has sent
it keeling over the water, and together with its creepers has formed a leafy
arch.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The
wooded east bank then rises into a plateau, atop which sits the unmitigated
fancy of fancies. The hilariously excessive <b>Cliveden</b> mansion is now a
tourist attraction run by the National Trust, but at the peak of its activity
had as star-studded a claim to the status of a Privilege Fort as any of the official
palaces along here.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Built
in the 1850s to replace a Restoration-era noble mansion that had burnt down
twice, Cliveden was resurrected as an Italianate villa by the architect Charles
Barry while working on his more famous project, the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">Houses
of Parliament</a></u>. Cliveden’s importance was not in its formal status but in
its reality as a social reaction chamber where all the big names of English
politics and culture would mingle and happen to each other's nine orifices. This ball was set
rolling by William Waldorf Astor, an American millionaire who bought the
mansion in 1893 and set about annoying the locals into nicknaming him <i>Walled-off
Astor</i> for fobbing them off his huge property with high walls and rules
against public access. He then passed Cliveden on to his son, setting up the
first of its two ignominious political dramas.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPlD4eWyQSUd38lt4KxP6ms9wskl3ouSGLvrOCHlsuXNe57t7bOGitQfQcD1LLL0cLtvVRdUaJGuH0Iql9Mom4qFpqwIpzJBVqcXDEC8_Eg8NpAZxtiB6deSosUOR9IuScH__XvHTF0nQ/s1600/IMG_9785.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPlD4eWyQSUd38lt4KxP6ms9wskl3ouSGLvrOCHlsuXNe57t7bOGitQfQcD1LLL0cLtvVRdUaJGuH0Iql9Mom4qFpqwIpzJBVqcXDEC8_Eg8NpAZxtiB6deSosUOR9IuScH__XvHTF0nQ/s400/IMG_9785.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Cliveden is up out of sight behind all that towering tree growth. Visible at left is its
1735 ‘Octagon Temple’, whose opulent interior now serves as the Astor family
mausoleum.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKoqq3Tr1O6F1CSBZJuiAsuYi_PqPsq2hLK56FRV-tY0yGs-5K_QpFEnsdaJwH_k7IojmGpLT2-ql1W_WCiltUHbgBIhqsMKaqpktkZT6A1rkOBWVj-aMef8tH4ANT6xCgyFXxNawRNTk/s1600/Cliveden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="550" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKoqq3Tr1O6F1CSBZJuiAsuYi_PqPsq2hLK56FRV-tY0yGs-5K_QpFEnsdaJwH_k7IojmGpLT2-ql1W_WCiltUHbgBIhqsMKaqpktkZT6A1rkOBWVj-aMef8tH4ANT6xCgyFXxNawRNTk/s400/Cliveden.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And this is what the main house looks like (photo from TripAdvisor). One look
at that and you know it is the sort of place in which Wrong Things happen.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
first was the story of the <b><i>Cliveden Set</i></b>. This was a clutch of
influential individuals in the 1930s who coalesced around the figure of <b>Nancy
Astor</b>, William’s daughter-in-law and the first female MP to sit in the
House of Commons (though not the first to be elected – that was Constance
Markievicz in 1918 who, as a member of Sinn Féin in colonial Ireland, rejected British
authority by refusing to take her seat). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Nancy
and her husband were in the habit of hosting lavish parties at Cliveden for the
giants of the English imperial class structure, attracting everyone from
Churchill to Charlie Chaplin – politicians, writers, film stars, sports personalities,
the lot. The Cliveden Set emerged from this milieu as a tight-knit intellectual
network of high-flying ministers and business leaders. In present-day parlance one
might characterise it as a think tank with extraordinary channels of political
influence – which was unfortunate, because the main current for which it came
to be known was its friendliness to the Nazis and Adolf Hitler.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
With
hindsight the English have found it easy to demonise the Cliveden Set for this
affability towards the epitome of evil in human history. The risk of this is to
forget that many English were a lot more ambivalent towards Nazism during its
rise in the 1930s than they were during and after World War II. The figurehead
of the British fascist movement, Oswald Mosley, was an old supporter of Astor
and a familiar face at Cliveden, whose circles were far from alone in sharing in
the anti-Semitic and anti-communist bigotries emanating from Germany at this
time. Nor were they unique in their sympathy for Hitler’s military aggression
in Europe, which they expressed by using their exorbitant political influence
to support the efforts of Neville Chamberlain’s government to appease him (including
what would come to be seen as the most embarrassing symbol of appeasement’s
futility, the 1938 Munich Agreement). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
As
this futility shattered and dumped the country into war, the full force of
odium from Hitler’s enemies in England landed on the Cliveden Set and has
tarred their names ever since. Certainly the reputation of Nancy Astor – ‘The
Member for Berlin’, as Labour heavyweight Stafford Cripps called her in
Parliament – has never recovered, and after the war her status faded to that of
some kind of lonely racist anachronism. But the episode refracts into numerous
lasting significances. One is its comment on English gender politics: there is
no doubt that Astor drew special hostility on account of being a political
woman with a forceful personality, making it much harder to sincerely <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>assess her record. On the other hand, the
toxicity of her politics looks impossible to refute, fuelling the question of
why, when the English do put women in power, they so often tend to be women of
the most obnoxious politics possible (Astor after all served the same party as Margaret
Thatcher and Theresa May). A second, broader problem arises from how the
Cliveden Set has become a lightning rod of caricaturing hatred for treasonous
pro-fascist villainy, obscuring how unexceptional its views were in an
England which shared in the manufacture of the colonial racism that produced
the Nazis and which at times drew so close to accommodating them (even during the war itself, such as in the 1940 War Cabinet debates on whether to approach Hitler for a peace settlement). But of course, since when has historical fact
been allowed to discomfort the myth of the English as <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">the
free and democratic good guys by racial nature?</a></u></div>
<u>
</u><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
then there is the class tradition embodied by the Cliveden Set: the cliquey
bunch of ruling-caste mates, named for the provinces they privately own and who
all know each other from <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html">schools like
Eton</a></u>, secretly running the show through behind-the-scenes control of
politics, business and the media. This dip in Nazi saliva made that practice
uglier than ever, but astonishingly, when a second great scandal buried those
cliques for a generation it was also from Cliveden’s windows that its bodily
fluids came oozing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVE6QkCKX6WGdTAzMPTykCUSsk8RAH4Lrjr4hZGpLBZVUQGtSYGGN0gTfgPpMbYHGbrzMI-bQS14eWOBEVuWy5BO5fiwk-OT07CmfZSIumWgdnIX3PN-up5rbdNGuVLuABuPujVMwxMwY/s1600/IMG_9783.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVE6QkCKX6WGdTAzMPTykCUSsk8RAH4Lrjr4hZGpLBZVUQGtSYGGN0gTfgPpMbYHGbrzMI-bQS14eWOBEVuWy5BO5fiwk-OT07CmfZSIumWgdnIX3PN-up5rbdNGuVLuABuPujVMwxMwY/s400/IMG_9783.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The Cliveden estate is not just the supergiant of a mansion but the entire
constellation of woods, gardens, terraces, pavilions and cottages that swirl in
its orbit. This is its most notorious outbuilding: Spring Cottage, where pheromones
(and possibly more) were exchanged in July 1961 to devastating political consequence.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
was the <b>Profumo Affair</b> of 1961-3, which sank the Conservative Party
government of Harold Macmillan in a public sensation of sex, drugs, guns,
espionage and splattering acrimony whose stench has never really faded from the
national walls.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Here was another drama that grew out of Cliveden’s magnetism for
rich and irresponsible party people, a role to which the next generation of
Astors returned it. At issue were the relationships between a group of
individuals, in particular War Minister <b>John Profumo</b> and 19-year-old
aspiring showgirl <b>Christine Keeler</b>, who fell into a secret love affair
having been brought together at that cottage by <b>Stephen Ward</b>, an
osteopath and the sort of all-around high-flyer who knew everybody and had his
hand in innumerable dodgy activities. The Profumo-Keeler involvement did not
last long, but a chain of events involving Keeler’s and Ward’s misadventures
with violent Jamaican jazz singer Aloysius Gordon, which led to a gun being
fired outside Ward’s flat, set off rumours in the media which duly landed
Profumo in front of Conservative Party interrogators to whom he of course
denied everything. But by then the rumours had crackled into every corner of
that era’s superconductive celebrity grapevine, in which all these people were naturally
bound up. To make matters worse, it then emerged that Ward had also got Keeler socially
and carnally involved with <b>Yevgeny Ivanov</b>, a Soviet naval attaché and
spy who had also become acquainted with War Minister Profumo at this cottage’s
swimming pool, thereby layering upon the scandal a thick new icing of potential
Cold War security breaches and leaks of nuclear secrets. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
By
1963 these people were hurling angry accusations and denials on each other in
broad daylight, to the outraged delight of the media in general and <i>Private
Eye</i> in particular. The matter came to a head that summer when Ward was put
on trial on vice charges. Faced with (questionable) conviction, he killed
himself with an overdose. Profumo’s career imploded overnight, and his name has
been synonymous with this shambles ever since; the damage to his government
almost certainly tipped the balance that pushed it from power in the following
year’s general election. Naturally however most of the sensationalism then and
since has focused on Christine Keeler due to the English press’s lurid
obsession, when faced with powerful and abusive men, to tear down women instead.
As usual this has been at the expense of her own side of the story, whose
recent BBC dramatisation in <u><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ct7b"><i>The
Trial of Christine Keeler</i></a></u> (2019) exhibits how this controversy’s
afterlife shambles on more than fifty years later.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
conventional view is that the Profumo Affair was a death blow to the culture
which had also produced the Cliveden Set: the closed in-groups of unsavoury
rich and powerful people who ran the country as their playground, all knowing each
other far too well and sharing the impunity of getting away with whatever they
wanted. That the English had had enough of this is often refracted through the
statement of Keeler’s friend Mandy Rice-Davies at Ward’s trial, who when it was
put to her that Lord Astor (Nancy Astor’s son) was denying sexual involvement
with her, replied: ‘Well he would, wouldn’t he?’ – the implication being all
these powerful men, fundamentally and obviously, were liars and cheats. For a
time this culture would submerge under the new strain of no-nonsense public
managerialism associated with the Labour government of Harold Wilson and his
successors, in whose wreckage in turn Thatcher would build her free market
revolution in the 1980s. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
have the sparks in the Cliveden circuit ever truly gone out? From Boris Johnson
spaffing (to use his term) out unknowable numbers of forgotten children, to
Michael Gove happily admitting to taking cocaine in his youth (and getting away
with it by being political-caste and white); from the abiding <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/02/thames-7-eaten.html">political
dominance of chums from the same elite schools</a></u>, to the recent sequence of
female Home Ministers tapping the wells of fascism for their <i>hostile
environment</i> ethnic cleansing programme, it might be some time yet before
the echoes of Cliveden’s dirty secrets are truly stifled.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
As
for the house itself, the Astor family moved out in 1968, and within two
decades it had consummated its passion for luring the rich and unscrupulously
famous by turning into a hotel. If you don’t fancy paying upward of £400 per
night, the National Trust now holds its vast gardens and woodlands and will let
you explore those for a “mere” £16 instead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
is one set of heights the river won’t reach. If it’s shamanic healing we’re
after we had better look elsewhere.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cookham</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Though
perhaps, not that far after all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR1FZ1W3wvOlejutql1oZonytZCZjlwfKve_y-hZRoA-mIklIN1KMEbLHTtRjbvpTapTlK-Fh0RtM0edw-lAEx6q8K-2R3pM0J2-Jew3-96aNbVIlGFfI02L64nUC9l4HoJQ17LigpqrM/s1600/IMG_9846.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR1FZ1W3wvOlejutql1oZonytZCZjlwfKve_y-hZRoA-mIklIN1KMEbLHTtRjbvpTapTlK-Fh0RtM0edw-lAEx6q8K-2R3pM0J2-Jew3-96aNbVIlGFfI02L64nUC9l4HoJQ17LigpqrM/s640/IMG_9846.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Round
the corner from Cliveden the wall between worlds is weak. The farm fields give
way to the low-lying chalky grasslands of <b>Cock Marsh</b> (look, I don’t
make the names around here), whose frequent flooding nurtures fertile flora
and provides a perpetual feast for grazing animals. Towering above them, <b>Winter
Hill</b> is one of the highest Thames terraces yet, and is thought to get its
name from those animals’ retreat up its slopes when the floods of the cold
season chase them off the floodplain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Humans
too have been drawn to this oasis for at least ten thousand years back to the hunter-gatherers
of the Old Stone Age. Local archaeology has
turned up a wealth of artifacts from every period since, from Neolithic axes to
Roman pottery. Pride of place however goes to a set of Bronze Age burial mounds
still just visible in the marsh, whose excavation revealed human remains given
elaborate burials by a sophisticated prehistoric society. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
More
recently, it is not clear if the Celtic, Roman and Anglo-Saxon presences here
formed one continuous settlement, but this location clearly mattered to all of
them. In the journeys of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, for whom this was crucially
contested middle ground (particularly between the heavyweights of Mercia and
Wessex), it came to feature a monastery, then one of <a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html"><u>Alfred’s</u></a> <i>burhs</i>
(forts) against the Vikings, then even a palace where in 997 CE the Anglo-Saxon
<i>witan</i> (parliament) met under King <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Æ</span>thelred II “Unr<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">æ</span>d”
– the one whose reputation the <i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i> tore so savagely to
pieces, rightly or wrongly, that one thousand years later his name still has
not recovered. (“Unr<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">æd”, often incorrectly given as<i> Unready</i>, was a disparaging
pun on his name with a meaning closer to <i>ill-advised</i>.)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">By the
Domesday survey of 1086, this settlement, now a royal manor, had the name of <i>Cocheham</i>.
Its origin is unclear, but there are suggestions of an association with cooks,
in the culinary sense – which even if purely imaginary, might explain why it
comes down to the present as <b>Cookham.</b> Indeed, they pronounce it ‘cook
‘em’, though to what or whom that should be done is not so clear.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLZ7fvtRBujXJ5pON7hLluTXF1u4_mBJbNRHQtD49VNOLAkQ5wkT-Ps4XkixnW57IxKdsN_K-BeMZOzG7ke5RyYKh6kKXLIdVczlTOcEdzsfvloEKdxWBwcwRnSvc02ddlXEcCYisYeYw/s1600/IMG_9787.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLZ7fvtRBujXJ5pON7hLluTXF1u4_mBJbNRHQtD49VNOLAkQ5wkT-Ps4XkixnW57IxKdsN_K-BeMZOzG7ke5RyYKh6kKXLIdVczlTOcEdzsfvloEKdxWBwcwRnSvc02ddlXEcCYisYeYw/s400/IMG_9787.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
riverbank ahead of the bend breaks into a clump of islands, necessitating a
brief departure from the river on the approach to Cookham. Till 1956 this was
the site of a ferry crossing known as the <i>My Lady Ferry</i>. The cottage at
right, formerly the ferryman’s house, is now rented out by the National Trust.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6iHMdixupy8IbRUsOMkr1Tq7-BVEMadqa5Or-GLq8zteuy3biZJMJlZtsPSej9SJUyAHdGjcdd3yQrQl5ekYiWV4qiRIapkTSevBsv-kzwOIs04YiywOqom1To3wTuU6u1YXSsJMk7q0/s1600/IMG_9790.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6iHMdixupy8IbRUsOMkr1Tq7-BVEMadqa5Or-GLq8zteuy3biZJMJlZtsPSej9SJUyAHdGjcdd3yQrQl5ekYiWV4qiRIapkTSevBsv-kzwOIs04YiywOqom1To3wTuU6u1YXSsJMk7q0/s400/IMG_9790.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
approach to Cookham.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq_vgnDRq6l7knzgZPahAlQxlUF52cJumx-oeTBLiG423TaJwagdKni2T097v55wZzhDYIu66xgS5oZ-qKK5qTcNIvhZSagtflniy1429FjtrliY-WwcUSsTcxCQptiO-MKeMvyvvctzk/s1600/IMG_9795.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq_vgnDRq6l7knzgZPahAlQxlUF52cJumx-oeTBLiG423TaJwagdKni2T097v55wZzhDYIu66xgS5oZ-qKK5qTcNIvhZSagtflniy1429FjtrliY-WwcUSsTcxCQptiO-MKeMvyvvctzk/s400/IMG_9795.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Cookham’s high street. Today the village has a reputation for riverside
affluence and popularity with walkers and tourists.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4vlWC8M01SCWByIKpnZXQ-QG_58xoOhiG9eHif2BTfykNw0BfacxOKAZchnJZR59fKS75vQPplsRwSWBwnCUYKDj-aIGy_AoFIlOdA_IRFwqS3jk7zouI1iDd-iaSFmgiLBAnkW6nNS4/s1600/IMG_9796.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4vlWC8M01SCWByIKpnZXQ-QG_58xoOhiG9eHif2BTfykNw0BfacxOKAZchnJZR59fKS75vQPplsRwSWBwnCUYKDj-aIGy_AoFIlOdA_IRFwqS3jk7zouI1iDd-iaSFmgiLBAnkW6nNS4/s400/IMG_9796.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> <b>But
there is something else going on. Cookham has a standing stone – the <i>Tarry
Stone</i>, they call it. Standing stones are always perplexing. This one is on
record for its service as a boundary marker and centrepiece in village sports
events, but no-one seems to know how long it has been here. Sarsen stones like
this are not native to this area. It was probably brought here much longer ago,
perhaps by ancient peoples in a spiritual capacity whose secrets it keeps to
itself.</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As Cookham
endured a millennium of English nation-building and nation-breaking up and down
the river, those who lived their lives here never lost consciousness of the enchanted
natural setting in which they had made their nests. In 1611, for example, the
poet Aemilia Lanyer unfurled <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50661/the-description-of-cooke-ham"><i><u>The Description of Cooke-ham</u></i></a> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">as a thank-you poem for her local patron, the
Countess of Cumberland. This is said to be the first work in an extremely
English genre of poetry – that of praisin<u>g</u> people by describing their country
mansions in adoring terms – but is notable here for the trance-like awe with
which its author rolls around, at conspicuous length, in the trees, grasses,
hills, brooks, birds, wind and sunlight of what she sets up as a Cookham Eden
of Edens. In later centuries its inhabitants fiercely and successfully resisted
attempts to Enclose their commons, including Cock Marsh, for private profit. And
yet, if they found something not merely wonderful but <i>transcendental</i> about
their surroundings, its best expression falls to the one among them who stands at
the forefront of their memories.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT0izu5lzHl9uMQVwsiwwUdNxlLlKJ8c6b9Lmy0xsq0wCKxCLl7MxKvgF7ViKjtTAELy0_38itEX2uj0MDH1TNBd-jAdEX1HqZM-YRNIpUuAe0vcpV4LUWwpF6YWCcV_zQ48QrjR21jJo/s1600/IMG_9793.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT0izu5lzHl9uMQVwsiwwUdNxlLlKJ8c6b9Lmy0xsq0wCKxCLl7MxKvgF7ViKjtTAELy0_38itEX2uj0MDH1TNBd-jAdEX1HqZM-YRNIpUuAe0vcpV4LUWwpF6YWCcV_zQ48QrjR21jJo/s400/IMG_9793.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">At
the centre of Cookham is the gallery of Stanley Spencer, Cookham’s most famous
son. During his life the building was a Methodist chapel. Appropriately, its
sanctified walls now hold up some of his finest works which bring the material
and spiritual together as one.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Stanley
Spencer </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">(1891-1959) grew up in privilege as the eighth surviving child in
an extremely musical and literate family. He travelled to London to attend the
Slade School of Fine Art, then considered the best art school in the country, but
carried so deep a love of his Cookham home that he returned here every day.
With the rustic charm of its local shops, riverside tranquility, and relaxation
of social barriers in the bustle of regattas and funfairs, Cookham’s mystique
spoke to something deep in Spencer’s heart and became the fountain for his
early artistic flourish.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-olfsCHmbhboByMbZBA3fO2ciylIMntfo9fyQKD3knC_VKoXxHtYJpjTN9qSoWg9wE9MMA850-dvZdEbJ6222VVhHbzlVY8HkVdKCKCXUlujwet31CtYgck8h525KtYPMnkCrDi8TsCU/s1600/Spencer+-+Swan-Upping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1193" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-olfsCHmbhboByMbZBA3fO2ciylIMntfo9fyQKD3knC_VKoXxHtYJpjTN9qSoWg9wE9MMA850-dvZdEbJ6222VVhHbzlVY8HkVdKCKCXUlujwet31CtYgck8h525KtYPMnkCrDi8TsCU/s640/Spencer+-+Swan-Upping.jpg" width="496" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><b><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html"><u>Swan Upping</u></a> at Cookham</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> (1915-19), considered one of Spencer’s early
masterpieces. Though a devout Christian, Spencer found an intrinsic spiritual charge
in the river’s beauty and life-sustaining properties which would resonate
through most of his work. His infusion of ordinary scenes with an elemental
divinity of light and water seems to verge on animistic.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN0_Wn6SVel3deDVqU7ppobvFn8aB2VmgG2AU39g4tITqc1_091MflgfoTAMmpqRhtBEO5ru9fPzbG7pFSyz-mp6LvjSSrkwreHKCmzm8Q-f9qTQHz3KqK7Oz0LMtwavZIBbTvn1wfXaM/s1600/IMG_9805.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN0_Wn6SVel3deDVqU7ppobvFn8aB2VmgG2AU39g4tITqc1_091MflgfoTAMmpqRhtBEO5ru9fPzbG7pFSyz-mp6LvjSSrkwreHKCmzm8Q-f9qTQHz3KqK7Oz0LMtwavZIBbTvn1wfXaM/s400/IMG_9805.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
riverside at Cookham Bridge, close to where Spencer painted <i>Swan Upping</i>.
The present bridge dates to 1867 and appears in several of Spencer’s
paintings.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But there
were shadows too. Notice, in <i>Swan Upping</i>, how the brilliant light fades
from the water and darkens to murk. Spencer’s work on this painting was divided
in two by the catastrophic civilisational reckoning that was World War I, in
which Spencer volunteered and was sent to fight on the Macedonian front line
for two and a half years. The war brought him face to face with all the wrong
kinds of transcendental experience by killing his brother and many of his
friends then spitting him out with malaria. He emerged as many English did, permanently
changed by his reckoning with the other side of death (or the loss of that
‘early morning feeling’, in his words), and that burden would ever make its
mark on his paintings after his return to Cookham.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdENdV3W-Yc0uBetQy4A_xfAYo-UJwnLIbBgejClt9kEp7xI_zr9hIm4cKoM1Xni9YM6PKrRrUi8v_GiX-pQcfXUwca0epDTlGb8drvO4kmvEjtuLz825m-8SGMHa86xDbTyEGdWKBJnY/s1600/Spencer+-+Resurrection.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="1536" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdENdV3W-Yc0uBetQy4A_xfAYo-UJwnLIbBgejClt9kEp7xI_zr9hIm4cKoM1Xni9YM6PKrRrUi8v_GiX-pQcfXUwca0epDTlGb8drvO4kmvEjtuLz825m-8SGMHa86xDbTyEGdWKBJnY/s640/Spencer+-+Resurrection.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i>The Resurrection</i> (1924-7). Life and death, bliss and horror, the
everyday and the realms beyond combine in the cemetery of Cookham’s churchyard
in this incredibly complex scene. The figures include Biblical characters but
also local people he knew, including his companion Hilda, as well as undefined
and more eerily symbolic personages. A pleasure boat full of day-trippers (top
left) is as a ferry across the Styx; Thames wildflowers are as gateways between
worlds. Spencer himself rests on a broken tomb in darkened contentment (bottom
right).</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh-I12V23K443Ogzch60ckgn2Imqbf3TTalYwH3Ym_YM4ciE8mrplIRROXL7h9xhs91rc9wh2VMrSIk6aWu2FFD1hjBJc8yCP-prqz2ndRagzbSHUDdmgz1JXLzDdl547X38aY4ou_pfQ/s1600/IMG_9797.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh-I12V23K443Ogzch60ckgn2Imqbf3TTalYwH3Ym_YM4ciE8mrplIRROXL7h9xhs91rc9wh2VMrSIk6aWu2FFD1hjBJc8yCP-prqz2ndRagzbSHUDdmgz1JXLzDdl547X38aY4ou_pfQ/s400/IMG_9797.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
churchyard at Cookham’s Holy Trinity Church, setting for <i>The Resurrection</i>.
The church is recognisably Norman and took shape in the twelfth or thirteenth
century, but some walls are said to contain masonry from older Anglo-Saxon
predecessors.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhaDTd8P3IAbIdUwtiDtCWWouhgm17pXmqNV7IZSyQu-1w1ZNf9wxEEY8InosYZ8CD_Qlr9lq-lZO1pRodUGrTVPusR3d58BxhYLv1fo8RE8iRnwZ7ndlw6Zlv_GbxweySaiXf-SWc_jI/s1600/IMG_9798.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhaDTd8P3IAbIdUwtiDtCWWouhgm17pXmqNV7IZSyQu-1w1ZNf9wxEEY8InosYZ8CD_Qlr9lq-lZO1pRodUGrTVPusR3d58BxhYLv1fo8RE8iRnwZ7ndlw6Zlv_GbxweySaiXf-SWc_jI/s400/IMG_9798.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Spencer would later have his ashes scattered here. His memorial stone is
inscribed with the ‘God is love’ line from the New Testament of the Christian
Bible, but it seems clear that for Spencer, who painted divinity’s glow into
all mundane things, <i>God</i> meant something far more profound than its common
monotheistic implications.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Spencer
continued painting through the 1920s and 30s, finding meaning in his work as
his interactions with the physical world ran into difficulties. His companionship
with Hilda Carline, herself an artist, broke down over his attraction to yet another
artist, Patricia Preece. She in turn was already involved in a lesbian
relationship with a fourth artist, Dorothy Hepworth, and so refused to actually
conduct a meaningful relationship with Spencer even after she married him,
which did not stop her siphoning off much of his income and getting him evicted
from his house. We can hardly begin to assess this bizarre and obviously complicated
tangle for the noise of English beliefs in hegemonic monogamy and for want of
all sides of the story; suffice to say that efforts to resolve it through
polyamorous arrangements came to naught (four artists – can you imagine?), although
it seems Stanley and Hilda at least did manage to reconcile and long continued
to inspire each other. On top of that, Stanley came to exhibit a worthy and
admirable trait for any seeker of true meaning: a complete inability to manage
his financial situation. This would likely have got him murdered with a smirk
by the Department of Work and Pensions in the England of today, but fortunately
Stanley found help in the form of a supportive agent with the curious name of Dudley
Tooth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKxVFo64cRRoaEcTFWZ1zFjzDFwWaHqH6MGhUfnx5kREPcLEuNlnH_D-nMdPKtZA9tKbgcUYUfE8fet8XBvf1c3X1sbpgGnvMkqcgiy50ltC7DbWxYUCufUZyXMnbL8M2A7EwT1QsGmA0/s1600/Spencer+-+View+from+Cookham+Bridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="600" height="462" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKxVFo64cRRoaEcTFWZ1zFjzDFwWaHqH6MGhUfnx5kREPcLEuNlnH_D-nMdPKtZA9tKbgcUYUfE8fet8XBvf1c3X1sbpgGnvMkqcgiy50ltC7DbWxYUCufUZyXMnbL8M2A7EwT1QsGmA0/s640/Spencer+-+View+from+Cookham+Bridge.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
<i>View from Cookham Bridge</i> (1936) was painted at this troubled time in
Spencer’s life. Gone is the bustle of village life. The boats are spacious and
empty, as though they invite the viewer to come aboard but at the same time
float beyond us, out of reach. The shadows of war sharpen the edges of what
otherwise feels like the dreamlike warmth of a riverside paradise – a sense ever
present, yet in some sense now drifting out of reach. The church tower watches
over it all at top left.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">War caught
up with Spencer again in 1940, but this time Tooth’s search for employment for
him sent his easel on a more proletarian turn in the shipyards of Port Glasgow.
The eventual result was <i>Shipbuilding on the Clyde</i>, a set of eight panels
depicting in remarkable vigour and detail the workers of that river engaged in
the industry which once made it legendary.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSN1T2-sJLZn7R2Lf1TteJBpXPamln29RaK9lhFVyyHHx_yl4I_ZjyNNGj4kpaPt0On48EKK0t6HcAEBA1gGd0yoxkC7BdXCnFvUkE6ejji_I3a5V0XxBuN515G2yzR-bmXhiJ_RNoL2c/s1600/Spencer+-+Shipbuilding+on+the+Clyde.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="1200" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSN1T2-sJLZn7R2Lf1TteJBpXPamln29RaK9lhFVyyHHx_yl4I_ZjyNNGj4kpaPt0On48EKK0t6HcAEBA1gGd0yoxkC7BdXCnFvUkE6ejji_I3a5V0XxBuN515G2yzR-bmXhiJ_RNoL2c/s640/Spencer+-+Shipbuilding+on+the+Clyde.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i>Bending the Keel Plate</i> (1943), just one part of the <i>Shipbuilding on the Clyde</i>
series.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Returning
to Cookham in 1945, the ageing Spencer was by now becoming something of a
legend himself. If legend status came with certain terms, they never seemed to
bother him: he walked a path independent of any wider artistic movement and found
no need even for a studio. Locals instead frequently remembered sighting this
‘small man with twinkling eyes and shaggy grey hair’, as his Gallery recalls
him, trundling up and down the village lanes with his pyjamas sticking out from
under his suit, pushing the pram in which he kept his equipment to whatever was
next in line for some attention from his transcendental paintbrush. Cookham
itself was his studio, and it was here that he prepared a colossal five-metre canvas
for what looked set to be his greatest work of all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">He never
finished it. Spencer died of cancer in 1959. In <i>Christ Preaching at Cookham
Regatta</i>, he bequeathed a Last Day whose joy is not the jubilance of escape from
this world but that of home and belonging found (or dreamed of) necessarily within
it. Never completed, this is an end of the world that never needs end after
all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDj6kpfV2Nby8BQ12Ljd65BmA7ulRy91lvVweX-NFrg7kWdR26qWEMmdbNrB-bEoNeFSionxf8hzuYfL6MPIWrn-zMdgmGqut9lOMX2eSvWaoAhWjUr7k24wf58WUOf7FHJVEpHo6x0w/s1600/Spencer+-+Christ+Preaching+at+Cookham+Regatta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="1000" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDj6kpfV2Nby8BQ12Ljd65BmA7ulRy91lvVweX-NFrg7kWdR26qWEMmdbNrB-bEoNeFSionxf8hzuYfL6MPIWrn-zMdgmGqut9lOMX2eSvWaoAhWjUr7k24wf58WUOf7FHJVEpHo6x0w/s640/Spencer+-+Christ+Preaching+at+Cookham+Regatta.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i>Christ
Preaching at Cookham Regatta</i> (unfinished). Not the Day of Judgement they
know. There is no punishment, no heavenly condescension in this vision – only
an everyday commotion of love, fun, and more than a dash of tangled-limbed
carnality. There is no attempt to glorify it with the halos and magical light
of the special world; rather the special world is awakened <i>in</i> the
ordinary one. The titular figurehead of Christianity is present, not waving his
arms at it from on high, but participating right there in its midst on a punt full
of curious kids and sleepy elderly people.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1dl0eFVpbnaZWG9D99Bz51W_l1-YRVz4IwLpFHujFtBuTrpCV-xPXBLu_6g_1oA-tdw656C1rJhayR30rAuZqYhurBso6qrbjcKb39P5545JiGUikEwAt82X9rD3_MbWwwwyDQG1qo54/s1600/IMG_9807.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1dl0eFVpbnaZWG9D99Bz51W_l1-YRVz4IwLpFHujFtBuTrpCV-xPXBLu_6g_1oA-tdw656C1rJhayR30rAuZqYhurBso6qrbjcKb39P5545JiGUikEwAt82X9rD3_MbWwwwyDQG1qo54/s400/IMG_9807.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
<i>Ferry Inn</i> now occupies the riverbank where <i>Christ Preaching at
Cookham Regatta</i> was set.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We noted
at the beginning that the English are not known for their shamanism. Yet have
we found, here in this most English of villages, an individual worthy of the
title of shaman of the Thames? The danger in this is that it becomes a label on
a man who didn’t really do labels, but at the heart of the puzzle of Stanley Spencer is a
formidable paradox which, if it does not qualify his vision as shamanic, makes it
hard to imagine what could.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It is as
follows. In one sense, Spencer appears fundamentally English: a native of Cookham
like a Hobbit in his Shire, emerging from an English-speaking, English-educated
provincial Christian scene in whose dialects and imagery and patterns of life,
so quintessentially familiar to the people of this land, he felt such a sense
of belonging that his paintings cannot be understood without reference to it. But he was also the complete opposite: a walker of magical
realms infused with the light of a higher significance that made in-groups and out-groups irrelevant; one who lived, with a gnomic
nonchalance, by his own rules even at times when, as in romance and money, they
were eccentric to the ordinary world around him. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In other
words, he stood as a bridge, connecting the comfort of homeworlds below with
the enchantment of dreamworlds above, and so unlocking for his people the
redemptive power of seeing the two as one. Is there, in all that, a vision of
shamanic healing for an England where, both physically and psychologically, the
loss of a secure sense of home <i>and</i> of higher meaning to one’s life is
what has driven its politics to take leave of its senses?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">One final
episode near the end of his life may illustrate this best. In 1954, Spencer was
invited to join an odd group of “cultural delegates” on a visit to China. Five
years had passed since the communist revolution, and the visit was part of an
effort between the People’s Republic and capitalist bloc countries to edgily
work out how to relate to each other amidst the heady tensions of the new Cold
War. It was a nervous and tantalising trip to a world as far from Cookham as
you might imagine. For the English, the Chinese revolution was a frightening
splash of red over already forbidding territory, known not so much through
facts as through nightmares of toothy dragons and towering temples and tombs,
rearing up for eternal revenge out of the ruins of those their little empire <a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2016/10/an-intermission-to-beijing-and-with.html"><u>had so foolishly kicked over a century earlier.</u></a></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHQoZIRQnCMrUfBJ81E4Fx-4JP_CGCm5VkElM6HhrBNAm4EkCVw9YMTtp9cb7rFMPvCWvlGHArEHhwfHy1Wx9FgLuDzGLCRHcUZgnUaioeo9Lm3NqCD9Q97GtbTvazIGIBcbKv007XW4/s1600/Spencer+-+Ming+Tombs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="550" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHQoZIRQnCMrUfBJ81E4Fx-4JP_CGCm5VkElM6HhrBNAm4EkCVw9YMTtp9cb7rFMPvCWvlGHArEHhwfHy1Wx9FgLuDzGLCRHcUZgnUaioeo9Lm3NqCD9Q97GtbTvazIGIBcbKv007XW4/s400/Spencer+-+Ming+Tombs.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i>The Ming Tombs</i> (1954).</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Spencer
spent several awestruck days marvelling at the obligatory Chinese monuments and
antiquities, irritating his companions, and horrifying his
diplomatic minders, with quirky behaviours and mutterings that constantly
referred back to Cookham <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His musings
transfigured the Great Wall of China into the garden wall in Cookham he had ran
along as a child, and at one point brought the prickling heat of the mushroom
cloud down on the room when he daydreamed aloud about the marvels of Formosa – to
him one of those idyllic islands in the Cookham bend, but to everyone else the
colonial name for that bristling proximity-mine in the Sino-Western
relationship, Taiwan. At last, invited to an official reception, Spencer came
face to face with Premier Zhou Enlai. Told by this titanic champion of the otherworld that the Chinese were a ‘home-loving people’, Spencer immediately
agreed. ‘I feel at home in China,’ he replied, ‘because I feel that Cookham is somewhere near, only just around the corner’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl8cyZq-GxO0MSZAm7Qx_w1d9agro7g0wiE2pP3DCb72V3TzMwEHu4_VFFTrP9THO-pl3RkWCWKakKd6fIN2ZwmZNP83iJqTBOMbYwqG60IPfKBexVg55rJAY6YS17vanKolPcSi_d70c/s1600/IMG_9808.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl8cyZq-GxO0MSZAm7Qx_w1d9agro7g0wiE2pP3DCb72V3TzMwEHu4_VFFTrP9THO-pl3RkWCWKakKd6fIN2ZwmZNP83iJqTBOMbYwqG60IPfKBexVg55rJAY6YS17vanKolPcSi_d70c/s640/IMG_9808.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Just around the corner. This is worth reflecting on.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cock Marsh and Winter Hill</span></u></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And now it
is time to head round the other corner, not to China – at least not for now –
but deeper into England. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy-FdQQCGPB6RUheyVoVg6tKFVRxrS19m_e95sd_AdgqB7KMKxTTbWmvxvhcMvaJDsxxzhX-B_1pfbf6B5wVMercZhdtryl8Pz1D-ict5Aa2OXeuA-XQ5vUMwLhPP6SK3LDKkX9WvrdxU/s1600/IMG_9810.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy-FdQQCGPB6RUheyVoVg6tKFVRxrS19m_e95sd_AdgqB7KMKxTTbWmvxvhcMvaJDsxxzhX-B_1pfbf6B5wVMercZhdtryl8Pz1D-ict5Aa2OXeuA-XQ5vUMwLhPP6SK3LDKkX9WvrdxU/s400/IMG_9810.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
river isn’t getting any lower. Long-term residence in those houses over there
cannot be comfortable.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDimSEtCX69ldLw1aPbt_1pf1qCCbqJHwEWmirjCNZsXIjrYC-BlVhFnxBWbRlMEVfEexy_WaTH4yhLW_JoC2w84jqJEXD4u6RmFXgiH8aAtafyMMx_m6Xn5GU86zwAtCKPpuMR6Qo_VE/s1600/IMG_9812.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDimSEtCX69ldLw1aPbt_1pf1qCCbqJHwEWmirjCNZsXIjrYC-BlVhFnxBWbRlMEVfEexy_WaTH4yhLW_JoC2w84jqJEXD4u6RmFXgiH8aAtafyMMx_m6Xn5GU86zwAtCKPpuMR6Qo_VE/s400/IMG_9812.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
Enclosure of these commons might have been thwarted, but warding off this
country’s coercive sign culture is another matter. Only four dogs per person at
a time? What preposterousness is that?</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC5sovlG7qktx-E87XO11gjzEHBJN5fog5WdHueXAcwOIMkmLydbifNDIfDHl5IueLF_k90Cow_YLzEsYVyYjVM2aBeYnuXnTQNgHuicsUPnvLOlfOSGmXiNdYCe7mtfH5RHLekJStfgA/s1600/IMG_9814.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC5sovlG7qktx-E87XO11gjzEHBJN5fog5WdHueXAcwOIMkmLydbifNDIfDHl5IueLF_k90Cow_YLzEsYVyYjVM2aBeYnuXnTQNgHuicsUPnvLOlfOSGmXiNdYCe7mtfH5RHLekJStfgA/s400/IMG_9814.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
more expensive pieces you stick to it, the more you’re going to lose when it
ends up underwater.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Finally we
emerge on a sodden and muddy expanse. Here unrolling into the distance is Cock
Marsh, the wild and ancient pyjamas beneath the bricked and cobbled
Cookham suit (sorry Stanley).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqOt81CRn6Ziqis4gpjOw2X5FJscUpQFqF8iX6ATAdIigMs9wr8kn8Hnd_8HAQGBFPCn7vkQuakT1yIZ2p8SQwQSIw3fL7ZpVFq2Taso0Q2_QbZXQiIGuw7vQBe2I3G8CsxKZx4RIubpM/s1600/IMG_9815.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqOt81CRn6Ziqis4gpjOw2X5FJscUpQFqF8iX6ATAdIigMs9wr8kn8Hnd_8HAQGBFPCn7vkQuakT1yIZ2p8SQwQSIw3fL7ZpVFq2Taso0Q2_QbZXQiIGuw7vQBe2I3G8CsxKZx4RIubpM/s400/IMG_9815.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Despite the mud and water there is enough firm ground to make it popular to
ramble around on.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYOU-B6VOakfyIre9R6zQETfRUcpU6y91v9k8Y0hZXFntvZZ-gVID7iE17mCKG8bw-vJPRH0mVf3M9ZPlfbKDr2bdZ0lAJ8P3UYePLJNy_kHukWbC3hr3iA7PacaTEKmkzBLHqOAy40c/s1600/IMG_9820.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYOU-B6VOakfyIre9R6zQETfRUcpU6y91v9k8Y0hZXFntvZZ-gVID7iE17mCKG8bw-vJPRH0mVf3M9ZPlfbKDr2bdZ0lAJ8P3UYePLJNy_kHukWbC3hr3iA7PacaTEKmkzBLHqOAy40c/s400/IMG_9820.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A
seagull loiters in the marsh. Cock Marsh is a designated Site of Special
Scientific Interest (SSSI) and harbours a rich variety of bird life, including
a higher-than-average concentration of red kites.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrWtUlByU50N3lPY3IbPcUDC1vajopqkk_fjFme5azsZOtvkyzpqXeeL9szjCEB2Igg2bpiAdK3NPTDqpgcff2USVxdHQDvR4C0afgFcsh-kpLf5q_yS1Ahb6zHFn-fjVP0E-9lAYOFUU/s1600/IMG_9822.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrWtUlByU50N3lPY3IbPcUDC1vajopqkk_fjFme5azsZOtvkyzpqXeeL9szjCEB2Igg2bpiAdK3NPTDqpgcff2USVxdHQDvR4C0afgFcsh-kpLf5q_yS1Ahb6zHFn-fjVP0E-9lAYOFUU/s400/IMG_9822.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Naturally it also brings out life of the four-legged furry kind.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOGP8j8KSmzKe7GEkcbMMr7ucDYbTS2LFePTgCFkR9r10yfmj8Oz7Txj_VroXbNyugyDCqNAPzH4GUDHQFlaN73EbKT2N1UoECaZWmFhl_T-CiDOgsHA7j6S4XZHmsQci06HyCyLMU8eo/s1600/IMG_9825.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOGP8j8KSmzKe7GEkcbMMr7ucDYbTS2LFePTgCFkR9r10yfmj8Oz7Txj_VroXbNyugyDCqNAPzH4GUDHQFlaN73EbKT2N1UoECaZWmFhl_T-CiDOgsHA7j6S4XZHmsQci06HyCyLMU8eo/s400/IMG_9825.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Anyone venturing out on here should expect to be approached.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNUd2z9wkPx6AMlR19poVsagw4QXy-f0ZyHrKw0woqWonZvX_ELqMMBpAuukfRqh4XmROf2PwXVuyNu35PPGCLgCK94hhLIGew7OpoEyHM8QPIC5zLebwUcNu6EmcwgQA4BDKBSDOvvZw/s1600/IMG_9826.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNUd2z9wkPx6AMlR19poVsagw4QXy-f0ZyHrKw0woqWonZvX_ELqMMBpAuukfRqh4XmROf2PwXVuyNu35PPGCLgCK94hhLIGew7OpoEyHM8QPIC5zLebwUcNu6EmcwgQA4BDKBSDOvvZw/s400/IMG_9826.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Ever-present on the inland side is Winter Hill. Somewhere in the middle
distance are the Bronze Age burial mounds, which are difficult to spot from a
distance but can apparently be discerned at close range.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">While the
south bank persists for some time in this vein, the outer residences of another
settlement, <b>Bourne End</b>, proffer themselves up to the floodwaters on the
north side.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9qwLVafKV5zICrQvN-unvmhHAOivOGDMrqNOdoo3umQ9T2dBrs3u9k-2y9No-Twd_LwQLxsanY9Z0tCRplyn4hdCXij4DEVr0IFzo0PYkLc4IsN8ioIB6TRlaI5f80aYkAvIzm596JzY/s1600/IMG_9827.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9qwLVafKV5zICrQvN-unvmhHAOivOGDMrqNOdoo3umQ9T2dBrs3u9k-2y9No-Twd_LwQLxsanY9Z0tCRplyn4hdCXij4DEVr0IFzo0PYkLc4IsN8ioIB6TRlaI5f80aYkAvIzm596JzY/s400/IMG_9827.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Like this.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtoW_97D30tH2UkWEkqEayaZsPQbs7o82btw5FMbLGVxlykQqNCYu0rbMnXc61N-rrHU2OOP79LFskCllsQoO43XCLFeBNRwn0rfJPCrwFHPh3F-6WC6SSYo2uoKpJPOOLw7lFliHtBA/s1600/IMG_9829.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtoW_97D30tH2UkWEkqEayaZsPQbs7o82btw5FMbLGVxlykQqNCYu0rbMnXc61N-rrHU2OOP79LFskCllsQoO43XCLFeBNRwn0rfJPCrwFHPh3F-6WC6SSYo2uoKpJPOOLw7lFliHtBA/s400/IMG_9829.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">From the safety of the branches, a Brown Tubby disapprovingly surveys the
humans’ poor urban planning decisions.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbx1xhHWX-6m6HNc2LnhtZZChCCPzgJeamLwR5YjUaLrN5EhGXpSxAeU8tkWp3uepdgz7XvDL71mpPjq92ppueiGqspmU8ykoLQsUe0BFRwcZxQTnyIcDA7BQIJD_638dxky9yuMgQi0c/s1600/IMG_9830.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbx1xhHWX-6m6HNc2LnhtZZChCCPzgJeamLwR5YjUaLrN5EhGXpSxAeU8tkWp3uepdgz7XvDL71mpPjq92ppueiGqspmU8ykoLQsUe0BFRwcZxQTnyIcDA7BQIJD_638dxky9yuMgQi0c/s400/IMG_9830.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The collapse of this tree has made of its roots a convenient potential hideout
for practicing Leninism.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">When the
dwellings pop back up on this side, there materialises in their midst an
unusual pub. <i>The Bounty</i> seems to be a staunch local fixture, accessible
only on foot or by boat but well-patronised by local people and enthusiastic to
welcome muddy boots and paws.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyEjC9xVWRcOGEpzUnRYjC8_7avAzLqQD8NTajMFR9ICcZ8NRDAQ7p8P1yZ2cYxEhhQf8Jaihjg9d-9s7FrwQ7Jhw5JJnuBb2yXGIEXzEbnCZIJF6MVCwMwxg_Fu5_61kkma1v1NvKEBo/s1600/IMG_9833.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyEjC9xVWRcOGEpzUnRYjC8_7avAzLqQD8NTajMFR9ICcZ8NRDAQ7p8P1yZ2cYxEhhQf8Jaihjg9d-9s7FrwQ7Jhw5JJnuBb2yXGIEXzEbnCZIJF6MVCwMwxg_Fu5_61kkma1v1NvKEBo/s400/IMG_9833.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Later I would encounter people walking all the way out here from Marlow, whom I
was compelled to warn about the inundation of the intervening fields. Their
footwear did not look up to the challenge of which they cringed to hear, yet
they pressed on anyway and one must hope they arrived in safety.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqbStUQl3ywsExyP-Y2eCjRk6paU6-1QhlMv1bfPiEtx1KC0FaIeI_PpcOoU03G0lQR6YvRNTViPesq7gUVQkT5GenSb5-nfvvwsgzrVf45kyWxcu3ohixjLYNkieAmz5QzTP4iZ_gCPc/s1600/IMG_9834.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqbStUQl3ywsExyP-Y2eCjRk6paU6-1QhlMv1bfPiEtx1KC0FaIeI_PpcOoU03G0lQR6YvRNTViPesq7gUVQkT5GenSb5-nfvvwsgzrVf45kyWxcu3ohixjLYNkieAmz5QzTP4iZ_gCPc/s400/IMG_9834.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i>The
Bounty</i> is far enough from English power centres, and close enough to
inter-dimensional boundaries, that it feels it can safely explore alternative
constitutional arrangements.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Alas, the
steep face of Winter Hill soon makes this side inaccessible, so there is no
choice but to cross at Bourne End Bridge and follow the outer bank the rest of
the way to Marlow. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOcPLBBX-vfk-VwTtTaOpsFQ9TXT5iKo8GOaj7-iNw7liXh5axFyFwKihwnstdcjY1zO-bzlUydpKek9ldZf5YxLhidF7qdd9gGS1pLydCzExQSvdq7Ivd0JFcYXp3ytMXTNJm8JGZ6KU/s1600/IMG_9832.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOcPLBBX-vfk-VwTtTaOpsFQ9TXT5iKo8GOaj7-iNw7liXh5axFyFwKihwnstdcjY1zO-bzlUydpKek9ldZf5YxLhidF7qdd9gGS1pLydCzExQSvdq7Ivd0JFcYXp3ytMXTNJm8JGZ6KU/s400/IMG_9832.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Bourne
End Railway Bridge was an 1854 Brunel creation. Originally built in wood, it
was re-done in steel in 1895, had a footbridge added in 1992 and was
refurbished in 2013, at which time they also painted it green.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgweaTT-HBUPWXDHXrZJWm-pmoZW4S0r78wBTlPXoA8lP1m4pZ7pH0_jBqGYMiRGyZjs1qcbhEvDggMt0M96-jYqIEVY-fk3qyAGgf2FSLeisXBT7xoJRiBlJZEP7SPlrZZTJYEpCXELzE/s1600/IMG_9837.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgweaTT-HBUPWXDHXrZJWm-pmoZW4S0r78wBTlPXoA8lP1m4pZ7pH0_jBqGYMiRGyZjs1qcbhEvDggMt0M96-jYqIEVY-fk3qyAGgf2FSLeisXBT7xoJRiBlJZEP7SPlrZZTJYEpCXELzE/s400/IMG_9837.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Pretty fancy for all the way out here. The railway is a branch line that splits
off to Marlow and has its own contentious history; its survival to the present
was not automatic.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKWTp8bA2hucdDrFlFnQPhwIDw7xqG8vZBAOpAR2zM1xr1CIXOBpd0RBt5482sjpykb01bSnrqdJ8cRT6Vn9wxLKQDWzGuJNfPiBPl4c7NLZK8btErsQiZvIs-PRtMDPyU2qt3TLrNKDI/s1600/IMG_9838.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKWTp8bA2hucdDrFlFnQPhwIDw7xqG8vZBAOpAR2zM1xr1CIXOBpd0RBt5482sjpykb01bSnrqdJ8cRT6Vn9wxLKQDWzGuJNfPiBPl4c7NLZK8btErsQiZvIs-PRtMDPyU2qt3TLrNKDI/s400/IMG_9838.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">One
dreads to think what a ‘rivet challenge’ entails.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxBEltUbWvI1jo-hQ-BHfOkP1PQUAvrutaJ9nYu4PmpQXdyAuYSjd5mtMnogCrGJMoFtmUJexLQoBvrGZ4WjgOiYiIRUVB7Yrlw7OS-8AbQUylN4nDTlE93okIfPd7RShiw7_C9TQ-Lh4/s1600/IMG_9839.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxBEltUbWvI1jo-hQ-BHfOkP1PQUAvrutaJ9nYu4PmpQXdyAuYSjd5mtMnogCrGJMoFtmUJexLQoBvrGZ4WjgOiYiIRUVB7Yrlw7OS-8AbQUylN4nDTlE93okIfPd7RShiw7_C9TQ-Lh4/s400/IMG_9839.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And
still the swollen river lumbers through the floodplain. There is not much latitude
on view here. Nope.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Bourne</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> is an old
word for <i>river</i>. The river that ends in Bourne End is the <b>Wye</b>, a
tributary which joins the Thames on this reach and gives its name to the larger
town of High Wycombe to the north. Like much of that river Bourne End was
decked in mills, though these have long since disappeared.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFAqe24uibn0_9ulB6s4-lwp1oh4MydFzKSw8ZzH0F-AwyXckaFP18RcqowhyIP21tJzQHdU5EQzbADfkcxxjEWPP2xwS6SecemYU_GSZnxHlOu81QqT5AZR09kSAN11jaGQghjI5nqFM/s1600/IMG_9841.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFAqe24uibn0_9ulB6s4-lwp1oh4MydFzKSw8ZzH0F-AwyXckaFP18RcqowhyIP21tJzQHdU5EQzbADfkcxxjEWPP2xwS6SecemYU_GSZnxHlOu81QqT5AZR09kSAN11jaGQghjI5nqFM/s400/IMG_9841.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">They’ve all got their own boats. They’ll be needing them when the river takes
everything else.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgM4b2byP2TuoS7oVzTJgoLdK5b4ybgquQx4-OoqUn4oW4RLbNZWasfEYCbAD-FdYJepfXOylr8bINCmhhc4G7mEfJfK-qhQI6ia-OlyL-tONv7u8F2Y7B880bn5oamdqib6FYHit-_Vw/s1600/IMG_9845.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgM4b2byP2TuoS7oVzTJgoLdK5b4ybgquQx4-OoqUn4oW4RLbNZWasfEYCbAD-FdYJepfXOylr8bINCmhhc4G7mEfJfK-qhQI6ia-OlyL-tONv7u8F2Y7B880bn5oamdqib6FYHit-_Vw/s400/IMG_9845.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">You
see? It’s coming. Winter Hill is still there if they prefer to flee up it
instead.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOFX1JxAjS5vn9lQsMKYiA6MaLTe3hy3MM-WZt8c0tah-IuJxOIk18Y-7ghZy7W3tyuBGfPmdL8HRj46uhTrMccIulGFYETagEdD1DjdO6e4gaBvf7mNsVqDZZefFeUgcMkcbBPT9idOE/s1600/IMG_9844.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOFX1JxAjS5vn9lQsMKYiA6MaLTe3hy3MM-WZt8c0tah-IuJxOIk18Y-7ghZy7W3tyuBGfPmdL8HRj46uhTrMccIulGFYETagEdD1DjdO6e4gaBvf7mNsVqDZZefFeUgcMkcbBPT9idOE/s400/IMG_9844.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Some marinas and sailing clubs have populated this stretch, with all the usual
notices that this is private property whose owners take no responsibility for
injury to walkers whom they will kill for stepping off the footpath.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ESKIT_Oz0iX1aKSL075QTlYvTAChtIOWDq8JmZWueP6d6j_Sq73-qmf_XB16bHZhi31AhS2UCsWi6bbI3mxgq_J8GLAQ1r2oH1PLqegPdb7S4m1mnR9cx8qPS0hrFGoo9i4h2ss4o-0/s1600/IMG_9847.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ESKIT_Oz0iX1aKSL075QTlYvTAChtIOWDq8JmZWueP6d6j_Sq73-qmf_XB16bHZhi31AhS2UCsWi6bbI3mxgq_J8GLAQ1r2oH1PLqegPdb7S4m1mnR9cx8qPS0hrFGoo9i4h2ss4o-0/s400/IMG_9847.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Oh
look, it’s another Future Plant – the kind that exists fifty years in the
future and takes on the appearance of its surroundings in that time. Still a
burning wasteland, it looks like, with additional tentacles with eyes in them
sticking out of the earth as evidenced by its stalks. Better reconsider some
political things.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_jLL6emuYiKxebhEPE-UylLA9l0H6DiGhWDsF4Uoz8ZUdxImJxZlx4PGYemnrb9D_pVCb6n7JS9AXD_4ujU_jznBpisWtXbFnKpmlsG8ivr_Gd2kA-qB8HQNEwkBGLH0zmDz7q_3t_5w/s1600/IMG_9851.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_jLL6emuYiKxebhEPE-UylLA9l0H6DiGhWDsF4Uoz8ZUdxImJxZlx4PGYemnrb9D_pVCb6n7JS9AXD_4ujU_jznBpisWtXbFnKpmlsG8ivr_Gd2kA-qB8HQNEwkBGLH0zmDz7q_3t_5w/s400/IMG_9851.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A
reminder that these comments on flooding are not hyperbolic. The ‘flood mark’ by the
gauge shows the level the water reached in the catastrophic deluge of 1947.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Here Marlow’s
sphere of influence begins; that is to say, its name starts showing up on
signs. It waits across a series of meadows between the river and railway.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijKQa_T_flcHVBFCG97qdkUBtN1nRvdoaPL3p_tQhBP7_WmAyxk_AeduC3-THUAXzzD2CfyvqLgsWQrhYJaU1XU9AFfivOMvh800uuu0IXSzI_ruxlvw_TBCYXd2iLkd13EpPhTC_eG3M/s1600/IMG_9852.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijKQa_T_flcHVBFCG97qdkUBtN1nRvdoaPL3p_tQhBP7_WmAyxk_AeduC3-THUAXzzD2CfyvqLgsWQrhYJaU1XU9AFfivOMvh800uuu0IXSzI_ruxlvw_TBCYXd2iLkd13EpPhTC_eG3M/s640/IMG_9852.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There
is only one small problem.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This is
the only way through. It is impossible to squeeze around it because it fills
the whole space from the river to the railway embankment, and there are no
available detours. Nor is it feasible to run and jump, for the goopy mud sucks
all the momentum from every step.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAPG2_5wdnuIirf0Qmtym3Jp5SA2Bmt6ag5014eJzwVRgtZv-7wquRP4LnC8sZMcup1-6g0uQDEi45cmYuXSGd4Vqndtb0r5og5GG9VqNA20DYup9f1kyOZN7tEv4BJoK2t0iVfBTJNL8/s1600/IMG_9855.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAPG2_5wdnuIirf0Qmtym3Jp5SA2Bmt6ag5014eJzwVRgtZv-7wquRP4LnC8sZMcup1-6g0uQDEi45cmYuXSGd4Vqndtb0r5og5GG9VqNA20DYup9f1kyOZN7tEv4BJoK2t0iVfBTJNL8/s400/IMG_9855.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
obvious solution is to pass over the bench onto the first “island”, then run on
the log with perfect timing to roll it across to the next bit.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEQCC7arSKlpRFzkAaYhQoKfgBbNQ3jH2pgcdxpNzZDAnqryY68dEPmR_vsudWxG5blOiIZ43uRQ_1VFN5lia6_HGCddDs-r-W0u3g_hDOozBjP4qyNTAp83WZi9ZoSMNZy9WvF14TbYk/s1600/IMG_9854.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEQCC7arSKlpRFzkAaYhQoKfgBbNQ3jH2pgcdxpNzZDAnqryY68dEPmR_vsudWxG5blOiIZ43uRQ_1VFN5lia6_HGCddDs-r-W0u3g_hDOozBjP4qyNTAp83WZi9ZoSMNZy9WvF14TbYk/s400/IMG_9854.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">That plan attracts a withering look and is discreetly abandoned.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-mhSD04u5BexZ65KSWMiQw0u47XEBFch0ZDhnV6zGm-6utILY07LFeoMP45j8ZAwNnDfzB7KlssTlE1y28X7e77DT9_Q4mUeZ2A51TXf0b7IC3UVlULKhmATZHA9d6o__sUOlbse3H8/s1600/IMG_9857.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV-mhSD04u5BexZ65KSWMiQw0u47XEBFch0ZDhnV6zGm-6utILY07LFeoMP45j8ZAwNnDfzB7KlssTlE1y28X7e77DT9_Q4mUeZ2A51TXf0b7IC3UVlULKhmATZHA9d6o__sUOlbse3H8/s400/IMG_9857.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
<i>Marlow Donkey</i>, as the branch service is called, demonstrates another way
around it. But that would be dishonourable.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In the
end, the only way is the obvious one: straight through. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Well, rivers
are wet. Crossing worlds comes with a cost, and as far as those go the dignity
of one’s socks seems hardly exorbitant. And the reward, on emerging at the
other side, is…well, a field of ducks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUp4tAiQQo8zeZzAPxN2Jk1Aaoz-VEIr5Cc6_YhOHlokqMPcUAErUWtSDj077Do-vrSYqIqPd_BzzSiyUbZ4y1NT7t3qJjSf0CfRPlL1DtEy7rTNMcg8iXCD9rj15sBghTPCFTvpB2lIE/s1600/IMG_9860.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUp4tAiQQo8zeZzAPxN2Jk1Aaoz-VEIr5Cc6_YhOHlokqMPcUAErUWtSDj077Do-vrSYqIqPd_BzzSiyUbZ4y1NT7t3qJjSf0CfRPlL1DtEy7rTNMcg8iXCD9rj15sBghTPCFTvpB2lIE/s400/IMG_9860.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">With geese and swans too. All of them stare.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigo0rXn1v9vu0y0OgeZUYyWuLGIDwlFPdhNuCEKKayuJFcRGP2LoRUrsIbXfaqbjQN53ziFKssUrsAOKs8YtHVTL3-zpEAM-7QQXPOTTrTOgIPndlUdN6kImP-2JgdLHtvvaYHyV55wK0/s1600/IMG_9862.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigo0rXn1v9vu0y0OgeZUYyWuLGIDwlFPdhNuCEKKayuJFcRGP2LoRUrsIbXfaqbjQN53ziFKssUrsAOKs8YtHVTL3-zpEAM-7QQXPOTTrTOgIPndlUdN6kImP-2JgdLHtvvaYHyV55wK0/s400/IMG_9862.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There
is also considerable evidence of mole activity.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRS3Qjz8-pCI-3LNEGcmaORkX5RLGoDyJ43fR1pvPbMcBjWaLfE7OJnnwfQmzF3xiU5kkAg3JPb9utoE_3jqUeEmcEjmeUY31KcavSDb6puX3UURY8mZZqBuQEGbLqCbY6obd8ZMSF_yk/s1600/IMG_9859.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRS3Qjz8-pCI-3LNEGcmaORkX5RLGoDyJ43fR1pvPbMcBjWaLfE7OJnnwfQmzF3xiU5kkAg3JPb9utoE_3jqUeEmcEjmeUY31KcavSDb6puX3UURY8mZZqBuQEGbLqCbY6obd8ZMSF_yk/s400/IMG_9859.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Count the inches between water and window. Count them and cry.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqkDDlgba2Ld5FGjGeRB-jUb1GD_htpHq9ByRk6s3q7rOya8ESgxWk9o9wmXg3qg9lIgxkDte16_0Gc2mFi7FFgwddnAF-exbaCYRjGV45bbdN2G3ZN69CFS636Kr8yfE8MCDEm2UNMno/s1600/IMG_9864.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqkDDlgba2Ld5FGjGeRB-jUb1GD_htpHq9ByRk6s3q7rOya8ESgxWk9o9wmXg3qg9lIgxkDte16_0Gc2mFi7FFgwddnAF-exbaCYRjGV45bbdN2G3ZN69CFS636Kr8yfE8MCDEm2UNMno/s400/IMG_9864.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">These white-feathered ones have not been so common on the way up here. Another
signifier of transitioning worlds?</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The good
news is that the floods have made their point. The wayfarer who concedes it
finds the rest of these fields straightforward to traverse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivOeXlDeqMLiyOzT9XPp9-vrMzrz8iiVNQCuwe6Nt0y3R2mAUeLUMv1618RmiorT41-V8LoGOH9eWdR1e0XIBddfjSowVsFbkvQBhOnO6MKWYrJrx-MdOnEuH0PfzatKksk1rcUPNejBE/s1600/IMG_9867.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivOeXlDeqMLiyOzT9XPp9-vrMzrz8iiVNQCuwe6Nt0y3R2mAUeLUMv1618RmiorT41-V8LoGOH9eWdR1e0XIBddfjSowVsFbkvQBhOnO6MKWYrJrx-MdOnEuH0PfzatKksk1rcUPNejBE/s400/IMG_9867.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There’s about four of these. The tricky parts are the kissing gates that lead
from one into the next – each has attracted a muddy lake right beneath it. In
one case it’s simpler just to climb over the fence next to it.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV_MMmIhMQfZwL_5R1QTSk0AizksaS55rOJ_WfZJpN_l-OQGswDXqWKvHWuK0vRRDvBpmKMTCwNx6MMohOGNuY8Al_6E6XmaZENCv7jbmvz9PXc3X_CuXmMtSMawRrKhyAqRmSomAR6iU/s1600/IMG_9865.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV_MMmIhMQfZwL_5R1QTSk0AizksaS55rOJ_WfZJpN_l-OQGswDXqWKvHWuK0vRRDvBpmKMTCwNx6MMohOGNuY8Al_6E6XmaZENCv7jbmvz9PXc3X_CuXmMtSMawRrKhyAqRmSomAR6iU/s400/IMG_9865.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">They came, they built a boathouse, they got wet and didn’t like it, they ran
away.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaPMWe9Q3lgohDTGVO0DCz_RGt_8OWih6P-Wzke0dV9W91eJMO09betbkU1Kvjaum89WzT_9xhpBhEB7f_vtqm2-m-mWY22_-0iqv0NeRLQ3SNy_CJnFHfJC9hbmeojTA6z7WULxN9N9A/s1600/IMG_9868.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaPMWe9Q3lgohDTGVO0DCz_RGt_8OWih6P-Wzke0dV9W91eJMO09betbkU1Kvjaum89WzT_9xhpBhEB7f_vtqm2-m-mWY22_-0iqv0NeRLQ3SNy_CJnFHfJC9hbmeojTA6z7WULxN9N9A/s400/IMG_9868.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A
hulking object of suspicion rears over the trees. This is clearly a chassis for
some giant scorpion mech they were going to build, till they ran out of money,
to fight the Chinese after they heard from Stanley Spencer that they were just
around the corner.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf0H82WaGFpugWstO82IfAxAuedQwyJO5f6s7YmuKqECnuvUosrGKJA3dTLC4E_05OAfgndcRpLIdRSkL_YMRmWR9gVYfUrPeiaauuYUak_Vgfe8c2OHyOGdKQItdxuSAv8GM1P3wz2EY/s1600/IMG_9872.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf0H82WaGFpugWstO82IfAxAuedQwyJO5f6s7YmuKqECnuvUosrGKJA3dTLC4E_05OAfgndcRpLIdRSkL_YMRmWR9gVYfUrPeiaauuYUak_Vgfe8c2OHyOGdKQItdxuSAv8GM1P3wz2EY/s400/IMG_9872.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Today
the water is merely insistent; at other times it is deadly. In the summer of
2014 some local teenagers were enjoying themselves in these fields but got
into difficulties with hidden undercurrents when they swam out into the river.
There were no warning signs about these currents and no safety equipment to
help them. One of them, Kyrece Francis, did not make it out alive. In response,
his family and friends established the <a href="https://www.ky22.co.uk/"><u><i>Kyrece’s Legacy</i></u></a> charity to
promote river safety. It is they who have installed all the red lifesaving
units along the river here, as well as this special blue one – representing
Francis’s passionate support for Chelsea Football Club – near the site of the
tragedy.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Closer to
Marlow, the open fields are tamed into parkland and sports fields. The bucolic
tranquility of birdsong and rushing water comes to an end, ushered offstage by
the neverending roar of the A404 dual carriageway and the bellows of weekend
rugby.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOLjYPogKowAhN67jowoKOcr4TNVyMLZBF9IaWyVH7Nz94evpOf-wu9oYtrnis8L3S_FIZ8eFZTfZJfBlLEkpo7tgvIQ8Quvt4ZVEFVer09ZdLNcvYlBP3IukGKshuhJnOoxP3NnU8yQk/s1600/IMG_9880.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOLjYPogKowAhN67jowoKOcr4TNVyMLZBF9IaWyVH7Nz94evpOf-wu9oYtrnis8L3S_FIZ8eFZTfZJfBlLEkpo7tgvIQ8Quvt4ZVEFVer09ZdLNcvYlBP3IukGKshuhJnOoxP3NnU8yQk/s400/IMG_9880.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
these margins is one of those woods you get in interdimensional spaces. Each
puddle leads to a different reality and is only open for irregular periods
based on the lunar and seasonal cycles. But those are not the ones bringing
their worlds down around themselves as we speak, so let’s continue with the
English while we can.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubGtN3E_jC9bpPxyiK_XVw_DHfcK9_RkWmweP7d-FseOgn7zbGR812J5vWF1l8yIzcAu4WzgQb_HxeUgjlrhCA0iN9UdzirhtHmf5gNENgtjuoCnuynWfTz4oHjLnC_xmuoId9BvaGas/s1600/IMG_9886.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubGtN3E_jC9bpPxyiK_XVw_DHfcK9_RkWmweP7d-FseOgn7zbGR812J5vWF1l8yIzcAu4WzgQb_HxeUgjlrhCA0iN9UdzirhtHmf5gNENgtjuoCnuynWfTz4oHjLnC_xmuoId9BvaGas/s400/IMG_9886.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Private private private agagaga. Hang on – use what at your own risk? It looks
like the water has already expressed exactly what it thinks about the
pretentious claims of the propertied classes by washing away the object at
issue.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0u1ZeTXOfXOKx3gmPBO7BXxQ6_c79cJak7LWmvaQFoYDHn5PobKAebvJHPkzGttXmdrZ2dmKGW3t3LU7UYM3X3MNgb4_zRxlpVGWUnuh3Vs6TeV3oZWjp4P-pahzoHJYl2MnKCxxiogw/s1600/IMG_9878.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0u1ZeTXOfXOKx3gmPBO7BXxQ6_c79cJak7LWmvaQFoYDHn5PobKAebvJHPkzGttXmdrZ2dmKGW3t3LU7UYM3X3MNgb4_zRxlpVGWUnuh3Vs6TeV3oZWjp4P-pahzoHJYl2MnKCxxiogw/s400/IMG_9878.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
uniformed teams and booming chorus of the players and crowd indicate this is a
serious fixture. For some reason all the players appear to be male.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8RSWcP9C37gr9Ldw2BUq0fVmNhd181z5KW-coan8uPc4u-ROr40LvGIayCJpQHm_551dC3__5HuyAr6KtedpcP9IgLRUw51945lSyaZ0_s8JKJH5rs8VcDg_PWxoAnqvzg-3N_gzvLQ/s1600/IMG_9877.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8RSWcP9C37gr9Ldw2BUq0fVmNhd181z5KW-coan8uPc4u-ROr40LvGIayCJpQHm_551dC3__5HuyAr6KtedpcP9IgLRUw51945lSyaZ0_s8JKJH5rs8VcDg_PWxoAnqvzg-3N_gzvLQ/s400/IMG_9877.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This here tree branch still looks more comfortable with diversity than most
English sports.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Meanwhile
the steep slope of Winter Hill has verged right up to the river on the south
bank. Its precarious perches are colonised by deep-pocketed thrill-seekers who seem
to enjoy living on a tightrope between floods and landslides.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-a0xX2XkO5u051GXUCB4U20r9yfNniPVdM4u-jlaOdDlEiN3IdCIGlNvfo4Tivy7Jgb3RHHro_VFqEJYWHUy8oFBzuU_iH6z0lnnog3qya0BmMzX87e0HBx1rKfuC-Q3qRYCBk4jFDVI/s1600/IMG_9889.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-a0xX2XkO5u051GXUCB4U20r9yfNniPVdM4u-jlaOdDlEiN3IdCIGlNvfo4Tivy7Jgb3RHHro_VFqEJYWHUy8oFBzuU_iH6z0lnnog3qya0BmMzX87e0HBx1rKfuC-Q3qRYCBk4jFDVI/s400/IMG_9889.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Danger above, danger below. The pink one up top is probably haunted too.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mf1jYWYlQVRVDwiK57sn-WNKjxycKoTJmBgo2GzH2n-57MIkO5TdjOd8vdUXeh-36QRZXf5uhEYBxOtgGXWwilseyRT3ole6nMilfwqaPbQh4t69XsOgGgzAZEAx_imU7uuOkmjoT1c/s1600/IMG_9879.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mf1jYWYlQVRVDwiK57sn-WNKjxycKoTJmBgo2GzH2n-57MIkO5TdjOd8vdUXeh-36QRZXf5uhEYBxOtgGXWwilseyRT3ole6nMilfwqaPbQh4t69XsOgGgzAZEAx_imU7uuOkmjoT1c/s400/IMG_9879.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It
looks like someone’s cunning plan was not thought through.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYhqWztucBk7eRwryUZz4RBel6mpWI_Oc9qFZ-GHAU8c3up85ioUxXYBwtvEiDjilOALtR-44A-vGMC_BWrh7wdu0PRqQlonOrsr9bJn_J5_4XjKnO3FPzDDi4rxew2yuOQXTiF2qBVwo/s1600/IMG_9885.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYhqWztucBk7eRwryUZz4RBel6mpWI_Oc9qFZ-GHAU8c3up85ioUxXYBwtvEiDjilOALtR-44A-vGMC_BWrh7wdu0PRqQlonOrsr9bJn_J5_4XjKnO3FPzDDi4rxew2yuOQXTiF2qBVwo/s400/IMG_9885.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This one qualifies as a fortification. Its battlements might slow down, say,
Jeremy Corbyn, but it’s the water itself they probably ought to have worried about.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjruwGZRLnWwuL08ABQ-HUqdQ-PzU885CzWfNw5bOz7blMCU3fUZGNPZ2URaLzA2yQMO-pTNcSnOkZWj-GGLgYJZM1-QBqQBqJDi6sKmW8UyJrHszWcHSdxC7u4wK5E2Mg7K-w1N89dbMg/s1600/IMG_9890.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjruwGZRLnWwuL08ABQ-HUqdQ-PzU885CzWfNw5bOz7blMCU3fUZGNPZ2URaLzA2yQMO-pTNcSnOkZWj-GGLgYJZM1-QBqQBqJDi6sKmW8UyJrHszWcHSdxC7u4wK5E2Mg7K-w1N89dbMg/s400/IMG_9890.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The A404 thunders across the river and marks the effective eastern boundary of
the Marlow settlement.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Marlow</span></u></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Marlow</b>
is surely the archetypal Thames town. Its birth from the river is implicit in
its name – from Old English <i>merelafan</i>, or remnants (<i>lafe</i>) of a
pool (<i>mere</i>) after drainage. Rather than one outstanding structure or
story Marlow seems to feature a little of everything, participating in most of
the region’s and nation’s wider historical beats and exhibiting its share of
landmarks, industries and political and cultural big names – all brought and
sustained throughout, of course, by its place on the river.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXKrdsZMFT4AOA853BGyiVGpcyVxnzyQSOgPytDBaV6ccxFLZp00s-Xaxi0vigvJUjvIGzMn7dLx81RgUXARgtEqCnVbwI9hZO4lbRBfNvJRKjEWdpUtRylvck-NnrwnPW7tsK-_JQMVY/s1600/IMG_9895.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXKrdsZMFT4AOA853BGyiVGpcyVxnzyQSOgPytDBaV6ccxFLZp00s-Xaxi0vigvJUjvIGzMn7dLx81RgUXARgtEqCnVbwI9hZO4lbRBfNvJRKjEWdpUtRylvck-NnrwnPW7tsK-_JQMVY/s400/IMG_9895.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>These houses were built into Marlow Mill, till the 1980s a set of water mills.
Marlow was long a regional milling centre, expanding from agricultural grain into
a great industrial-era flourish of flour, paper and vegetable oils. One of the
mills on this site powered a specialist brass thimble factory, one of England’s
first, set up by the Dutch engineer Jan Loftingh. Among his inventions was a <i>sucking
worm engine</i>. Despite the alarming name, this seems to have been a kind of
early fire engine inspired by machines in Amsterdam.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBSkF9epCJpqabKU0NqnBwtRDllBPUbz1s09dcUMtfGFCn73PBwCyDCEtaRJui7JGFB7tz0oJXivq3X2283CwW6zrIlynWsDM6f8NBycsz1kwBEFnssEJcpI6ox8EJvLIS89hCI5HNnME/s1600/IMG_9894.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBSkF9epCJpqabKU0NqnBwtRDllBPUbz1s09dcUMtfGFCn73PBwCyDCEtaRJui7JGFB7tz0oJXivq3X2283CwW6zrIlynWsDM6f8NBycsz1kwBEFnssEJcpI6ox8EJvLIS89hCI5HNnME/s400/IMG_9894.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A warning sign in the river reminds wayfarers that they are still in deep
Conservative Party territory. But this constituency, Beaconsfield, runs through
another fracture in the crisis of English conservatism. Till last year it was
the seat of the barrister Dominic Grieve, who rose to high profile for his
resistance to the hard-Brexit movement. This made him a hate figure for the
nationalists in his own party who made repeated efforts to remove him. Expelled
as one of twenty MPs to oppose Boris Johnson’s Brexit plan, Grieve stood in the
2019 general election as an independent but was defeated.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRaMy8WF3UsKdvW2RxlVzU7sUEAh92cHFrPzLaRLosWlWF2uhhXIXpSvaCIQnxCL4-snIhSuMAKS66hdQgOoA7IKyXKvYpS42J1ti0YVjxu-vdphuk9TMehx2YtxVK-5BzvGlXSYVNw9g/s1600/IMG_9896.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRaMy8WF3UsKdvW2RxlVzU7sUEAh92cHFrPzLaRLosWlWF2uhhXIXpSvaCIQnxCL4-snIhSuMAKS66hdQgOoA7IKyXKvYpS42J1ti0YVjxu-vdphuk9TMehx2YtxVK-5BzvGlXSYVNw9g/s400/IMG_9896.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>But here are also heartening signs of countervailing currents against the
nationalists’ prejudices towards refugees. These grassroots efforts are so
inspiring that even the local foxes are scrambling to take photographic
evidence.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On
the surface, this is not the most obvious place to seek shamanic springs. Yet Marlow
might hold some surprises yet. If our interest is in bridges to other worlds,
where better to start than with an actual bridge?
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtK8q7cHNuqe6WL_GWOsATsP1FZqP9SWLHXHZ2Fgh93kGubPzknc1w5e98orYQnU99OEToAfAaNOWOs0rKuFOp2LuELQ_WwzZjD9gwUBAK7Fgtet7bWFyM0PaDZ9zqqSsgkdQsUNgIYk8/s1600/IMG_9897.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtK8q7cHNuqe6WL_GWOsATsP1FZqP9SWLHXHZ2Fgh93kGubPzknc1w5e98orYQnU99OEToAfAaNOWOs0rKuFOp2LuELQ_WwzZjD9gwUBAK7Fgtet7bWFyM0PaDZ9zqqSsgkdQsUNgIYk8/s640/IMG_9897.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The obligatory “welcome to Marlow” panorama: weir, bridge and steeple
unfold to greet tired arrivals.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh39R7IO8HwAG6mli3qQO_E6giwr9ZqAsroH-9FzZMD2C3Wua4-lVROQC0EYOTa0S6uOoxORncNhI6mhH6qQUQ3CbKqOzOnOI0eBFUU7CWVpsH_u2tB0Qo_HVouieG4UFD6uMGqhDAWrNU/s1600/IMG_9915.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh39R7IO8HwAG6mli3qQO_E6giwr9ZqAsroH-9FzZMD2C3Wua4-lVROQC0EYOTa0S6uOoxORncNhI6mhH6qQUQ3CbKqOzOnOI0eBFUU7CWVpsH_u2tB0Qo_HVouieG4UFD6uMGqhDAWrNU/s400/IMG_9915.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Marlow Bridge.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
is one of the world’s early suspension bridges, designed by the engineer
William Tierney Clark and built in 1829-32. It holds a big secret. On the
physical plane, it spans the river to connect Marlow with the road to Bisham.
But on a higher plane, it connects the Thames to a world much further away: of
all worlds, the Danube.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
For
most of its history the Hungarian capital <b>Budapest</b> was in fact separate
towns on opposite sides of the Danube, primarily Buda (the historic capital)
and Pest. Buffeted mercilessly for three centuries between the Ottoman and
Austrian empires, at around the time Marlow Bridge went up Pest became the
hotbed of the reform movement of <b>Count István Széchenyi</b>. The Count was a
progressive statesman who envisaged a great Hungarian revival through political
dialogue, economic and infrastructural improvements, cultural flourishing, and
both inspiration from and connectedness to the outside world – which also, of course, meant resistance to violent nationalism. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
development and better connection of Buda and Pest was central to this vision. The
obvious step, both practical and symbolic, was to link them with a modern and
permanent bridge. To whom did Count Széchenyi turn to do it? William Tierney
Clark, whose work had impressed the Count as he travelled around Europe
studying methods to improve his country. And so, overseen by a Scottish
engineer and financed by a Greek merchant, Clark designed the <i>Iánchíd</i>
(Chain Bridge) as a scaled-up version of his bridge here in Marlow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Tragically
Széchenyi’s dreams came to grief after the Revolutions
of 1848, when the Austrian Habsburgs bloodily crushed the
Hungarians' uprising and would repress them for some generations yet. A depressed and broken Széchenyi would
shoot himself a few years later, and no doubt feels little better today as he
watches, from the other side, his vision for a better Hungary getting urinated
on by the authoritarian nationalists of Viktor Orbán. But his bridge survived,
opening the year after the uprising and heralding the eventual unification of
Buda and Pest into one of the great cultural universes of Europe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A</span>
universe to which Marlow has a unique link as one in that sibling pair, Marlow
Bridge and the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, which commemorate each other on plaques and
together form one greater bridge between the worlds of the Thames and the Danube.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOXelwR05RAZhpsumYJOGukEnbysQFtTC5dovKaCVIAKbL3Vpp0jOJHKDwdAmK4voKUGau6xjv-_KZGQmqi82tTk6mHwx6FQiJkr6_kAiv4M5oxrDBAPi_yCFTMEywf3Jc4b6Fp242ftQ/s1600/Sz%25C3%25A9chenyi_Chain_Bridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="1600" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOXelwR05RAZhpsumYJOGukEnbysQFtTC5dovKaCVIAKbL3Vpp0jOJHKDwdAmK4voKUGau6xjv-_KZGQmqi82tTk6mHwx6FQiJkr6_kAiv4M5oxrDBAPi_yCFTMEywf3Jc4b6Fp242ftQ/s400/Sz%25C3%25A9chenyi_Chain_Bridge.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The Széchenyi Chain Bridge at the heart of Budapest (image from Wikipedia) – symbol of
connection, progress, and the awakening of a nation. Who would have thought a
little town in the Thames valley had something to do with it? The authoritarian nativists,
English or Hungarian, might build up their walls today, but the long-term tendency
of the universe is that walls fall and bridges rise.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiixa6jz2gCH7t-R0CG84WfbJvpIuMf1ich6y8IE7NqqLSOl1Y9gBGVhQepp_WSQRfEYKB0ihyphenhyphen7xqujC5QFWSkPofHijotcwf0336w9MkNhRKur5g9s2fh3lowyRKvvvud30s71WBy_a8w/s1600/IMG_9905.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiixa6jz2gCH7t-R0CG84WfbJvpIuMf1ich6y8IE7NqqLSOl1Y9gBGVhQepp_WSQRfEYKB0ihyphenhyphen7xqujC5QFWSkPofHijotcwf0336w9MkNhRKur5g9s2fh3lowyRKvvvud30s71WBy_a8w/s400/IMG_9905.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">On
the south end of Marlow Bridge is <i>The Compleat Angler</i>, a hotel some four
centuries old named after England’s possibly most famous book about fishing.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Marlow’s
other major landmark is its church. While Christianity and shamanism aren’t
always best friends, Stanley Spencer showed that the broader flexibility of
both make them not necessarily incompatible. It’s got to be worth a look.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyULfanUj2GJFOrxYz0OUx37RGYw4bZILP_kVwy1jeK1kqfrbidj9uOBtUtmJTqhLnthGg_lpojidkb4c7sKfvFn8RTLRTt6Vr1L_m_9wo2AykAl3odDvkl7T8N5KqMyqAf7UXK4FIfdk/s1600/IMG_9909.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyULfanUj2GJFOrxYz0OUx37RGYw4bZILP_kVwy1jeK1kqfrbidj9uOBtUtmJTqhLnthGg_lpojidkb4c7sKfvFn8RTLRTt6Vr1L_m_9wo2AykAl3odDvkl7T8N5KqMyqAf7UXK4FIfdk/s400/IMG_9909.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This is not small. It was built in the 1830s, on this higher ground after the
old church struggled for having been built too close to the river. Some
elements were added later by Victorian architects, including the roof and the
buttresses on the grand spire after it was struck by lightning.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNjCusVLq043np8ipekOP5Uvhc9JYYT1hI74UprUcQxqmFWbj5tcGP6nbNDel80AYg_kfG5K-e6vyDSqUzyHQOA-BW6ZDigzjVF_QjGnP2ELQnHA8VHVB7BHL54zftxZWTD8QizMsoRCM/s1600/IMG_9913.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNjCusVLq043np8ipekOP5Uvhc9JYYT1hI74UprUcQxqmFWbj5tcGP6nbNDel80AYg_kfG5K-e6vyDSqUzyHQOA-BW6ZDigzjVF_QjGnP2ELQnHA8VHVB7BHL54zftxZWTD8QizMsoRCM/s400/IMG_9913.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A
memorial in the entrance commemorates Miles Hobart, Marlow’s MP during <a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html"><u>Parliament's struggle with King Charles I</u></a> </span><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> in the decades leading up to the civil
war.
In a particularly acrimonious debate he got up and locked the door in
the face
of the king’s messenger, a tradition that since Charles’s defeat has
echoed to
the present day in each year’s ritual opening of parliament. Unusually
its lower panel depicts the manner of Hobart’s death in a carriage
accident after
his release from prison.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFoDPnMtd2rwqbwvdtphPNdZbePOUtnRJqesC6fxjQWwW5541GAHGZxKSmqpxZ2RgNGFnYH4ohin3NpyMoYifa3_LgDjgmL1oYqV9e3R4fmyI80IVege_qys7qaGSa-YDoXH7OZm3D-tw/s1600/IMG_9914.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFoDPnMtd2rwqbwvdtphPNdZbePOUtnRJqesC6fxjQWwW5541GAHGZxKSmqpxZ2RgNGFnYH4ohin3NpyMoYifa3_LgDjgmL1oYqV9e3R4fmyI80IVege_qys7qaGSa-YDoXH7OZm3D-tw/s400/IMG_9914.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
church’s interior. At least one source of bridging and healing can indeed be
found here: this seems to be a hub for the Marlow Refugee Action group whose
adverts we spotted earlier. ‘We would love to provide a welcoming home for
refugees in Marlow’, states their leaflet. </span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As the
industrial revolution steamed ahead, Marlow’s traditional occupations –
particularly agriculture and lace-making – fell away as the railways
transformed it into a commuter satellite and popular holiday destination. It
became particularly popular with some prominent figures in English literature
in this period. Among them were <b>Mary Wollstonecraft/Shelley</b>, pioneer of
English feminism with her <i>The Vindication of the Rights of Woman</i> (1792),
and her companion <b>Percy Bysshe Shelley</b>, a great poet and social radical
in his own right. Both might be familiar in present English imagination for
their appearance in the recent series of <i>Doctor Who</i>, which found them on
that juncture in literary history, the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva in 1816
where Mary got certain ideas about re-animated corpses. But it was here in
Marlow, where the Shelleys came the following year, that she consummated those
ideas into that work which stands as an urgent guard post on the bridge
between this world and the next: <i>Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_nlROg5pzzWgDjEhu2UpAEIlph8lKGdJRQ9ZFAinej89R51XhNg1-4pTZEbjr4ZN3F4ETMkZWhKamp0Ku7zQaJP7jI9SSVg6mlSHKxjbg6DyPywEMUc0FlODQ7OHvRoQQ6fRNDJF-0Rs/s1600/IMG_9907.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_nlROg5pzzWgDjEhu2UpAEIlph8lKGdJRQ9ZFAinej89R51XhNg1-4pTZEbjr4ZN3F4ETMkZWhKamp0Ku7zQaJP7jI9SSVg6mlSHKxjbg6DyPywEMUc0FlODQ7OHvRoQQ6fRNDJF-0Rs/s400/IMG_9907.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Another writer associated with Marlow is Jerome K. Jerome, who came frequently
to this pub and wrote parts of <i>Three Men in a Boat</i> (1889) in it. The
book follows him and two friends on a boating trip up the Thames on a similar
route as the current expedition, though in a more Englishly humorous vein than the
grumpy critical interrogation you are presently reading.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVj9J3jbXQyTK6dPoKOQAHqi2enrmeabkM3PlUNO-YY4YEXMwAtE6C4LHXu5Rwrn3KZL4IuwrLkD31PkobKNdYsR78rutBJ4oV5iIdtEcL8ilgi_ad7suQmX7pvc6EMdSumrdZdkQOB10/s1600/IMG_9936.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVj9J3jbXQyTK6dPoKOQAHqi2enrmeabkM3PlUNO-YY4YEXMwAtE6C4LHXu5Rwrn3KZL4IuwrLkD31PkobKNdYsR78rutBJ4oV5iIdtEcL8ilgi_ad7suQmX7pvc6EMdSumrdZdkQOB10/s400/IMG_9936.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Marlow’s old town hall, an 1807 creation.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3JJVV_xnQYQcWRFBvkBKYNIuZdM4UZVn_dGb9afQAj0EXgIMBoV80L2cYqhIQqRqmj-nAocEgVXOH_Ms-H3xIhS3zMLq4b-ktdF3BDJmUUaxFtJRaQ1CUcfKWoun1groOiwA1fGCYj0/s1600/IMG_9937.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3JJVV_xnQYQcWRFBvkBKYNIuZdM4UZVn_dGb9afQAj0EXgIMBoV80L2cYqhIQqRqmj-nAocEgVXOH_Ms-H3xIhS3zMLq4b-ktdF3BDJmUUaxFtJRaQ1CUcfKWoun1groOiwA1fGCYj0/s400/IMG_9937.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Marlow’s high street. The old town hall is at one end, the bridge at the
other.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJPbXotSaBldwjF0oN1-EwbHN75EJNelGTGR6S-_b9FLiamcWazsKkzyhK5W8C4ija-dPgkP3_V2KFAiRnRAxlxH5zO4n-gDOlU3KIKkGh8VUMSkUnqIYaCtUbBkBUvxOR7XTUKYo0ZQ/s1600/IMG_9917.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJPbXotSaBldwjF0oN1-EwbHN75EJNelGTGR6S-_b9FLiamcWazsKkzyhK5W8C4ija-dPgkP3_V2KFAiRnRAxlxH5zO4n-gDOlU3KIKkGh8VUMSkUnqIYaCtUbBkBUvxOR7XTUKYo0ZQ/s400/IMG_9917.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Four parallel columns of identity on one piece of lawn in central Marlow: a
regional award-winner display; a nymph sculpture memorial to theatre producer Charles
Frohman; the obligatory war memorial; and a ship’s mast with a Union Jack on
it. Unpacking these would require an article each.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbSsbtOwgrMH5-U6eb-GEDbUo4PwlsN6mI7PeogdzTVhuxHpnqgQzwcHJSXyNKsIrZxK1ytFDXYVT6GxzgTC24845qfq1jFxyR_P2GfkMc_2zyOqZpBMfzR8Zo3w7DvWQ0FtHzpNW1ESI/s1600/IMG_9912.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbSsbtOwgrMH5-U6eb-GEDbUo4PwlsN6mI7PeogdzTVhuxHpnqgQzwcHJSXyNKsIrZxK1ytFDXYVT6GxzgTC24845qfq1jFxyR_P2GfkMc_2zyOqZpBMfzR8Zo3w7DvWQ0FtHzpNW1ESI/s400/IMG_9912.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">With the weekend market up there are other flags too. Today it looks like
Marlow has a Thailand in it.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The decidedly
un-shamanic direction of twentieth-century capitalism has nibbled away on all
this otherworldly depth. Ironically, but not surprisingly for observers of how
capitalist creative destruction works, one of its casualties was the very
railway that had carried its winds into Marlow in the first place.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The line
to Marlow is a branch that leaves the Great Western Main Line (between London
Paddington and Bristol) at Maidenhead, whose train for some cute reason picked
up the nickname of <i>Marlow Donkey</i>. Originally running all the way up to
High Wycombe, bits were chopped off it as the rise of the motor car made it
uneconomical. This culminated in the shutting down of the High Wycombe
connection altogether during the nationwide smash-up of the British rail
network, with all the heritage it embodied, by Railway Board chairman Dr.
Richard Beeching in the 1960s. Half the country’s train stations were swept
away in a phenomenon which British railway historians, with a nigh-mythic shudder, have recalled ever since as the <b>Beeching Axe</b>. It also cost Marlow
its Victorian station building, and its railway continued to deteriorate until
campaigns by local people came to the rescue of what remains.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmxl2vtBQVZGFsIT3vuDJFpHMw670dIIjvQjwus7lAVPuJJLBlKQr5isdrYT1e74tDDwUiqSR3Y6Xj1qfDHOxfCoP3no-Q1y26pfni6gdFRhM59axQX6INBfyUubOrPcFXL_XeEW8hjGo/s1600/IMG_9947.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmxl2vtBQVZGFsIT3vuDJFpHMw670dIIjvQjwus7lAVPuJJLBlKQr5isdrYT1e74tDDwUiqSR3Y6Xj1qfDHOxfCoP3no-Q1y26pfni6gdFRhM59axQX6INBfyUubOrPcFXL_XeEW8hjGo/s400/IMG_9947.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
present <i>Marlow Donkey</i>. All that remains of Marlow Station is this
platform, hemmed in by hungry private developments.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX8nhH9Ohxvi7qpuMd4XscCUlxyhk7ew668hJn1ywZSJDx6s4YcYAAPY5Fl7z5iY_FM0qXqLzz71OUvcKzlNQjOo9OfByXvwdTC1x8M5mxGt_VpR1UptcQTAV9umLre7fBDmHEo2ZKOlc/s1600/IMG_9940.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX8nhH9Ohxvi7qpuMd4XscCUlxyhk7ew668hJn1ywZSJDx6s4YcYAAPY5Fl7z5iY_FM0qXqLzz71OUvcKzlNQjOo9OfByXvwdTC1x8M5mxGt_VpR1UptcQTAV9umLre7fBDmHEo2ZKOlc/s400/IMG_9940.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As
wealthy residents and London commuters poured in, the remnants of Marlow’s old
industries were driven out by the landlords and local authorities. One of its
last iconic producers, the Wethered & Sons Brewery, was closed at the end
of the 1980s and converted to housing.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Mirroring
the fate of former MP Dominic Grieve, the sense is that Marlow has not
altogether been comfortable with the mistakes of English modernity. In 1974
Marlow’s political voice was angrily stifled when it was administratively
joined to High Wycombe for no apparent reason, overshadowing its specific
grievances in town planning decisions. With congestion and pollution came
threats even to the suspension bridge. It was not designed for the weight of
modern traffic loads, a point brought home when it was lengthily closed to
check for damage after a massive Lithuanian haulage lorry trundled its way
across it in 2016. Then came Thatcher’s free-market revolution, whose smashing
of the council house system and unfettering of the housing market made it
impossible for Marlow’s lower-paid workers to continue living beneath its
galloping rents. Instead they have increasingly had to commute in, further
piling the pressure on its congestion. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApYIrdhXJuegs6RDmdVTvqS-M1JJavo37N12odh7IyyFV4S6jKBQLoFyYoFA5v6Gkuc0Wawj8g34njnT-IXUF5zayrYumdcU44zdGNuIMR2Ah80_-zPy4Qw4J9jsS3yMELAelTrq5III/s1600/IMG_9942.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApYIrdhXJuegs6RDmdVTvqS-M1JJavo37N12odh7IyyFV4S6jKBQLoFyYoFA5v6Gkuc0Wawj8g34njnT-IXUF5zayrYumdcU44zdGNuIMR2Ah80_-zPy4Qw4J9jsS3yMELAelTrq5III/s400/IMG_9942.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
same forces have chewed up much of the town’s historic landscape. Outstanding
fragments remain like this courtyard from the old brewery complex, but how far
will the market revolution yet go? Dare it move even on Marlow’s irreplaceable
bridge to Budapest?</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ4ZroeHE2u9ouHROnfzKyCReo3cKBJa8c8VpSffD5OZ9FeachfWpNgnpfO2YMLharejdHTbXDneWk0ItqhdIgEM8J4o4-U6mx0wglIWTcRwg0B9JA_t7NnS3fGYJiQl7G0k4lSNe6UYw/s1600/IMG_9916.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ4ZroeHE2u9ouHROnfzKyCReo3cKBJa8c8VpSffD5OZ9FeachfWpNgnpfO2YMLharejdHTbXDneWk0ItqhdIgEM8J4o4-U6mx0wglIWTcRwg0B9JA_t7NnS3fGYJiQl7G0k4lSNe6UYw/s400/IMG_9916.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Only this culture of post-truth landlordism could come up with an arrangement
like ‘RIVERSIDE – NO ACCESS TO RIVER’. At least they’ve also provided a
‘Tuffbox’ in which to lock whoever came up with that idea.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It is
perhaps this <a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-1-tides-of-time.html"><u>erroneous undead modernity</u></a>, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">more than anything inherent to Englishness,
more even than the floodwaters, that does most to drown attempts to bring into
this world the vigour of worlds that transcend it. To the ideology that would
reduce us all to automatons with no more purpose than to be ground for our
energy in service of capital-owners, those other worlds are dangerous. Where it
wants our lives sterile and meaningless, those worlds enthuse us as in the
paintings of Stanley Spencer; where it wants us divided, they bring us together
as in the bridges of William Clark; where it wants us unthinking units of
mindless self-interest, they send across creatures like those of Mary Shelley
to give us perspective and make us reflect on what is really important.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The cult
of the market, in other words, relies on the annihilation of all shamanic
forces. It requires that peoples like the English do not heal. So too does its
unholy ally, the authoritarian nationalism which forsakes any true love-based
sense of home or belonging, so radiant in its Cookham apotheosis, in favour of
a perpetual splenetic seething hate for the imaginary <i>other</i>. So long as
these forces wave their spotlights over this society, so too will its shamans
remain in otherworldly exile.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Yet they
are not extinguished, as we have seen, and one day must surely return. That is
because neither the cult of the market nor the authoritarian nationalists can
bury the wellsprings of transcendental power which rise from the Earth itself,
which manifests here in a power so unmistakably greater than theirs: the
river, always and ever the bridge between this land and all the lands beyond. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy8NkDhtGYOK_d_Yv63GRZ8HAAqV-GQ3xWP0BvC4WbzYoTaGDp-l8Cg_El2NNQuwJvmVLWVlyi3yMUfYiKNJYtWDikFXbRVRa-TPpDFstBFmRn6IhipMHXb5xLt4yDqnK2a75dFltg_i4/s1600/IMG_9903.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy8NkDhtGYOK_d_Yv63GRZ8HAAqV-GQ3xWP0BvC4WbzYoTaGDp-l8Cg_El2NNQuwJvmVLWVlyi3yMUfYiKNJYtWDikFXbRVRa-TPpDFstBFmRn6IhipMHXb5xLt4yDqnK2a75dFltg_i4/s640/IMG_9903.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Which here laps at the banks of Marlow with the congealed remains of the bridge-breakers it ate today. Such, it proclaims, is the fate of all who dare put <i>the economy</i> ahead of people, their relationships and their stake in the universe.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSWIh5YkcpyF2NtczuBCxS2P5adpZg7H3ju-Y25J1qJME7-Iipo6cqPK5KhObiZ8y32ik3exP5eXI2-AXsmRybyUStE2rWvRVWPpzeSaHwFLwk5eP_YeQ7w0GH3KORKtvq8BXiwNmJRw0/s1600/IMG_9906.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSWIh5YkcpyF2NtczuBCxS2P5adpZg7H3ju-Y25J1qJME7-Iipo6cqPK5KhObiZ8y32ik3exP5eXI2-AXsmRybyUStE2rWvRVWPpzeSaHwFLwk5eP_YeQ7w0GH3KORKtvq8BXiwNmJRw0/s640/IMG_9906.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
dark specks were the indigestible parts.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="line-height: 107%;">Special thanks to the <a href="https://www.marlowmuseum.uk/"><u>Marlow Museum</u></a> </span></i><span style="line-height: 107%;"><i>for a great deal of the information and insight that went
into this section.</i></span></span></span></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Marlow, UK51.5719443 -0.7769421999999999251.5324683 -0.85762319999999992 51.6114203 -0.69626119999999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-75612511635401786852020-02-16T16:41:00.001+00:002020-02-16T16:41:58.499+00:00THAMES: 7) The EatenEton
College. What a pain.
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7uW0md_r0oJ51aycseAXsDh3-TjsQQEeqR8XHxTT56Vd2oXSmTN9NVL57pw4i3YOpSuOSG-In_vEoLLXmh_kXkW7ED44KyM2T9UaMODmiLR0MRWXMf0FHIp76OGLHP2nIuogpxX3iTlk/s1600/IMG_9219.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7uW0md_r0oJ51aycseAXsDh3-TjsQQEeqR8XHxTT56Vd2oXSmTN9NVL57pw4i3YOpSuOSG-In_vEoLLXmh_kXkW7ED44KyM2T9UaMODmiLR0MRWXMf0FHIp76OGLHP2nIuogpxX3iTlk/s640/IMG_9219.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The cannon is because they knew we were coming.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
There
is no straightforward way to handle this one. Most English people know of Eton
College, if more through its mythos than the thing itself. And one does not
simply know Eton College. Generally speaking, to know Eton College is to either
adore it or to resent it to every monied brick in its crenellations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Why,
indeed, does a school need crenellations? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnBVIA-I5k_4mwn8LHCbXHtW7s56iiHtZwqN5lkylF6kXmcYh2w5HqNrovChY8tyq7r6JmEiDfRYgOnbouYcViI2dsru0t4GqzCkpYQry5qh0KylPqOeXjl3hxkP5O3gGMqesBGtU-CY8/s1600/IMG_9213.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnBVIA-I5k_4mwn8LHCbXHtW7s56iiHtZwqN5lkylF6kXmcYh2w5HqNrovChY8tyq7r6JmEiDfRYgOnbouYcViI2dsru0t4GqzCkpYQry5qh0KylPqOeXjl3hxkP5O3gGMqesBGtU-CY8/s640/IMG_9213.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Perhaps
to call it a school is misleading. It is a school, of course – the most infamously
exclusive in England (and needless to say, one of the most expensive) – but
only in the first instance. In the ways that matter it is so much more.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
What
we have here is <i>an England</i>. Eton College is an embodiment of this
country, or rather of a specific vision of it which, though only a tiny
minority of its population ever passes through its doors, wreaks so reekingly
powerful an impact on the majority that it needs no introduction. A vision so
storied, so intractable, that to its detractors, and there are many, Eton is no
less than the principal sausage-factory of England’s white, male, upper-caste
forces of destruction and the ultimate locus of fault for the ruin of their
land. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Thus
while physical Eton nests safe and snug in the Thames Valley, imaginary Eton is
a castle under permanent siege. And behind its walls, as much as anywhere else
in the world, there is <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">no
hard border between reality and imagination</a></u>. That, perhaps, explains the
crenellations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Is
it fair to lay guilt for so supreme a crime at the gates of one mere school? The
real significance of the condemnation of Eton in these terms is perhaps less
literal, more mythic: a permanent counter-mythology which, in crashing upon the
school’s mythology, becomes half the dialectic nest of narrative power which
sustains the legend of Eton. But in factual terms the case is not without
grounds. To say nothing of its graduates’ perpetual dominance in media,
commerce, religion and the military, the twenty prime ministers it has
manufactured include both the individual who instigated the Brexit crisis for
no reason, <b>David Cameron</b>, and the one who now consummates its descent into the abyss of
authoritarian nationalism, <b>Boris Johnson</b>. This entire saga can and has been
read as the continuation of a tussle between these two bully-boys which started
in Eton’s playgrounds: rollicking, soaked in seven varieties of bodily fluids, now
spilt out to nation-wrecking scale. And then, goes this telling, once the
country’s breaking is complete, the lives of everyone in it laid waste, and
their chisel lodged securely in their mortal wound to the
post-World War II European peace settlement, these Etonian man-boys will bear
none of the consequences but march away across a burning horizon, underpants
overflowing with multiple multimillion-pound incomes for doing nothing while they
slap each other’s backs, chortling at what a fun game it all was – and really
believing it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>The
game</i>. Here and in the wider English public-school universe, this seems to
be the operating principle, the nexus to which everything returns. <i>The world
is your game, and this is how you play it.</i> If that means the Boris and Dave
Show is Eton’s doing, how often has the same been the case for the political
currents that shaped England and Britain in the past? Conspiracy theories are
dangerous and should not be mistaken for serious consideration. But the
distance between reasonable suspicions on the one hand, and the mythic image of
this place as the puppeteers’ tower behind so many of England’s imperial
misdeeds and perennial structures of oppression on the other, is not great
enough to satisfy scrutiny.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
What
shall we do with it? There is no getting around it, because cross the bridge
from <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">Windsor</a></u>
and there it is, lording upon the northern bank where it secretes a power
uniquely its own. A power not jewel-studded or glintingly solid like the
stone towers of royalty it faces across the river, yet nonetheless every bit its
equal and in practical terms quite possibly its superior. Its crown is made of
different material: subtler, less tangible, wafting and oozing and sausaging rather
than towering, all the more challenging to pin down for how it is in that very
swirl of myths and symbols, ever elusive to those they are designed to ward
away, that is concealed the source of Eton’s power.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHE4e4uYcumQMW4RdNcju9wqbVDu-cWd35RhLkGxwbOiGhMC5-r140ACwk5riqJpFe-52ZVraZQPjfte17RIA-x0YqPOvFOzVrlVH_kAvOyQbpU3TRFdQJIdw_z__cDKk7DoN2xAu3An8/s1600/IMG_9196.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHE4e4uYcumQMW4RdNcju9wqbVDu-cWd35RhLkGxwbOiGhMC5-r140ACwk5riqJpFe-52ZVraZQPjfte17RIA-x0YqPOvFOzVrlVH_kAvOyQbpU3TRFdQJIdw_z__cDKk7DoN2xAu3An8/s640/IMG_9196.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Upon Windsor Bridge, facing upriver (west) with Windsor at left and Eton right.
The college’s old boathouse facilities at right have been re-done into
apartments; instead of the river they now train at a colossal artificial lake further
upstream.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Less
a school, then, and more a phenomenon: one built right into the heart of both
the stories and power relations of the phenomenon called England. Its class
system, its problems of race and gender, its land, its empire, and now its
post-imperial nervous breakdown – everything refracts through the Etonian prism
in ways that are impossible to grasp, because as soon as you get close, it
moves, teasingly, just enough, like the well-timed evasive twist of a cricket
bat, then chuckles down at you that you’ll never really get it because after
all, it’s just a game, and you’re not special enough to play it.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Maybe
so. But it so happens we’re playing a larger game here and Eton is in the way. Let’s devour some sausages.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDFbIFndvbRrwMsaJ1iNlQoyjYQdvPrwI4UVNR_0ghqbf1StKaQhiZi1dJ9ugZ4RIMeEyB3alDla0T2uv2EamgsqV4k0BvXv9zEmcRZ9OTYTzw2WMg3TCLhr4vlO85hDwYQb4u9Wdr5nU/s1600/IMG_9202.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDFbIFndvbRrwMsaJ1iNlQoyjYQdvPrwI4UVNR_0ghqbf1StKaQhiZi1dJ9ugZ4RIMeEyB3alDla0T2uv2EamgsqV4k0BvXv9zEmcRZ9OTYTzw2WMg3TCLhr4vlO85hDwYQb4u9Wdr5nU/s640/IMG_9202.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Your barricades will be of no use, Eton College.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJbGi8au14PpROlfkmzz49jtyEi-K8FS_MVgNKuezxFLTtzGpnzuYZeupImKVtwnJPLwYGqiM3mP-nYEidZF4fpl8UQxQrYqgy-6RM4zLenyj_e-kgzYnFpS0DQuwabFvJI7ENwVTgyO8/s1600/7%2529+Windsor+to+Maidenhead.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1600" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJbGi8au14PpROlfkmzz49jtyEi-K8FS_MVgNKuezxFLTtzGpnzuYZeupImKVtwnJPLwYGqiM3mP-nYEidZF4fpl8UQxQrYqgy-6RM4zLenyj_e-kgzYnFpS0DQuwabFvJI7ENwVTgyO8/s640/7%2529+Windsor+to+Maidenhead.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Start:</b>
Windsor Bridge (<i>nearest stations: Windsor and Eton Riverside; Windsor and
Eton Central</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>End:</b>
Maidenhead Bridge (<i>nearest station: Maidenhead</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Length:
10.5km/6.5 miles</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Location:
Berkshire – Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead; Buckinghamshire – South
Bucks</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<u>Topics</u>:
<b>Eton College</b>, Eton’s backyard, Boveney and <b>St. Mary Magdalene’s
Church</b> (which is special), vampires (Oakley Court) and cannibals (Monkey
Island, Headpile Eyot), Bray, <b>Maidenhead</b></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Eton</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Though
synonymous with the school these days, the actual settlement of Eton pre-dates
it by some centuries. Its origins are unclear, but the etymology is as plain as
they come – Old English <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ē</span>a</i> (river) or <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ē</span>g</i>
(island), and <i>t</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ū</span>n</i> (farmstead/estate/settlement), hence ‘town by the
river/on an island’ – and its growth, for what there was of it, came for no
more glamorous reason than its service to the London-to-Windsor road in an age
when most traffic would have gone by river anyway.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMRh8DfEmr44CS_T4SleHIOvu_NpjvWcND5n6OPK3IC15xcNcoR8iK1kklednuVWEY-Hge1XUiRYnbLE3eewCUggmGzm703iXyiVinQxYU5Rs2H6D_5UOK0PsUG0mCZ9rZrT7j8ek3-VY/s1600/IMG_9224.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMRh8DfEmr44CS_T4SleHIOvu_NpjvWcND5n6OPK3IC15xcNcoR8iK1kklednuVWEY-Hge1XUiRYnbLE3eewCUggmGzm703iXyiVinQxYU5Rs2H6D_5UOK0PsUG0mCZ9rZrT7j8ek3-VY/s400/IMG_9224.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Traditional chronometry still in use points to the underlying rusticity of this
area.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Then
the school, or rather the phenomenon, materialised. The hamlet of Eton was
eaten. It serves the school now. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJljsympZRKAXAZ_Y6yFS6afCID2L0kjXqFPJNSlYFkYAoCjnN-Z37eB7AnxDgVCEj6zvk61XmLWnNXGnHpLgo0jZehlVvLF-o9uCYdUvztVLFxq7x_viU2QSguid6cisCUjKaAQsvyvk/s1600/IMG_9204.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJljsympZRKAXAZ_Y6yFS6afCID2L0kjXqFPJNSlYFkYAoCjnN-Z37eB7AnxDgVCEj6zvk61XmLWnNXGnHpLgo0jZehlVvLF-o9uCYdUvztVLFxq7x_viU2QSguid6cisCUjKaAQsvyvk/s400/IMG_9204.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Eton’s high street. This is not a large settlement, but practically its entire
lucrative commercial life supports the school community.
There are none of the usual big-brand supermarkets, cafés and betting shops
that have taken over most English urban centres – it appears to be all
independent coffee shops, restaurants, pubs and school-facing services.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Penetrate
the high street and you come to the school complex proper, which you know at
once is more than a school because its ‘chapel’ alone looks like something a
cyborg Pope would be happy to sleep in or launch ICBMs out of the ceiling.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoGZ8W7iy7titb9D1p5pm9XyqPd30hW63HpiKeKze5A9P2PWTIXYm62YSiS2ZfB4hX2W620E5VjUi2eKEpbWNJaJ7JmGnNDjNP4bEa_46kwsVTn6geL4seGqiL9Jg3haRjckzSsZ_nrtk/s1600/IMG_9210.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoGZ8W7iy7titb9D1p5pm9XyqPd30hW63HpiKeKze5A9P2PWTIXYm62YSiS2ZfB4hX2W620E5VjUi2eKEpbWNJaJ7JmGnNDjNP4bEa_46kwsVTn6geL4seGqiL9Jg3haRjckzSsZ_nrtk/s640/IMG_9210.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>To call that a chapel is like calling the Great Wall of China a fence. Can you
believe that they originally wanted to make it twice as big?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Paradoxically,
Eton College is unique because it is one of a set: an elite club of independent
schools, originally seven in total, known to the English as <b>public schools</b>.
The name is confusing because they are not public but as private as a school
can possibly be, perched at the pinnacle of the English school system and
traditionally only opening their gates for male children from the richest, most
landed and/or politically-connected families in the country (indeed, till 1990 Eton
graduates could register their sons at birth). The reason for the
misleading name is a very English historical irony which should become clear in
a minute.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Eton
and the other public schools have shared histories. Typically these are
imagined as fierce rivalries, especially on the sports fields, but in fact have
more of a basis in cooperative action to secure their shared interest in a
permanent hold on the apex of the English social pyramid. At the same time,
each school has grown into a world of its own with a culture, set of linguistic
dialects and legend <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/16/rishi-sunak-boris-johnson-winchester-college-v-eton-feud-comes-to-downing-street"><u>whose nuances are distinct from the others</u></a>.
Eton is therefore not Winchester, Harrow or Westminster, to name a few of its
accomplices-disguised-as-rivals, yet the path its story has carved through
England’s parallels and regularly intersects theirs.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
To
really sense their impact on the English story, and indeed the world’s, we must
draw back further still till we can to take in the whole new mythic archetype
their tradition produced, first in English literature, and now in a worldwide
cultural consciousness. The genre of the <i>special school</i>, to call it no
more than that, broke into popularity with Thomas Hughes’s
semi-autobiographical <i>Tom Brown’s School Days</i> in 1857, set at another of
the original seven, Rugby. A century and a half’s development expanded it into
English literary settings like Greyfriars, Brookfield, St. Trinian’s, and the
Assassins’ Guild of Terry Pratchett’s <i>Discworld</i>, each fictional but
drawing heavily on the public schools’ idiosyncrasies, particularly the violent
ones – authoritarian teachers who beat pupils with canes, entitled children smashing
and rioting out of control, the cult of sports, the normalised physical and
sexual abuse – and by drinking from the legends of the real public schools, so fed those legends in turn. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
From
there it was only a short stretch till the imaginary schools got literal worlds
of their own, set apart from the ordinary population no longer by mere social barriers but magical or metaphysical ones too. The example to end all examples is of course the Hogwarts wizarding school of J.K. Rowling’s <i>Harry
Potter</i>, but as is often the case, what the Japanese have done with the
tradition is particularly instructive. <i>Tom Brown</i>’s<i> School Days </i>was
astonishingly popular during the reforms of the Meiji period (1868-1912),
when it was translated and edited as an English textbook. A century later Japanese video
games have produced one of the <i>special school</i>’s<i> </i>most masterful
expressions of all: the significance of the Garreg Mach Officers’ Academy in <u><a href="https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/fire-emblem-three-houses-switch/"><i>Fire
Emblem: Three Houses</i> (2019)</a></u> will be viscerally known to anyone familiar
with this masterpiece in which you play as a professor instructing the children
of the nobilities of that world’s three great powers in the magical and
military arts, only to later get caught up in their brutal world war against
one another in which that learning ends up tragically applied. By participating
in this same tradition – an exclusive school that only takes rich and connected
people (perhaps with a few token commoners), but disgorges its calamitous
political consequences onto everybody – Garreg Mach is linked by a long and
crooked but unbroken line across space and time to Eton and the English
political breakdown.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyVnu3eESwrQZBWqEAPE3A7JSuZcJs52S4bRiMy48X-DTTtscOCyo1c7OSx17T8_R1p28v644qF_lFn4fE2ZmUtBF3A57cz16J9V5N1W79-8VwltbPZiGmkmfwy7cNUtde_aDwn_R-Lzw/s1600/IMG_9222.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyVnu3eESwrQZBWqEAPE3A7JSuZcJs52S4bRiMy48X-DTTtscOCyo1c7OSx17T8_R1p28v644qF_lFn4fE2ZmUtBF3A57cz16J9V5N1W79-8VwltbPZiGmkmfwy7cNUtde_aDwn_R-Lzw/s400/IMG_9222.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Hidden passages are an essential element of the <i>special school</i>, along
with ancient relics, forbidden locations, archetypal Houses, and
earth-shattering secrets they really should have told their pupils <i>before</i>
their divulgence caused political or cosmic disintegration. In Eton nooks and
crannies that appear to host functions of the school are everywhere, to the
point where it is impossible to mark where the town ends and the school begins.
What sorts of conspiratorial clubs, underground laboratories and missile silos
must alleys like this one hide?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF2bANRe6jqOsEqcOByBWVg3s-oWK5lVlDFfPyUxhPE5t67KRZZgDhgexEueMybYo5BBgUEV1081GqJNJjDzbGlamMrW0mArG5DvyKaC3zb9e-IrGp5O65SeUZUjprZfg5ELwcIj-nDgY/s1600/IMG_9211.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF2bANRe6jqOsEqcOByBWVg3s-oWK5lVlDFfPyUxhPE5t67KRZZgDhgexEueMybYo5BBgUEV1081GqJNJjDzbGlamMrW0mArG5DvyKaC3zb9e-IrGp5O65SeUZUjprZfg5ELwcIj-nDgY/s400/IMG_9211.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Seriously. Who lines up spire after spire like that just for the look of it?
The onus is on the school to prove these are not antennae lined up for purposes
of communications, warfare, or spacetime manipulation.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Where
did it come from? To answer that requires a trip back a few hundred years to
when England could barely be called a nation. An overwhelmingly agricultural
country in which most people were feudally-impoverished serfs, it had little in
the way of shared identity, mass literacy or media, and so no formal <i>public</i>
(note the word) education system for the Muggles. Centres of learning were typically <i>private</i>,
controlled by elite bodies which trained selected children in knowledge and skills
specific to their interests. That meant the Church above all, but also nobles and powerful merchant guilds like the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">City
of London livery companies</a></u>.<u> </u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
was to counteract this that the public schools emerged. They were
typically founded by charities to offer education to poor and underprivileged
local children, regardless of socio-economic status or religious background.
They were often the personal projects of philanthropists who were either deeply
devout or minded to leave the world a constructive legacy – Lawrence Sheriff at
Rugby, John Lyon at Harrow – and so were motivated not by profit but the moral
and civic betterment of society. Hence <i>public schools</i>, open to anyone, in contrast to the gated private establishments of the church and
guilds. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
there is their existential irony. Between then and now, they flipped one
hundred and eighty degrees. Now the <i>public schools</i> are this nation’s most
fortified engines of the very inheritance of privilege, writ so much vaster by
industrial capitalism, that they were birthed to challenge in the first place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLG_9Ad68-QIv6SjA1NhJdMkJY0rdlUvgTMj-3mTIteDTG0DjEoesoANNYRtmfR_TM26VYtM7TzOTfPNbP7llMZawigJPiwicZD9_K86FMItb1luGiiFQ3GgeiGoTWLMUwRcBJcZ3TB98/s1600/IMG_9206.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLG_9Ad68-QIv6SjA1NhJdMkJY0rdlUvgTMj-3mTIteDTG0DjEoesoANNYRtmfR_TM26VYtM7TzOTfPNbP7llMZawigJPiwicZD9_K86FMItb1luGiiFQ3GgeiGoTWLMUwRcBJcZ3TB98/s400/IMG_9206.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>These appear to get the joke. Do you? Me neither.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Their
successful take-off owed much to the support of England’s kings and queens,
especially after this country’s excruciating Reformation experience when the Protestant
monarchs saw in these schools a means to rebuild a stable religious framework. They
funded them, took active roles in setting them up, and in some cases founded
them themselves. That was the case at Eton, but with a certain difference: it
was the pet project not of a king trying to put his country back together, but one
watching helplessly as it fell apart.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Henry
VI</b> of Lancaster (1421-71), one of the last of the Plantagenet dynasty, was
big on education. Thoroughly educated himself and possessing a love of reading,
this shy and gentle king was keen to pass on its rewards by building schools
and universities. Sadly history – or rather the English – had a different
legacy in mind for him. What he didn’t like was the macho physical stuff of
knighthood and warmongering, and this left him vulnerable in an age of one of
England’s worst constitutional breakdowns: its final defeat in the Hundred
Years’ War with the French, and the consequent bloodthirsty power struggle of
the Wars of the Roses that finished the Plantagenets for good. This storm of cutthroat
nobles and barbarous political designs happened to crash down on perhaps the
one English king who was cognitively least suited to deal with it. Wishing only
to be left alone with his books, it eventually drove him into a mental
breakdown from which he never really recovered, whereupon his enemies imprisoned him
in the Tower of London then almost certainly murdered him. Predictably, because
of his mental health problems and inability to be a model of toxic masculinity,
English culture has not endeared itself in its portrayals of him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvWoXNN4o24zkcwQmijSmwWOosSHBYz91Qr6BpBWPMFZC9oO54bVaC_E-mpwlADpt1I_dLQMLoKKY9CSNIJtLSoHfOuEk3RLORPj2BHBsZgqBxF70_e9X5Cj_dhoM8yT1t8AcU6t1TDRA/s1600/Henry+VI.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1252" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvWoXNN4o24zkcwQmijSmwWOosSHBYz91Qr6BpBWPMFZC9oO54bVaC_E-mpwlADpt1I_dLQMLoKKY9CSNIJtLSoHfOuEk3RLORPj2BHBsZgqBxF70_e9X5Cj_dhoM8yT1t8AcU6t1TDRA/s320/Henry+VI.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The most common depiction of Henry VI, by an unknown artist around 1540. In contrast
to his later mistreatment, the decades after his death saw a popular
cult spring up around him. This served the purposes of the Tudor kings, who came
to power on the broken bones of Henry’s enemies in the house of York and spent
much of their early reign struggling to stifle those that still rattled menacingly.
Henry’s veneration was useful in helping them do so but fell away as Tudor
authority gained confidence.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
If the
English ruling class’s own mental breakdown devoured most of Henry VI’s
accomplishments then Eton was the one great exception, a lasting gift they
probably ought to have done better with. He founded the college next door to
Windsor in the 1440s, with the idea that it would train seventy poor children,
for free, before funnelling them on to another new college he created at
Cambridge University. To this end he endowed it with lavish funding, extensive land,
and even some precious holy relics, a sure sign of his personal investment in
this project. Much of this bequest was then taken off it by Henry’s nemesis and
deposer, Edward IV of York, and it barely survived with admittedly scaled-down
ambitions (which is why it only has half the “chapel”).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRmrVA7zT5_BIlQJ4IWznqGfaU5nNVeExHVkFPJwgAVmCgeIwHUxFSxh8Byp-mR2cjWwbXqAjKsJj2z_AxZM4BrnVU_Sdd8Pby6Kf4yOX_G4auDoqojuP9XY2OO1z3IVVHZqrBrL0ltU8/s1600/IMG_9212.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRmrVA7zT5_BIlQJ4IWznqGfaU5nNVeExHVkFPJwgAVmCgeIwHUxFSxh8Byp-mR2cjWwbXqAjKsJj2z_AxZM4BrnVU_Sdd8Pby6Kf4yOX_G4auDoqojuP9XY2OO1z3IVVHZqrBrL0ltU8/s400/IMG_9212.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Behind that fortification is the main courtyard of Eton College. The answer is
no.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSvPpTHXbySOsWYgc4h52FAa-NBKOrVfaA4WpXDjuNoFMYD1qQRvyie5-CsKn-cPWh64baPKj-P88M2nnOjMXaC3UkFNnlvgilehL1NFnp93yLjkAsNtlEQFsiVUbTvvj5Mhk4OaliaeU/s1600/IMG_9207.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSvPpTHXbySOsWYgc4h52FAa-NBKOrVfaA4WpXDjuNoFMYD1qQRvyie5-CsKn-cPWh64baPKj-P88M2nnOjMXaC3UkFNnlvgilehL1NFnp93yLjkAsNtlEQFsiVUbTvvj5Mhk4OaliaeU/s400/IMG_9207.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Henry VI gets a pub named after him on Eton’s high street for his founding
role. He doesn’t seem to get many elsewhere.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
time however the intake was expanded. Alongside those seventy <i>king’s scholars</i>,
extra pupils were admitted so long as they paid fees, thus mainly drawing in
children of the nobility. They resided in the boarding-houses that began to
agglomerate around the school complex in Eton village, hence their name of <i>Oppidans</i>,
from the Latin <i>oppidum</i> for ‘town’. Here was the seed whose eventual shoots
would twist the nature of the school upside down. The more fees the Oppidans brought
in, the greater grew the temptation for profit. By the eighteenth century there
were more than a hundred of them. Headmaster after headmaster fertilised this
plant with excuses and sophisms to persuade critics – or perhaps themselves –
that this did not compromise the original mission. By the time its vines
strangled that mission, few remembered it enough to notice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Additionally,
this being an intensely gendered country, all these children – scholars and
Oppidans – were boys. This would be true of the intake of the other public
schools as they appeared over the following century, and at many of them,
including this one, it still is today. It is a good example indeed of the tenacity
of inherited structural oppression, because even half a millennium down the
line the effect is to still shut girls out of the elite tier of English education
while isolating the pubescent boys within from female contact, thus stewing
them in a silo of artificial masculinity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXAjmN3sZIogj-ac1iR_XFI_KX8l3eylYLuIg9LE_2nPZe3Ls1qPL5QYn8YwHjeCpRk1UJvUtHLWd0QK03iolKhd6D1GgEABOxWAE2voLrB-4SLSBb7impaiIbInBfBnDYU0zNyAxtswA/s1600/IMG_9215.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXAjmN3sZIogj-ac1iR_XFI_KX8l3eylYLuIg9LE_2nPZe3Ls1qPL5QYn8YwHjeCpRk1UJvUtHLWd0QK03iolKhd6D1GgEABOxWAE2voLrB-4SLSBb7impaiIbInBfBnDYU0zNyAxtswA/s400/IMG_9215.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Students’ housing packs the lanes surrounding the main school complex. In the
early days the Oppidans were lodged with landladies within the town, but dedicated
collective houses emerged as the numbers grew to necessitate them.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
As
the Oppidans were questionable to Eton’s mission, much ritual initially
distinguished them from the king’s scholars. Though this distinction would
fade, the growth of such odd rituals, ceremonies, institutions and <u><a href="https://www.etoncollege.com/Glossary.aspx">linguistic habits</a></u> went
hand in hand with the college’s development as a school, coalescing into the
archaic subcultural identity which now endures as the spine of the Etonian
mythos. The headmaster of Eton was called the <i>Provost</i>, teachers were <i>beaks</i>,
and senior pupils appointed to supervise the others were Preposterous Ones –
sorry, <i>praeposters</i>. Life under this regime was harsh. The regimented 5am-to-8pm
schedule was strictly enforced, and all teaching and conversation held in Latin
lest one be thrashed by the preposterouses. There was only one hour of play per
day and two three-week holidays a year. Violent punishment was administered
not only by the staff but by selected pupils, and so a hierarchical culture
emerged, a kind of class system within a class system for this
state-within-a-state under supreme and mystical headmasterly autocracy. From
this emerged customs such as the notorious <b><i>fagging</i></b>, by which a junior
pupil was attached to as senior one as his personal servant and occasional
punching bag and/or sex toy – a perfect instruction in English power
relationships whether in a feudal, Victorian or Boris flavour. While fagging
took place in almost all the public schools till it fell out of fashion in the
1970s, a more uniquely Etonian creation was the <i>Pop</i> society, which was formed
in 1811 as a debating club but became a glamorous and extremely selective
elite-of-the-elite with sweeping privileges and disciplinary powers (one
reading of the Boris and Dave Show is that Boris got in but David did not). The
black-and-white-penguin uniform with top hat, on the other hand, only appeared in
the late nineteenth century.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY0szylecw05L2ZFCj64wxQwuzVnePKB99iFf7G0KGK-ap0EpbO9_wn0hZmU0d3n4VOitQMK9FpztR06G9bHZGBGPlO5J1zp964Q3GUe5yUzwvkAwUALK0Oz5je8mricNI9pLqioRXnNA/s1600/IMG_9218.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY0szylecw05L2ZFCj64wxQwuzVnePKB99iFf7G0KGK-ap0EpbO9_wn0hZmU0d3n4VOitQMK9FpztR06G9bHZGBGPlO5J1zp964Q3GUe5yUzwvkAwUALK0Oz5je8mricNI9pLqioRXnNA/s400/IMG_9218.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Eton College’s ornate School Hall (1906-08), with some of the current intake
hurrying their way to their ceremonies with heads down lest they get arrested
by the preposterouses. In the centre is the so-called <i>Burning Bush</i> gas
lamp, a convenient meeting point at the heart of the Eton compound.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR9kxkv96ktCwL1s-rO_uZRQ8QYh7q4HIK9CEre-Zk7n6I8ym84aBh_2Pzzdj7v3S3ipZ_raLOyPGvDHULitwB2O9DaaiNj341gA2vO5zuXKoEYTSJ9M3NiA6bWmV7kopkdnvXTiV6sas/s1600/IMG_9208.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR9kxkv96ktCwL1s-rO_uZRQ8QYh7q4HIK9CEre-Zk7n6I8ym84aBh_2Pzzdj7v3S3ipZ_raLOyPGvDHULitwB2O9DaaiNj341gA2vO5zuXKoEYTSJ9M3NiA6bWmV7kopkdnvXTiV6sas/s400/IMG_9208.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Perhaps the College’s linguistic archaisms have leaked into the surrounding
environment. Not everywhere in this country would you get away with names like
this.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Accompanying
this grew the cult of sports, whose importance in the public school
landscape cannot be overstated. Over the centuries Eton developed vast acres of
land here and elsewhere as playing fields, whereupon sports were played for not
so much fitness as the nigh-spiritual inculcation of a muscular ruling-class
ethos. Whether in cricket, rowing and boxing or more esoteric exercises – <i>Eton
fives</i>, the <i>Eton wall game</i>, and its own code of football – it seems
the idea was that learning to play the game on the sports field was analogous
to then going off to play the game in the ministries, boardrooms, courtrooms, battlefields
and colonial administrations. The will to win at all costs on the sports field,
no matter how many rules you broke or children you trampled, thus prepared you
to champion a triumphant imperial vision of Englishness itself, a rearrangement
of the world forged in the sweat and blood of exactly the entitled,
ruthless masculinist physicality which drove the school’s founder mad then murdered
him <u><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBt8AoLBCoo">(which might explain
why Boris did this)</a></u>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWV-uRygnM6tdi6PZTdVyZ76HREKbr9NyNC1mLUmEcLXs6cwmAZZGHS_va9_ASLoCliW7W2TY916CgbeTkycTcweo-ACCK8Ws4Nay3ZJYX7I-FI4faJElFY0XadcGYGbplsCkPN3Kudbs/s1600/IMG_9216.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWV-uRygnM6tdi6PZTdVyZ76HREKbr9NyNC1mLUmEcLXs6cwmAZZGHS_va9_ASLoCliW7W2TY916CgbeTkycTcweo-ACCK8Ws4Nay3ZJYX7I-FI4faJElFY0XadcGYGbplsCkPN3Kudbs/s400/IMG_9216.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A sports field over the shoulder of the main school complex, just a tiny
fraction of its outdoor laboratories of empire. The river itself has long been
taken advantage of for the aquatic division of those games.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Eton
reached its zenith in the late eighteenth century under the reign of King
George III, who spent a lot of his time at Windsor Castle, regularly crossed the
river to talk with its teachers and pupils, and built himself a lasting
place of admiration within the annals of the school. But in the following
decades it lapsed into a crisis, shared in part with the other public schools, as
a new level of scrutiny fell on its indiscipline, crumbling living conditions,
narrow classical curriculum, inadequate food, and the general sense that as a
phenomenon it was out of control. Eventually the complaints gathered enough momentum for the government to set up the <b>Clarendon Commission</b> of 1861, a
seminal moment in the story of the public schools. The short of it is that a
panel composed entirely of those schools’ former pupils was sent to pretend to
investigate them, which after a show of smug headmasters lying and dissembling
their way through its interrogations, produced a 2,000-page report praising
these schools to the heavens for their service to the English class system. The
upshot was the <b>1868 Public Schools Act</b>, a formal and legal guarantee of
these schools’ permanent independence outside royal, church or government
control. Born as <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>a bunch of charity
organisations set up to offer knowledge and skills to the children of poor
families, some long course of cultural and institutional apoptosis had corroded
those functions away. What remained performed better as their very opposite: exquisitively-shaped incubators of white male ruling-class English meat, now invincibly installed at
the top of the education system to funnel those sausages, generation after
generation, into dominant positions in every national power structure.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs_kpSmSt7yfze4Vg79nIU_ojNh_Uf6YDhmd6CiJkNX4dT4BkfWa_yFlvlSgKw11SBj4J_eGSVMVkcRElJBGKOaw0K9Bz2qLQYEtAiCnITIYDiOdePNY20aWv0ZO32dBDwZYQnWYfuQ7c/s1600/IMG_9217.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs_kpSmSt7yfze4Vg79nIU_ojNh_Uf6YDhmd6CiJkNX4dT4BkfWa_yFlvlSgKw11SBj4J_eGSVMVkcRElJBGKOaw0K9Bz2qLQYEtAiCnITIYDiOdePNY20aWv0ZO32dBDwZYQnWYfuQ7c/s400/IMG_9217.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And simultaenously, a Tartarus of suffering for boys like Henry VI who do not share that psychology, thus wringing them out of the English ruling classes.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
With
this formal celebration of its privileged position, the shackles were off –
Eton and the other schools could practically do whatever they wanted. It
improved its teaching standards and student accommodation and drastically widened
its curriculum. By the 1890s it was taking over one thousand pupils, not much
less than the number today. In the century that followed it was forced to adapt
to profounder challenges as the English imperial dream, and with it the
prestige of pompous authoritarian class structures, collapsed in the bloodbaths
of two world wars, colonial struggles for independence and the feats of English
socialism, altogether threatening the archaic Eton chimera with a new vision, a
world of sense and equality, in which it looked nervously out of place. And
yet, the deeper authoritarian hierarchicalism and violent prejudices of English society
never truly went away and today have re-asserted themselves with a vengeance,
and somewhere in the midst of the storm of flying fluids that generates them is
Eton College, which may or may not be as responsible as the mythology suggests
but certainly has questions to answer for the proverbial food poisoning its
chunkiest and most dubiously-composed meat products have inflicted on its
nation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXqM3w-2FpvOhlp0_yWUEsgxCI7IRrDLnm5nj9E9zFMrCfvL6CwqSHI6MCbkUhFubLM9-8pSuNuNIFUQBRWoZdV_soSPxYCWwCGcpgJeBhz-dFDpFCUVjyxEqaPQTV_EPoDswxk18Vqtk/s1600/IMG_9220.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXqM3w-2FpvOhlp0_yWUEsgxCI7IRrDLnm5nj9E9zFMrCfvL6CwqSHI6MCbkUhFubLM9-8pSuNuNIFUQBRWoZdV_soSPxYCWwCGcpgJeBhz-dFDpFCUVjyxEqaPQTV_EPoDswxk18Vqtk/s400/IMG_9220.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>That’s Henry VI standing in there in ‘what the hell have they done to my
school?’ posture.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Is
that fair? In honesty I cannot state with confidence how much of this is a
proper reflection of Eton’s history and how much is myth, whether woven by the
school itself or those attempting to peer over its battlements. Every person
whose journey has passed through this school, be they its triumphs or its
casualties, will have their own version to tell. But in the <i>special school</i>,
to fully disentangle fact from fiction is impossible – not only because the
physical and cultural walls it puts up by nature are impenetrable to strangers,
but because that inscrutable mystique is so essential to what it is. A vision
of the English nation is crystallised in this one, and it is an open question
whether Eton has re-moulded the real England to serve that vision, or whether
Eton itself, founded by a most un-Etonian king to offer free education to poor
people, was eaten by the real England.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Let’s
move on on a final critical note: that not everyone in such a world of
privilege benefits from it. Just as many people might feel it’d be great to be
king, there are many others who don't. But the “privilege” of hereditary monarchy doesn’t
care who it lands on. It has made horrible casualties out of people like Henry
VI for whom its gift was a curse, and likewise <i>Homo etonis</i> is not a model of the human being that tastes
good to everybody. For every strutting Boris and Dave, how many gentler, humaner
little boys have been traumatised for life by the crueller customs and noxious
competitive masculinities of Eton and the other public schools? It is true that
the scholarly standards and opportunities of these schools can fantastically
equip your mind, but they also leave a permanent mark on you which changes your
interactions with others, not least in an austerity-shattered age of corporate
serfdom in which people are punished for thinking. This can be refreshing for a
Boris who considers ordinary people beneath him anyway, but like Harry Potter's scar or <i>Fire Emblem</i>'s Crests, it can just as
easily be a burden, an alienation from the rest of the world too vast and
intangible to be bridged by mutual understanding. Perhaps the number of old
Etonians who find themselves hesitant, almost embarrassed, to reveal what
school they went to when asked is no surprise.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Yes
– I went to one of these schools too. Obviously not this one. The feelings are
complex, the pain deep and sharp. The gifts have been great (perhaps to some extent set me up for writings like these) but emotionally and relationally the curse has
cut unbearably deep. Had I a clue about all this back then, would I have gone
there? In honesty, I don’t know. Too soon to say.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Enough.
We press on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br /></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Eton’s Backyard</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Beyond, the
Thames begins to sustain a sense of rurality. But this is still Etonian
territory, so face does not necessarily reflect character. The north bank is
studded with the college’s satellite hamlets, commons and farms, interposed by
the odd old manor house here and there. By far the boldest stamp of the school’s
supremacy is obvious on the map: the two-kilometre-long artificial lake which
it has carved out of the land for its watersports.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
hinterland of the school’s state-within-a-state starts right outside the Eton
settlement with the <b>Brocas</b> meadow. The name is Norman, from the aristocratic family who held this land in the shadow of Windsor Castle in
thirteenth-century pre-college days. Nowadays the castle serves as a piece of
romantic backdrop for the picnics and funfairs the locals perpetrate here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7xmF6REnyfQNnPZpRjDJ5oC1GX3bVa1Gmfab1IWBxKtEO-n1Irfk0RGp1p2uYQpwYPdPhYhqqKHYNBrtt6A2CYVfjOsl876z7p0cZJVRAe4-_6P4_A4qn4K2Rz1NxEqiYQZy3RTGlyv0/s1600/IMG_9231.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7xmF6REnyfQNnPZpRjDJ5oC1GX3bVa1Gmfab1IWBxKtEO-n1Irfk0RGp1p2uYQpwYPdPhYhqqKHYNBrtt6A2CYVfjOsl876z7p0cZJVRAe4-_6P4_A4qn4K2Rz1NxEqiYQZy3RTGlyv0/s400/IMG_9231.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The Brocas meadow, devoid of picnics and funfairs because a) morning and b)
winter.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtK9B99cZE7vzRuy4be0n0yTF2mBm-wfgr1zSGOtHN51XtEx0XbPDiI2SJbTKBvVYR4wVSE88Kb5vVYUjuJ9FHP8TLQ7lsDkl81QfmQe2KAHv-SEwljFERVkkItol1CwM-Wt9C1zKkA0A/s1600/IMG_9229.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtK9B99cZE7vzRuy4be0n0yTF2mBm-wfgr1zSGOtHN51XtEx0XbPDiI2SJbTKBvVYR4wVSE88Kb5vVYUjuJ9FHP8TLQ7lsDkl81QfmQe2KAHv-SEwljFERVkkItol1CwM-Wt9C1zKkA0A/s400/IMG_9229.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A pair of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_goose"><u>Egyptian immigrants</u></a> contributing to this country by mowing and
fertilising the Brocas for free.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXh9Ht-Z7CDvxHzugfCjrCJeC8sQvec9aVqshYMMHpytL0oN70LOz9jKJ5bwIiEQVqtsaj-ADCugWZsV9wnverY899t71mKrib6TGYRdN8niFcJS36PxLx_ry4YHyLDCV39m1P2akJo1s/s1600/IMG_9233.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXh9Ht-Z7CDvxHzugfCjrCJeC8sQvec9aVqshYMMHpytL0oN70LOz9jKJ5bwIiEQVqtsaj-ADCugWZsV9wnverY899t71mKrib6TGYRdN8niFcJS36PxLx_ry4YHyLDCV39m1P2akJo1s/s400/IMG_9233.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The Brocas cliffs. On the other side is the Windsor riverside tourist
honeypot.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuX2856vofDt0oV_vksxzCI6Hers-rLP3DVPm2RAjf7gLXBDy3mg3ZnMibKEZxCzeZQwqMB1hyphenhyphenVcgiCq6mQmOre6Y4AHrd1OgvyTvV9pdshgjWdDOnfNHrZeahIBCGiJULRNr5dlZ0wwc/s1600/IMG_9235.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuX2856vofDt0oV_vksxzCI6Hers-rLP3DVPm2RAjf7gLXBDy3mg3ZnMibKEZxCzeZQwqMB1hyphenhyphenVcgiCq6mQmOre6Y4AHrd1OgvyTvV9pdshgjWdDOnfNHrZeahIBCGiJULRNr5dlZ0wwc/s400/IMG_9235.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Meadows like this are considered better with a <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">great
big fairytale castle</a></u> looming in the background.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1dT0Xy_7xOQPIhvK9Qd52oSFpklcfcqQ4GwTnjMCgvTPXGSaApBloVZMvPRpOe85ukyWFF1Xa5Wi12yGRc9fLuEuLVGTzgIoFvzJHdFuOstOpjP-c2JebgT2_R1f89uIgGIBEdFHYfo/s1600/IMG_9239.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1dT0Xy_7xOQPIhvK9Qd52oSFpklcfcqQ4GwTnjMCgvTPXGSaApBloVZMvPRpOe85ukyWFF1Xa5Wi12yGRc9fLuEuLVGTzgIoFvzJHdFuOstOpjP-c2JebgT2_R1f89uIgGIBEdFHYfo/s400/IMG_9239.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>At the end of the Brocas is the Windsor Great Western Bridge, one of Brunel’s
more modest pieces. Since 1849 it has carried the Great Western railway branch
line from Slough into Windsor’s central train station, competing with London
and South Western’s line from Waterloo that comes over Black Pott’s Bridge in
the previous section.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Slough</b>
is an invisible presence in this area, the major centre of human activity at
the London-facing end of Berkshire. The unappetising name seems to have
something to do with <i>soil</i>. Its great urbanisation was driven by the
massive trading estate to its west, which grew out of an army repair depot in
the years after World War I and now hosts England’s heftiest collection of big
corporate headquarters outside London. Their demand for labour drew in many
different groups of immigrants, especially from the Indian subcontinent after
World War II, making Slough a place of great ethnic diversity. Lately it has suffered
extensive redevelopment at the expense of cherished architectural heritage,
similar to what affects Maidenhead at the end of today’s section.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmwDS3e2DMHgJpyL103JTSjMpjpHf_IiUAwnwRcoWolu4fyFaFCJKaz93uqg_ErL-oO55a46MoGUKb-gGtcze4PgQe4wex9ZHAY_q85-acM3I6jcpfF62HleIyqe4GxRlj2QgslhKKHlM/s1600/IMG_9242.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmwDS3e2DMHgJpyL103JTSjMpjpHf_IiUAwnwRcoWolu4fyFaFCJKaz93uqg_ErL-oO55a46MoGUKb-gGtcze4PgQe4wex9ZHAY_q85-acM3I6jcpfF62HleIyqe4GxRlj2QgslhKKHlM/s400/IMG_9242.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Spring shows signs of appearing. It is February. This is not right.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5UIpT6uS1sMCTqXjAQZZhS0bBMpkftAhRREdwigk4nGqgJfA3xP5jasUJRI_e6lfzpe0NTrgGr652clp0uQI1yIF_-R-NPkdluRKoOFYaNPpEOCgI9bZ9-67WWNRprvmIq_3MPUvvu8Q/s1600/IMG_9243.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5UIpT6uS1sMCTqXjAQZZhS0bBMpkftAhRREdwigk4nGqgJfA3xP5jasUJRI_e6lfzpe0NTrgGr652clp0uQI1yIF_-R-NPkdluRKoOFYaNPpEOCgI9bZ9-67WWNRprvmIq_3MPUvvu8Q/s400/IMG_9243.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Another link to Slough, this time the road bridge for the A332 Royal Windsor Way.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7WOlE0PHXWspCfp2sOtqUloLt3DOxqK5RKaM0n2ej_4prmIbpUGmfR43zsY5A_1tQRpcR9rnQ7X5YHlUUM3uKQq1W9pvthiSAv-8TtvcJn3rifMSC1Yk1vpTcwRGV5l3ssjLdT_1CDso/s1600/IMG_9244.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7WOlE0PHXWspCfp2sOtqUloLt3DOxqK5RKaM0n2ej_4prmIbpUGmfR43zsY5A_1tQRpcR9rnQ7X5YHlUUM3uKQq1W9pvthiSAv-8TtvcJn3rifMSC1Yk1vpTcwRGV5l3ssjLdT_1CDso/s400/IMG_9244.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Beneath the bridge a shocking secret is revealed. These appear to be the souls
and/or bodies of young people who got stuck in the wall due to disruption to the
fabric of reality, perhaps caused by problems in alternate timelines that have
punched holes in this one (there’s got to be one where Eton built some secret
particle collider and behaved recklessly with it). The good news is that judging
by their expressions, they do not seem particularly damaged for it; more nightmarish
examples of the phenomenon have been known elsewhere. Some seem even to be
enjoying the respite from this country’s absurdities while they wait for it to
sort itself out – that is, to return as close as possible to the correct timeline
by marginalising the nationalists and coming to terms with colonial misdeeds.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
From
here there is a more generic spread of green, less remarkable in its own right
than for what is glimpsed around its edges. Immediately across the river is <b>Clewer</b>,
whose name derives evocatively from ‘cliff-dwellers’ – that is, the cliffs of
the hill where Windsor Castle is now. Indeed, Clewer seems to have been the
core of the pre-castle settlement <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-6-curse-of-magna-carta.html">that
later became the new Windsor</a></u>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf5ldkRasYOvl7hHrcVm_G7ymTSWCMW1Y62Qudht9KicT4AcgEYuoYxmZO_h0V8xmWBhuToE_vsoLD1_JlyHTssv-8jwtGJJ6tVe3xQz7QMhY2CfqrWasxPsY42hKbP38A-5uqq-f9dKE/s1600/IMG_9246.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf5ldkRasYOvl7hHrcVm_G7ymTSWCMW1Y62Qudht9KicT4AcgEYuoYxmZO_h0V8xmWBhuToE_vsoLD1_JlyHTssv-8jwtGJJ6tVe3xQz7QMhY2CfqrWasxPsY42hKbP38A-5uqq-f9dKE/s400/IMG_9246.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Windsor Racecourse is discernible in the centre distance here, with Clewer
mostly out of sight at left.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb9jh-MhLyQ7ZBL7ItuEi3FjDDP_ixGAetO3g3bmtCO9739YoHdXXTOsrLOsRb8xIvfKzz5zeedyiI_2mFBIGdkc5rduXayd1XGT3j880jttPXx-n2pVguXudTDrsN-RCwZau8tA95bgE/s1600/IMG_9249.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb9jh-MhLyQ7ZBL7ItuEi3FjDDP_ixGAetO3g3bmtCO9739YoHdXXTOsrLOsRb8xIvfKzz5zeedyiI_2mFBIGdkc5rduXayd1XGT3j880jttPXx-n2pVguXudTDrsN-RCwZau8tA95bgE/s400/IMG_9249.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A foamy mass of dubious origin floats down the river, perhaps originating from
the mouth of some Conservative Party MP from the steadfastly Tory
constituencies upstream.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZrNJvkAUfBz6uGkh-XGu-rA9SxyAvBiXs4XbAcB58zjDmR9kY6_-nTTakRXj2JGAF33mH0o2Hz2ryRoYqWY80iAClGw9w3wTjV0Gk5uXoKD-WN-CroTxUFVCmB2hHm3QTifQ5sfstC8g/s1600/IMG_9251.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZrNJvkAUfBz6uGkh-XGu-rA9SxyAvBiXs4XbAcB58zjDmR9kY6_-nTTakRXj2JGAF33mH0o2Hz2ryRoYqWY80iAClGw9w3wTjV0Gk5uXoKD-WN-CroTxUFVCmB2hHm3QTifQ5sfstC8g/s400/IMG_9251.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The feel here is of a transitional zone nibbled into by roads, small
settlements and installations but with an attempt to return to bleak wilds
whenever the humans look away.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
A
backwater called the Clewer Mill Stream forms an island here entirely occupied
by an appendage of the Windsor-Eton glamour: the <b>Windsor Racecourse</b>.
This is part of the old Windsor Great Park hunting enclosure, but grew into a
rare figure-of-eight track for thoroughbred horse racing. Its formal tradition
there was established in the Victorian 1860s. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0vT7VTUc8j8e5uNKKbqcoxVnN6b9jEgwwNRLJtFfqUPm8Gb-c6zLsRZZvDaNNwMae1y6xl2JweZSgtg7mqDnd2Qm4CmlobPGMSZMIIi9x6Edv0E__Ns__Q1CrhIh2RDFMB9NU2AubKo8/s1600/IMG_9260.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0vT7VTUc8j8e5uNKKbqcoxVnN6b9jEgwwNRLJtFfqUPm8Gb-c6zLsRZZvDaNNwMae1y6xl2JweZSgtg7mqDnd2Qm4CmlobPGMSZMIIi9x6Edv0E__Ns__Q1CrhIh2RDFMB9NU2AubKo8/s400/IMG_9260.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>From the north the racecourse is in plain sight.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXYDJmQZXddhykUaiyEng-P7zh42u6YRm-9THAD5x199L0V0bx6bPJGdODAXmfNDsKfczpvxAwnMPSSp9XrTPhRFBxMjcIQa-kRSYMAtvCOhqiN_6O80FGDoMEAgu7Ww2M0Ad6IWFhqs/s1600/IMG_9257.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXYDJmQZXddhykUaiyEng-P7zh42u6YRm-9THAD5x199L0V0bx6bPJGdODAXmfNDsKfczpvxAwnMPSSp9XrTPhRFBxMjcIQa-kRSYMAtvCOhqiN_6O80FGDoMEAgu7Ww2M0Ad6IWFhqs/s400/IMG_9257.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This bench looks innocuous, but the stone gives its site away as an
important landmark in Eton sporting mystique. Known as <i>Athens</i> (not to be
confused with the capital city of Greece), it was gifted to the school in the
1920s as a place for swimming and bathing. Perhaps its most significant feature
is an inscription on the back of the stone from the school rules, dictating
that ‘boys who are undressed must either get at once into the water or get
behind screens when boats containing ladies come into sight’. This is testament
to the all-encompassing sexual panic of England’s gendered culture, seen here
at its extreme in the boys-only public school setting. The rule was motivated
no doubt by fear that the ladies, unable to constrain themselves at the sight
of the naked boys, would overpower and abduct them into the boats for
libidinous purposes, thereby compromising the school’s efforts to turn them
into champions of ruling-class dominance.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp7XH9wn0jDO6QZ3L_6oUkqAY48TKkq2JYa9hrlunFKu31bZkKEtjsAdd8Ed89hkgVEq0YxH2NUfIMt_dcVgdgNutcddq3y4qohXm5sVdG8id6F_wpj5V3LGvQG0BUAEN8khi0WOSvH5s/s1600/IMG_9259.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp7XH9wn0jDO6QZ3L_6oUkqAY48TKkq2JYa9hrlunFKu31bZkKEtjsAdd8Ed89hkgVEq0YxH2NUfIMt_dcVgdgNutcddq3y4qohXm5sVdG8id6F_wpj5V3LGvQG0BUAEN8khi0WOSvH5s/s400/IMG_9259.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Apparently <i>Homo etonis</i> is not the only species that favours bathing
here.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
To
the north the great flat fields unfurl, ending only at a line of houses in the
distance. They belong to the village of <b>Eton Wick</b>, built by the school
soon after its founding to house the workers and craftspeople who actually maintained it. Naturally, because class is everything in England, it was
kept physically separate from Eton by a margin of open land. The school
nonetheless paid attention to its welfare and it grew into a more all-rounded
village in the last century.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilHJx6oxexV54ZpgImPcdx8-1AuVa_6xY13uX8hDJaqoOzwuCyd4TBgsW6muonleeKZxck2Kzg8JrhCHQYkaZSaO9HV2wHEZzcGwgXt2PM6vtGwsg7bck1tpbFE-jK4cjiA_-o-sZpd8k/s1600/IMG_9254.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilHJx6oxexV54ZpgImPcdx8-1AuVa_6xY13uX8hDJaqoOzwuCyd4TBgsW6muonleeKZxck2Kzg8JrhCHQYkaZSaO9HV2wHEZzcGwgXt2PM6vtGwsg7bck1tpbFE-jK4cjiA_-o-sZpd8k/s400/IMG_9254.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Eton Wick between the land and the sky.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh3VpbYR627ajtLYCoTvjOk_94uP5x7S6x5R_lZIChsIF48IJ3HyICy_afQHejchpfzlt8V9_JehWzPmRUKEDUM-JePaG6xBwcWtLLfVjTMKM-jvlsiQFGddC3IjSyH2IQvEPVm0tNfvA/s1600/IMG_9253.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh3VpbYR627ajtLYCoTvjOk_94uP5x7S6x5R_lZIChsIF48IJ3HyICy_afQHejchpfzlt8V9_JehWzPmRUKEDUM-JePaG6xBwcWtLLfVjTMKM-jvlsiQFGddC3IjSyH2IQvEPVm0tNfvA/s400/IMG_9253.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Eton Wick’s St. John the Baptist Church is a Victorian creation from 1866,
shortly before the hamlet’s big burst of expansion.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Boveney</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Though
no longer a tiny hamlet, Eton Wick is close enough to its memory as one to
signal that we have come far enough to start expecting them. Just
beyond it, pinched between the Windsor Racecourse and Eton’s monster of a
rowing lake, is another. <b>Boveney</b> actually is still a tiny hamlet, so
tiny that its most interesting feature benefits from the fact that the rest of
it is nowhere in sight and so is charged with an atmosphere of spiritual seclusion.
Be that as it may, its position on the river has also got it its own lock.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhop0zDplpjSJrRPNxyR4RLXuiCWOr4TSTm7ofVSjddW5HjqC4zU8Bl_HN6sO4IJiruUGkRhc_LJdNpBxoTqYA7_Dj6eJNK4MZfETcHWy8g9cGLMOBPyqtLuhNugPejom8efwk6Br0jxcc/s1600/IMG_9265.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhop0zDplpjSJrRPNxyR4RLXuiCWOr4TSTm7ofVSjddW5HjqC4zU8Bl_HN6sO4IJiruUGkRhc_LJdNpBxoTqYA7_Dj6eJNK4MZfETcHWy8g9cGLMOBPyqtLuhNugPejom8efwk6Br0jxcc/s400/IMG_9265.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Boveney Lock’s current form dates back to 1898 but it has a longer history of
incarnations. The lock-keeper’s cottage is attempting something
creative with oars.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrsl-vASEHG8eADTLxmeFMajSH0-slqzPXUoSf9ChIj97zvL9osImQSgN06o7Pkg1-7asfNwhoRP-fqq4mPvJcMRARIpr6kZvFu_r7NLXlDNNYULhQHN3tYv1taDhBbC2zDUhEpPNJl-U/s1600/IMG_9263.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrsl-vASEHG8eADTLxmeFMajSH0-slqzPXUoSf9ChIj97zvL9osImQSgN06o7Pkg1-7asfNwhoRP-fqq4mPvJcMRARIpr6kZvFu_r7NLXlDNNYULhQHN3tYv1taDhBbC2zDUhEpPNJl-U/s400/IMG_9263.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This appears to be an inoffensive storage shed or utilities installation. But
if you have a special key, you can use its door to access a dimension between
the realms of life and death where you can re-challenge all the bosses you have
defeated so far (so of course there are a dozen Henry VIIIs there, each
reflecting encounters in different stories at different stages of his life).
Those who are confident in their experience and equipment and perhaps a little
bit nuts can even challenge Death in person, though there is no reward for
winning other than getting politely asked to get on with your journey.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXsXJUOuXTLa31k87FY6js4QELg7a0E1w8XgLhbDCuljJUsCw5DXTYcAeLMCnqaCOWxhJHB019M5obA9XVM5JmbjsPe2HUXs6LTt1GiwBJzTT1olfkZghmuQU8UnLHdrvHD0HTq55WkAA/s1600/IMG_9268.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXsXJUOuXTLa31k87FY6js4QELg7a0E1w8XgLhbDCuljJUsCw5DXTYcAeLMCnqaCOWxhJHB019M5obA9XVM5JmbjsPe2HUXs6LTt1GiwBJzTT1olfkZghmuQU8UnLHdrvHD0HTq55WkAA/s400/IMG_9268.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Local maps mark this avenue of chestnut trees as <i>Conker Alley</i>. This area
is still in the immediate orbit of Windsor, so its managers must have found it
important to impress the ruling class by lining their trees up all in a row.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh9olZaKDOMCpGkXRlSNiFTF7qc1ZgJled66Tpgsyw2gs0IZ0_0AJ1Czhc-IkGg5zomr9huBmZzlH4Z8c9TAogvZd5ZKrZtD5PV6XHor0iLPvTrkx5sYQLxVTzQjWB52whiM7U-4-lkyk/s1600/IMG_9269.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh9olZaKDOMCpGkXRlSNiFTF7qc1ZgJled66Tpgsyw2gs0IZ0_0AJ1Czhc-IkGg5zomr9huBmZzlH4Z8c9TAogvZd5ZKrZtD5PV6XHor0iLPvTrkx5sYQLxVTzQjWB52whiM7U-4-lkyk/s640/IMG_9269.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Then suddenly, in a riverside clearing, this appears.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
There
is something unusual about Boveney’s <b>St. Mary Magdalene’s Church</b>,
dedicated to one of the most controversially-represented female characters in Christian
mythology because they are scared of women. It neither looks nor feels like other
churches, which could be because officially it no longer is: it was
made redundant in 1975 after over 700 years of service, most notably to
barge-workers on the river, and was only saved from demolition by a local
campaign which has placed it in the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches.
This charity has, with evident love, maintained it and carried out restoration
work on its jigsaw puzzle of elements from different ages, with the weatherboarded
timber tower particularly striking.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
there is more to it than that. Perhaps it is its situation: its silent little
oasis by the river, ringed in trees as though sequestered from the outside
world, its tranquility punctured only by the occasional annoyance of planes
taking off from Heathrow. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCzYCxVApapp2crcf587sOVw4iARNAZTd_YecPJ6uRQIHJKZ8As9GfrqapLM9r5juBwsgjraLAW8Zj4End8IFMKlCKw5-gJjhk96hCqkeL9sFRTskAIsSXOtyhZRJUp_vJ6QML-iYK7UA/s1600/IMG_9270.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCzYCxVApapp2crcf587sOVw4iARNAZTd_YecPJ6uRQIHJKZ8As9GfrqapLM9r5juBwsgjraLAW8Zj4End8IFMKlCKw5-gJjhk96hCqkeL9sFRTskAIsSXOtyhZRJUp_vJ6QML-iYK7UA/s400/IMG_9270.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The next big surprise is to find its doors open. In present-day England one
tends to find churches shut, especially in remoter areas. Few can afford
these days to keep them staffed outside regular scheduled ceremonies.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR1F9wQ0T30x2l8rzRqJDQpEqcN8YDPdnb8W3sXeemBrlmPbpYfwnyWmuhMnKSLLua-fiAEcG7szM7Zpidt0eUlTLkF7eW6LhXb2Jyjyx5c_trRzbvwW5ML9cuAyl-6eEDnCGO3snl1uw/s1600/IMG_9271.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR1F9wQ0T30x2l8rzRqJDQpEqcN8YDPdnb8W3sXeemBrlmPbpYfwnyWmuhMnKSLLua-fiAEcG7szM7Zpidt0eUlTLkF7eW6LhXb2Jyjyx5c_trRzbvwW5ML9cuAyl-6eEDnCGO3snl1uw/s400/IMG_9271.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The church’s interior. Most of these walls, windows and pews are fifteenth or
sixteenth century like the wooden tower.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
There
is a gentle simplicity to this place. It rejects the showy extravagance of,
say, Eton’s religious-army-WMD-facility disguised as half a chapel, but nor is this
the stark and menacing smash-the-idols severity of the fundamentalist
Puritans either. The forms and symbols might be Christian, but through the
atmosphere can be sensed more than a tinge of profounder spirituality. It is
no surprise to find whispers in its records that this was a site of worship
since long before Roman times. Is it a coincidence that in the ceremonies that
still take place here, the most prominent is held on the riverbank each year at
the Easter sunrise – 5:30am – and advises that since the church lacks
electricity, warm clothes and a torch are recommended? It even has a small
piano, and welcomes visitors to play a tune on it. Though my aptitude on this
instrument is next to zero, I felt compelled to make an attempt at the first <i>Gavotte</i>
from Bach’s <i>English Suite No.3</i> – no particular reason. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Music.
Sunrise. Water. Time. This is animistic depth.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
turmoil of spending my teenage years in this country gave me problems with authoritarian
Christianity and masculinist monotheisms in general, one symptom of which was
that for a long time I could not enter a church without experiencing a draining
headache, as though their very air was unbreathable. Though less of a problem
now, I still sense such an atmosphere when it is present, and at St. Mary Magdelene’s of Boveney it is not. Rather, its ambience is that
of a church that is just one possible expression taken by a deeper cosmic
presence here – not its first, perhaps not its last, but all the same quite
comfortable for being so.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Unusual
– and precious. They must look after things like this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiycKBwTFP9BOMeHNlyiY0ueaR_yiS5pDET1T7l965SdA7tVn8stpJg3IT4XuHMusbrEe3bB58xhTUV33IGMEYy2HvzVV1cewUpdxxFimzVmJWRMeEGvIkrpfnE5GCi0pGzUBRcM8834jI/s1600/IMG_9278.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiycKBwTFP9BOMeHNlyiY0ueaR_yiS5pDET1T7l965SdA7tVn8stpJg3IT4XuHMusbrEe3bB58xhTUV33IGMEYy2HvzVV1cewUpdxxFimzVmJWRMeEGvIkrpfnE5GCi0pGzUBRcM8834jI/s400/IMG_9278.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The church’s western end. The lancet window up on that wall is twelfth-century
and possibly the oldest part of the building, but is scarcely in sight in this
picture on account of abominable photography.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Dorney Lake</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
spell is broken by the return of the Eton sportsmongers who immediately devour the landscape. <b>Dorney Lake</b>, the brash blue rectangle they
stamped into reality as though whatever was there was not important, overwhelms
the north bank for the next several kilometres, but because it is Eton the lake
is fenced off from the Muggles on the towpath and mostly concealed from view.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQH5f07tciuLaei2R_ARQEgHN8yMCSyaUS50R5DXFdHOH8YqNrFx0ZSEQwBiOuU19KDKd6nnp1XDeDf1pQGaBCMjqBteysEKad_SuAMguNrF2cquFNd_-DBkmx_oP7j5aN2jiC0pb2DA/s1600/IMG_9280.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQH5f07tciuLaei2R_ARQEgHN8yMCSyaUS50R5DXFdHOH8YqNrFx0ZSEQwBiOuU19KDKd6nnp1XDeDf1pQGaBCMjqBteysEKad_SuAMguNrF2cquFNd_-DBkmx_oP7j5aN2jiC0pb2DA/s400/IMG_9280.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A river-facing boathouse that appears related to the Dorney Lake facilities.
Those begin immediately behind those trees.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO1sAxStOnUKWSuFLPWhHtpHOefa1UVO1dI-wTe5sZMSQq10nWsOOo4EW-sxPaXxLCCYdib2WN9AIU5jRIMESMIvm8lWIv4deGnxWPDTBcGr0uLLwL1vC4QKXHt1VSRFYEosHlIqZig3g/s1600/IMG_9281.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO1sAxStOnUKWSuFLPWhHtpHOefa1UVO1dI-wTe5sZMSQq10nWsOOo4EW-sxPaXxLCCYdib2WN9AIU5jRIMESMIvm8lWIv4deGnxWPDTBcGr0uLLwL1vC4QKXHt1VSRFYEosHlIqZig3g/s400/IMG_9281.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>On the far bank, a string of grand houses and clutches of settlement are the
beginnings of a long and staggered tentacle of affluence that stretches from
the village of Bray.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfnBp38G3HwYe6lwjwUSYG3q6FANd5mjeB0MQkzam5EVJhUuAY5h0cqAI4_tA3oVeHI-EcbZa3pS6PSTjkm-vpwNwPXBHywM7Tv9DTvtRCot-kdGOq9tWD2Px1gBrv0lfwMhDW2Qtfn_E/s1600/IMG_9282.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfnBp38G3HwYe6lwjwUSYG3q6FANd5mjeB0MQkzam5EVJhUuAY5h0cqAI4_tA3oVeHI-EcbZa3pS6PSTjkm-vpwNwPXBHywM7Tv9DTvtRCot-kdGOq9tWD2Px1gBrv0lfwMhDW2Qtfn_E/s400/IMG_9282.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Those English who are not party to that wealth might gravitate to a different
tradition and opt to all live in a yellow submarine.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Dorney
itself is another tiny village north of the lake, although the name was spread
wide over its surroundings as the old manorial grounds of Dorney Court, which
stands further inland. Then in the 1960s the Eton rowing establishment decided
that rather than put up with the living currents and shared traffic of the
river like most rowers have to, they should have their own perfect
divinely-fashioned still-water course so their rowers could be better than
everyone else’s. So they stood in a line and bellowed through their megaphones
as rowing instructors do, unleashing shockwaves which gouged out the earth in a
straight line from here almost as far as Bray. £17 million later the cavity was in order, and Dorney Lake opened in 2006 in time to be hired out as a venue for
the 2012 Olympics.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpAqMYVjTmUO_XGW8DBegejQ1t2AlnlEk24HhY5gxX7a5X60Ptt_OnbTVw0Tz1Kb5qTK4UvpsYoNKiAMasHtEYrOVYCGVaBgAzBaV9FUNLlxipksOpjDFdRamp8Sr212_-OdHpffXXshQ/s1600/IMG_9285.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpAqMYVjTmUO_XGW8DBegejQ1t2AlnlEk24HhY5gxX7a5X60Ptt_OnbTVw0Tz1Kb5qTK4UvpsYoNKiAMasHtEYrOVYCGVaBgAzBaV9FUNLlxipksOpjDFdRamp8Sr212_-OdHpffXXshQ/s400/IMG_9285.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>One of the only views of Dorney Lake obtainable from the towpath. You’d need
airborne capabilities to fit it all in a single shot.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfNi3NtpCmurRuwXE9-SztBmXMvOSh9QZ_ucwT5osFR1_YWdnxPy9-NDYj0WAVkBA12QtZBxbKzZ0vlRmujCqmJ8D5cYxJZhRaWM78w5usOKs2TnBJnGwjgh1_7ewXGkW97ZMgsMBamQA/s1600/IMG_9284.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfNi3NtpCmurRuwXE9-SztBmXMvOSh9QZ_ucwT5osFR1_YWdnxPy9-NDYj0WAVkBA12QtZBxbKzZ0vlRmujCqmJ8D5cYxJZhRaWM78w5usOKs2TnBJnGwjgh1_7ewXGkW97ZMgsMBamQA/s400/IMG_9284.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>For riverside passers-by most of its length looks like this.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNrK-ns8dpDLg_sh67n4UjcMiZwyrwKrEm3fSgBL5-8rF9R-PkFf0xTjNTauO7iywTwvY1Iq2GotAn_51tuCA0vX6AqRSc0pCPmwhWDpwCR0HIB7MR7jvtp78tSXRYNbIqkpw0R5Bujoo/s1600/IMG_9286.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNrK-ns8dpDLg_sh67n4UjcMiZwyrwKrEm3fSgBL5-8rF9R-PkFf0xTjNTauO7iywTwvY1Iq2GotAn_51tuCA0vX6AqRSc0pCPmwhWDpwCR0HIB7MR7jvtp78tSXRYNbIqkpw0R5Bujoo/s400/IMG_9286.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>More boating facilities for the monied classes punctuate the other bank. Here
is Windsor Marina, with its own yacht club and spacious capacity for leisured explorers
of the Windsorlands.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZJEripGI02mebZ1Kt86gNUVITWLJxiqrrpcfgZCkfJ0lQaWoXzu3GjpdbD_5s-tdBX0zOZMz2KrpV2GwN1sh0_YMROFTYlyILd0_OhJLuEtJiQhPkFuvMd3_L5OCETHcW7C2rCF_gYxo/s1600/IMG_9287.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZJEripGI02mebZ1Kt86gNUVITWLJxiqrrpcfgZCkfJ0lQaWoXzu3GjpdbD_5s-tdBX0zOZMz2KrpV2GwN1sh0_YMROFTYlyILd0_OhJLuEtJiQhPkFuvMd3_L5OCETHcW7C2rCF_gYxo/s400/IMG_9287.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This appears to be a Blooded Barbed Wire Bush, which only grows in air severely
polluted by emissions from mouths that abuse refugees and call for arbitrary
deportations. Historically societies do well when they take this flora’s
appearance as a warning and institute policy measures to care for refugees and
educate their citizens against racism.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Vampires, Pirates and Cannibals</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
With
the Eton rowing machine monopolising the north bank, it is healthier to search
for interesting things on the south. One such thing is <b>Oakley Court,</b> a Victorian
country mansion with a difference.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCkL87j7MVXAN7XM5r_8hz7QFlcBu5idi1O_958wMk_ZkFJtcULsxzS3KJyp8n7W0XPJk1w7SSfK2G5CAcDKh86kZNE0V3InPA9K0j1IzcrbBJMam4Cbn216jDbGqSYUDzew5gLEq1NG0/s1600/IMG_9289.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCkL87j7MVXAN7XM5r_8hz7QFlcBu5idi1O_958wMk_ZkFJtcULsxzS3KJyp8n7W0XPJk1w7SSfK2G5CAcDKh86kZNE0V3InPA9K0j1IzcrbBJMam4Cbn216jDbGqSYUDzew5gLEq1NG0/s400/IMG_9289.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Oakley Court is the one on the right that does actually look like it has vampires in it.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Oakley
Court began life in 1859 and could have been any other stately home, passed and
sold around between people with too many letters in their names and numbers in
their bank accounts. Its more remarkable turn came in the 1950s when it was sold
to the classic horror film company <b>Hammer Films</b>, who thus found a
suitably gothic playground for their undead stars to make their legends in.
Though the company soon shifted to a country house next door which became its
famous <b>Bray Studios</b>, it continued to film at Oakley into the 1960s. In
recent times the scenery might be familiar to English television audiences from
Mark Gatiss’s and Steven Moffat’s take on <i>Dracula</i> over the New Year,
specifically the documentary which followed that explored the history of
performances of Bram Stoker’s bloodthirsty (yet congruently class-conscious)
Count; it was at Bray Studios that Hammer filmed the totemic 1958 version that
fixed his image to that of a fanged Christopher Lee.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiebnrhefEV9D-R1mO6SqpAOKQNZs6MQSd95z9sB0xIv5aa5OndhAnuibaBLAF_cA-BqcnsXHXDHdWGXR2OXsGZcl1yigOqbG37Ciu93Ptmg03GXAzfmCjdZTUCtNlyRE7aETlj3XuN38A/s1600/IMG_9292.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiebnrhefEV9D-R1mO6SqpAOKQNZs6MQSd95z9sB0xIv5aa5OndhAnuibaBLAF_cA-BqcnsXHXDHdWGXR2OXsGZcl1yigOqbG37Ciu93Ptmg03GXAzfmCjdZTUCtNlyRE7aETlj3XuN38A/s640/IMG_9292.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Though it is important to remember that vampires are as diverse as everyone
else, and it is no fairer to judge them all by Dracula’s example than to judge
all graduates of Eton by Boris Johnson’s. Some vampires run pubs you know.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOmCVqcjLHLsbyAPA_Woch0so_asIt3xqoBrmhVSppLqAK8X5FBhX1Bd5XmrDkv9VMsHTswZxdAYPvS41-ZWD7NIXiMa7Gl82uMZMVIZsQzx0z0YwBss9c0i2X0tFC7hUBK33lmMG6wjQ/s1600/IMG_9291.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOmCVqcjLHLsbyAPA_Woch0so_asIt3xqoBrmhVSppLqAK8X5FBhX1Bd5XmrDkv9VMsHTswZxdAYPvS41-ZWD7NIXiMa7Gl82uMZMVIZsQzx0z0YwBss9c0i2X0tFC7hUBK33lmMG6wjQ/s400/IMG_9291.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Suspicious machinery spotted in the Oakley airspace. Taking cover is
recommended given that the US-UK alliance now seems happy to ignore
international law and use drones to assassinate anyone they don’t like, then
angrily deny it’s an assassination by inventing random non-concepts when
actually it’s because for them people don’t count if they are brown.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Hammer
Films moved away in the late 1960s, but other directors continued to come to
shoot work here, such as for <i>The Rocky Horror Picture Show</i> (1975) and
the miniature filming for <i>Alien</i> (1979). Now its days of stardom are
largely over and it is run as a luxury hotel.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLX517XG_KDOB2J70x9qfodkTKaRbGtz-Pnph5v8p3sgNuX1KM5trpI5w2s_o3oL4DzmLKiVvFD1sMh7QAq8vruYCpkl58JUgjz1Ccv6VnqiemOGnVK0sqy1m9nhupwutGC6akQe5LLIQ/s1600/IMG_9294.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLX517XG_KDOB2J70x9qfodkTKaRbGtz-Pnph5v8p3sgNuX1KM5trpI5w2s_o3oL4DzmLKiVvFD1sMh7QAq8vruYCpkl58JUgjz1Ccv6VnqiemOGnVK0sqy1m9nhupwutGC6akQe5LLIQ/s400/IMG_9294.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>There follows a string of river islands beginning with Queen’s Eyot. True to
local form, this is owned by Eton College and let out for expensive private
functions.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6xwqFl8I6mYcHiIWAJaZBze5m3-IDiryrRTrhaame1AkeNn6xW0HyMX3UVZVR-WMpUOSsTgV-guTPzo7XMA7FFE3kiMEuK-ZrdqpCnmJrLzjaWVWiSgrl7FQUTytB2Vbyp2cwl9lhBW0/s1600/IMG_9299.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6xwqFl8I6mYcHiIWAJaZBze5m3-IDiryrRTrhaame1AkeNn6xW0HyMX3UVZVR-WMpUOSsTgV-guTPzo7XMA7FFE3kiMEuK-ZrdqpCnmJrLzjaWVWiSgrl7FQUTytB2Vbyp2cwl9lhBW0/s400/IMG_9299.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Another marina, named – guess what – Bray Marina, lurks behind this yellow
paraphernalia.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLJcs2NcbH-jUytUca6A4BXUHyKrpkMs_OVdVdJJcdLkZWvvaAliPIM5OMsujEwI6F3IQxFd0Gy_BY0hzB8Mpq0lcZUIz7nsBzLDrY5wgvLTv70QI7EffLl5XnodsmwGzEumbPP0QtzYY/s1600/IMG_9298.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLJcs2NcbH-jUytUca6A4BXUHyKrpkMs_OVdVdJJcdLkZWvvaAliPIM5OMsujEwI6F3IQxFd0Gy_BY0hzB8Mpq0lcZUIz7nsBzLDrY5wgvLTv70QI7EffLl5XnodsmwGzEumbPP0QtzYY/s400/IMG_9298.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Dorney Lake is still there and Eton insists that you know it.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgClWeOX_7u0L8yvZ2MuniKeAueAWD45Kxd5WrE4DNlGdq9grDaMuAqh0DLfoMa29lQOsVWfpEPAJTTbGerFiKr47A8HJTm69_tm0uMbgeIOOBGOcusw9OKOj56Q970V64XpNGTGE-MaqA/s1600/IMG_9300.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgClWeOX_7u0L8yvZ2MuniKeAueAWD45Kxd5WrE4DNlGdq9grDaMuAqh0DLfoMa29lQOsVWfpEPAJTTbGerFiKr47A8HJTm69_tm0uMbgeIOOBGOcusw9OKOj56Q970V64XpNGTGE-MaqA/s400/IMG_9300.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Summerleaze Bridge, a footbridge which ought to arouse suspicions because it is
about the furthest possible distance from significant settlements and thus of
questionable value to pedestrians. The name gives it away: it was built by the
Summerleaze Ltd. extraction company in the 1990s as a conveyor belt taking gravel away from the construction of Dorney Lake.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-3LOss6pDP8T0QXzU3O1qHBcpSt34F48Wj85Mztub069k14_Bq4zJWPcVAwsJBd5ljGYh5vy-8Y6xPBdApBqPbQH05CgQ_nWIWUTd-wP2g4pLAavPVYz8_DaptPMU566FALg9AYjYEKo/s1600/IMG_9301.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-3LOss6pDP8T0QXzU3O1qHBcpSt34F48Wj85Mztub069k14_Bq4zJWPcVAwsJBd5ljGYh5vy-8Y6xPBdApBqPbQH05CgQ_nWIWUTd-wP2g4pLAavPVYz8_DaptPMU566FALg9AYjYEKo/s400/IMG_9301.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Summerleaze Bridge, keeping up Etonian standards for the English
language since 1996.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Of
the islands that line the Thames here, the next is the most substantial. The
rainforested <b>Monkey Island</b> is located deep in the Caribbean, with a
volcano on its western peninsula that connects to a ridge running laterally
across the centre. It has a canyon to the south, the village with the cannibals
to the north, and a gigantic stone monkey head in its east which conceals an
entrance to subterranean lava catacombs. It was here in the 1990s that aspiring
pirate Guybrush Threepwood came in pursuit of his nemesis, the ghost pirate
LeChuck, negotiating hermits, flooding and vegetarian cannibals with the help
of a navigator’s voodoo-animated severed head, on a journey that defined the
modern romantic image of pirates in popular culture while emphatically
thrusting the artistic and literary merit of video games into its narrow-minded
faces. The island is known more than anything else for its Secret which nobody
knows.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Unless
of course this is a different Monkey Island and we got it wrong because the
English’s incorrect politics have faffed up the timelines. See what happens?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia-si3srussQxPBk4NjpOiwJwUJskpnqoW_HzomXbuibbXc1SBuMAs-tD36ELOIUkVEYsct3dI_JmNR3HOxGa0NvdLU8Eq0Ijfhg92k5ydlwlY860mTlIpma0pcYeSiZbtmmIDILrbAIk/s1600/IMG_9302.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia-si3srussQxPBk4NjpOiwJwUJskpnqoW_HzomXbuibbXc1SBuMAs-tD36ELOIUkVEYsct3dI_JmNR3HOxGa0NvdLU8Eq0Ijfhg92k5ydlwlY860mTlIpma0pcYeSiZbtmmIDILrbAIk/s400/IMG_9302.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Monkey Island, between the fields of Bray at left and the bush of Dorney Reach
at right. It no longer looks particularly tropical, and the giant monkey head
appears to have been gentrified into some big private waterfront resort.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
this timeline, it is not clear if this Monkey Island was somehow transferred
here from the Caribbean, or was a different island from the start which shares its
name. Its occupiers disguise any such suspicious manipulations by claiming an origin
as ‘Monks’ Island’ (<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ē</span>g </i>or<i> eyot</i>), hence <i>monk-ey</i><u>,</u> but
they should know they are not fooling anyone.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNej-VvL5oJlV2Ae-7TxqJjwrcZFXHD2vHfQMCQZOQ32GqKPj7bhZYsPN3W1bNV_l_joVhIVInzOKisvmhy6qs2m0MpNQJvgai_nnCfEj_e_J0oAwVWFFCLEp26eoN6_kcucffT39VJE/s1600/IMG_9305.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNej-VvL5oJlV2Ae-7TxqJjwrcZFXHD2vHfQMCQZOQ32GqKPj7bhZYsPN3W1bNV_l_joVhIVInzOKisvmhy6qs2m0MpNQJvgai_nnCfEj_e_J0oAwVWFFCLEp26eoN6_kcucffT39VJE/s400/IMG_9305.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This appears to be a remnant of the dimensional scaffolding they used to
transport Monkey Island here from the Caribbean. These days the ethnic
cleansers in the government would have deported the swordmaster, the voodoo
priestess and all three of the cannibals because of their darker skin
pigmentation, which would mean LeChuck would have won. They would not have
deported the actual convict, nor the reckless ringmasters firing people out of
their circus cannon with only a tin pot for a safety helmet, nor the
borderline-fraudulent used ship salesman, all of those being white, while
LeChuck himself, in his mortal guise as Sheriff Fester Cummings-Shinetop, would
have been made an unelected special advisor to the prime minister.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Humouring
their alternative timeline for the moment, the claim is that the monks in
question belonged to Merton Priory, whose headquarters was <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">on
the Wandle in Surrey (now south London)</a></u> but had outposts all over the place
including near Bray. When Henry VIII ruined them, the island passed through the
hands of a long series of numbered and titled nobles who used it as a fishing
retreat, one of whom (Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough they say, as
though it’s evidence any of this is real) built a fishing lodge and just
happened to scatter monkey statues around the garden while commissioning
someone to paint monkeys on its ceiling. By the late nineteenth century the
lodge had grown into an extremely fashionable hotel, attracting successive
kings and queens to put it on the record that they came there to further
strengthen its alibi. To this day it is an exclusive hotel run by ridiculously
rich corporate acronyms, as sure an indicator as any that there is nothing they
won’t do to keep the Secret of Monkey Island under wraps.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYlOPJA8hHtKA6dxk6zV5yu1ObYEmJ8gkPTr4gLaAblrde7UBa4jSGff6FDquK2eQo7HUh_eboQiINtwcM_Ujm-Ze0UEEDSnyGDmbzaijqX8EeJRnPSfEUvhs2AhZnzj26t_aC9uyY7ks/s1600/IMG_9309.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYlOPJA8hHtKA6dxk6zV5yu1ObYEmJ8gkPTr4gLaAblrde7UBa4jSGff6FDquK2eQo7HUh_eboQiINtwcM_Ujm-Ze0UEEDSnyGDmbzaijqX8EeJRnPSfEUvhs2AhZnzj26t_aC9uyY7ks/s400/IMG_9309.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The redeveloped Monkey Island Estate hotel. Evidence suggests the small window
partially visible beneath the central roof is the same aperture that used to be
in its ear when it was still the giant stone monkey head. Twisting the
cotton-swab-shaped key in it should still open its mouth-passage to the
catacombs – note the suspicious tooth-shaped “windows” at left – likely in use
these days for dropping in staff who complain about being paid below minimum
wage.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrZ2pomwAgJD1gHwAZYxhqFM0j8JpfkTfkgkQeyE-psw1qujgQk807_XerGgBJMACpDyp51jVI640pgLUwjCwAZxShgt_l5WAPFkrZTcyuI2MUp4pLJFL2vTHk_vSIzbbZSu3GwfRpaVk/s1600/IMG_9308.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrZ2pomwAgJD1gHwAZYxhqFM0j8JpfkTfkgkQeyE-psw1qujgQk807_XerGgBJMACpDyp51jVI640pgLUwjCwAZxShgt_l5WAPFkrZTcyuI2MUp4pLJFL2vTHk_vSIzbbZSu3GwfRpaVk/s400/IMG_9308.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>This line of sight on it through an obvious dimensional doorway proves it is
more than it appears.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI2xnkXKLpmtOL4Bxu2Q_nEbwCL04cTQngHEqT310z9cxuXgydxhJeV3eMpArnRIpLxp5rGnRNkamoAgyKFT52NXfFsRALYDoL34pdjkh1QLxCfwnPuhxseDdmtpSmqexw4IiXu8H4C6E/s1600/IMG_9306.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI2xnkXKLpmtOL4Bxu2Q_nEbwCL04cTQngHEqT310z9cxuXgydxhJeV3eMpArnRIpLxp5rGnRNkamoAgyKFT52NXfFsRALYDoL34pdjkh1QLxCfwnPuhxseDdmtpSmqexw4IiXu8H4C6E/s400/IMG_9306.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Meanwhile, firmly in the current timeline on the east riverbank, private
gardens greedily interrupt the towpath. They invite walkers and cyclists to
‘please be considerate’ by not voting for nationalists while in them.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFHMUVlDoslEHSEzCEeEtoFOQZlFxyhYvPfz9Q3f45iUxGf9fVhQknsHFIwRe1o9-Hq6H0R1bay0B1rVXmVu41qFbTI-vSfkFhZvB-40tyhZud-5oS_Jb9EM78OcPzRJn2Q27t-XaJjo/s1600/IMG_9312.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFHMUVlDoslEHSEzCEeEtoFOQZlFxyhYvPfz9Q3f45iUxGf9fVhQknsHFIwRe1o9-Hq6H0R1bay0B1rVXmVu41qFbTI-vSfkFhZvB-40tyhZud-5oS_Jb9EM78OcPzRJn2Q27t-XaJjo/s400/IMG_9312.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>On the other hand, if the landowner in question happens to be this wonderful
fellow, we can probably pardon them just this once.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bray</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
evidence of shifty activity by creatures that might or might not be living does
not subside merely because we draw close to the village of Bray, a
quintessential white-English riverside village known for being conspicuously well-fed.
The village is on the opposite bank and has no bridge so can be grateful that
it will be spared interrogation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqa8DKkDmrR8S5xzjQkywadY9C1lmnmLmVpMByYeR57Z0IS3if0osUtEZvEzijRqa6igFCjZqV8jv0d0b7kWeQd3Dyg6ZDNwzgItOwtdPT-db3awQTWXblnTrio3uQE_JwxAvXwyJUxFk/s1600/IMG_9314.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqa8DKkDmrR8S5xzjQkywadY9C1lmnmLmVpMByYeR57Z0IS3if0osUtEZvEzijRqa6igFCjZqV8jv0d0b7kWeQd3Dyg6ZDNwzgItOwtdPT-db3awQTWXblnTrio3uQE_JwxAvXwyJUxFk/s400/IMG_9314.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Before Bray there is the M4 Thames Bridge, which has no more inventive name and
no apparent distinguishing features beyond doing what it says it does. But if
the map is correct, this is the Thames’s furthest upstream motorway crossing.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQnKKVf6JH_VGBeuouH0f55bBUK1_K3A80sH6wZfUTeZ0ybH9eSs0sda2Wix4QfJYUecexJLnktbjfXo6Mwyq2ayC2GxLYhAnJ-Vki41WNKbZ7ruw5_VlZH9dYzTRe974ztEuxmWTOwlI/s1600/IMG_9315.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQnKKVf6JH_VGBeuouH0f55bBUK1_K3A80sH6wZfUTeZ0ybH9eSs0sda2Wix4QfJYUecexJLnktbjfXo6Mwyq2ayC2GxLYhAnJ-Vki41WNKbZ7ruw5_VlZH9dYzTRe974ztEuxmWTOwlI/s400/IMG_9315.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And just as well, because something’s gone wrong with it and the people in hard
hats have been parachuted in to fix it, sealing off the underpass in the
process. Note the sign to Monkey Island, pointing in the opposite direction to
where it actually is. This indicates that this location is also part of the
transposed Caribbean territory, and that more than one island was moved here moreover
because this must be what remains of the compass-scrambling forest maze on its
neighbouring M<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ê</span>lée Island.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEjDgsnybStBrdid5OsrA00R0N36UBh5PkJlhmhbdjZzx1_eKusfWpoE4foy3H3cXIfuCQDUwUc6GGzix4uTFstFLAbxhPPE6_XUUJdowMNvL_-29w6qPZ1htkjnQomGok-PMED6pHbyw/s1600/IMG_9316.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEjDgsnybStBrdid5OsrA00R0N36UBh5PkJlhmhbdjZzx1_eKusfWpoE4foy3H3cXIfuCQDUwUc6GGzix4uTFstFLAbxhPPE6_XUUJdowMNvL_-29w6qPZ1htkjnQomGok-PMED6pHbyw/s400/IMG_9316.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The barriers present the ominous threat of having to scramble across the
motorway, but the big evil construction companies, with surprising generosity,
have provided a pontoon bridge for the convenience of wayfarers.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Bray
has its own lock, but in this case there is evidence of a long heritage of
locks on or near its site going back at least the fourteenth century,
from when survive its users’ complaints that its tolls were too high. Early
locks like those were probably rudimentary ‘flash locks’ with a single wooden gate,
perhaps installed to accompany a weir for the nearby mills. The present lock
was conceived in the 1840s and gathered enough attention, it is said, to get
condemned by Charles Dickens as a ‘rotten and dangerous structure’, which
perhaps prompted its rebuilding in the 1880s.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitQQsi0iQjzc5HGr1lv4s1BOtleRsTwn4d1GpFFZgc46358zWUPzBIjxLs_PO-A5Y6aa_Q8gWkSIUFFMi8sSqF3HJkm-AHBzmS02_pOusHu6YFKuvkkEHJCSqcHTyGAmBuW2Hn_StPUU8/s1600/IMG_9319.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitQQsi0iQjzc5HGr1lv4s1BOtleRsTwn4d1GpFFZgc46358zWUPzBIjxLs_PO-A5Y6aa_Q8gWkSIUFFMi8sSqF3HJkm-AHBzmS02_pOusHu6YFKuvkkEHJCSqcHTyGAmBuW2Hn_StPUU8/s640/IMG_9319.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The present Bray Lock. Some large sea urchins have been gene-spliced with
carnivorous plant DNA and laid out to defend the lock-keeper’s cottage.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW6Rmlx8AZFvsUZ7guwdFUn5HV_gDQP-mXlPKN1DTeTVqMmDK8ccNL9pLBBeX3EBW1bEO_G-Rjk4CQfA2UNaoUyM0sMLKMdCMMK1pnhYzXiGq_LLNAQ7npkiEwqzq5ZQ-Rmlfify-0EH8/s1600/IMG_9320.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW6Rmlx8AZFvsUZ7guwdFUn5HV_gDQP-mXlPKN1DTeTVqMmDK8ccNL9pLBBeX3EBW1bEO_G-Rjk4CQfA2UNaoUyM0sMLKMdCMMK1pnhYzXiGq_LLNAQ7npkiEwqzq5ZQ-Rmlfify-0EH8/s400/IMG_9320.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Its office meanwhile attempts a display of English unionism, but the effect is
made unfortunate by the falling off of half of each flag. This is surely a
resigned acknowledgement of Scotland and Northern Ireland’s expected escape
from the English nationalist rot at the union’s core, likely followed by England’s
own outer regions one by one.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMTDHhnAigw5_JSmv0d_cVe8vQNGithH4Bk_zvUHDcohKy8IZ8iYDkCOo2k5TrFCtFEtpr7giY45j46warUjUtKqWRUQt2Y5N3Kp96xCkwY6kWL_V2mynfW2AU5dbG4QvfTGUtgW3iTo/s1600/IMG_9322.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMTDHhnAigw5_JSmv0d_cVe8vQNGithH4Bk_zvUHDcohKy8IZ8iYDkCOo2k5TrFCtFEtpr7giY45j46warUjUtKqWRUQt2Y5N3Kp96xCkwY6kWL_V2mynfW2AU5dbG4QvfTGUtgW3iTo/s640/IMG_9322.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And this is the Weir Warning Cormorant, who stands on a post with wings
outstretched to alert river traffic to Bray Lock and Weir.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Beyond
the lock unsettling sights stack up in the neighbourhood of another island, the
disconcertingly-named <b>Headpile Eyot</b>. In books and online sources I can
find no hint, none at all, as to how it came to get that name, but it might be prudent,
just possibly, to hasten through here as quickly as bloody possible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNt19E2r8Z1O0Snn01mH4Tnm8PxmGFEfk14TmWO7ST4WO_dIWoepqXVR5xWYVGYyD_I-i4P5jcekoP0lZloICw7Ekrbm0PZAIF6Y9bB2ctQhOkqIjPlm3ehMbSH5vOEnEIfOdNWWJLVLc/s1600/IMG_9323.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNt19E2r8Z1O0Snn01mH4Tnm8PxmGFEfk14TmWO7ST4WO_dIWoepqXVR5xWYVGYyD_I-i4P5jcekoP0lZloICw7Ekrbm0PZAIF6Y9bB2ctQhOkqIjPlm3ehMbSH5vOEnEIfOdNWWJLVLc/s400/IMG_9323.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Something terrible has happened to this bench, the last signs of which are
getting hungrily devoured by the undergrowth.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-PQNLNzJKsYQ2KWVKb88SGCENj_0Hf0oURo6i56d3aCOGYqw9A6-DMzEuqH574jfUq3svLAo1kB8UA84foW3n5_Bqi9XAN07EAbKk376vHFdALmlRo7CH74e7dEl8IAh9RryqfOucz3Y/s1600/IMG_9327.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-PQNLNzJKsYQ2KWVKb88SGCENj_0Hf0oURo6i56d3aCOGYqw9A6-DMzEuqH574jfUq3svLAo1kB8UA84foW3n5_Bqi9XAN07EAbKk376vHFdALmlRo7CH74e7dEl8IAh9RryqfOucz3Y/s400/IMG_9327.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>This place has eyes.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmtAuhsx9zPNcptC8wxIhVp6g4RSbWzaXgN8Jt2aEnAg3RObSm0vvOmpuH_qIjvNOiiQnhYPGng8SWNtfsgQvGVdC5xdT-MoanMu0CRVrWaZ9CBTDf0Pu9q8O-cAkH72cP5vOLAfIMn2I/s1600/IMG_9328.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmtAuhsx9zPNcptC8wxIhVp6g4RSbWzaXgN8Jt2aEnAg3RObSm0vvOmpuH_qIjvNOiiQnhYPGng8SWNtfsgQvGVdC5xdT-MoanMu0CRVrWaZ9CBTDf0Pu9q8O-cAkH72cP5vOLAfIMn2I/s400/IMG_9328.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>And here the evidence has been completely destroyed, leaving the cause to your
darkest fears.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipl2LofoMsI7Eo3bq38_RSQDPhD8WZ6F8UgDChiYgbcavzieW95BYlfUtuU9wVvrOuyZ3vpo6r2VBUznP0uPg5yw08dtmYRcVphkHb4-Q_Qiz11iRVmi78n6Bxfx81JGStTNnf8yvyrSU/s1600/IMG_9331.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipl2LofoMsI7Eo3bq38_RSQDPhD8WZ6F8UgDChiYgbcavzieW95BYlfUtuU9wVvrOuyZ3vpo6r2VBUznP0uPg5yw08dtmYRcVphkHb4-Q_Qiz11iRVmi78n6Bxfx81JGStTNnf8yvyrSU/s640/IMG_9331.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This is the tip of Headpile Eyot. Would you spend the night on it in a
tent? About the only thing known of it seems to be 'Bronze Age finds' – but of
what? One can only surmise that whatever horrors were carried out upon it
account for the violent disappearance of the nearby benches and whoever was on
them at the time.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyVIOeFkIpRsx4r8DdAeohQrE8qTp357BbSL5SRGS9mZkGOhZz_VRN2RT8a30dbdLjeWETS9ax4ogvXN_pgqWEW8JPMWpdeOU1DE8IRmgLubWEhOdkbmVDs_IR9cJC04PROiALGQyAlmI/s1600/IMG_9333.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyVIOeFkIpRsx4r8DdAeohQrE8qTp357BbSL5SRGS9mZkGOhZz_VRN2RT8a30dbdLjeWETS9ax4ogvXN_pgqWEW8JPMWpdeOU1DE8IRmgLubWEhOdkbmVDs_IR9cJC04PROiALGQyAlmI/s400/IMG_9333.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And behold: yet another obviously haunted house whose gentle pink colouration
is fooling no-one, though at least they have declined to disguise it with palm
trees this time. But this has nothing to do with the bloodcurdling secrets of
Headpile Island. From the house’s appearance we can surmise that the
necromancer who has taken up residence works to an impeccable standard of
hygiene, so there is no risk of contracting illness from the zombies involved.
It may be further deduced that said zombies are in this case extremely large
and at least one is excellent at playing the piano.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
From
here there is a view of <b>Bray</b> itself. Most awareness of it in current
generations of English people will be for its culinary credentials: it gathers
together some of the most celebrated (i.e. expensive) restaurants in the
country. A handful of these are run by the innovative celebrity chef Heston
Blumenthal, whose core establishment here, <i>The Fat Duck</i>, will be
familiar to those who have witnessed his adventures in ‘molecular gastronomy’
and ‘multi-sensory cooking’ on TV. Just down the road from it is <i>The
Waterside Inn</i>, which together with the <i>Duck</i> comprises two of the
only five three-Michelin-star eateries in the country and the only two outside
London. Of these I can say no more, as an expedition therein would require an
income or twenty, but if you are an undead product of the horrors of Headpile
Island then see if you can scare someone there into serving you for free before
sharing your impressions on Bray cuisine online.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsipck-dZHOQ3JBSETe9NL5h9qbsml6Vwjsf37wpOfHp03W9G_-0mFAcIUYO7Xiu2vzEhzZEm0iq6IzV2gNP_R3HZ4ReF-uLs4SsH3xKV3xIZsmglhN2PrSomnBOHkPB-ExXr52UXMC-I/s1600/IMG_9332.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsipck-dZHOQ3JBSETe9NL5h9qbsml6Vwjsf37wpOfHp03W9G_-0mFAcIUYO7Xiu2vzEhzZEm0iq6IzV2gNP_R3HZ4ReF-uLs4SsH3xKV3xIZsmglhN2PrSomnBOHkPB-ExXr52UXMC-I/s400/IMG_9332.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Most of Bray is not in sight from the river but here you can see just enough of
the tower of its parish church of St. Michael to know it is a
you-shall-not-pass Norman job from the 1290s.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Older
people might have another association with Bray. There is an English folk song
called <i>The Vicar of Bray</i>, sung from the perspective of perhaps a
specific vicar once upon a time but now an archetype of either pragmatic
survival sense or slithering barefaced fraud, depending on your persuasion. The
song runs through history, <u><a href="http://www.berkshirehistory.com/legends/vicarofbray_bal.html">each verse
introducing the reign of a new monarch who made dramatic changes to English
political religion before relating how this weathervane of a Vicar throws off
his prior beliefs and prostrates himself to the new order of the day to keep his job</a></u>
(‘And this is my law I will maintain/Until my dying day, sir,/That whatsoever
King shall reign,/I’ll be Vicar of Bray, sir.’). Charm over content, fakery
over integrity – or perhaps just playing the game, as might say some equally determined
sausages with this same indifference to the truth who flopped out of a certain
Privilege Fort down the river.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Maidenhead</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
market town of <b>Maidenhead</b> marks the end of today’s exploration, and lest
one shudders at its name for fear it has something to do with the human
sacrifices that surely did not take place on Headpile Eyot even though you
never know, that possibility can with relief be put to rest. <i>Head</i> seems
to come from Anglo-Saxon <i>hythe</i> for ‘wharf’ – pointing at the river again
– while <i>maiden</i> is more obscure: it could be from Celtic <i>mawr</i> for
‘fort’, or indicate actual maidens who worked on said wharf – perhaps nuns from
one of the nearby monasteries – but the most likely meaning seems to be ‘new’,
a usage still present in concepts like <i>maiden voyage</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEippbk5twVLo5yFuQhEmcKtTNcWAHnb5x1wXL2JRLSGLutLFqQNpELaoNoXcbraE5-uiCwAN-rWGuxvXYj0gLKSNQZPAGYQ__etfgCwINp5dTy6jQC8yrQ4-MXp65exTsKQ868te9Obubc/s1600/IMG_9340.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEippbk5twVLo5yFuQhEmcKtTNcWAHnb5x1wXL2JRLSGLutLFqQNpELaoNoXcbraE5-uiCwAN-rWGuxvXYj0gLKSNQZPAGYQ__etfgCwINp5dTy6jQC8yrQ4-MXp65exTsKQ868te9Obubc/s400/IMG_9340.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Affluent houses make their move on the riverbank on the approach to Maidenhead.
Though the centre of the town is being feasted on by <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-1-tides-of-time.html">an
undead modernity</a></u>, the nests of resident wealth on the river-facing
outskirts seem largely spared.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Perhaps
they did build a new wharf when the name came into use in medieval times, but
it was not the first wharf, nor was the settlement itself new. Maidenhead’s
history goes all the way down. It had been a small Anglo-Saxon town for some
centuries already, only going by a completely different name, <i>Ellington</i>,
whose most exciting experience was probably when a Danish expeditionary force
disembarked here on their way up to Reading – perhaps the same lot who sacked
the monastery at Chertsey – during the great Viking invasion of the 860s and
70s. Long before that the Romans were here, with firm evidence of multiple
villa-farms nearby of which the most thoroughly excavated is <i>Alaunodunum</i>
on the present town’s south edge. Villas were the preserve of the Roman
privileged elite, and the presence of this one, said to be one of the most
sophisticated of its time, suggests the Roman occupation was to some
degree invested in this area’s connections and safety. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgxgdzrK7i-BKwvK_cP6wBNMmmYzgTJMiDGb5U2GXxWA1JJhtKrqGr3kgVuEBkEOdi3rZzaZT2vXzJnGE0ZNBSoWkYFNwJr4Qu6pzBsYwr0bQWZGO1BjFKDVxbtnA72TVWZWrJlsshWbY/s1600/IMG_9358.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgxgdzrK7i-BKwvK_cP6wBNMmmYzgTJMiDGb5U2GXxWA1JJhtKrqGr3kgVuEBkEOdi3rZzaZT2vXzJnGE0ZNBSoWkYFNwJr4Qu6pzBsYwr0bQWZGO1BjFKDVxbtnA72TVWZWrJlsshWbY/s400/IMG_9358.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>In the 1970s a gravel excavation unearthed a large burial site near Bray, not
far, as it happens, from those studios where the vampires were. This fellow is
one of the more than one hundred skeletons there whose lives have been dated to
the late Roman period in the fourth century CE. After a millennium and a half
of rest their stories continued in the 1970s when the Vicar of Bray – who else?
– assumed, with questionable historicity, that they were ‘pagan’ (i.e. of
pre-Christian religion) so refused them re-burial. So instead they went on
local adventures, including hiding in local houses and shocking new owners who
found them into calling the police for fear there had been murders. This one is
now well-established in his new employment educating visitors in the Maidenhead
Heritage Centre.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
Romans were here a long time ago but left so considerable a mark on this
country’s land and imagination – its roads, its politics and culture, its
archaeological treasures – that they generate special excitement in English
popular consciousness. Needless to say though, history did not start with them.
Before them this area was likely a breadbasket for the <i>Atrebates</i> people,
who percolated across from what is now Belgium. All of this is but a whisker on
a timeline of local human activity that goes back some 500,000 years, well into
the time of Stone Age peoples, whose skilled flint crafts the river has taken upon itself to preserve for the edification of posterity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Their
political values have regressed since those days and turned Maidenhead into
another of the Thames’s Tory-voting constituencies, and not a trivial one
either. This is the seat of none other than former Prime Minister Theresa May,
of whom the less said the better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG4NkqnFt6uQaT7FbeJbPMr_SGfAVEaXtrFzj8ouHEYXP4oz7aK6ViDSIh-jKmPOKRpGsRH4xArm303VL0ttJ5HmKb9JF_UAgob9Q22rkcOYdYM7wJ3RV3fggw94uFY1Hav5svHu9YIww/s1600/IMG_9343.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG4NkqnFt6uQaT7FbeJbPMr_SGfAVEaXtrFzj8ouHEYXP4oz7aK6ViDSIh-jKmPOKRpGsRH4xArm303VL0ttJ5HmKb9JF_UAgob9Q22rkcOYdYM7wJ3RV3fggw94uFY1Hav5svHu9YIww/s640/IMG_9343.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Maidenhead's railway bridge, which you know is a
Brunel piece because it was clearly designed not to merely perform a function
but to look impressive and demonstrate technical brilliance while at it. Built
in the 1830s, its shape reflects the demands of river clearance for busy
shipping, which Brunel attended to by giving it only two arches, the widest and
flattest in the world at that time. Though feared and condemned straight away
for alleged instability, Brunel knew what he was doing and the bridge has
survived with only minor repairs to the present day. They are now working out
how to put the new Elizabeth Line/Crossrail across it.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicLKVqBrEspvrmT-e_BUUa8iP25tlmsNhaXBBiiPVDwecqlq2Fl7t9t3mGgQI-Ru9MxyqL76oZtsReJw48g3Eq452-6e8_CwHervLm13Bk2R2G0Wm33-1ISeSkYSDEqSRvwJxx50UtIn8/s1600/IMG_9344.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicLKVqBrEspvrmT-e_BUUa8iP25tlmsNhaXBBiiPVDwecqlq2Fl7t9t3mGgQI-Ru9MxyqL76oZtsReJw48g3Eq452-6e8_CwHervLm13Bk2R2G0Wm33-1ISeSkYSDEqSRvwJxx50UtIn8/s400/IMG_9344.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The extraordinary echo produced by the northern arch has got it the nickname of
<i>the Sounding Arch</i>. There must be all sorts of microscopic communities
that have built up a home under there. At left is the clump of magic moss that
secretly holds the bridge up.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
was the settlement’s medieval incarnation that grew into present-day
Maidenhead, continuing its Roman inheritance as a strategic outpost on the river
and the Great West Road to centres like Gloucester and Bath. All that traffic
led it to flourish as a market town as well as one of England’s busiest
coaching stops, an oasis of inns in bandit-ridden rough surroundings. This gave
it a front-row seat in many of this nation’s violent outbursts: a battle
in the 1399-1400 Epiphany Rising, one of that period’s innumerable nasty little
bits of bloodshed; a near-miss in the revolution of 1688 when an army loyal to
deposed Stuart king James II tentatively fortified the bridge but then thought
better of it; and more poignantly, in the Civil War a few decades earlier when
Charles I, after his capture by Parliament’s army, was allowed a trip here to
re-unite with his children at the Greyhound Inn (now occupied by a branch of
NatWest bank), a meeting which moved even the supervising Parliamentary
generals to tears.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEa12ODOlK__GTOlSAknWvtzi_xF2SRDH-GAEr1EIj9k599paDig7OI_riv4Fz6vCTKdltdIHvkeS1ar_sQCz5DiF1qIZrGQYN1nyBWbW12L9H_B3kYg9j6wWe-FnHanS8P0CXFPlzNCE/s1600/IMG_9345.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEa12ODOlK__GTOlSAknWvtzi_xF2SRDH-GAEr1EIj9k599paDig7OI_riv4Fz6vCTKdltdIHvkeS1ar_sQCz5DiF1qIZrGQYN1nyBWbW12L9H_B3kYg9j6wWe-FnHanS8P0CXFPlzNCE/s640/IMG_9345.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Bridges at Maidenhead have come and gone since at least 1280, when the first
wooden structure is documented. They have a long history of controversy for
charging offensively high tolls, such as in 1903 when a large crowd descended
on the bridge, tore out the toll gate and threw it in the river. The current
stone bridge was opened in 1777.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3FFQmzRc-F-SbR3HQJc_N2YocolxOz3PIxi_ExpIhroB_0syKgkLhWhgRpIeCq12uBRQHK5zc-Wv1IecMScmyMRoyEnfuSFsxS__QaSc3vuttR0BT9R8LQoCaDBxowNpiWMSDMB-q-7g/s1600/IMG_9346.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3FFQmzRc-F-SbR3HQJc_N2YocolxOz3PIxi_ExpIhroB_0syKgkLhWhgRpIeCq12uBRQHK5zc-Wv1IecMScmyMRoyEnfuSFsxS__QaSc3vuttR0BT9R8LQoCaDBxowNpiWMSDMB-q-7g/s400/IMG_9346.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And this is the Channel Warning Cormorant. This one carries out its work with
wings closed, because alerting river-users to the multiple river channels is not
as urgent as alerting them to a weir.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
These
low-lying riverbanks have long been vulnerable to flooding. Maidenhead has now
been spared the worst of this by the <b>Jubilee River</b>: that artificial parallel
channel they dug out in the 1990s because Maidenhead, Windsor and Eton could
afford £110 million to shunt the flood problem onto the not-quite-so-affluent
downriver communities like Chertsey.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
All
that history got splashed with a helping of railway-powered Victorian red-brick
architecture in the nineteenth century, and the product, you might think, would
be a community conscious of its heritage. Alas, Maidenhead has struggled against the
tides of the free-market extremism that has taken over English political and
corporate officialdom, who have dispatched regeneration brigades to feast on its
links to the past. Their digestive acids are steadily dissolving it into an
urban landscape which could be any other in England, that is, an anodyne dystopia
of unaffordable apartments, gigantic supermarkets and big-brand retail
batteries to service the tech-hubs of the M4 corridor. Even the Maidenhead
Heritage Centre, a dedicated local repository of the layers of stories that
made this town what it is, is now hemmed in by these predators and finds their
drool dripping upon its premises.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrT9XvP98VR7yol4Y_S9HCROeXoOy-hzcumcodX7KL-gMSPLu0ctQwbfXvTjftczM72JUgUw3EPfL4JWohSqYfTBK4koMhd0lFXdwSu083GHDmOIOJCkhbBWwYiULufBRkbrE9mMDfMk/s1600/IMG_9352.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrT9XvP98VR7yol4Y_S9HCROeXoOy-hzcumcodX7KL-gMSPLu0ctQwbfXvTjftczM72JUgUw3EPfL4JWohSqYfTBK4koMhd0lFXdwSu083GHDmOIOJCkhbBWwYiULufBRkbrE9mMDfMk/s400/IMG_9352.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Large chunks of Maidenhead’s body are already undergoing necrosis.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXyvzUkGLV8W96KfOlaRS2SZwZeubk6P6xhINw6Sgdi1Jlk5Dj2zpvRTNHWC877jNIm4YXjL1ZSNmLDQCYbkCFvUG5R4MCgMYfdc9jPLZkWcG0BDNVHLzIGMN9BPg9UYodBADcRBZlZ2s/s1600/IMG_9350.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXyvzUkGLV8W96KfOlaRS2SZwZeubk6P6xhINw6Sgdi1Jlk5Dj2zpvRTNHWC877jNIm4YXjL1ZSNmLDQCYbkCFvUG5R4MCgMYfdc9jPLZkWcG0BDNVHLzIGMN9BPg9UYodBADcRBZlZ2s/s400/IMG_9350.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Here by the bridge used to stand Skindles, one of Maidenhead’s teeming coaching
inns that was developed into a fashionable hotel in the 1830s. It went on to garner
a reputation as a place where high-profile individuals went on weekend respites
from their pretend monogamy, to put it no more explicitly – except in the one
case that became explicit to everyone, that of war minister John Profumo and
model Christine Keeler which helped bring down the Conservative Party
government of Harold Macmillan in 1963-4. But in the late 2000s a jostle of
banks and property developers left the hotel to fall to ruin, then demolished
it and built this showy apartments-and-offices complex and restaurant on its
carcass. Somehow a boat-builder’s is soldiering on under its armpit.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim0xlVFH25xGAm1Ft5-2oSHOXaKo38kXWCw0TYPVn0mSmj9annKgXjc8SMsr6FUFZYI4nSGrFywuHJ2CL6RHi47AIcRDRlnMLMuA2PmW1c7ssdP_XP-ChVG7yWddwmy2vkbSTgDXLSlkM/s1600/IMG_9355.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim0xlVFH25xGAm1Ft5-2oSHOXaKo38kXWCw0TYPVn0mSmj9annKgXjc8SMsr6FUFZYI4nSGrFywuHJ2CL6RHi47AIcRDRlnMLMuA2PmW1c7ssdP_XP-ChVG7yWddwmy2vkbSTgDXLSlkM/s400/IMG_9355.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>In the town centre, characterful old civic buildings and pubs cower beneath the
pillars of a featureless modernity, or are consumed from the inside by the big
brands that have driven out local enterprises everywhere.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixE-t8STlH4bNNP3z6o4Ca_o92ZhSlCgRcaoT4mHzdugG4oDkq0wnk9Nn9YRPzkAZ70YMZP1dCrjjVicCIy0VJF4rUtCLVRrrP8gr9rOOdTF7YCpxPyOYYKiIzHIWLHnbzRNtUuCF_xPs/s1600/IMG_9370.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixE-t8STlH4bNNP3z6o4Ca_o92ZhSlCgRcaoT4mHzdugG4oDkq0wnk9Nn9YRPzkAZ70YMZP1dCrjjVicCIy0VJF4rUtCLVRrrP8gr9rOOdTF7YCpxPyOYYKiIzHIWLHnbzRNtUuCF_xPs/s400/IMG_9370.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Maidenhead’s high street. In the centre, the vestiges of a proper garden market can just be glimpsed holding on in the darkness.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
While
the top-tier Privilege Forts of this valley like Windsor and Eton endure, those
that have receded even a little are now in trouble. It is an important reminder
that even in the garland of wealth that is the Thames Valley, so insulated from
the poverty in which England’s mismanagement of its industrial decline has
landed the rest of the country, the picture is more complex than it might first
appear – and that even here, in the lair of a recent Prime Minister, this
failing modernity finds no shortage of victims. As well as the individuals and
groups it leaves behind, society and nation as a whole are the victims when they
fail to protect the heritage which all their members can look on, even touch
with their own hands, and feel embodied there the shared stories which make
them part of something greater with each other. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
should not seem strange to argue for this even in this heartland of an English
beer-on-the-river conservatism so prone as it is to grievous mistakes, within
history or about history, on matters of empire, race, gender, class or a host
of other things. Argue with them as one must, it is only with that sense of shared
story that the argument can be had at all – and thus mistakes be corrected, mutual
learning undertaken, and a future built that everybody can feel is rightly theirs.
Everything we do, whether it adds to or repudiates the
past, occurs in reference to it whether we know it or not; only by being aware of it, by owning it, can
we make the future ours too. If that awareness is scattered to the wind, then the
entire conversation is pointless and everybody loses.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcXFNPdSPmoDhxejMEdVlvTqPdVN5a6yR5R5qLS4RdQ8nP43JxnzE_ZvWE3r3LPKc-7jVFO2UXPswryK9MP41U2iWkr8puiPASP0VgeUwsDlqnmcF5SrBtela6p0BxV7BnqZAZSn779Mg/s1600/IMG_9372.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcXFNPdSPmoDhxejMEdVlvTqPdVN5a6yR5R5qLS4RdQ8nP43JxnzE_ZvWE3r3LPKc-7jVFO2UXPswryK9MP41U2iWkr8puiPASP0VgeUwsDlqnmcF5SrBtela6p0BxV7BnqZAZSn779Mg/s640/IMG_9372.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The former Maidenhead post office, now reduced to an abstract ‘freehold
mixed-use development opportunity’. Why not keep it as a post office? A
characterful old thing like this can make the very act of going to post your
parcels feel like participation in a larger, more meaningful civic exercise,
rather than the drift of a nameless microbe in a wasteland of
values.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPrNcyGh-ent41yfbm_tc_TFx-hrWKOoqzOOFJWZ4JQ_cOWo7Ymp-1IYfODJvM6YJqNzhYEaNwPD7uRKEsadyHmOcLHpFrCLIBdAWpYMks-nxY6j-OjQlNPwJVMlDoXkjtqRAehePik3s/s1600/IMG_9377.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPrNcyGh-ent41yfbm_tc_TFx-hrWKOoqzOOFJWZ4JQ_cOWo7Ymp-1IYfODJvM6YJqNzhYEaNwPD7uRKEsadyHmOcLHpFrCLIBdAWpYMks-nxY6j-OjQlNPwJVMlDoXkjtqRAehePik3s/s400/IMG_9377.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>One of the last surviving icons of historic Maidenhead: the clock tower built
for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee (marking 60 years as monarch) in 1897. This
was not, as its inscription claims, a period ‘unparalleled in progress in all
that makes for the happiness of the human race’, but nor does demolishing such
claims and building shopping centres on top of them represent an improvement. The
tower’s elaborate clocks still function and face the four cardinal directions.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYnPXQo8_kKokLEUUp_-zJ2srS0d_G0ESzuj6qUvNnUAWBskIxQBG_-kBI0_5d4Khctbg8SYKeq0UZbwUqBq2ryQVfa_Mvno9VN-RQbnaHgm8SQn8Za668yr-vJCqB7H6XcYhG-G67Ozc/s1600/IMG_9373.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYnPXQo8_kKokLEUUp_-zJ2srS0d_G0ESzuj6qUvNnUAWBskIxQBG_-kBI0_5d4Khctbg8SYKeq0UZbwUqBq2ryQVfa_Mvno9VN-RQbnaHgm8SQn8Za668yr-vJCqB7H6XcYhG-G67Ozc/s400/IMG_9373.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Maidenhead’s ‘Boy and Boat’ statue. Is that actually a boat, or some
extraterrestrial plasma rifle with which he is threatening the Methodist
church?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today’s
length of river has been a study in English carnivory. If the likes of vampire
hotels and cannibal islands were unnerving, such fanciful teeth have had
nothing on the actual chops that history records to have munched on the people
of this area. They chomped up a school specifically set up for impoverished
children, their saliva corroding it into its opposite: no less than the
foremost international byword for the perils of public-school elitism. They
have descended on a prosperous town chock-full of millennia of heritage, and
even now their cranes and bulldozers gorge splatteringly on its treasures,
leaving behind undigestible deposits that offer its people no nutrients for a
meaningful continuation of their story.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Lest
this appear an unfair blanket observation, let us remember that it does not
reflect them all. From the Maidenhead locals who have worked hard to preserve their
heritage, to the Eton graduates who have chosen better than to use their
education to wreck the country, to look closer is always to spot struggles and
contradictions in stories more complex than they seem. In that spirit, let’s
give the penultimate word today to a man called David Gale, a naval veteran who
grew up in Maidenhead and has latterly reflected on it in his poetry: one taste, out of so many, of what the loss of heritage can do to the
individual soul.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>The
town that I grew up in</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Was
a town that made me proud.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Nestling
gently by the Thames</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Beneath
a golden cloud.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>I
laughed and played and lived each day,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>It
sometimes made me cry.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>But
through the tears and passing years</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>The
river rolled on by.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>(…)</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>We
must have progress so they say,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Knock
down, build something new.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>We
have no say, they have their way,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>We’re
treated as the few.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>This
concrete grey and brick façade,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>With
never a reason why.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>While
the ugly face of progress moves,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>The
river rolls on by.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Buildings
razed to make more space</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Ripping
out the soul.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Removing
every landmark</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Just
leaving a black hole.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>The
town is just a ghost town now,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>You
know I tell no lie.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>New
people will accept the change,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>As
the river rolls on by.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>My
friends, now of a certain age,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Will
not forget the days</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>When
their town meant so much to them</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>In
a thousand different ways.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>These
memories are priceless,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>There’s
no money that can buy</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>The
magic that was MAIDENHEAD,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>With
the river rolling by.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
(from
‘The Jewel of the Thames’, in David Gale: <i>It’s Not Like That Anymore!</i>,
2013-19.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
there too is the last word: the river’s, which very much rolls on by as it has for thousands of years. As with
the Palaeolithic flints and the Roman urns, perhaps it will swallow this
history too if the humans fail to look after it. Then, rather than digest it into
currency like they do, it will yield it to the investigations of a more
responsible future whose people will puzzle over why their ancestors came up
with such destructive education practices, will not change their beliefs just
because those in power do, and will certainly wonder, if nothing else, what the heck these people did on
Headpile Eyot. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_CsIrTGR1aFk8epPzLV-nN08nzXPGF6OjConMqQxpM_CItzRFAG27LScapWjfHIkgnu_LaOcvRhjvzunsY2I8rV_Gju2eOea-U3Sw4FY3b_3NN8BvRna1N17oH5qlemuy5ZFJOoySuzg/s1600/IMG_9341.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_CsIrTGR1aFk8epPzLV-nN08nzXPGF6OjConMqQxpM_CItzRFAG27LScapWjfHIkgnu_LaOcvRhjvzunsY2I8rV_Gju2eOea-U3Sw4FY3b_3NN8BvRna1N17oH5qlemuy5ZFJOoySuzg/s640/IMG_9341.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i> </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Special
thanks to the <u><a href="https://maidenheadheritage.org.uk/">Maidenhead
Heritage Centre</a></u> for much information and insight that went into this section.</i></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Eton, Windsor SL4, UK51.487402 -0.6079419999999851.477514500000005 -0.62811199999998 51.4972895 -0.58777199999998tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-39493568715550692202020-01-31T14:50:00.000+00:002020-01-31T14:50:23.510+00:00THAMES: 6) Curse of the Magna Carta<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Once
upon a time two reptiles sat by the river. One was a lizard which could open
great frills around its head to appear much larger than it was. The other was a
chameleon, constantly changing its colours to match its surroundings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
So
might have opened Rudyard Kipling, the poet of empire, who had quite a fondness
for animal fables. Instead, when he made his contribution to the legend of
the riverbanks ahead in 1922, his preferred imagery was less animal, more anim<i>ist</i>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>And
still when Mob or Monarch lays</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>Too
rude a hand on English ways</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>The
whisper wakes, the shudder plays</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>Across the reeds at Runnymede.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
To
which we might reply: well go on then?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiFviGzp0QdbkCVSQ0FR6M5D0VCI-ve-d-YOxeQH71iyJDQIZgkc1OISasXEKumyGUTwYhayvZKJamHjLSeDUyx88260BK3-uT0Es6V08icy922vXskfd3tdVODuNsuVtW4oe7BYIgC0/s1600/IMG_9118.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiFviGzp0QdbkCVSQ0FR6M5D0VCI-ve-d-YOxeQH71iyJDQIZgkc1OISasXEKumyGUTwYhayvZKJamHjLSeDUyx88260BK3-uT0Es6V08icy922vXskfd3tdVODuNsuVtW4oe7BYIgC0/s640/IMG_9118.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Runnymede. Lots of mud, but no shudder. Was Kipling’s idea of <i>English ways</i>
the same as the Thames’s?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Seventy-five
years later, in 1997, I arrived to find an England rapt in triumphalist swagger. The
Soviet Union had fallen. A fresh-faced Tony Blair had just swept to power. They
had won. Their stories had won.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had
<i>won history</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
To
any suggestion that this country had serious problems, let alone that it was
not as free and democratic as it claimed to be, the standard response was
mocking hostility. The scorn for dissent and difference here alienated me even
before its deeper structural cruelties, especially of gender, made that
alienation catastrophic over the years to follow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
then that history burst from the grave and clamped its bloodied hands round
their necks on 9/11. Real history had kept going, indifferent to their myths,
and in their reverie it totally blindsided them. It then unleased two of the
most distressing episodes in England’s modern history, and these, at last, have
shaken the general population’s confidence to its roots. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
One
was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. No-one who lived through that here will have
forgotten the ugliness it brought down on the English social atmosphere (which
nevertheless pales before what it did to Iraqis). The other is the unfinished Brexit-austerity-racism
nightmare of the 2010s, whose most potent symbol is the blistering eruption of <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-grenfell-tower-disaster-noble-idea.html">Grenfell
Tower</a></u>, a funeral pyre of something which, for its absence, the English
psyche now unravels. The least that can be said coming out of these bloodbaths is
that the gulf between England’s self-congratulatory myth of democracy and human
rights on the one hand, and its inveterate tendencies to casual and mean-spirited
violence on the other, appears to trouble far more of its people than
it did at the turn of the millennium.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9KiCwS0oH0cOE3q9u9wMBDqZgzZiFOiLRnwgpT1DhTLcUf732mrvGyjqcubINyN9NnsEHKl8ixo19xCCcFUu0p1ydS3wmFc4Y4dgFeDoNHRfoe_ZLLx-MDPMvvQJ8uUWdxe5wXV5DsX4/s1600/IMG_9037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9KiCwS0oH0cOE3q9u9wMBDqZgzZiFOiLRnwgpT1DhTLcUf732mrvGyjqcubINyN9NnsEHKl8ixo19xCCcFUu0p1ydS3wmFc4Y4dgFeDoNHRfoe_ZLLx-MDPMvvQJ8uUWdxe5wXV5DsX4/s400/IMG_9037.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>North from Staines Bridge to a land of legends. How much has this view changed
in those twenty years? How much in eight hundred?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
I
didn’t have to wait twenty years for that. In 1997 my instruction in the gap between myth and reality was immediate, traumatic,
and lasting. Entering an English boys’ school brought me in contact not with
accountable leaders but a bristling-moustached, foam-at-the-mouth adult
authoritarianism the likes of whose bellowing arrogance I had never encountered, even in a far less likely bastion of democracy, <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/06/my-hong-kong-story.html">colonial
Hong Kong</a></u>. And the pupils, far from being a courteous and enlightened
citizenry that knew its way round a social contract, exhibited instead a barbarism
that was hysterical, violent and sometimes plain racist, eagerly following
their scripts in that divine-right-of-adults diorama. If it was all to meld
into a single message, it would have been this: <i>We are a democracy, so STFU</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In that shock and turmoil one image has never left my memory. The back wall of the history classroom, packed floor to ceiling with
parchments. Each was brown with a red wax seal, and though the handwriting varied,
each’s text began, in huge capital letters, with the words: ‘JOHN, BY THE GRACE
OF GOD, KING OF ENGLAND…’ before the text size diminished to illegibility.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
English
history was a morass to me. I had had next to no exposure to it and its
contents were totally foreign. Kings with weird numbers after their names
instead of Chris Patten; cryptic symbols everywhere like lions (but they don’t
have any?) and <i>fleur-de-lis</i> (but they don’t like France?); important
people named after places they had nothing to do with and weren’t pronounced
how they were spelt, and endless random wars for no sensible reason. I went by
the English name John then – were those suspicious documents directed at me?
What would I want with the grace of their god? My history teacher’s name was
also John. Was this about plastering his authority all over the wall, revering
him as no less than their king?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
That
wall of charters, unexplained and ever-present, loomed over two years of
English history lessons which, for lack of foundation and context, left me lost
at sea. It was only much later that I pieced together what it was about. It was
what they had studied the previous year, which I had missed on the other side
of the world. It was the foundation. And the foundation revolved around a
single document, one they deemed so important that they got each boy to
re-create his own, dunk it in some yellowy-brown chemical to
make it look historic, then hoist it high with the others so as to dominate the
visual experience of the history classroom through all the centuries of
material that followed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Eventually
I managed to put a name to it. <b><i>Magna Carta</i></b>. In English
imagination, possibly the greatest story of all – the key word, of course,
being <i>imagination</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeGnJZm6tgnF49y7Rc6wr0ChAd1IlGw7mlXZw1uFoRiGC-yn_0d8TNa5e1PyY0R7suSq3726hC7L9YFZepLeAx_rkDuXLR-gWc62ydRl7-G9WV3JLde1khYfXQCbjoIIZoKmxWG2Jm-tQ/s1600/IMG_9098.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeGnJZm6tgnF49y7Rc6wr0ChAd1IlGw7mlXZw1uFoRiGC-yn_0d8TNa5e1PyY0R7suSq3726hC7L9YFZepLeAx_rkDuXLR-gWc62ydRl7-G9WV3JLde1khYfXQCbjoIIZoKmxWG2Jm-tQ/s400/IMG_9098.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The Magna Carta Memorial at Runnymede.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
There
are facts, and there is myth. Both matter in history. In this particular
history, the myth has mattered a hundred times more.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But charters are made of
paper, and paper, real or mythic, has two sides. The English’s claims to democracy
and rule of law are writ on the sunlit side. How often do they look on the
shadowed side? They do not – because it screams. It screams a racial
exceptionalism which wetted the chops of undying English authoritarianism and
drove it on a genocidal rampage across the Earth. They do not look, because it
still burns their eyes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Oh
yes. Today’s journey through the meadows where Magna Carta was verbally agreed
(not signed – signatures as a binding instrument came much later) shall not be
the same pilgrimage made by a neverending crocodile of approved storytellers,
excited lawyers and awestruck schoolchildren. My path is the dark path and here
it leads through the underworld. Come, if you dare face a reckoning with the
Runnymede Horror. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2fZepfkzNI0rBlMpacQjx8lQ8FmVq8V5WtSdwMLJggMDLlE7VdvH1asT6yA3ayqpX4_6b0waj6YSLocvQ8-KlbgMcH_5zX1qt2D9gddhWub5sS_q5LWCT9W0InxK1M2OB0OUfsbMN7Cg/s1600/IMG_9036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2fZepfkzNI0rBlMpacQjx8lQ8FmVq8V5WtSdwMLJggMDLlE7VdvH1asT6yA3ayqpX4_6b0waj6YSLocvQ8-KlbgMcH_5zX1qt2D9gddhWub5sS_q5LWCT9W0InxK1M2OB0OUfsbMN7Cg/s640/IMG_9036.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Staines Bridge in the light of an especially cold winter morning. Staines’s
significance as a ford town as <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-5-cross-purposes.html">explored
in the previous section</a></u> will be of continued importance.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMq8ZPKx7zAL7PZf42imJzRL4iBwUoMeURGs4bWFtJluwMYa7-E16VMRfmpgo5SQS1VVYQQIVL6pa0r-D32qccBnIzHyaivNptJLlQUmXOewn-punlDDaHyqXJHJMdxyRtjehZYUM1kUI/s1600/IMG_9189.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMq8ZPKx7zAL7PZf42imJzRL4iBwUoMeURGs4bWFtJluwMYa7-E16VMRfmpgo5SQS1VVYQQIVL6pa0r-D32qccBnIzHyaivNptJLlQUmXOewn-punlDDaHyqXJHJMdxyRtjehZYUM1kUI/s640/IMG_9189.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Oh, and there is also a great big fortress called Windsor Castle. That might be
important.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUkkZYvgG0QEcdV5AWDEFbFoZsZcndRh6B81rtWbBUsMkfc1P5t_MCAr7pwDMOkGYxOMbW4iQX4MmBeSI-4vmoO4Sf9iNGdnPiZbWKrHas5jO4wreiqVNGi0O85XEEAoudxQco1tvu62U/s1600/6%2529+Staines+to+Windsor.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1043" data-original-width="1600" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUkkZYvgG0QEcdV5AWDEFbFoZsZcndRh6B81rtWbBUsMkfc1P5t_MCAr7pwDMOkGYxOMbW4iQX4MmBeSI-4vmoO4Sf9iNGdnPiZbWKrHas5jO4wreiqVNGi0O85XEEAoudxQco1tvu62U/s640/6%2529+Staines+to+Windsor.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Start:</b>
Staines Bridge (<i>nearest station: Staines</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>End:</b>
Windsor Bridge (<i>nearest stations: Windsor and Eton Riverside; Windsor and
Eton Central</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Length:
12km/7.5 miles</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Location:
Surrey – Borough of Runnymede; Berkshire – Royal Borough of Windsor and
Maidenhead</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<u>Topics</u>:
<b>The Magna Carta</b> – history and mythology in <b>Runnymede</b> and <b>Dark
Runnymede</b>; Old Windsor, Datchet, <b>Windsor Castle</b>, the <b>Charter of the Forest</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Runnymede</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Runnymede
lies across Staines Bridge. Eight hundred years ago a party of barons, armed to the teeth, went this way too. Look again at
the map: a battlefield waiting to happen. Starting positions: the monarchy at
Windsor, the rebel barons at Staines. Runnymede is in the middle.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4U-g900fNu3NfrM-xnnfc5o9qy63wLXME0qSi-RXt_uhH3R6EHWlj-mRNz4kD4_VSM-JXrUhHQkakGB-Uj_qCG91J4NSx2EXK4ESWLJwtSAw59zRS4PD4wrR_euUIgtRztp01yEjlP6E/s1600/IMG_9039.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4U-g900fNu3NfrM-xnnfc5o9qy63wLXME0qSi-RXt_uhH3R6EHWlj-mRNz4kD4_VSM-JXrUhHQkakGB-Uj_qCG91J4NSx2EXK4ESWLJwtSAw59zRS4PD4wrR_euUIgtRztp01yEjlP6E/s400/IMG_9039.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The towpath across Staines Bridge, following its south bank towards Runnymede.
The central houses are on Church Island, a candidate for the location of some
of Staines’s original Roman bridges.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHIIe8oVgS6UuZCj6hx3TeBSqujOp4sxZSMUEMzAmgSg75BcKxOFvJlKnplcYp_plQ-edbnd3iekM7POQePLRWMCFwFyqxlT7roJlTfZRlE_MS1PhkpX5BK5V9QFG5w3_EsT4v7MlvPWg/s1600/IMG_9045.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHIIe8oVgS6UuZCj6hx3TeBSqujOp4sxZSMUEMzAmgSg75BcKxOFvJlKnplcYp_plQ-edbnd3iekM7POQePLRWMCFwFyqxlT7roJlTfZRlE_MS1PhkpX5BK5V9QFG5w3_EsT4v7MlvPWg/s400/IMG_9045.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The river is not in a good mood today. The flow is high and unsettlingly fast. Swans
alight on the water and zoom beneath Staines Bridge just by sitting still.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisQ2BQA1HZBavF27aayB6KB3chVDNfpM1Vg4gM4BinnygBBhTPNqbvT5bm0v7_hA2szQDUcpa3uXoG9SN5qYibCIOSipV5ecJyAMVVsJyC89S475KUNQOnk7L3rZxlXWK0Mg95hrLqrZI/s1600/IMG_9044.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisQ2BQA1HZBavF27aayB6KB3chVDNfpM1Vg4gM4BinnygBBhTPNqbvT5bm0v7_hA2szQDUcpa3uXoG9SN5qYibCIOSipV5ecJyAMVVsJyC89S475KUNQOnk7L3rZxlXWK0Mg95hrLqrZI/s400/IMG_9044.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>They have built houses where they can, but increasingly now the riverbanks are
yielded to the bush.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Let’s
have the facts first. The central figure in the Magna Carta story is <b>King
John</b> (1166-1216), third in the Plantagenet Dynasty, specifically its
Angevin line. <i>Angevin</i> means from Anjou and reminds us that this was not
yet England the <i>island country</i>. At this stage it was a shambolic
territory sprawled across half of both what is now Britain and what is now
France, an unresolved product of the succession crises and power struggles that
had plunged the realm of the Norman conquest into strife.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
So
we can dispense straight away with the idea of Magna Carta as a confrontation
to established autocracy. The Plantagenet kings were murderous authoritarians
but their authority was nascent, thrashing, threatened and oftentimes desperate,
not some state-of-nature tyranny come rearing out of prehistoric ooze. It was
constrained by the realities of controlling a turbulent realm of shifting
borders, seething duchies and chiefdoms out for pieces of one another, and the
regular flash of daggers in the dark. Political Christianity was a
further constraint, not only in the moral dimensions of the king’s mandate but
in the concrete power it gave a foreign leader, the Pope, to interfere with
English life in a parallel structure that would exasperate the monarchs here again
and again till it was brought down by Henry VIII’s wrecking ball.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
would-be polity’s glue was not any kind of national consciousness such that
exists in today’s world, but rather a network of hard-headed give-and-take
feudal relationships. The only way for a king to maintain a semblance of
central authority in that world was through deals and compromises with the
barons and priests who actually controlled (and quite often, oppressed) people by collecting their taxes, running their courts, filling them with
fear of God instead of the king and arming them to fight for – or when their
mood changed, against – the monarch’s behalf. The Magna Carta was not the first
of these deals and it certainly would not be the last.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh3tRGPoM_l9kfyf0OoOwUS62ufftei3sjpixHt3XoIGdi_epnLQZm8ar2OixUe0MeTuuOoOM12aJP0yiypb_RsOrv5-iK9QE9656415_gK0qHgqyQjwVpZqDuMT_TOzlYSrqnmb7g69o/s1600/IMG_9043.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh3tRGPoM_l9kfyf0OoOwUS62ufftei3sjpixHt3XoIGdi_epnLQZm8ar2OixUe0MeTuuOoOM12aJP0yiypb_RsOrv5-iK9QE9656415_gK0qHgqyQjwVpZqDuMT_TOzlYSrqnmb7g69o/s400/IMG_9043.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Another in the series of blatantly haunted houses, with the usual hasty attempt
to disguise it with palm trees. The river is having none of it and wants to flood
its sofas and grisly experiments.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ5xM_v9KvM51x1tcql8IeerVAyaU6ADl5kJ2wxTrE3DDgcJe-3cxK4fmsgpdMPJtQ-ca5p5DuXD05Uy_ofD9wKdJSHrcwpWco_lSBMv57emiJmPENRupbvUpMPcvR0a9xEP8NxZSBZN0/s1600/IMG_9046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ5xM_v9KvM51x1tcql8IeerVAyaU6ADl5kJ2wxTrE3DDgcJe-3cxK4fmsgpdMPJtQ-ca5p5DuXD05Uy_ofD9wKdJSHrcwpWco_lSBMv57emiJmPENRupbvUpMPcvR0a9xEP8NxZSBZN0/s400/IMG_9046.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Whereas this one looks like it’s got thrusters underneath and takes off three
times a week to dock with its private space station.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
was the world of King John, who the English storytellers, so reverently
awestruck by other authoritarians like Henry VIII, sneer at with a singular
disdain. John appears to have crossed some unspoken line by being not only
authoritarian but bad at it, so irredeemably so that he forfeits even that
precious number after his name (seriously – hardly any English or British
royals have named their heirs John in the 800 years since because of him). No
offence of John’s was more symbolic than his loss of the part of Europe that
had bound the English territorial destiny to it in the first place, Normandy,
setting off a two-and-a-half-century agony in which they would lose the rest of
their continental territory, and that destiny with it, piece by piece to the
rising kingdom of France – thus leaving them to chase after a new vision instead:
the <i>island country</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
By most
accounts John was also simply abusive, spiteful, incompetent and bewilderingly
petty. He is said to have seized land and property and extorted money from his
subjects with wanton brazenness, driving them into debt then blackmailing them,
taking their relatives hostage, obsessively ruining or imprisoning anyone who
got in his way; goaded the Pope into excommunicating him and putting humiliating
religious restrictions on the English faithful; made arbitrary and sometimes downright
vengeful misuse of the justice system; personally murdered his nephew Arthur
and dumped his body in the Seine; and of course, raised huge taxes and armies to
pour down the drain of the wars in France he kept losing. Their favourite
anecdote of all is that he insulted the Irish kings by tugging on their long
beards while roaring with laughter (which sadly turned out one of the least of
the wrong things the English would do in that country). It is very difficult now
to draw the line between fact and embellishment in this sorry catalogue,
but what mattered, in short, is that John behaved such as to alienate every
group of people he relied on for effective rule.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWqm1S7HRuSQV3pxq7F4KWU0Pn9ACDhQcIkM-d3m4gvkkoeQsCyMo_IHdS-yRNYEfnNBuvgs-orJ4CpdwgLz56NZ6clm7r6tsvLvLeWx9UZqLfhpq3b4hpTJ4RpT0AJby_elRx_PqIqBQ/s1600/IMG_9047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWqm1S7HRuSQV3pxq7F4KWU0Pn9ACDhQcIkM-d3m4gvkkoeQsCyMo_IHdS-yRNYEfnNBuvgs-orJ4CpdwgLz56NZ6clm7r6tsvLvLeWx9UZqLfhpq3b4hpTJ4RpT0AJby_elRx_PqIqBQ/s400/IMG_9047.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>You wouldn’t get very far trying to boat up here in these conditions. These
reaches are also bathed in the regular roar of low-flying aircraft taking off
from Heathrow Airport to the east.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8E6uiA1WYVqRVqcbDOIQhHfO6f9-jKhJ0XKx99gakv1bgXho6H9PFzraB0aJ7TFciAAGQzpZtHR5AjXud_zo3mgKpCO35ACPTg3L-IP7uiJ05IgWntA-XWBOKcyX7ctkgEa9YQYa-B4o/s1600/IMG_9049.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8E6uiA1WYVqRVqcbDOIQhHfO6f9-jKhJ0XKx99gakv1bgXho6H9PFzraB0aJ7TFciAAGQzpZtHR5AjXud_zo3mgKpCO35ACPTg3L-IP7uiJ05IgWntA-XWBOKcyX7ctkgEa9YQYa-B4o/s400/IMG_9049.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>This is probably the remains of whatever monument the barons saved their game
at before confronting John.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9mPD7QYo2hM65_WU9SeuD_59yu6JOfcpZjRnCK_LZXL5zmnWguUOfU5m1-VGxZrEOa5LJlFp3Vsy_xwRqHvK78zmMK-r2O2B4AP6aVTp79C5GMZ-s4RG1PrkD09ShXsKZhd9vKlS8dxE/s1600/IMG_9050.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9mPD7QYo2hM65_WU9SeuD_59yu6JOfcpZjRnCK_LZXL5zmnWguUOfU5m1-VGxZrEOa5LJlFp3Vsy_xwRqHvK78zmMK-r2O2B4AP6aVTp79C5GMZ-s4RG1PrkD09ShXsKZhd9vKlS8dxE/s400/IMG_9050.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>People with extensive outdoor experience will tell you that lichens have a
tremendous amount to say about their environment. This species only flourishes
in air breathed by people who claim they have better rule of law than they
actually do.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
By
the time John lost Normandy in 1214 the barons had had enough and organised a
rebellion. In April 1215 they went for it, seizing several major cities
including London. John and his staff escaped upriver to Windsor Castle. The
barons followed him up and camped at Staines. In a foreshadowing of the great
civil wars five centuries later, the barons, like the later parliament, presented
themselves not as rebels but defenders of the true English order, based on
supposed finest Anglo-Saxon traditions in which the king was bound by rules of
good conduct. In the later round Charles I would say no and raise an army, but
John had exhausted his money, arms and authority with his misadventures in
France and was left in no position to do so. With no choice but to hear the
barons out, he agreed to meet them at <b>Runnymede</b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh84wr-5yfom-3jYu_rEBd0tQGTgJOIKj6RPmIeFLdM3YabNRJ0Ruyhl9_eyLbPZRcfst_m5nvsQBo2-4RAqo0LwCY5rPplRXpL0GPiD_-mhl3cXdcEkpVO3KLJ_kiTptpO1heo-n2ksVU/s1600/IMG_9056.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh84wr-5yfom-3jYu_rEBd0tQGTgJOIKj6RPmIeFLdM3YabNRJ0Ruyhl9_eyLbPZRcfst_m5nvsQBo2-4RAqo0LwCY5rPplRXpL0GPiD_-mhl3cXdcEkpVO3KLJ_kiTptpO1heo-n2ksVU/s400/IMG_9056.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A grand old willow offers a sense of how fast the water is running. Perhaps
John would have tugged on this too.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE9JJqjq2DPZ36oC11c2GHJmF9B0J0SZbQqnIexKIrGvOSMEBWcftttq9RUZNc8Nma7cCMcpqOq1384BtJg1GKkUuksCg32tL4rM1w1tm4cY17XuFRQBSBC1KBxqovYcVolaOAsGvDiDs/s1600/IMG_9059.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE9JJqjq2DPZ36oC11c2GHJmF9B0J0SZbQqnIexKIrGvOSMEBWcftttq9RUZNc8Nma7cCMcpqOq1384BtJg1GKkUuksCg32tL4rM1w1tm4cY17XuFRQBSBC1KBxqovYcVolaOAsGvDiDs/s400/IMG_9059.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The final symbolic threshold of London’s sphere of influence: the London
Orbital Motorway, better known as the M25. Opened in stages in the 1970s-80s,
it is interesting how it too has been drawn towards the old crossing of Staines
in its choice of where to cross the river. The M25 is an onerous presence in
the mythology of modern London – Iain Sinclair’s psychogeographic walking
journey around it in <u><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/118186.London_Orbital"><i>London Orbital</i></a></u>
(2003) is worth consideration.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbvNm444bXSG3zDfexas1XqeuirroHpQvLj4Gvvd5ZZTizvMFHzbOWXHTjkXLhTotuCBcqDcXkLcDXBqE5JEn1RwDjuiea9bHrbHN4elqFJInyHChIKpbZuTf0D-3rZZ32kYD5lKycdSs/s1600/IMG_9061.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbvNm444bXSG3zDfexas1XqeuirroHpQvLj4Gvvd5ZZTizvMFHzbOWXHTjkXLhTotuCBcqDcXkLcDXBqE5JEn1RwDjuiea9bHrbHN4elqFJInyHChIKpbZuTf0D-3rZZ32kYD5lKycdSs/s400/IMG_9061.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The M25 bridge is actually two bridges. The red-brick original appeared in 1961
to carry the humbler A30 Staines Bypass but its design goes back to the
renowned Edwin Lutyens in the 1930s, who took great care to give it a dignified
appearance because of Runnymede. Then it got absorbed into the motorway and
they widened it with this random concrete <i>thing</i>.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
At
Bell Weir and Lock, built in 1818 and named after weir keeper and innkeeper
Charles Bell, the legacy of John’s meeting with the barons begins its takeover
of the scenery.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOmLhSGCjidtmvR1FpDnhmVSgw7pB6V0t41BLS37S9bLTQmOFscmhtVGGEiEwxgfFWPV2b4hgioa2ft3t2xNc766Z9TWCSjWnB8r2HaGHhV3gHvdM0mE31WiZvR1o3v3fEmzNdxflFHB8/s1600/IMG_9063.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOmLhSGCjidtmvR1FpDnhmVSgw7pB6V0t41BLS37S9bLTQmOFscmhtVGGEiEwxgfFWPV2b4hgioa2ft3t2xNc766Z9TWCSjWnB8r2HaGHhV3gHvdM0mE31WiZvR1o3v3fEmzNdxflFHB8/s400/IMG_9063.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The Runnymede Hotel beside this lock supposedly descends from Charlie Bell’s
original inn.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3os12zyhVFZ-iXqIy-YS_yGhIXofa8lO6lg62ADXfud7yVczEsfjiO3fk5zjyQUp_JXz3dnw24MV2-JwtVzOZ-9qaW0dufi4KbEZUDvTluYjT0bkM1bO4vMy9cYtLuXI2uvrObtiZLg/s1600/IMG_9064.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3os12zyhVFZ-iXqIy-YS_yGhIXofa8lO6lg62ADXfud7yVczEsfjiO3fk5zjyQUp_JXz3dnw24MV2-JwtVzOZ-9qaW0dufi4KbEZUDvTluYjT0bkM1bO4vMy9cYtLuXI2uvrObtiZLg/s400/IMG_9064.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And then it begins. From here keeping history and mythology apart will be
impossible.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMd3fuVb1xdUAuI7tWs02G8gJ1hsbcIfFp-pn2URg8kobEi9cM5rtjItFB5scvtkRo1Gtrb3qdiTyFMfMpTiRHTTebjMqID8r0j2vIdKwzZrIjE8qHhxbQPoQWMRCwHVQYoynMkJw2xkA/s1600/IMG_9065.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMd3fuVb1xdUAuI7tWs02G8gJ1hsbcIfFp-pn2URg8kobEi9cM5rtjItFB5scvtkRo1Gtrb3qdiTyFMfMpTiRHTTebjMqID8r0j2vIdKwzZrIjE8qHhxbQPoQWMRCwHVQYoynMkJw2xkA/s400/IMG_9065.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>‘To no-one will we sell, to no-one deny or delay right or justice.’ Except for Welsh,
Scots, Irish, poor people, women, political dissidents, victims of sexual
violence, Jews, Catholics, Protestant nonconformists, enslaved people, peasants
thrown off their land trying to get their commons back, industrial workers,
Indians, Africans, indigenous Americans and Australians, prisoners,
conscientious objectors, people of non-normative sexualities, civilian victims
of RAF bombing, Chagos Islanders, Muslims, disabled people, homeless people, autistic
people, protesters, environmental activists, refugees, Jo Cox, Yemenis, the <i>Windrush</i>
generation, the residents of Grenfell Tower, and children killed by relatives
of American diplomats who drive on the wrong side of the road.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGkwH0GkcMjksJ_X5gF8jlLY4yCNmbJtkMkvLxdYb6F28dq9f1iURYmIfA8lKQM4qKBw1rZx_oGGPkcxb_LpXPT1i753Pby6Y32xWdxPamIyPNDtg1yEBdz_xsKI6dcSgOFTRzPUFJ57M/s1600/IMG_9066.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGkwH0GkcMjksJ_X5gF8jlLY4yCNmbJtkMkvLxdYb6F28dq9f1iURYmIfA8lKQM4qKBw1rZx_oGGPkcxb_LpXPT1i753Pby6Y32xWdxPamIyPNDtg1yEBdz_xsKI6dcSgOFTRzPUFJ57M/s400/IMG_9066.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><td class="tr-caption"><b>But now there’s no stopping them.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
By
this lock an information board declares that ‘a stone’s throw from here is a
place symbolic of freedom and liberty’. This is broadly correct if one
emphasises the key word <i>symbolic</i>. It then goes on to state the Magna
Carta ‘gave legal rights to all – the first English constitution’, and this is
plain mistaken. In a single paragraph the fact of Magna Carta is conflated with
the myth of Magna Carta. As on this signboard, so in popular consciousness.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0J_ddI4zCUZqWJLhahwHDXT6dHDjsgGrgzPl72X9WQPj5Yh3R26A3hyfWsGI68KirZMQ7wYXAeu_sc2Ygyxx2JgWq8Wb-BQ8mhEbBKZZIGz1gEmwbw36hwOIdJfX3ZGn_qm9N4q_9B9c/s1600/IMG_9071.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0J_ddI4zCUZqWJLhahwHDXT6dHDjsgGrgzPl72X9WQPj5Yh3R26A3hyfWsGI68KirZMQ7wYXAeu_sc2Ygyxx2JgWq8Wb-BQ8mhEbBKZZIGz1gEmwbw36hwOIdJfX3ZGn_qm9N4q_9B9c/s400/IMG_9071.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This imposing pile looks out beyond the lock and weir. It is not labelled on
maps and I have no idea what it is. It probably once had a river-based working
function that has since been taken over for unaffordable private housing.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiML7qFhHzVs1Rr9dp8tOtIU8jN7ZWwNF7qUfaEz8o2FW9YjaH-AV7QxZRX12_Vs2zsWHNfeOgZJXFlbvt1O6RDYcnn6jErrDXk2h2UuDH7gOuFVcK1QedEcewUkSq5_P3bLRIvgHrLoOU/s1600/IMG_9073.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiML7qFhHzVs1Rr9dp8tOtIU8jN7ZWwNF7qUfaEz8o2FW9YjaH-AV7QxZRX12_Vs2zsWHNfeOgZJXFlbvt1O6RDYcnn6jErrDXk2h2UuDH7gOuFVcK1QedEcewUkSq5_P3bLRIvgHrLoOU/s400/IMG_9073.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This looks like a Future Plant, which actually exists fifty years later and
takes on colours and shapes that reflect the environment of that time. It lets
us infer that if the present timeline continues as it is, this will be a
scorched and smouldering wasteland in 2070.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilY84K6QrzYQ7mGUzcw6vSjc6E9WJ9vNo3p8sUzHAa_c8jP_upB-rU7VEG8W_lJ74OhACLxz8VQR7AbT7UltPXCHQ9_1Z6raJdJpE8S3-ocMXKJxsc3aNF5nswbNQjQB3BwZqe4bT1mwQ/s1600/IMG_9074.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilY84K6QrzYQ7mGUzcw6vSjc6E9WJ9vNo3p8sUzHAa_c8jP_upB-rU7VEG8W_lJ74OhACLxz8VQR7AbT7UltPXCHQ9_1Z6raJdJpE8S3-ocMXKJxsc3aNF5nswbNQjQB3BwZqe4bT1mwQ/s400/IMG_9074.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Monied riverside houses and boatyards return to line the approach to
Runnymede.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgopygOFQQKH9TZCYxCI08qw2k3Sh29dEC-AHbtKM1F4RP8y60zsUQRqQccPXELIdpC6eD2qs0xenPDXvhyphenhyphenwFLLL8GWjpGm0d9qr-CRuvA9iVbAKvu8lw4V-ygBOmtYQHpWkifFLgeNeek/s1600/IMG_9079.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgopygOFQQKH9TZCYxCI08qw2k3Sh29dEC-AHbtKM1F4RP8y60zsUQRqQccPXELIdpC6eD2qs0xenPDXvhyphenhyphenwFLLL8GWjpGm0d9qr-CRuvA9iVbAKvu8lw4V-ygBOmtYQHpWkifFLgeNeek/s640/IMG_9079.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>We are being watched. Though Runnymede draws its share of pilgrims, the
incursion of more critically-minded strangers here provokes puzzled expressions.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
last thing before Runnymede is a curvy meander occupied by the pleasure grounds
of <b>Egham</b>, an old agricultural hamlet whose name comes from <i>Ecga’s
farm</i> and which likely grew up as a satellite of Staines. </div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl8De52LqxFWUuyPliDnNBjAkV3x2UHVIcvUKZ4QbKrsqCSPQoyRkYz7GXzOlx2wq2m91IXbOrVFRgZBTJwAZXf4-TzdBwo49DBvbeOuohURnenw2VHh_-FN5QyaU_NiM9iMYkAhLL9Gg/s1600/IMG_9081.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl8De52LqxFWUuyPliDnNBjAkV3x2UHVIcvUKZ4QbKrsqCSPQoyRkYz7GXzOlx2wq2m91IXbOrVFRgZBTJwAZXf4-TzdBwo49DBvbeOuohURnenw2VHh_-FN5QyaU_NiM9iMYkAhLL9Gg/s400/IMG_9081.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>I know this place from <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">punting</a></u>
days. It was and perhaps still is the setting of two annual regattas, one of <i>Egham</i>
and the other of <i>Wraysbury</i> whose Skiff and Punting Club is also here.
Some of its competitors were nigh-unbeatable automatons, which together with the
arrangement of the course along the curving river bend made this one of the
toughest punt racing venues.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRJoCXCy1O4ERE1Yzhm3-e6xhRLO5Z8hXlMCxBuRPwodpouNg3FXVVRY8W1wA8uGRv758ThCMcN3bizUNW_ZJAPcN4dvQoWLDiPsIIcm6PbPRbakLUv8JxiL-d6Gt-DM6sHUC1OFf8G54/s1600/IMG_9083.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRJoCXCy1O4ERE1Yzhm3-e6xhRLO5Z8hXlMCxBuRPwodpouNg3FXVVRY8W1wA8uGRv758ThCMcN3bizUNW_ZJAPcN4dvQoWLDiPsIIcm6PbPRbakLUv8JxiL-d6Gt-DM6sHUC1OFf8G54/s400/IMG_9083.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Some celebrity looks on past the bend to where Runnymede begins.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrFk7eNDvkry9w1_aFVMZKSXSwdx2_rtTQ8NcEJalpX7nz90s-paHIrGO5rYA7PTLL-kPCyxrFJsnu3nBTtHWzExZ9R5Z2x4GCv6MwhnLHCSgqvJeRSn15EnKmo1fYLw6PCL1mjkHlUg/s1600/IMG_9085.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrFk7eNDvkry9w1_aFVMZKSXSwdx2_rtTQ8NcEJalpX7nz90s-paHIrGO5rYA7PTLL-kPCyxrFJsnu3nBTtHWzExZ9R5Z2x4GCv6MwhnLHCSgqvJeRSn15EnKmo1fYLw6PCL1mjkHlUg/s400/IMG_9085.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The base of this sculpture is a monument to the Magna Carta in its own right.
This is perhaps the most famous clause from the charter. The claim that it
remains in English statute is broadly true.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ4-boP-3jam4ON8UxxKkcDspnhvV2ZTsnDeGicbgGXLASgyUqOjrmV5LBuW5zHr-5tuy84BkhirCDOmDVB0-Ia0BC1pTMH9115yAvC2ad6gmRfTdA2LMx6-ZLzJQqOxRmBfHiRTVzqew/s1600/IMG_9086.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ4-boP-3jam4ON8UxxKkcDspnhvV2ZTsnDeGicbgGXLASgyUqOjrmV5LBuW5zHr-5tuy84BkhirCDOmDVB0-Ia0BC1pTMH9115yAvC2ad6gmRfTdA2LMx6-ZLzJQqOxRmBfHiRTVzqew/s400/IMG_9086.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>But the claim that it makes Runnymede ‘the birthplace of freedom’ is – to put
it gently – hyperbolic.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSsI5NxVUGwx32iaLMdo9aGF_VM_lh4lio5K944qB9m1iVDPQyaTPCExJM6FuAhu64YdMueyq7Qwqh43SlgKeDC8xuL40f7qEWuMQ4ylgnmYst7T_adA1znl79ADFLd83x3J-EBLBRs0s/s1600/IMG_9088.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSsI5NxVUGwx32iaLMdo9aGF_VM_lh4lio5K944qB9m1iVDPQyaTPCExJM6FuAhu64YdMueyq7Qwqh43SlgKeDC8xuL40f7qEWuMQ4ylgnmYst7T_adA1znl79ADFLd83x3J-EBLBRs0s/s640/IMG_9088.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>They are relentless.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Why,
then, Runnymede? The name has an almost onomatopoeic quality – the river at its
centre, dribbling, bubbling, clear and gentle over grass beneath puffy clouds
in a bright blue sky. Birds chirp; the wind rustles in the trees; it is natural,
rural, a place of safety that keeps its peace while the politics of the world
roil outside it. A perfect instance, in other words, of the ‘green and pleasant
land’ that so emotively reverberates in the English self-imagination. When they
sing <i>Jerusalem</i> at the start of international cricket matches, is it
Runnymede that takes shape in their minds?
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs8HFt7SFlghAmO3QlEAz2oCibDs7NHX4P1KPtd_vUsJuztSkMNcrJRetTyg2taq1IUEuXdlnKcImqFnfE4HnD6sdVJ_DjN4jQYYk2ZkdnMy02jrYheWbCTyKhCiXgIAsNczRu4mJqVvA/s1600/IMG_9089.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs8HFt7SFlghAmO3QlEAz2oCibDs7NHX4P1KPtd_vUsJuztSkMNcrJRetTyg2taq1IUEuXdlnKcImqFnfE4HnD6sdVJ_DjN4jQYYk2ZkdnMy02jrYheWbCTyKhCiXgIAsNczRu4mJqVvA/s400/IMG_9089.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Surprisingly the actual Runnymede does contain a lot of those ingredients.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkV9MG-dZfTBzLHL42rusGacvwVNs6at2stWC1ccQraa5WyV4vwLxkUa_VvC6U8Oq-kAYBqBmzAACGQUhu9YPkLjfotHxE6DDj3Af03nTplkhfOpwVFq92LvbInu6FyGe0PkMruu9Ccss/s1600/IMG_9117.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkV9MG-dZfTBzLHL42rusGacvwVNs6at2stWC1ccQraa5WyV4vwLxkUa_VvC6U8Oq-kAYBqBmzAACGQUhu9YPkLjfotHxE6DDj3Af03nTplkhfOpwVFq92LvbInu6FyGe0PkMruu9Ccss/s400/IMG_9117.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Perhaps the onomatopoeia leaves this to be expected, but Runnymede also has
mud. <i>Lots</i> of mud. It’s since taken four sessions with bottles of magic
stuff to get my boots back to serviceable condition because of Magna Carta.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
When
John met the barons here that national romance did not yet exist. But perhaps
fragments of the qualities it describes did make this a suitable venue. In
edgy times this probably was a place of relative security: a middle ground
which gave neither side an obvious military advantage. Its name also offers
clues. <i>Mede</i> is a meadow but <i>Runny</i> does not mean what it sounds
like, rather appearing to come from Anglo-Saxon Old English <i>runieg</i>: a regular
council or meeting place. It is conceivable that this was already a
well-established spot to hold such meetings, in some accounts
going back as far as King Alfred’s <i>witenagemot</i> councils in the ninth
century. Maybe that was where it got the name Runnymede in the first place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM6EfjzJ2jobQdmo2A6Om5XmnrjFbfkwmnWeoy1nxcpRR2T8edHB5gBmRXCWhVvNoaVTO93h9q7aodKR24s99vuVLJUr6GjJzdu-qSzTl1sRrLaeVJXSybH4qW2oFOCrQr5Z2O7ZHLaTM/s1600/IMG_9093.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM6EfjzJ2jobQdmo2A6Om5XmnrjFbfkwmnWeoy1nxcpRR2T8edHB5gBmRXCWhVvNoaVTO93h9q7aodKR24s99vuVLJUr6GjJzdu-qSzTl1sRrLaeVJXSybH4qW2oFOCrQr5Z2O7ZHLaTM/s400/IMG_9093.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Runnymede’s meadows lie along the river with this parallel line of hills
limiting access from inland. This means it can only be approached on flat
ground from either end, which would have made it harder to spring a surprise
army on whomever you were meeting here. We’ll have a look at the structure
later.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN8jq23sLqO8xHr7Lun7mgTza0_L1nUWr5A5o8T0q197EthhPTld5cghuhzaw199py8HkqMqy4VxgxHPLSD0xWqSLbK571Srnek6OY6Fnw7Puim3lNVfoOTpvZhZbbgdtBAhzfEbaizEA/s1600/IMG_9091.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN8jq23sLqO8xHr7Lun7mgTza0_L1nUWr5A5o8T0q197EthhPTld5cghuhzaw199py8HkqMqy4VxgxHPLSD0xWqSLbK571Srnek6OY6Fnw7Puim3lNVfoOTpvZhZbbgdtBAhzfEbaizEA/s400/IMG_9091.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The opposite bank is Ankerwycke, home to the last surviving witness to John’s
meeting with the barons: a gigantic yew tree, said to be 2,500 years old. The
ruin is St. Mary’s Priory, another on the long list of English monasteries
devoured by Henry VIII. It was a much more local affair than <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-5-cross-purposes.html">the
Chertsey mammoth</a></u> whose sphere of influence would have been well felt out
here.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
battery of demands the barons put before their king – in French, of course – had
nothing to do with the well-being of the majority of the population. Nor did it
express any broader constitutional principle. Rather it was but one more beat
in a multi-generational dance of power, with the barons taking advantage of the
king’s weak position to constrain his power in the moment and advance their
own. The formal name of their forced agreement, which it didn’t receive till
some years later, was <i>Magna Carta Libertatum</i>: the Great Charter not of liberty
as in <i>freedoms</i>, but Liberties as in <i>privileges</i>. The point was
that these powers were defined <i>exclusively</i> as the entitlements of the
powerful baronial class against the king, not <i>inclusively </i>spread out to most people
in the manner of the later human rights movements (hence <i>human</i> rights).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Most
English with any serious familiarity with this history will tell you the same:
that there was little wider attempt here to fundamentally rearrange
English political forms. The story the barons couched their rebellion in was
conservative: a return to tradition, not a revolution. Yet the myth that has
grown up to dominate memory of the Magna Carta today tells the exact
opposite story. Look again at the signs around here. ‘Birthplace of freedom’.
‘Eight Centuries of the Rule of Law’. At its extreme, the myth has it that that
1215 was the moment when the embryo of modern democracy, liberty and human
rights, whether in England or the entire world, chewed its way out of the
bloody womb of traditional autocracy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhojNNhwNyrtkwH3mflFATBy_IDaTGvhBBCxhwtMoDtQICEPtv5Em85iatMUsxHUFRqdj5-cfS9ANsHbCushvW5-1sbXAdBdUlcy3fA_ETf0NTjtnKn1aeZugPtEkb8mSW0m0Cs_7Jn8d8/s1600/magna-carta-1215.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1216" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhojNNhwNyrtkwH3mflFATBy_IDaTGvhBBCxhwtMoDtQICEPtv5Em85iatMUsxHUFRqdj5-cfS9ANsHbCushvW5-1sbXAdBdUlcy3fA_ETf0NTjtnKn1aeZugPtEkb8mSW0m0Cs_7Jn8d8/s400/magna-carta-1215.jpg" width="303" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>One version of the Magna Carta, from the <u><a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/magna-carta/british-library-magna-carta-1215-runnymede/">National
Archives</a></u>. Contrary to the myth of a timeless document, there is no
single original version – John reneged on it immediately and it had to be copied,
updated and reissued again and again in the decades that followed. The earliest
surviving thirteenth-century copies are now kept at the British Library, the
National Archives, and Salisbury and Lincoln Cathedrals. A few later versions
have also made their way to the United States. Or, for the more creepily
obsessive, there is <u><a href="https://www.zazzle.co.uk/original_1215_magna_carta_british_library_dummy-256290066827072300">this
800-year commemorative pacifier that lets babies literally suck on the Magna
Carta word for word</a></u>.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The
charter itself offers the myth little support. It contains sixty-three clauses
(the numbering also added later), the majority of which catered to the barons’
interests concerning money, weights and measures, navigation and bodily safety
in a feudal day-to-day context. A few of these, such as No. 23 about bridges
and No. 33 on removing fish-weirs on the Thames (which impeded the barons’
navigation and rich London trade), point to the continued supremacy of the
river in shaping the life and power relationships on top of it; <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-5-cross-purposes.html">the
City’s assertion of its rights over the water up to Staines</a></u> around this
time was not unrelated. Other clauses were downright barbarous. No. 58 forbade
that anyone be arrested when accused by a woman of murder, which, in a misogyny
still extremely familiar today, was likely because these powerful men were
tired of what they saw as the triviality of women’s voices tripping up their soaring
reputations. Another such continuity is found in Nos. 10 and 11 which put
limits on interest payments to Jewish moneylenders and subsequently fed one of medieval
English’s many blood-spattered anti-Semitic pogroms.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Of
this random mishmash only a tiny handful of slivers survived to become material
for later mythmakers. The most prominent, which still exist in the laws of
England and certain other countries, are clauses No. 39 and 40:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>No
free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or
possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor
will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the
lawful judgement of his equals or the law of the land.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>To
no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
very first clause is also still active, and contains this:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>…that
the Church of England shall be free…</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Needless
to say, the significance of phrases like <i>no free man</i> and <i>judgement of
his equals</i> was again not to include, but to exclude. These were meant as
the privileges of a tiny class at the top of English society, not the rights of
the wider body of a predominantly peasant populace. Again this is not news to
any of the English who have taken a closer look. They gave perhaps their most
accurate interpretation in a classic parody of their own history, <i>1066 and
All That</i>, in 1930:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>1.That
no one was to be put to death, save for some reason (except the Common People).</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>2.
That everyone should be free – (except the Common People).</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>(…)</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>6.
That the Barons should not be tried except by a special jury of other Barons
who would understand.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Magna
Charter was therefore the chief cause of Democracy in England, and thus a </i>Good
Thing<i> for everyone (except the Common People).</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Was
the later appeal of this contract simply that its articulation of the powers in
question – access to due process, <i>habeus corpus</i> (no physical detention
outside such a process) and freedom of religion – was so eloquent? Eloquent
enough, in that case, to support the irony of it getting raised as a totem of
its exact opposite intent by the democracy movements which only gained
political momentum half a millennium later. By then, where Magna Carta had been
drawn up to establish these powers as the <i>privileges</i> of a ruling class,
the democracy movements sought to release them as <i>rights</i> to the majority
of the population – indeed, as the most important political rights of all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
There
was another level to this mythmaking. In its original reality the Magna Carta
was a jumble of demands whose organising principle was the immediate position
of power over the king that the barons found themselves in in that moment.
Elevated to myth, that too grew wings and turned into a long-term English
constitutional vision: nothing less than a fundamental restructuring of the
power relationship between the monarch and the society he or she ruled. Thus,
says the myth, what was birthed here was not only the content of freedom and
democracy but also the broader framework necessary for those to function: <i>rule
of law</i>. The idea that there exists a common invisible and independent
framework – call it the law, the state, or any other name – that binds the
conduct of everyone in society regardless of their power; and most importantly,
that the most powerful of all, in this case the king, are part of that system (not
above it), must follow its rules, and can be held to account for breaking them
just like everybody else. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
charter itself expressed no such theory. Again it is the imagery, not the
reality, that was potent for later mythmakers. The assertive confrontation; the
king at bay, getting sat down and forced to accept limits to his power; the
green and pleasant surroundings; the picture was pretty much an open invitation
for later generations to caption it as the core mechanisms of the English
democratic romance – <i>accountability</i>, the <i>social contract</i> – in
action.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1qYm7MCmlUPR9zDAY4O-OiytX9qrwkqV2vL2pq_9nZhxSUSFaoy1BtuvI3uJ9O1Rl0-kezKBy-VWhCKEY1lgaD-XoC-4CWZPAK9iokTWU7qlqimt4ZwYEzQkFP4D3qS-wbN0DCMeSC0/s1600/IMG_9101.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1qYm7MCmlUPR9zDAY4O-OiytX9qrwkqV2vL2pq_9nZhxSUSFaoy1BtuvI3uJ9O1Rl0-kezKBy-VWhCKEY1lgaD-XoC-4CWZPAK9iokTWU7qlqimt4ZwYEzQkFP4D3qS-wbN0DCMeSC0/s400/IMG_9101.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>No-one knows the exact spot where the meeting took place. The search for
evidence is complicated by the river, casually rearranging the Runnymede
landscape for 800 years.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Thus
was made the myth of Magna Carta. The moment the royal seal made contact with
the parchment, English history, or indeed the history of humankind, entered a
new phase, passing from an old age of tyranny to a new age of, if not yet
democracy under rule of law, at least an age where the long-term democratic
ascent was assured. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
could not have been further from the truth. John had no intention of keeping
his word and it is unlikely the barons seriously expected him to. He was here not
to participate in grand historic phenomena but to buy time, and no sooner did
he leave this field than he flew into a rage about the treacherous barons and got
the Pope to declare the Magna Carta ‘void of all validity forever’. It had
lasted nine weeks. John would get his war with the barons after all, and it was
a nasty one with sieges and mutilations up and down the country. To crown it
all, in a sign of just how elastic the power relationships were in this period,
the barons thought nothing of making an alliance with the French king and got
him to send a foreign invasion to help take down their own. The following year
John had the final indecency to die of dysentery after famously losing his
luggage in the Wash bay, taking his troublemaking elsewhere (‘Hell is made
fouler by his presence’, wrote chronicler and monk Matthew Paris) and dumping this
mess on his nine-year-old son Henry III. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
climate of continued ruling-class tussle against the backdrop of constant wars
with England’s neighbours explains why Henry and his son Edward I – ‘Longshanks’,
known for his shocking violence against the Welsh and Scots – re-issued updated
Magna Cartas over and over again to convince the barons to keep their weapons
pointed outward rather than inward. More then by accident of the long English
power struggle than for any other reason did its provisions get entrenched in
English law, where they grumbled largely unremarked for hundreds of years.
Shakespeare’s <i>The Life and Death of King John</i> did not mention Magna
Carta at all. Even in 1814, when a law was passed to protect the meadows of
Runnymede from Enclosure, it had nothing to do with memory of what happened
here in 1215 and everything to do with the popularity of the Egham horse races.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
What,
then, unfurled this charter across popular imagination as something it was not?
Two later episodes appear to have done most of the work. The first will be well
familiar by now to those who have followed this river journey from the outset: <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">the
civil wars of the seventeenth century</a></u>, when the power struggle between the
English monarch and the next set of people down the ladder broke once again
into all-out war, only this time with far more in the way of blood spilled, constitutional
theories brandished about and, ultimately, a more conclusive outcome in the sinking
of English monarchical power for the long term. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Like
the barons to John, King Charles I’s enemies in Parliament framed their
rebellion in traditionalist terms, asserting they merely sought to hold him to
rules that went back to Anglo-Saxon times. It so happened that Magna Carta had
recently been made salient again by the barrister Edward Coke, who gave it its
first serious reassessment in centuries in his <i>Institutes of the Lawes of
England</i> (1628-44). Its legal analysis was questionable but the political gunpowder
it offered mattered more. Coke’s writing had dug Magna Carta up; Charles’s dad
James helpfully banged Coke up in the Tower (‘you meddle with things far above
your reach’), thereby guaranteeing his work’s popularity; and now the new
barons of Parliament built an engine into it and filled it with a fire that has
never entirely gone out. Charles was violating the constraints put on his
office by this ancient Magna Carta, they insisted, and that gave them the right
to bring him to account. (More intriguingly, the real forebears of the English
democracy effort, the grassroots movements of this period like <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">the
Levellers and the Diggers who were oppressed by the Parliamentary junta</a></u>,
were suspicious of Magna Carta and saw it as a further mark of deep structural
impositions by the Norman occupation.) Parliament’s rise was confirmed after
the revolution of 1688 when it passed the Bill of Rights, cementing this
interpretation of Magna Carta’s principles in the English constitutional order.
It was then given pride of place in the Whig approach to history which
celebrated the English national journey as a long and continuous march to
liberty. Disseminated over everyone's breakfast tables by the new mass media culture, it was harked to again and
again in the English democracy movements of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, and by then its mythic hold on the national mind was assured.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
this is no longer merely an English myth. Veneration of the Magna Carta has
spread around the world, and events in this country alone cannot account for
that. The other key episode is revealed by a closer look at the monuments that
stand here and there on the meadows of Runnymede today.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6xPS27IWXCcrxU2eKPXrr5T3e7mN3iEwxBPrgPdeQKp4JEYsAXsdbQLXuVjDoxj-g57OQjqgDztpl2rm1D0is5KjqEhzeqP4mNVJM4WrE_FmejyGZrpThF8A6rrSUsLX5B3iBi21ryE/s1600/IMG_9100.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6xPS27IWXCcrxU2eKPXrr5T3e7mN3iEwxBPrgPdeQKp4JEYsAXsdbQLXuVjDoxj-g57OQjqgDztpl2rm1D0is5KjqEhzeqP4mNVJM4WrE_FmejyGZrpThF8A6rrSUsLX5B3iBi21ryE/s400/IMG_9100.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The Magna Carta Memorial again – revealed on closer inspection to be the work of
the American Bar Association in 1957.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4W569U_YTqh5vx4kw5HkFg5evdh2BRgE-CAHsvECJXCh7zLdy1oPfrlk69UzwPdVRhm1YW_pmz_an6oX2EVm6It2TAyajcDtRt-d745Xeys7lnbjNtunWnqkf6NUlOtRLw9pTqEguwjI/s1600/IMG_9112.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4W569U_YTqh5vx4kw5HkFg5evdh2BRgE-CAHsvECJXCh7zLdy1oPfrlk69UzwPdVRhm1YW_pmz_an6oX2EVm6It2TAyajcDtRt-d745Xeys7lnbjNtunWnqkf6NUlOtRLw9pTqEguwjI/s400/IMG_9112.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A memorial to U.S. President John F. Kennedy, placed in 1965. They even gave
the land it sits on to the U.S. government.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOTvB64O4S0ocp6ey-L5SJrE1szhUamtt3x9eVBt5LuQldka4FtIhJnIt-26igtXcxgfeZc1KHeRtkpFaT2-qszoGLRpkXS8zMbH92oEmn4OgKjfxTPWxPnC9HrZpw1PpWppXqXTkityA/s1600/IMG_9113.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOTvB64O4S0ocp6ey-L5SJrE1szhUamtt3x9eVBt5LuQldka4FtIhJnIt-26igtXcxgfeZc1KHeRtkpFaT2-qszoGLRpkXS8zMbH92oEmn4OgKjfxTPWxPnC9HrZpw1PpWppXqXTkityA/s400/IMG_9113.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The ‘Jamestown Oak’, a tree planted in 1987 using soil from the first English
settlement on the American continent at what is now Jamestown, Virginia.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Most
of these memorials were placed by the Americans, to whom the Magna Carta myth
means even more than to the English. While the English, if pressed, will likely
eventually admit the gap between history and mythology, for the United States
the symbolism of Magna Carta verges on the sacrosanct. It is there, in a
culture drawn to the proclamation of grand principles, symbolic pieces of paper
and (let’s say) selective readings of history, that Magna Carta’s second great mythological
amplification is to be found. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Many
of the English settlers in America founded their colonies on charters
re-interpreting Magna Carta’s provisions as fundamental liberties of the
(white, male, propertied, English-speaking) people. The notion of these liberties,
especially against unjust taxation, became foundational to their fight against
the British government, first against its violations of those rights and then
for outright independence. In this war, from which much followed in this world,
Magna Carta became the focal symbol of what was at stake. Leading intellectuals
like Benjamin Franklin, William Penn and Thomas Paine explicitly channelled it,
each reference casting another layer of concrete around it as an embodiment of
the settlers’ ancient rights, permanent and inalienable, written in stone,
ancient when the British king and the Tories in Parliament, that gang of
petulant whiskered Johns, were young. And when the struggle was won, the myth
was infused into the founding artifact and abiding holy of holies of the new country
it created: the U.S. Constitution, whose Fifth Amendment all but paraphrases those
clauses 39 and 40.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
If
in England the Magna Carta myth fits shakily into a long and ambiguous story, for the Americans its symbol is of their existential legend: a fundamentally
new model of human society, based on freedom, secured by constraints upon the
tyranny of government. They have since wheeled Magna Carta out for every legal
process or constitutional dispute that gives them an excuse to hold it high and
let its light shine forth, especially when they feel those founding values are
at stake – including, of course, in the present impeachment of Donald <i>John</i>
Trump.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib__0e4OtC4jHCwlmwjos0n45ThXbpx1rpiHdyFX35V8ljcjN1sbh9HeW2uP4nIr6L21-Z3VO8QkYtFD-w1t1H9iqTjaHQwETzGmg3qjzcxlSdRQMglQMhyphenhyphen8IIw17RfY6g6kd4vt1D8Z8/s1600/IMG_9094.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib__0e4OtC4jHCwlmwjos0n45ThXbpx1rpiHdyFX35V8ljcjN1sbh9HeW2uP4nIr6L21-Z3VO8QkYtFD-w1t1H9iqTjaHQwETzGmg3qjzcxlSdRQMglQMhyphenhyphen8IIw17RfY6g6kd4vt1D8Z8/s400/IMG_9094.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Important as this ground is to the English, evidence like this suggests it does
not quite reach American levels of sanctity for them.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Needless
to say, to identify this reading as a myth is in no way to suggest it is not
important. It is no less real for being imaginary; the myth has changed
realities and created new ones. A better question might be: is
that a problem?
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
So long
as the myth is put towards improving the human experience on Earth, possibly
not. There is no doubt that the legend of Magna Carta has brought energy and
strategic clout to many movements that have struggled, and occasionally
succeeded, to make democracy, freedom and human rights more real in this world.
Neither England nor the United States are democratic and free – they have been
far too violent, still exclude far too many people – but they have certainly witnessed
enormous efforts by some among their peoples to change that, of whom many, from
the Chartists and women’s suffrage movement in one land to the civil rights
movement in the other, have drawn directly on the Magna Carta for inspiration.
On top of that, the spread of its symbolic power then reached the many independence
movements against British and American colonial tyranny in Africa, Asia and
beyond, especially to those whose leading intellectuals studied in England or
were otherwise exposed to its storytelling. Skilfully invoked by global icons
of humankind’s liberation struggle from Gandhi in India to Mandela in South
Africa, its legend was reproduced in a worldwide spread of constitutions and
national mythologies which have raised it to the heights of the new global
governance: from the framing of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
as an ‘international Magna Carta’, to its recognition by UNESCO in 2009 as a
registered <u><a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/memory-of-the-world/register/full-list-of-registered-heritage/registered-heritage-page-5/magna-carta-issued-in-1215/">Memory
of the World</a></u>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Good
for the myth of the Magna Carta then. How remarkable that a scrap of parchment
at the centre of a pugnacious medieval power struggle has so outgrown its
reality and fanned dreams of liberation across all the continents of the Earth.
What would John and the barons think had they known their quarrel would reverberate
so? Would they be proud of themselves?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
If
only it were so simple.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Something
ominous lingers in the air. It scratches. It has fangs. It draws blood. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
I
wonder if they wrote anything on the back of the actual Magna Carta. They certainly
did on the back of the mythic version. Did they mean to do that? Or did the ink
seep through the imaginary paper by itself and scribe its own dark mirror?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Look
at it there, afloat in its aura in the English imagination. Shall we see what
happens if we turn it around?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Dark Runnymede</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiut0b66RZa7k4-u_7_YtqAucdDZKNi2WHKd4NZDT6JY5e77DK4JXQJ7-9793fvSO5WmnIsee0oKiiQeUOuYUyqixr1QIkvYT6WdM_l-Cg-08XiwJOAMf_5dBS8MVzeOTzkPXb5GAjU1Xs/s1600/Dark1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiut0b66RZa7k4-u_7_YtqAucdDZKNi2WHKd4NZDT6JY5e77DK4JXQJ7-9793fvSO5WmnIsee0oKiiQeUOuYUyqixr1QIkvYT6WdM_l-Cg-08XiwJOAMf_5dBS8MVzeOTzkPXb5GAjU1Xs/s640/Dark1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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There
we go. Welcome to the realm of shadows.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
myth of the Magna Carta stands for more than what it claims to. Its reverse is
written in blood.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiniA5LD8_bOHfyWmi-tDkepYjrUPJAB1te3Cl7aycRqRArtcY3lJi5tCT-oreY04yCSWfM2d18ZMGO7qPcSl-ByutPXE3r8jBRj2_DXf0zCsVlWlTDTqzsIgcZJKm3HxnSs8h9WhxN444/s1600/Dark2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiniA5LD8_bOHfyWmi-tDkepYjrUPJAB1te3Cl7aycRqRArtcY3lJi5tCT-oreY04yCSWfM2d18ZMGO7qPcSl-ByutPXE3r8jBRj2_DXf0zCsVlWlTDTqzsIgcZJKm3HxnSs8h9WhxN444/s640/Dark2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>NO FREE MAN. NO FREE MAN. NO FREE MAN.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Hear
the rustle of the whispers in the dark. Familiar voices, sinister now. There,
that sounds like Kipling again:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>…when
Mob or Monarch lays</i></div>
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<i>Too
rude a hand on ENGLISH WAYS</i></div>
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<i>The
whisper wakes, the shudder plays…</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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And
there’s good old uncle Ben Franklin:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>…the
rights OF ENGLISHMEN, as declared by Magna Carta…</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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Another,
still more strident. Is that Churchill?</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>…the
great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint
inheritance of the ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD and which through Magna Carta…</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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The
dripping reverse of Magna Carta’s myth of liberty looks something like this.
Once upon a time, human nature was horrible. No society, no obligations, no
love – only survival of the fittest, a war of all against all. Tyranny was the
natural way. And then one day, perhaps in June 1215, the English advanced to a
higher stage of history. They were destined to do so because they were English.
They were special. They were <i>white</i>. Moral where others were depraved,
civilised where others were savage, modern where others were primitive. They
had the Magna Carta, others did not. <i>We are a democracy so STFU</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So
descended <b>the <i>chosen people</i> myth</b>, English flavour. Such exceptionalism takes
root in many societies but in England it was not done yet. During the
scientific revolution English intellectuals shared in taking this myth to the
next level. The English’s position at the top of a hierarchy of peoples was no
longer an instinctive belief to be overcome, they decided, but an empirical
fact to be embraced, grounded in biological differences expressed in metrics like the shapes
of skulls and skin colour. The crude belief in a chosen people
was wrapped in the lab coats of pseudoscience and became the super-myth of <i>race</i>,
which has proceeded down an unbroken chain to the belief systems of English
nationalists today and still roosts in the subconsciousness of all people, for
we have all inherited the genocidal world of its making.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In
the same period a similar pseudo-empiricism caught up the study of history. History
was re-framed as straight line of progress from savagery to civilisation, on
which peoples’ positions were determined not by historical experience but
innate racial traits that placed the English and their white settler societies
further ahead than the rest of the world. This too is still with us. After its vocabulary
was made distasteful by the atrocities of the Nazis, it was re-expressed by the
arrangement of the world along a spectrum of <i>developed</i> and <i>developing
countries</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>English
ways</i>. The<i> rights of Englishmen</i>. The myth of Magna Carta had a nasty
sting in the tail. Its rhetoric was the expansion of its liberties to ordinary
people, but its reality, in whose coils humankind lives on, is that it has been
every bit as exclusionary as the original Magna Carta, only with a consequent
scale of carnage neither John nor the barons would ever have had cause to
imagine. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The
mythic charter excluded Africans, indigenous Americans and Latin Americans on
whose respective enslavement, genocide and ruination the U.S. was built. That
‘land of the free’ now locks refugees in concentration camps and puts a higher
proportion of its population in prison than any other country in the world, typically
not for any misdeeds on their part but for offending the national mythos by having dark skin. England has likewise deliberately and shamelessly excluded enormous
sections of humanity – women, dark-skinned people, religious dissidents, people
without money or property – of whom most had to wait till barely yesterday for
even formal (as opposed to effective) access to the charter’s basic rights and
who even now are abused and violated either by the explicit cooperation of the legal
system or by the silence of its remedies. Most egregious has been its abject failure to
deal with rape, that abomination whose existence in any country makes it unfree.</div>
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The
fact that Magna Carta’s constant invocation was necessary by justice movements
from the margins of society indicates just how uncomfortably the values of the
Magna Carta myth have challenged, not reflected, the dominant tendencies of the
English power culture. What good has it done to shake what this very decade has
revealed to be a still incorrigibly authoritarian culture, whose weak
democratic experiments have failed to surpass a thuggish popular belief that
democracy consists in the right of a majority to force violent outcomes down
the throats of a minority – and whose instinct, when faced with a hint of
dissent, is a reflexive roar of condescension followed by clamping down,
getting tough, to punish and punish and punish some more, even in those classrooms
where thirty Magna Cartas hang high over the walls? How shown up is this
culture by a populace like that of Hong Kong, which in contrast has no pretence
to democratic forms and structures and bits of paper but has demonstrated one
heck more vibrant a democratic spirit of informed discourse, rigorous protest
and defiance of the haughtiest authoritarianism?</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuqpiQfmmWtyugRZ4-w5Uu42gDRPeB9Uu34RWeDY7kBvj2klE5KSMVJgfQ4JHhZUY36IGFb96-1UqeSLko4VmdM50T45CP3cvdMZxKSoJ6n4W6mMlBiwap_Ay54F_7BQzGXzmOSoZWM0E/s1600/Dark3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuqpiQfmmWtyugRZ4-w5Uu42gDRPeB9Uu34RWeDY7kBvj2klE5KSMVJgfQ4JHhZUY36IGFb96-1UqeSLko4VmdM50T45CP3cvdMZxKSoJ6n4W6mMlBiwap_Ay54F_7BQzGXzmOSoZWM0E/s400/Dark3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>John. F. Kennedy’s commitment to ‘the survival and success of liberty’ is not
quite as beyond question if you are, say, Vietnamese.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPgU7mSW7A5aigKqL8anVzudTYft8khUfCjamTHta1iqPHffezfRHmW2_6mp4qvw-KERvwtgRB5rTkRnc5Qxa1XNhXDbf7C569ZfziMYK7P-ZckCY9Nh3kNRK6wJyGZYaBfZzxhPvdqso/s1600/Dark4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPgU7mSW7A5aigKqL8anVzudTYft8khUfCjamTHta1iqPHffezfRHmW2_6mp4qvw-KERvwtgRB5rTkRnc5Qxa1XNhXDbf7C569ZfziMYK7P-ZckCY9Nh3kNRK6wJyGZYaBfZzxhPvdqso/s400/Dark4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>In the seventeenth century the Virginia Colony’s aggressive expansion led it
into a series of wars with the indigenous Powhatan Confederacy. Grisly
atrocities took place in these conflicts which left the Powhatan peoples
subjected as tributaries to the English crown, herded off their ancestral lands
and penned into reservations which grew ever smaller as the settlers seized
more.</b></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXudMhMbTcUewpkdCzpE7tbPWBNQMrS4DLUwUYc1b0tw3qOEml6W5L6wzl_0y_DORg2WYDj8d6AJHE9ReOemeEyirzP31CEq_AatB5F7tDyo_ciG1CdxKVR2aPclksK_Jd7gvQoF3VplA/s1600/Dark5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXudMhMbTcUewpkdCzpE7tbPWBNQMrS4DLUwUYc1b0tw3qOEml6W5L6wzl_0y_DORg2WYDj8d6AJHE9ReOemeEyirzP31CEq_AatB5F7tDyo_ciG1CdxKVR2aPclksK_Jd7gvQoF3VplA/s400/Dark5.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>On the hills above Runnymede stands the Air Forces Memorial, commemorating air
force operatives who lost their lives in World War II. The RAF is legendary among
the English for its defence of their island in that conflict. Less familiar to
them in its role in a hundred years of colonially bombing freedom into the splattered
entrails of Indians, Afghans, Somalis, Iraqis, Kurds, Palestinians, Yemenis,
Malayans, Kenyans, Egyptians, and then most of those victims’ descendants in
roughly a reverse order. When others do it to them they call it terrorism.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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History
is the present as much as the past. Recall the two great episodes that have
disturbed the English entry to the twenty-first century. The more recent, the
Conservative Party-led assault on the most vulnerable sections of society,
speaks for itself in the exclusion of the victims of austerity and the hostile
environment from any effective redress for the violation of their basic rights.
The problem is plainer still in the other concern, English violence in the
Middle East, where it manifests on both sides of the debate. On one side we
find a belief that Englishness, or more broadly, English-speaking whiteness, so
exemplifies freedom and democracy that dropping English bombs onto Iraqis or
Afghans will cause these principles to magically flower from the smithereens of
their guts. On the other side are those who dismiss those cultures as so hierarchically
oppressive by nature that there is no point trying to change them, arguing that
rather than unreasonably measuring them by democratic standards, one should
feel no loss of comfort in aligning with atrocious Saudi or Egyptian despots. From
both directions the long arm of racist mythology grips their imaginations with
a greater weight then the generations of British colonial history that have
done so much to actually vanquish liberty in that region and embed its patterns
of violence and oppression.
</div>
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This
is where the myth of Magna Carta does become a problem. <b>Its myth of ancestral
liberty has been soldered into these myths of the English and their settler
offshoots (you're in this too, Australia) as a <i>chosen people</i> in a global power structure built on racism.</b>
Their conviction that they are the greatest peoples in the world has been
fleshed out with the corollary that the superior moral values of the Magna
Carta myth – freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law – are built
uniquely into their national genomes. By that logic they can dispense with any
need for effort, reflection, or critical scrutiny, let alone accountability, on
how far they are living up to those values: Magna Carta shines automatic out of
their ethnic skin, is what they are and always will be no matter what they do.
Conversely, there is no point applying those values to those excluded from the <i>chosen
people</i> because they, by equal and opposite logic, are innately incompatible
with those values. The best those primitives can hope for is to take
instruction from the <i>chosen </i>rich white English men to build an inferior
copy, but more often such hope is futile and they simply need to be put in
their place through violence to keep the <i>chosen</i> safe. Needless to say, because
they do not count as people, the <i>chosen</i> are free to arbitrarily kill and
oppress as many of them as they want to this end without it bringing their embodiment
of rule of law into question.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Magna
Carta is thus reduced to a MacGuffin of civilisation in a racist world. It is
the magic chalice, the blueprint, the ball, the conch, the hat, the briefcase. Whoever holds
it is always right, whoever lacks it is always wrong. Hold it, and you can
slaughter a million people and still be called moral and civilised. Without it,
you cannot so much as sneeze in the direction of your superiors without it
marking you as a wretched barbarian to be beaten into the dirt.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Belief
in mythic liberty has butchered real liberty. And now, having so blinded itself to the
difference, it has allowed the authoritarians to retch back to power where
they haul open the doors for the return of naked fascism. Thus the curse of
Magna Carta shall drag them yet again to the genocidal destiny of their <i>chosen
people</i> myth. We shall all pay the price for this folly.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Behold,
you English, your rivers of blood.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWckY00_EY7zGKiq2F8dtObwaGNd24sM7ciw7N3hnLocvru2gMQa20ryym5GskZkcb46VZIoJTG1VaMbqg4PNUACQrlAlkWBNi8-UFucc-Sk3z9rFLP5hlDy0D7-bk-SD8pE6HrN7e3h8/s1600/Dark6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWckY00_EY7zGKiq2F8dtObwaGNd24sM7ciw7N3hnLocvru2gMQa20ryym5GskZkcb46VZIoJTG1VaMbqg4PNUACQrlAlkWBNi8-UFucc-Sk3z9rFLP5hlDy0D7-bk-SD8pE6HrN7e3h8/s640/Dark6.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And so the whisper wakes, the shudder plays across the reeds at Runnymede as
the blood of England’s future generations is washed away to the sea. Why? – asks
the sea. And the river replies: why, on account of their parents, their adults,
who fed their children to oblivion. As they cried in mortal agony, the adults
chastised them: we are right because we have Magna Carta, so could you please
stop saying wrong things? Now not even their bones remain.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
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This
has not happened yet. It does not have to. If you wish for a different outcome,
do not forget what you have seen on the back of the mythic charter. As we are
now we can flip it back round and escape. There will not be a second chance.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Runnymede</span></u></b></div>
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The
tinge of spilt iron fades from the tongue. What is this?</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-kceivPgTyxFVarmWwPeySngaCqXllmv4zznKwyWAZasJpWrxPm93aJ_f0b6FDDE8x4z9p_c9dPvR0GzBjhQ_EJaLhnHY9bTa5hCMiTk0RHASupB02D5u6UOl_XxVWOHAfOKMV89BSY/s1600/IMG_9114.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-kceivPgTyxFVarmWwPeySngaCqXllmv4zznKwyWAZasJpWrxPm93aJ_f0b6FDDE8x4z9p_c9dPvR0GzBjhQ_EJaLhnHY9bTa5hCMiTk0RHASupB02D5u6UOl_XxVWOHAfOKMV89BSY/s400/IMG_9114.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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</div>
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It
appears to be another monument. We are back in the world of light – for now. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Look
at this. It is a more recent installation called ‘Writ in Water’, placed here
by the artist Mark Wallinger eight hundred years after a bunch of squabbling
chieftains came and shook their fingers at each other on this field with not a
clue what they were setting in train. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeBTqWP6oKsl3W6Dhhv3hfLH-QhxY9oGC0pEJ0BHMe0AhfeQdRJ3SYo2vmmBR5wtAsHLtHsQZPA-pNwTOWcU46IH6EChaoNoM_iI5NkRH4dJFLbFyRZvW-7CCLvTvcRPpTJjUWndrA7-o/s1600/IMG_9115.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeBTqWP6oKsl3W6Dhhv3hfLH-QhxY9oGC0pEJ0BHMe0AhfeQdRJ3SYo2vmmBR5wtAsHLtHsQZPA-pNwTOWcU46IH6EChaoNoM_iI5NkRH4dJFLbFyRZvW-7CCLvTvcRPpTJjUWndrA7-o/s640/IMG_9115.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Inside
is a pool of reflection. There are two reflections. One is that which goes on inside
people’s heads which it invites them to undertake while sitting on that bench
there. Reflection – a good start. But look closely. There is another. The
charter’s Clause 39 – ‘No free man’– is inscribed in the centre ring, but in
reverse. It can only be read in its echo in the water. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
is more like it. The values they attached to Magna Carta are not set in stone
but, indeed, written in water. Water changes shape. The writing is all well and
clear in conditions like these, but imagine looking at this in a storm. Do the
Words remain readable – do they still exist – when the gales of
authoritarianism and pounding rains of violence shatter the surface of the
pool? Does it even need a storm? – is not ripple after ripple enough to
innocuously wash the Words away? When the sky is still again, do the Words come
back? Or is the pool smashed, the water drained, the Words lost forever?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
impermanence of those words is the impermanence of law. They are the same. Law
is not words on a paper. Law is an <i>idea</i> that dwells in the mind, shared
and expressed through the <i>culture</i> which gives it physical effect. The writing
is nothing more than a symbol. Thus, rule of law exists not if the paper exists,
but if a society’s outcomes and its people’s lived experiences accurately
reflect what is (or would be) written upon it. If it is written that, say,
sexual abuse is illegal, but in practice survivors are disbelieved by the
police, humiliated by the courts and have no effective mechanism to hold their
abusers to account, then what is left of that ink and paper but a meaningless
doodle, a fiction, a symbol of nothing but <i>failure</i>, of work that has to
be started all over again by the next generation?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Hmm.
Clever to disguise this as just another of Runnymede’s memorials. More likely
it is a lock, installed on a set of vast subterranean chains to keep that
nightmare-world sealed away.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Oh
look. There’s another.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiT5GuI_8JeQUGpYPBQr_XQQLyg-7XFME-YJROzGo4TOsKVyfkerFucxUAQ7bm10UoMbbVfnjkxiBTi41-y8LOhE0qV-Y4pKtkWBBajH6WATQr8QIoUvKYSrdQRgqACNAnrMdrUZWT3e0/s1600/IMG_9119.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiT5GuI_8JeQUGpYPBQr_XQQLyg-7XFME-YJROzGo4TOsKVyfkerFucxUAQ7bm10UoMbbVfnjkxiBTi41-y8LOhE0qV-Y4pKtkWBBajH6WATQr8QIoUvKYSrdQRgqACNAnrMdrUZWT3e0/s640/IMG_9119.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
one’s <i>The Jurors</i>, by sculptor Hew Locke, which appeared around the same
time as <i>Writ in Water</i>. Twelve bronze chairs. A powerful number. Twelve
is the standard number of people in a jury, but its ordering resonances are
deeper still. Twelve children, twelve Apostles, twelve Imams, twelve Zodiac
signs in both Western and Chinese astrology, twelve hours, twelve months of the
year. Twelve stars – say it quietly – on the EU flag, not the number of founding
members but ‘<u><a href="https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/guide_graphique_relatif_a_l_embleme_europeen_1996-fr-93eedaa0-b431-4ca8-ac7b-113ca01c0395.html">the
symbol of perfection and entirety</a></u>’. And now all people are invited to take
a seat, to become one of these magic twelve, and judge for themselves – this
time, momentously, with context.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsumpvBSTG5ShzB-MaJZtJiMl87m-8kLe-cN4-EbeXgHHmdCIKMrnuWvSHrQdknrkChSlcHEbGA1-khU3AXljiaLH-WyYf5K18mA-pRokwRpZ6V3jrYxH7nQoivh4MdiuQ2tJ-e8qIqB4/s1600/IMG_9109.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsumpvBSTG5ShzB-MaJZtJiMl87m-8kLe-cN4-EbeXgHHmdCIKMrnuWvSHrQdknrkChSlcHEbGA1-khU3AXljiaLH-WyYf5K18mA-pRokwRpZ6V3jrYxH7nQoivh4MdiuQ2tJ-e8qIqB4/s400/IMG_9109.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
this circle of chairs the Magna Carta is no longer an English beacon shining alone
above the clouds. Each seat is inscribed, front and back, with scenes from the global
storybook to which it properly belongs. These scenes appear to fall into two overlapping
categories.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
one: the 1989 <i>Exxon Valdez</i> oil spill. Oscar Wilde’s <i>The Ballad of
Reading Gaol</i>. A 1920 march of blind trade unionists in Trafalgar Square for
the rights of disabled people. An indigenous American headdress. Nelson
Mandela’s prison cell. The faces of the forcibly disappeared. The slave ship <i>Zong</i>.
Here are reminders of the countless harrowing ways the children of Magna Carta
have fallen short of their professed values. Sitting in these chairs you must
factor into your judgement that freedom and rule of law are not realities yet,
and that the challenges to make them so are as formidable today as ever in
human history.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
the other category: the <i>xiezhi</i>, a mythical righteous beast and symbol of
the Chinese pursuit of justice going back to the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE).
The scales of Ma’at, ancient Egyptian goddess of justice and ancestor of that
blindfolded lady whose statue stands on so many European courts, England’s too.
Interlocked rings representing the ‘Golden Rule’ to treat others as you would
wish to be treated, an anchor in millennia of philosophical systems all over
the world. Oh – and Clause 39 of the Magna Carta.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
They
have found what is missing from the Magna Carta myth and at last begun to fill
those yawning voids. Because they are not voids at all: the struggle against
oppression and tyranny, for freedom and human rights, has been taking place all
over the world for longer than recorded history. Every society has had its
tyrants. Every society has had its love-capable human beings who have struggled
to hold them to account. Though these heroes and villains and their principles
have gone by many names, their core meanings are shared across all humankind. None
are innate to any society. None alone define any time period.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL6SI9njB91nwEVeSSlj3OlO4cP1JA2IiVkxNopRk46KKCD48a2llYc8gpxExK3lTxBjdQxIOuT1XXdC89LsXvxT2jOF8l8AX1EyRiTn5MY8HPn5gWg7Cpfpa-gAaT65eiaWFFRvVbzho/s1600/IMG_9108.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL6SI9njB91nwEVeSSlj3OlO4cP1JA2IiVkxNopRk46KKCD48a2llYc8gpxExK3lTxBjdQxIOuT1XXdC89LsXvxT2jOF8l8AX1EyRiTn5MY8HPn5gWg7Cpfpa-gAaT65eiaWFFRvVbzho/s400/IMG_9108.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Two memorial lodges designed by the architect Edwin Lutyens and installed in
1932. They are currently used by the National Trust who manage the Runnymede
site.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
If
there is an antidote to the <i>chosen people</i> racism that clings to the back
of the Magna Carta myth, it is surely to be found on a quest to further explore
these stories. <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2013/01/refuting-west-centric-narratives-of.html">No
one culture invented freedom, democracy, the rule of law or human rights</a></u> –
all have contributed to them and all have fallen short of them. A thousand
years before Magna Carta arguments were getting made by Greeks like Plato and
Aristotle and Romans like Cicero for binding the government to submit to the
law. The emperor Ashoka of the Mauryan Empire in India carved edicts onto
pillars which expressed the emperor’s duties to all people. The Chinese Confucian
cosmic framework positioned the emperor within a network of reciprocal duties
and obligations extending even to the supernatural realm, while the concept of
the <i>Mandate of Heaven</i>, older still, provides metaphysical justification
for revolt against tyrannical rule. Religious toleration has an even vaster
constellation of precedents including, roughly contemporaneously with Magna
Carta, the best of the melting pots in Norman Sicily and Muslim Spain. Even in
the English story it was neither the first nor greatest effort of its purported
kind, especially when set against the educating and lawbringing efforts of King
Alfred three centuries earlier. His <i>Doom Book</i> is worth a look in this
connection – <i>doom</i> (also as in the <i>Domesday Book</i>) comes from the
Anglo-Saxon for <i>judgement</i>, which takes little away from marvellous pieces
of legal advice like this:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>Doom
very evenly! Do not doom one doom to the rich; another to the poor! Nor doom
one doom to your friend; another to your foe!</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
No
doubt this perspective perturbs those who insist that all these examples represent
different things, and that to lose sight of those differences is dangerous
whether to the rigour of the historical record or the formal exactitude that
lawyers depend on to keep getting paid. This is a fair warning, and it is
important to understand each of these efforts in their own context, but it is the
opposite mistake that already reaches us dripping with blood. The elevation of
the myth of the Magna Carta, as though it somehow represents a more meaningful
effort than all others in history to create a more just world, where the
strongest too must play by the rules, only makes sense in the context of the
bias of white male privilege in a racist and sexist world. And if what they say
of Uncle Alfred is true, he would be most disappointed and urge them to try
again to <i>doom very evenly</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Let
the English be admonished then to re-balance the myth of the Magna Carta and
cleanse it of its curse of the <i>chosen people</i>. If they do not wish to
watch their future ripped to chunks in the jaws of a reawakened fascism, then let
them teach the Magna Carta not as a magic spell that raises them above the
peoples of the Earth, but one that joins them together with those peoples as
equals in the shared human struggle against authoritarianism.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Old Windsor</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It’s
time to get out of here. The river is long and there is a way to go yet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Beyond
Runnymede we enter a new province. The <b>Royal County of Berkshire</b> is the
only one in England that gets that ‘Royal’ designation owing to its long
association with the English monarchy and the presence of its most formidable
privilege fort of all, Windsor Castle. Inevitably it also gets counter-intuitive
pronunciation. For <i>berk</i>, they say <i>bark</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Yes. Woof.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT34cgFWaOwvmShP3WKjztZZR9hwiOtXiV24rDlQbyKkbCTyLPggI-TNqb4psFqWQI-oqXucSD8zVXTvt4mbBc0RUICBdiMIo4vA6kq0Br7L5pVNxtJhuNqoWiKHH9G5IXknKjL1KVyNI/s1600/IMG_9120.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT34cgFWaOwvmShP3WKjztZZR9hwiOtXiV24rDlQbyKkbCTyLPggI-TNqb4psFqWQI-oqXucSD8zVXTvt4mbBc0RUICBdiMIo4vA6kq0Br7L5pVNxtJhuNqoWiKHH9G5IXknKjL1KVyNI/s400/IMG_9120.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Take one step outside Runnymede and there are the Enclosers. They lick their
chops, waiting for the magic barrier to fall so they can feast even on the
English’s most hallowed meadows.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Though
Runnymede ends, the mud does not. The river’s mood has not improved and there
are signs it is about to make its feelings clear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZq5Uvd_xfqZfNWJMUG6K-FZHZFZFWl0N0oFekapaGgQ3O5lKjWHnUK5EKx1G20hm5bg4ndpbXhaaOKK_Xzh4drFGbLNlEMQ4ZERbb_R8EMsQIJoekz6C44epjazq6nPlZJPS4Wo0GifA/s1600/IMG_9122.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZq5Uvd_xfqZfNWJMUG6K-FZHZFZFWl0N0oFekapaGgQ3O5lKjWHnUK5EKx1G20hm5bg4ndpbXhaaOKK_Xzh4drFGbLNlEMQ4ZERbb_R8EMsQIJoekz6C44epjazq6nPlZJPS4Wo0GifA/s400/IMG_9122.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Old Windsor – 'Home of Saxon Kings'. Please drive carefully so you don’t run
any over.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYWJ6t3neRju4y9w6JjLexp4DfoffjD7maVMPa0YzI6howD8rwmooBtnEjByJAlIaStFnwnymcxMIShTVlxLnueg7QVvgR5cejMZCT2D56TcDZpXKWwOEhPNKiS0Dar3KctNjMmXn7g-8/s1600/IMG_9123.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYWJ6t3neRju4y9w6JjLexp4DfoffjD7maVMPa0YzI6howD8rwmooBtnEjByJAlIaStFnwnymcxMIShTVlxLnueg7QVvgR5cejMZCT2D56TcDZpXKWwOEhPNKiS0Dar3KctNjMmXn7g-8/s400/IMG_9123.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>So much for fences.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
riverbank has flooded. The towpath glubs into the water and beyond <i>The Bells
of Ouzeley</i> pub becomes unnavigable, forcing us inland on a detour through <b>Old
Windsor</b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTGlLLnNnhsSABEt5iQ_UOEfM7QMt-EZ7zNOW8f7DX33y4gXQ3zoHdRAhKO2yV4qtlWqABm3S-D09cwkM5R0t0af6p3sboU-mCdaz4OZIqVfo8Dw4yRgsIGKad3tyncYv9GiiVnh1i8H0/s1600/IMG_9125.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTGlLLnNnhsSABEt5iQ_UOEfM7QMt-EZ7zNOW8f7DX33y4gXQ3zoHdRAhKO2yV4qtlWqABm3S-D09cwkM5R0t0af6p3sboU-mCdaz4OZIqVfo8Dw4yRgsIGKad3tyncYv9GiiVnh1i8H0/s400/IMG_9125.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><i>The Bells of Ouzeley</i>, now owned by the Harvester restaurant company, gets
its name from the bells of Osney Abbey in Oxford, supposedly secreted here and
buried under the mud after that abbey’s destruction by Henry VIII.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu85NrRTb9u6VTEYeXz_EZyMFomuyYILUOl-f__W2hfn_oiZp9NDPIdnCBJZv6ao7Iu7bGoavpBq7a9Huw4jd-N5V8NNHdcTWyAk-GcZDvEh1EzLgksIbx_BnaPuRhE_XegYIA0Kun4Fg/s1600/IMG_9127.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu85NrRTb9u6VTEYeXz_EZyMFomuyYILUOl-f__W2hfn_oiZp9NDPIdnCBJZv6ao7Iu7bGoavpBq7a9Huw4jd-N5V8NNHdcTWyAk-GcZDvEh1EzLgksIbx_BnaPuRhE_XegYIA0Kun4Fg/s400/IMG_9127.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The rise of the water reduces the land to a vulnerable sliver between river and
sky.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqma8h16stGK7Qsrde_dS9XYTXdbTpLdcvm1WQ_MUYJwLtvYrr4VMdNkEOPanmY16NrxbnlkcKvC3QzTzKXE-tbRdxgwcQCAHrt-GaBzEwbIM1tOvn9oUiDzD_jMAOk1k4iQfCogWVn_0/s1600/IMG_9129.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqma8h16stGK7Qsrde_dS9XYTXdbTpLdcvm1WQ_MUYJwLtvYrr4VMdNkEOPanmY16NrxbnlkcKvC3QzTzKXE-tbRdxgwcQCAHrt-GaBzEwbIM1tOvn9oUiDzD_jMAOk1k4iQfCogWVn_0/s400/IMG_9129.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And then there is no land. This is the first point on this journey that the
river itself has pushed us away from its banks.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXLOQrAldMaJfRR4Nhbzf9Xh1Hd7GLtdEZn6beqCz5_5vztfJYB9LrIBxIpELT4a4dt0Hm9qjbsJLHHVju0Y6GObw7KoGsMMPWi68a05q8Qm0qzEQQejrvlZMgB5HMezmUkMqIFouMN0Q/s1600/IMG_9128.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXLOQrAldMaJfRR4Nhbzf9Xh1Hd7GLtdEZn6beqCz5_5vztfJYB9LrIBxIpELT4a4dt0Hm9qjbsJLHHVju0Y6GObw7KoGsMMPWi68a05q8Qm0qzEQQejrvlZMgB5HMezmUkMqIFouMN0Q/s400/IMG_9128.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Barkshire</i>. Like this.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6WLT8nGKi6khwkGYKw9u1Yq7p0aaKkpD6xS-F7CvXptj2D1O2jX5IJZcU1zbJISb7C45WekG_wXPbb0-orzwClYMptq3NH55q7YQJXb_DCM159ZyO9dYAuLJuCG0xdEUReHJ6ccxewq4/s1600/IMG_9130.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6WLT8nGKi6khwkGYKw9u1Yq7p0aaKkpD6xS-F7CvXptj2D1O2jX5IJZcU1zbJISb7C45WekG_wXPbb0-orzwClYMptq3NH55q7YQJXb_DCM159ZyO9dYAuLJuCG0xdEUReHJ6ccxewq4/s400/IMG_9130.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>That’s one way around the problem. But enabling flight would fundamentally
change the nature of this journey and make it harder to <i>doom very evenly</i>.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Before
Windsor there was Old Windsor. Excavations here have turned up evidence of a
very long history of settlement. But the site seems to have gained special
popularity with the Anglo-Saxon kings who took advantage of its river access
and proximity to forests with good hunting, and at a certain point their
presence earned it the name <i>Kingsbury</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
By
the time of Edward the Confessor it had sprouted a fortified royal residence.
By then it was already known as <i>Windsor</i>. In the <i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i>
this name first appears in 1061 to record the consecration of an archbishop
here. It has an innocent origin, indicating a winch or windlass (<i>windles</i>)
on the riverbank (<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ō</span>ra</i>). The latter element is uncertain, but it would be little
surprise if this name, which has travelled so far, began as yet another humble
reference to that which underlies all life here, the river, and the humans’
reliance on it to transport the goods they winched on and off.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Half
a century later, in 1110, the <i>Chronicle</i> notes that king Henry I ‘held
his court for the first time in the <i>New Windsor</i>’. This reflects the
shift away from this site to the now more familiar Windsor to the north, drawn
away by the awesome gravity of the castle the Normans built there. That edifice
and the stories flung off its battlements now dominate this whole area, but
little remains of the old meadows of Kingsbury right here where it all started.
Old Windsor is now a suburban village, known only off signposts by the throngs from
around the world who pile past to visit its replacement.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv6rTYRGDi09wRgoKDI1feYpTSvf9p6P5QicyOUA3rads-EFzqw8V4A9ywvbiw2pKa7ViUWAWcj65rluoHVSbeohfVGQhYUMneK88CHUZZfdIFUQ7GapIsPob5YcUQQU6TWSlyrJeJ8Fc/s1600/IMG_9131.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv6rTYRGDi09wRgoKDI1feYpTSvf9p6P5QicyOUA3rads-EFzqw8V4A9ywvbiw2pKa7ViUWAWcj65rluoHVSbeohfVGQhYUMneK88CHUZZfdIFUQ7GapIsPob5YcUQQU6TWSlyrJeJ8Fc/s400/IMG_9131.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A residential street in Old Windsor. This house is considerably more
remarkable than most of the others here.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxuPC64f63Y3yjuWSq8XHxhznVn3LJydfiO-AElYTO03-7O6WEsWxrfqbIf_4WW0oEO1ZG-d1qU_pxgOVULu06j554XU3DtLkEAfwdxaboGxSazSoaAy-HUb6FUKRbT6gbOSV6oXpAp7U/s1600/IMG_9132.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxuPC64f63Y3yjuWSq8XHxhznVn3LJydfiO-AElYTO03-7O6WEsWxrfqbIf_4WW0oEO1ZG-d1qU_pxgOVULu06j554XU3DtLkEAfwdxaboGxSazSoaAy-HUb6FUKRbT6gbOSV6oXpAp7U/s400/IMG_9132.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>And here is a resident, whose eyes glow gold with the clarity of one who <i>dooms
very evenly</i>.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuO5dZ7mWQTKdckoLUHgVnvXAbUK5hxSIaaE_Mp9azw2oGToFXHr48ofAnQVx0Wmn9Y8juX0FXX9rmaQoOHSmhCMA0FZvZmUBqzWSnakEAvW2Nzva4S7LlWGOVrWwgeOpBgVRLfKsCZPo/s1600/IMG_9138.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuO5dZ7mWQTKdckoLUHgVnvXAbUK5hxSIaaE_Mp9azw2oGToFXHr48ofAnQVx0Wmn9Y8juX0FXX9rmaQoOHSmhCMA0FZvZmUBqzWSnakEAvW2Nzva4S7LlWGOVrWwgeOpBgVRLfKsCZPo/s400/IMG_9138.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>They also have bunnies.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjjSb86d-FBflVBKnsBJDNhzL5ULoZwkqWcaozFik_giQMARvP5-KLp5mn-wKnelbNM_X737QAp2F7oERb5N1d0MwYOCZQhimqtQC2t3P8nYvrsFJollnpUx2UOPvXlZItYtaICa-YPVM/s1600/IMG_9139.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjjSb86d-FBflVBKnsBJDNhzL5ULoZwkqWcaozFik_giQMARvP5-KLp5mn-wKnelbNM_X737QAp2F7oERb5N1d0MwYOCZQhimqtQC2t3P8nYvrsFJollnpUx2UOPvXlZItYtaICa-YPVM/s400/IMG_9139.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Old Windsor’s parish church has a rare double dedication to both St. Peter and
St. Andrew. It was much restored by the Victorians but one of its oldest parts
is the tower, whose you-shall-not-pass stone walls and leering windows signify
Norman design. The Norman building was itself a reconstruction in 1218 because
after the Magna Carta didn’t work, the French invasion the barons called in came
through here and wrecked the wooden original. That in turn is thought to have
stood on the chapel of Edward the Confessor’s palace. If he hadn’t built that,
it’s possible the name of Windsor would not exist and the English would now
have a royal family called the<i> Buckinghams</i> or <i>Balmorals</i> or something.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
After
far too long on roads because of all the private houses incorrectly in the way,
a path emerges back to the river near Old Windsor Lock.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRXEHFot7jgnqn5EDy8hcvX3HX53nQra-_QlB6lWvJPZNAs2KQEXMw3FJRjG7j1c6mg5qwWsqfee1KiKl2vb7UdPReVzsZyt29SbVbor4TUYtdG66F2HUGMzMucrvl-ktx4kVTvaHAa6o/s1600/IMG_9140.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRXEHFot7jgnqn5EDy8hcvX3HX53nQra-_QlB6lWvJPZNAs2KQEXMw3FJRjG7j1c6mg5qwWsqfee1KiKl2vb7UdPReVzsZyt29SbVbor4TUYtdG66F2HUGMzMucrvl-ktx4kVTvaHAa6o/s400/IMG_9140.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>What appear to be native huts on the far bank are actually the stylised
Honeypot Cottage, built in 1933. Its most famous resident was the film and
television actress Beryl Reid, who gave notable queer and lesbian performances
at a time of ingrained hostility to sexual and gender diversity in English
society. She was also fond of taking in stray cats and at times had over a
dozen living in there with her.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAhfsA-NPnH1-WB6uU6vljPNRbxV9UuvGwJHZ43DaGQNnJvEXrNBQ_WXH_-zwYgg5JIumlgJeTReLodIbG0H3bGavzFytOIwqH93NaVnUJAnOGJB9vVL4zhW-NOwz4a8iddoGqydfpe9c/s1600/IMG_9141.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAhfsA-NPnH1-WB6uU6vljPNRbxV9UuvGwJHZ43DaGQNnJvEXrNBQ_WXH_-zwYgg5JIumlgJeTReLodIbG0H3bGavzFytOIwqH93NaVnUJAnOGJB9vVL4zhW-NOwz4a8iddoGqydfpe9c/s400/IMG_9141.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This island resembles a footprint. At some point someone decided the likeness
was not to just any footprint but specifically the footprint of the indigenous
Carib character Man Friday from Daniel Defoe’s <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> (1719). Goodness
knows how they worked that out, but this has been known as Friday Island ever
since.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUTFK12-iJlEGGpBDcBN5fCt21QAvlgjaHYMt-w58TQ-KE9EG1rvmlACugJd5iFPOshH6OcsjDzvu7sIVyqEQvrUVDkWfyr3DLq7_1T49hYmiZLGsNK8A52K3oI1Y8XFPAMiV5Q5d_j0/s1600/IMG_9144.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUTFK12-iJlEGGpBDcBN5fCt21QAvlgjaHYMt-w58TQ-KE9EG1rvmlACugJd5iFPOshH6OcsjDzvu7sIVyqEQvrUVDkWfyr3DLq7_1T49hYmiZLGsNK8A52K3oI1Y8XFPAMiV5Q5d_j0/s400/IMG_9144.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Old Windsor Lock, built in 1822. This one was built not for navigation round a
weir but as part of another piece of cheeky river engineering.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
is another instance, like <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">Desbreko
Island</a></u> downstream, where they cut through a perfectly good meander because
they could not be bothered to navigate all the way around it. So instead of following
the river’s natural course we are now funnelled up the equally
impatiently-named New Cut.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP3STSKZRVJjR2oh_cApp0abBPgv37eJcTr-FgpJNUbA0jjlxf2zjSIPUmG33JUENG5GSE_N6-RDF2KM-BleJnMILIAQm_ykHWVsFUF-Wf2oCsT0VNxN0sSKUKxNd3_txpj-fICDXiSTU/s1600/IMG_9145.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP3STSKZRVJjR2oh_cApp0abBPgv37eJcTr-FgpJNUbA0jjlxf2zjSIPUmG33JUENG5GSE_N6-RDF2KM-BleJnMILIAQm_ykHWVsFUF-Wf2oCsT0VNxN0sSKUKxNd3_txpj-fICDXiSTU/s400/IMG_9145.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The artificially still waters of the New Cut, with more Barkshires approaching
at left. At right is the land inside the meander which the cut turned into Ham
Island. It holds the uneasy combination of affluent but flood-susceptible
houses and Old Windsor’s sewage treatment works.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Y4ZTFE5QL3u5dh0JKQmSdVHuYdfcy1Qx-DGKbJOifq1EDmhIfsuspFf-64TzzesVrrzK5g9m8blBMBAvlByciqy0skIxB7IOPAG2KyDNbWjWU29FaeCucFcQq2UvyEutd_983RKqMMo/s1600/IMG_9147.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Y4ZTFE5QL3u5dh0JKQmSdVHuYdfcy1Qx-DGKbJOifq1EDmhIfsuspFf-64TzzesVrrzK5g9m8blBMBAvlByciqy0skIxB7IOPAG2KyDNbWjWU29FaeCucFcQq2UvyEutd_983RKqMMo/s400/IMG_9147.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>At the north end we return to the actual river to find its surroundings
significantly rougher now. Though its next stretch has some of its most
profligately landscaped expanses of all, it is easy to look through the cracks
and see the encroachment of the bush.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Datchet</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
now some landowner has greedily monopolised the entire 250 hectares inside the
river bend and forbids the common people from continuing along this bank, Magna
Carta or no Magna Carta. A head-on assault to liberate it would require a
little more equipment, so the better option for now is to cross this bridge and
orbit their grounds with a wary eye from the far bank.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH8Mrt8PMKDqaI1U6hFJbtTbB58Y8dt2Lgpv8GVOIgcXryHt8lCahJ5FAm5BGYoVSkEJynLuyMb0PvPBe6hApklNdeJxItTASgXQ2z1JTF7tVt1vEdcRBsf99fjY8AA-0g-fLPXATxr4M/s1600/IMG_9151.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH8Mrt8PMKDqaI1U6hFJbtTbB58Y8dt2Lgpv8GVOIgcXryHt8lCahJ5FAm5BGYoVSkEJynLuyMb0PvPBe6hApklNdeJxItTASgXQ2z1JTF7tVt1vEdcRBsf99fjY8AA-0g-fLPXATxr4M/s400/IMG_9151.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Albert Bridge. Yes, that means there is also a Victoria Bridge further up to
complete the pair. They were put here in the 1850s as part of a big road
rearrangement after said landowners deployed this wonderful thing called rule
of law to grab all the land for themselves and make it accessible to No Free
Man. As part of the same scheme they tore down the old Datchet Bridge, a
bizarre thing whose halves were built separately out of different materials by
the county authorities on either side (the east used to be Buckinghamshire)
because each insisted the other should pay for it.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22ls2EkPbZOBroCGmenmCtj_u5LaDWB3UxZoVkgxI_D_d8qWMzen9MV-TcNFGGD3CN4wr1_vCI9JHDZfF3giogD20AyueObje2of1MdeLd7BbsPg3rMcOHOf0Lb0MRLNw501Z4FCa49c/s1600/IMG_9153.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22ls2EkPbZOBroCGmenmCtj_u5LaDWB3UxZoVkgxI_D_d8qWMzen9MV-TcNFGGD3CN4wr1_vCI9JHDZfF3giogD20AyueObje2of1MdeLd7BbsPg3rMcOHOf0Lb0MRLNw501Z4FCa49c/s400/IMG_9153.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>All of that is merely the corner of the private estate in question. You could
probably fit a few small countries in there.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdwblJ7hYktjFKGdYSYskbtxgUUtjLyRuZyX2nl0SnD-FarT6Vc_PE_4Z47zbdoMcsI1Pgt7LacF_NJ-3ScPGMavp8u_JkzxdFrJJJ6U6PqlyIDH88DmhS6wmTZvqcbAipT1n_93ugXok/s1600/IMG_9154.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdwblJ7hYktjFKGdYSYskbtxgUUtjLyRuZyX2nl0SnD-FarT6Vc_PE_4Z47zbdoMcsI1Pgt7LacF_NJ-3ScPGMavp8u_JkzxdFrJJJ6U6PqlyIDH88DmhS6wmTZvqcbAipT1n_93ugXok/s400/IMG_9154.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Some cute life-forms growing on the bridge. Look at the tiny green nodules
coming out of them. These live to a far more ancient ruleset than the humans
and in this case look a lot more relaxed for it.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBTfrEo46rdB3KCOdFxXokULXu0oE25O6Iyf89PrAVy-09CWbjZWZ1dYbLe1OghGJf_pa6vPA9TC320lQ94svJ3TzfV9ApQOk59RSwNPQxTLLSB4gf8BV7OvktD_Tv-xUx4eLQh9NAre0/s1600/IMG_9152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBTfrEo46rdB3KCOdFxXokULXu0oE25O6Iyf89PrAVy-09CWbjZWZ1dYbLe1OghGJf_pa6vPA9TC320lQ94svJ3TzfV9ApQOk59RSwNPQxTLLSB4gf8BV7OvktD_Tv-xUx4eLQh9NAre0/s400/IMG_9152.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Not really sure what their notion of ‘concealed’ is here.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Relegated
to the outer bank, the commoner must endure a path with no such meticulous
manicuring and contend with floods, bumps and triffids to find a way through.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqjcMjad45gsI9_PnXueObijlbbX83yyIRzA5OjbsFhMe74N9xXhpTygcY9o_NCl6K2Gkm2R86M35gGGGugjGMVU5CN0gkAM17VnYBUEpwhcQuYsFrVk9qT9BOLb9aPf9jvq03_6FaEw/s1600/IMG_9155.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqjcMjad45gsI9_PnXueObijlbbX83yyIRzA5OjbsFhMe74N9xXhpTygcY9o_NCl6K2Gkm2R86M35gGGGugjGMVU5CN0gkAM17VnYBUEpwhcQuYsFrVk9qT9BOLb9aPf9jvq03_6FaEw/s400/IMG_9155.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>It’s not the river’s fault that it’s constrained from <i>dooming very evenly</i>
here.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl23s5bXJUQt5HjPbdwpeUa22kqMxtNRYxGmiEEE04deWB8AmvUDMVs4ifo4wgJxC9PGmivq8G45zaEpdUVu4hXUp68_-Qij_D7SXsyi27Ix0nJaaWU3awqEJsCdzrJcW-xmeOFerqJnU/s1600/IMG_9156.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl23s5bXJUQt5HjPbdwpeUa22kqMxtNRYxGmiEEE04deWB8AmvUDMVs4ifo4wgJxC9PGmivq8G45zaEpdUVu4hXUp68_-Qij_D7SXsyi27Ix0nJaaWU3awqEJsCdzrJcW-xmeOFerqJnU/s400/IMG_9156.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>On this side one sees them increasingly fitting agriculture into the gaps
between settlements.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi41TcwCULZDdOy5dArYQg6Hdv7go1Uqg0skkSKV7OSAp2jP6UYSCko9ZhpmQLXKAu9E3QU_asxs72JGY0S9-2vVaIx3dMaRRQeZida1biD3ZCmfYdHZ913eO6njIupXFeqFXKA-Dpuxho/s1600/IMG_9157.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi41TcwCULZDdOy5dArYQg6Hdv7go1Uqg0skkSKV7OSAp2jP6UYSCko9ZhpmQLXKAu9E3QU_asxs72JGY0S9-2vVaIx3dMaRRQeZida1biD3ZCmfYdHZ913eO6njIupXFeqFXKA-Dpuxho/s400/IMG_9157.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Some token gabions, hidden in the riverbank to reassure the peasantry that the
authorities do think from time to time about their flood safety.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1mHIGBNmKx86Jamg_1gYDNZ2id3M8qRCzhKGqa0G2M8jQZVjJl82ICH5jrWTQ7SyTWO-xBlX1SLEMzZlgspsfp7HV6sVMvmxxdpOVHNwMDCSf5gwmv0n5gEvx9Adpbpn_vT1LdEypthw/s1600/IMG_9159.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1mHIGBNmKx86Jamg_1gYDNZ2id3M8qRCzhKGqa0G2M8jQZVjJl82ICH5jrWTQ7SyTWO-xBlX1SLEMzZlgspsfp7HV6sVMvmxxdpOVHNwMDCSf5gwmv0n5gEvx9Adpbpn_vT1LdEypthw/s400/IMG_9159.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Thames Water is installing eel screens here too so that No Free Eel be seized,
imprisoned, or deprived of its standing in any way.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Eventually
the walker surfaces in the settlement of <b>Datchet</b>. This is a picturesque
little village, crammed with listed buildings, whose quaint architecture and convenient
location suggest it grew as a satellite of Windsor Castle to which it used to
ferry the monarchs across the river.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In
fact Datchet is considerably more ancient than the castle and even the
Anglo-Saxon palace. The first clue is in its strikingly unusual name. Datchet
is supposed to come not from Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Scandinavian or Roman tongues
but one of the Celtic languages spoken here before them all. This would make it
one of an extremely small number of such survivals in southeast England, all
the more astonishing for its persistence right beneath the most fearsome cockpit
of the Norman steamroller. A wealth of ceremonial weapons and ornaments dug up
from the river further support the probability that this was an established
settlement for thousands of years before the idea of England came around.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Another
Celtic whisper here is inaudible not for its quietness but its loudness. <i>Berkshire</i>.
<u><a href="https://archive.org/stream/asserslifeofking00asseiala#page/xii/mode/2up">King
Alfred’s biographer Asser suggests</a></u> that it ‘receives its name from Berroc
Wood, where the box-tree grows very abundantly’ (Alfred himself was born not
far away in Wantage). The wood no longer exists, but <i>Berroc</i> appears to
derive from a Celtic word indicating hills or a summit. It is this sort of
tangled linguistic lineage that accounts for – and if you feel generous, might
partially excuse – this country’s pronunciation problems.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Ee0KzOwsyIpCKATD32XcshIFTXutORo_zao1MvJEEuHj1KVI4oxhWCrfZCXDEi9LAsb2y0SfSvNWoo5itGGJ-pdtjO3P3L4zMv3mbcxdQXWJKOm8PcqekRNXPZGnNPquDknZNc5Ub7k/s1600/IMG_9162.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Ee0KzOwsyIpCKATD32XcshIFTXutORo_zao1MvJEEuHj1KVI4oxhWCrfZCXDEi9LAsb2y0SfSvNWoo5itGGJ-pdtjO3P3L4zMv3mbcxdQXWJKOm8PcqekRNXPZGnNPquDknZNc5Ub7k/s400/IMG_9162.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The centre of Datchet is built on raised ground, making it safer from the
floods. That is not the case of its public wharf garden, on whose benches one
might be advised not to fall asleep lest they wake up in Staines.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9-EaCfO2ECZueWlris7PeXpdX0Rd991W3ZUHZMyX2EPt9FNII0xFNdWdVihfmgz6pYuUwgBNEpbhexg8paEzmTAHXWqS5oV2ucAVfzzr6TWkpNuFOkBj1Z6sYHwwaAxP0FEtxCz_l4mo/s1600/IMG_9164.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9-EaCfO2ECZueWlris7PeXpdX0Rd991W3ZUHZMyX2EPt9FNII0xFNdWdVihfmgz6pYuUwgBNEpbhexg8paEzmTAHXWqS5oV2ucAVfzzr6TWkpNuFOkBj1Z6sYHwwaAxP0FEtxCz_l4mo/s400/IMG_9164.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Central Datchet, with the church and surrounding buildings clustered onto the
highest point.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqyj7qPkbHxJMuWvDoBKSIbhwbvSAhc5GnGTccHbqq001k3Js_FG0S_XfopX4A1-qOJyWN3cYSXwNuXtSFC-ye_op8AulXaoO8z76plDoPsHUWlJqe31iyye7jh3W_FU2Q5YYqxWwCn4s/s1600/IMG_9167.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqyj7qPkbHxJMuWvDoBKSIbhwbvSAhc5GnGTccHbqq001k3Js_FG0S_XfopX4A1-qOJyWN3cYSXwNuXtSFC-ye_op8AulXaoO8z76plDoPsHUWlJqe31iyye7jh3W_FU2Q5YYqxWwCn4s/s400/IMG_9167.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Then at last, the land-grabbing culprits come into sight.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Beyond
Datchet there is supposedly a nice little wooded river island called
Sumptermead Ait which offers views into the castle’s territory, including a
strategic sighting of the Royal Boathouse. This might have been a useful
reconnaissance for any potential invasion plan, as taking quick control of that
facility might stop the defenders producing battleships, submarines and aircraft
carriers and allow the opening of a new front by river landing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Alas, the river
has other ideas. It probably wants to see how this monarchy will navigate its
current crises without such timely intervention.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjihBg4ogceCJWRJVD9JrUEtvjMwXX1QL7r5F7Dz_nDsK4gEyqBPyvQkxKWNg6av9KbBRshT0cJLSp1DEkTiYVlPEqkqVSk_Ks1nnA94BymwH25bEBsLavEqh1cPCocie20aFzDxXhbE7c/s1600/IMG_9166.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjihBg4ogceCJWRJVD9JrUEtvjMwXX1QL7r5F7Dz_nDsK4gEyqBPyvQkxKWNg6av9KbBRshT0cJLSp1DEkTiYVlPEqkqVSk_Ks1nnA94BymwH25bEBsLavEqh1cPCocie20aFzDxXhbE7c/s400/IMG_9166.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The way to Sumptermead Ait. The answer is no.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqYbsQvxYbJ0kDQKPENi9bn1VrlEodXSvaaYuBRVn8lbuY8RUhoYU9gmNjOcA4iETIp4DXa__ul3te4Cz9jiqHuLosyxFUHJLnlmSPBVcAuZy2SyBCKoeloRd9B8mIrlzjOWv4Wx5_Yz0/s1600/IMG_9168.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqYbsQvxYbJ0kDQKPENi9bn1VrlEodXSvaaYuBRVn8lbuY8RUhoYU9gmNjOcA4iETIp4DXa__ul3te4Cz9jiqHuLosyxFUHJLnlmSPBVcAuZy2SyBCKoeloRd9B8mIrlzjOWv4Wx5_Yz0/s400/IMG_9168.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Instead we must progress inland to the next bridge, the aforementioned
Victoria. Here the royals magnanimously give way and release the northernmost slice
of the river bend to the public. We can cross back and continue on the inside
bank without getting shot or mauled by ravenous corgis.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEian0KFWaotRlV97AByXAED4QAZNeBxXIeHNJDitALr-vvDy2P2qHZhesxEmf0SR0FjVI32AMbAenZYxMGPvDFnf9Sxx5eCzfut3H08A1aMwgkBZQ-oL1DuZ2l513fP9HPI0H1zTkxqels/s1600/IMG_9172.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEian0KFWaotRlV97AByXAED4QAZNeBxXIeHNJDitALr-vvDy2P2qHZhesxEmf0SR0FjVI32AMbAenZYxMGPvDFnf9Sxx5eCzfut3H08A1aMwgkBZQ-oL1DuZ2l513fP9HPI0H1zTkxqels/s400/IMG_9172.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>There is something wrong here. Those look like either birds’ nests or clumps of
greenery, but the whole incongruousness of that landscaping suggests them to be something more sinister. Perhaps it is best not to touch them.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Windsor Castle</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Today’s
exploration ends in the castle town of <b>Windsor</b> in the shadow of one of
the toughest, and certainly physically heftiest, privilege forts of the Thames
valley.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz7OtRKQW6qyRwU9ZOyu6zKagqFIyQgVRK2ct85EUu-ZRYgp9HcpWRb2nnM-N5_haS-XAEnOScwrOcJdGEy-72TFHpZWYaPZNtDp97SazYqFFGafZ9q85WEcxKkMjKeVdZIzBRpeaosHw/s1600/IMG_9177.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz7OtRKQW6qyRwU9ZOyu6zKagqFIyQgVRK2ct85EUu-ZRYgp9HcpWRb2nnM-N5_haS-XAEnOScwrOcJdGEy-72TFHpZWYaPZNtDp97SazYqFFGafZ9q85WEcxKkMjKeVdZIzBRpeaosHw/s400/IMG_9177.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>There it is. Notice the suspiciousness with which it arranges even the sun so
that those looking out of its windows have a perfect view of their subjects on
this field but those looking towards it are dazzled.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-aS-wiTNBEEkZ3UNedehtux5eEO1Wlxv2ME29sI21G88mN3YFOplmqJlmxlM1Aow6xopZn-xNuJlCDSpy552BDcFV8u7Fz6nfqEiIPFU-YDRpgaSO_N4tOcO3SWyG5YRCzwcU4KRBDBs/s1600/IMG_9179.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-aS-wiTNBEEkZ3UNedehtux5eEO1Wlxv2ME29sI21G88mN3YFOplmqJlmxlM1Aow6xopZn-xNuJlCDSpy552BDcFV8u7Fz6nfqEiIPFU-YDRpgaSO_N4tOcO3SWyG5YRCzwcU4KRBDBs/s400/IMG_9179.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The sun is disinclined to participate in national power struggles so moves
aside to yield a better view. Look at this thing. It is far too big and was
clearly not in the first place designed to give millions of tourists something
to wow at. You build castles like that to keep people out, not draw them in.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
official name of the castle’s eastern penumbra, both its public and private
bits, is <i>Home Park</i>. They say it was once known as Little Park, which was
probably someone’s idea of a joke. Though the royals’ encroachment on it goes
back to Plantagenet kings’ appetite for deer-hunting, it was only with the
Windsor Castle Act of 1848 that the Crown Estate consolidated their hold and brought
down the law to protect its present boundaries. All this is only a barnacle on
the 5,000-acre enormity of Windsor Great Park to the south, though most of
those grounds at least are open to the public.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifvPPhKBx_jOCIQ_nApp4ykTDGe0bKRGqBKwt6YPaB7lyCGOawSfIiaBKNP2YUWpszyDcuCxqATl1Gog5dMhSINBjDK9pC8F1loM4ZNmzr4FIyBoDT0Cx9DBmwbm7LmXb6GxTZFh1fx8c/s1600/IMG_9169.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifvPPhKBx_jOCIQ_nApp4ykTDGe0bKRGqBKwt6YPaB7lyCGOawSfIiaBKNP2YUWpszyDcuCxqATl1Gog5dMhSINBjDK9pC8F1loM4ZNmzr4FIyBoDT0Cx9DBmwbm7LmXb6GxTZFh1fx8c/s400/IMG_9169.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Most of Home Park’s northern concession is used by the locals as playing
fields. This is also where they cut the Jubilee River in 2002, an artificial
channel that acts as a second parallel river between Maidenhead and here. In
other words they paid £110 million to reduce flooding around Windsor and Eton
and dump it instead on the commoners downstream.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicAkjbH3mFHYADukGeb1aRNdOg4SRmTaTGWXY80y9UdFGLkpVZ9atve8wZtR4DKh16gcRmoQQ3rG8lih19TIVfLs5OLjhn6SvW7cK4iRvCEacI0cahqZMAe2DxtbmeoFwyUMx3yBBC-S8/s1600/IMG_9170.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicAkjbH3mFHYADukGeb1aRNdOg4SRmTaTGWXY80y9UdFGLkpVZ9atve8wZtR4DKh16gcRmoQQ3rG8lih19TIVfLs5OLjhn6SvW7cK4iRvCEacI0cahqZMAe2DxtbmeoFwyUMx3yBBC-S8/s400/IMG_9170.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>In the distance, what looks like a major cathedral or node in a network of
world-domination antenna arrays is in fact the private chapel of Eton College.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwHg_1v26-WZeYV9BW6K5AlpkyznmWW-oV5zWhQ8lfseAX4KVMVMQW9pFoIahfKud98pKQEZqDorAqW4D7KvovQMSFGKcKSC5z_e8YJiWAPNMRzmsWh_8vi0bSR6JINIs5E4tN1Hc5GUo/s1600/IMG_9175.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwHg_1v26-WZeYV9BW6K5AlpkyznmWW-oV5zWhQ8lfseAX4KVMVMQW9pFoIahfKud98pKQEZqDorAqW4D7KvovQMSFGKcKSC5z_e8YJiWAPNMRzmsWh_8vi0bSR6JINIs5E4tN1Hc5GUo/s400/IMG_9175.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The Crown Estate wishes all its colonial subjects who come through Windsor to
know that the English are civilised, and invites the public to show it by not
carrying their fish in this manner.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGIc5Jhjs1lymh9GaSCDeDysp_79kT4nUigJl1mm-QBHt-IjlZQfvnRagdECC5EN6OXSTVYMn6CkrnjGDqDXezIJoZQ3qHiatCu4k9j0MX_6cE5T2wKXDPho8jwR_niURA4SBiwV1hOPc/s1600/IMG_9178.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGIc5Jhjs1lymh9GaSCDeDysp_79kT4nUigJl1mm-QBHt-IjlZQfvnRagdECC5EN6OXSTVYMn6CkrnjGDqDXezIJoZQ3qHiatCu4k9j0MX_6cE5T2wKXDPho8jwR_niURA4SBiwV1hOPc/s400/IMG_9178.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Black Pott’s Bridge was laid in 1849 to carry the railway from Waterloo across
to Windsor. This unassuming structure thus played a key role in the castle’s
final transformation from a fortification to a tourist honeypot. It’s not clear
where its name comes from but it could have something to do with soot.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Unfortunately
one last bout of flooding has claimed the tunnel beneath the railway, barring
access to the riverside once again. The only recourse is to cut across the Home
Park parking area to where the river penetrates right into central Windsor.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv8-V4L1gUl99vCAjVt4TuUTjasJXmRZXNnbRcvAuFErUpIRdOM3DaN2_Mopl2aAwgeV8Z4SSEtuphdCGrWaF2GwpL5APlw1jkMf-vFkisTFG8J5hjE9wUtLjwi61L2Nbq6h5PAcIpv9g/s1600/IMG_9182.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv8-V4L1gUl99vCAjVt4TuUTjasJXmRZXNnbRcvAuFErUpIRdOM3DaN2_Mopl2aAwgeV8Z4SSEtuphdCGrWaF2GwpL5APlw1jkMf-vFkisTFG8J5hjE9wUtLjwi61L2Nbq6h5PAcIpv9g/s400/IMG_9182.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The final approach to Windsor alongside one of its train stations. It has two.
Windsor and Eton Riverside here connects to Waterloo in London, while Windsor
and Eton Central is a branch line from the major town of Slough.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN7JQHVQH59a2Ppe5CIZgBIJEgsOVv1-PqF7qgdLSmcrqWf_bAYAke77ZRWPU7P1sOQ7rCwDEZlF_UXLq8P66jU58Xs0K9W1KBbodwSnrlbBK-sIlLXJKhJ9pPKGXa9Ofr7GHhnwOVtD8/s1600/IMG_9184.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN7JQHVQH59a2Ppe5CIZgBIJEgsOVv1-PqF7qgdLSmcrqWf_bAYAke77ZRWPU7P1sOQ7rCwDEZlF_UXLq8P66jU58Xs0K9W1KBbodwSnrlbBK-sIlLXJKhJ9pPKGXa9Ofr7GHhnwOVtD8/s400/IMG_9184.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Windsor, being a castle town, is clustered round the castle on the south bank.
Its current bridge dates to 1824 but hundreds of years of bridges here have
connected it to the college town of Eton, seen here, which controls the north.
Eton is not a target you have a few goes at in passing. Let’s save it for next
time.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6geIhS34Du9kZdfIgCJRPu2lSdUSV8LlVNaUxZAuXmBOEMAIklw6fXNe92Dyai_vFp69ymQgH9aUZ2Shx2IV8FRyKThs1mhugV3b-y0pzrqe2ClkREo8J_poLfM2KxFXpCOdmRy0rYTU/s1600/IMG_9185.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6geIhS34Du9kZdfIgCJRPu2lSdUSV8LlVNaUxZAuXmBOEMAIklw6fXNe92Dyai_vFp69ymQgH9aUZ2Shx2IV8FRyKThs1mhugV3b-y0pzrqe2ClkREo8J_poLfM2KxFXpCOdmRy0rYTU/s400/IMG_9185.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Windsor’s riverside is crowded with swans and also, for the first time since
London, with humans. Demographically speaking its daytime population is
probably one of the most multicultural in England. Alas, the rainbow of global
cultural diversity is then dulled to a monochrome of shopping frenzies,
selfie-snapping and the inconsiderate elbowing of touristy clichés.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeuxI-LDAMgdHeh_Y0QJYS5WpM9JW80u-2f1qqcehZ50RxL-a5MwlKnL5evnTHWvMgy0mf6C7Fgwl8OmoUd8VYPRFUffq40NacfRJbo0hXSofMWg0aFC-V6QZ5qQmscFGe9PdtXoTUVy0/s1600/IMG_9186.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeuxI-LDAMgdHeh_Y0QJYS5WpM9JW80u-2f1qqcehZ50RxL-a5MwlKnL5evnTHWvMgy0mf6C7Fgwl8OmoUd8VYPRFUffq40NacfRJbo0hXSofMWg0aFC-V6QZ5qQmscFGe9PdtXoTUVy0/s400/IMG_9186.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Then turn a corner and there it is. Again, look at it. Does that look like a
wall that wants you to come in and have some tea?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It’s
interesting this. When you look at all those stories the English tell about
liberty and democracy, the primary antagonist in most of them, including the
Magna Carta myth, is their own hereditary monarchy. Simultaneously, with no apparent
contradiction, they have cultivated a global brand in which there could be
nothing more English than that monarchy. When foreigners think of England they
think of the Queen, Buckingham Palace, red-suited guards with preposterous
towering hats. When the English write fairy tales or role-play in fantasy
worlds, their default unit of political authority is a king. Even when they put
their king to death in the name (if not the fact) of liberty and rule of law,
they quickly got fed up of life without their monarchy and brought it back. And
today, even with no remaining overt political role, it attracts such a vehemence of
love and hate alike that it is as though its fate still decides the fate of the
nation.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Perhaps
<i>brand</i> is the key word now, the secret to the monarchy’s survival since
it was defanged of political authority. Some things haven’t changed: it still
takes up lots of their land and maintains itself on a huge bite of taxpayers’
money. But its power is now a <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">soft
power</a></u>, its service to England measured not in laws passed or territories
conquered but visitors attracted, charities patronised, mugs sold. Its role is
to create symbols and imbue them into people’s minds. And as at Runnymede, symbolism
has often mattered more than substance. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Windsor
Castle was always a symbol. The irony is that in spite of its creation in that
most stalwart of materials, stone, it has constantly changed what it is
symbolising. It is a chameleon, and to follow its changes in meaning, from its
bullying Norman walls to its nesting of fairytale television spectacles like
state visits and royal weddings, is to chart how the monarchy it embodies has
itself learnt to change its colours, ever adapting to a world where no king
rules forever.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoZwbPM4wIIUPKDmKslCT7wZuSynhyphenhyphen7cnHjghImD4JrCJmhSleZSRWkUJdR68Dz1SUfbuuv7V_0H6J1xoW-lXY4Rg5lOH3ZzHBpBp1WobgeqAR2_al-JQjHe-nUx_fKKUSH9JQ_KPIQ3Y/s1600/IMG_9191.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoZwbPM4wIIUPKDmKslCT7wZuSynhyphenhyphen7cnHjghImD4JrCJmhSleZSRWkUJdR68Dz1SUfbuuv7V_0H6J1xoW-lXY4Rg5lOH3ZzHBpBp1WobgeqAR2_al-JQjHe-nUx_fKKUSH9JQ_KPIQ3Y/s400/IMG_9191.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This is where the visitors go in. This late in the afternoon there are only a
few people milling about, but during the day the queue stretches all the way
down the hill.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
What
it first symbolised began with ‘F’ and ended in ‘off’. The castle was a direct
result of the Norman conquest of 1066, after which the conquerors set about
transforming English landscape and culture in their own image. The most visible
part of that process, on purpose, was the installation up and down the country of
gigantic motte-and-bailey castles. The strategy of planting these in the faces
of people they were trying to subdue, <u><a href="https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Strategy:Castle_drop">still
effective in <i>Age of Empires II</i></a></u>, was more or less invented by the
Normans, as were the edifices themselves whose dominating likes the Anglo-Saxon
population had never seen in their lives. The effect was twofold: a hub of
reinforcements for a rapid response to any local trouble, but more importantly,
a symbolic projection whose crushing psychological weight more often precluded
that trouble from those caught living in its shadow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
particular castle’s situation, on the Thames near the established hunting
residence at Old Windsor, made its fortifications especially convenient in the
centuries after the conquest when, as King John found out, monarchical
authority was precarious and prone to breakdown amidst succession crises,
feudal power struggles and enervating foreign wars. Several times these brought
the castle under siege, including by the barons and their French allies after
Magna Carta failed, but more often than not it was the symbolism of the
castle’s impregnability, rather than its fact, that led monarchs to seek their
safety here. In their wake came merchants and craftspeople eager for the business
opportunities in supporting these kings and their staffs; they amassed into
this castle town where they got their own charter of privileges tossed out of
an arrowslit to them, held markets and trade fairs, and quickly superseded the
Old Windsor settlement. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje6-Svnp2NAjo9AojYsD03x3zhcoggBRxf4OxQbu8rpkbgGhb_elY8Uy30rRR-WGyZaq5ijUP2PECGiXRliic15FrFQbYMENfjymKvmjcHvuPkX81lRxjFcuws8Ppme_-0skHEeih6IOI/s1600/IMG_9188.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje6-Svnp2NAjo9AojYsD03x3zhcoggBRxf4OxQbu8rpkbgGhb_elY8Uy30rRR-WGyZaq5ijUP2PECGiXRliic15FrFQbYMENfjymKvmjcHvuPkX81lRxjFcuws8Ppme_-0skHEeih6IOI/s400/IMG_9188.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Thus began Windsor’s commercial element, which would accompany then eventually
surpass the fortification. Functionally speaking it has absorbed those walls
and made them yet one more brand on its shelf. This is the <i>Windsor Royal
Shopping</i> arcade, which has Windsor and Eton Central train station built
into it.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Later
Plantagenets, feeling more secure, invested in the castle’s accommodations.
Edward III in particular lavished a great deal of attention on building it into
a royal headquarters whose every crenellation towered with wealth and
muscularity. The ongoing tradition of great set-piece visits to butter up foreign
notables emerged, never more so than when Henry V brought Sigismund, future
Holy Roman Emperor, here to try to impress him into helping out with his war
against the French. Its enjoyment by the self-aggrandising Tudors kept it in
prominence, even more so the Stuarts with their delight in bankrupting themselves
through the spendthrift decking of their lairs in art and sophistication. A
symbol of royal power was changing into a symbol of royal authority. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
That
was not an easy transition amidst the great English power struggle which in its
ugliest moments left the castle a symbol of neither. Rival kings cowered
pointlessly in it during the Wars of the Roses or otherwise built it up to
assert that they were better than each other. More perilously, in the civil
wars it fell for the first time to the monarchy’s enemies. The Parliamentary
army ransacked the castle, looted its treasures, smashed its icons, massacred
its deer, held its walls against a Royalist attempt to take it back and finally
held the king himself prisoner in it ahead of his fatal trial. In an echo of
mythic currents that by now will be familiar, when King Charles asked his
guard, Colonel Thomas Harrison, if he would like to have him killed, Harrison,
who did, only replied darkly that the king must face the law which was ‘equally
obliging to great and small’. (Cromwell’s view of rule of law was more straightforward:
‘I tell you we will cut off his head with the crown on it’). After he did, they
brought his corpse back here to be interred beneath its chapel. He’s probably
still down there, if any ambitious necromancers happen to be reading. They
sewed his head back on but bring sellotape just in case and be prepared for a
long and exhausting argument to get anything you want out of him. (Less
experienced necromancers in search of an easier challenge might go look for
John in Worcester first. There’ll be less argument and more name-calling but make
sure you can speak French.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW2P4Kn0h5WH-PpeOXjEXcOu8_bkkIVu75K5m3Ay5t7nwC4abgXB8ZhljhZ-siwgwjK2VAEvUCXaf2_XcQRhCWAYHRrQ_pru8_8W8uKTBk1L_4bIIGCC_r9Q3-HfDNATyMVDjKgHmTUuE/s1600/IMG_9187.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW2P4Kn0h5WH-PpeOXjEXcOu8_bkkIVu75K5m3Ay5t7nwC4abgXB8ZhljhZ-siwgwjK2VAEvUCXaf2_XcQRhCWAYHRrQ_pru8_8W8uKTBk1L_4bIIGCC_r9Q3-HfDNATyMVDjKgHmTUuE/s400/IMG_9187.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The opposite poles of the English class spectrum in one image. To the right,
the grandest accommodations in the country. To the left, a homeless person’s
nest of rags and pillows. <i>Doom very evenly</i> would they?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
For
the first time Windsor Castle’s symbolism had been broken. Impoverished
commoners, as usual labelled <i>squatters</i> by the propertied elites, took
refuge in its corridors. That might have been it for Windsor had the English
not decided that no, they wanted the monarchy back, whereupon Charles II threw
the common people out on their ears and poured public money into its
restoration. Each monarch who liked it thereafter continued to polish and
upgrade it, but with the monarchy now on its long shunt away from power following
the Revolution of 1688, Windsor’s defensive functions were obsolete. Within a
few decades tourist guidebooks were recommending the castle, which was allowing
those who could pay to come in and marvel at its interiors. The monarchs’ power
was a soft power now, their claim to political authority replaced by an effort
at cultural indispensability upon the face the English nation projected to the
world: an identity symbol, a rallying flag, an unstoppable moneymaker for the
newspapers and souvenirs of the merchants that had clustered around them all
along. So did the castle’s symbolism shift accordingly, and the railways took
care of the rest. Windsor now caters less to the royals themselves than to the
millions of visitors who pour in here every year, many of them from overseas,
to run their individual tongues through the cream of the English royal
fairytale.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Ivo_Zcnchqd4_DhUWn4E1hP4LdC2CkXtWWXaM3ovyLFfCCvv4qzxFzuhfan09zlUqaYBbKVlqcrNBAOSsAVe31JXu4G1ym2ycrUVSBCguFEUWzpNUVI8nAS651hnA6hl5AwAAY8Wy3k/s1600/IMG_9192.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Ivo_Zcnchqd4_DhUWn4E1hP4LdC2CkXtWWXaM3ovyLFfCCvv4qzxFzuhfan09zlUqaYBbKVlqcrNBAOSsAVe31JXu4G1ym2ycrUVSBCguFEUWzpNUVI8nAS651hnA6hl5AwAAY8Wy3k/s400/IMG_9192.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The problem, as they have had repeated cause to know, is that things fall apart
when real human beings refuse to fit the fairytale character archetypes.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
shift appears to have secured the English monarchy in a world whose loss of
patience with monarchy in general has sunk many others. Yet perhaps they have
only bought themselves time. In government, monarchs and monarchies are
measured by their effectiveness at governing. In this national-symbolic role a
different measuring stick is brandished: how enthusiastically they perform that
nation’s idealised norms. As these norms are always contested and always changing,
that is a much more difficult moving target, and in a polarised culture war like
the present, an impossible one. A chameleon cannot be all colours and none at
once. The residents of what was once the core English privilege fort are
increasingly its prisoners.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Physically
these walls no longer matter; symbolically they are everything. If the royals
move one way, they are besieged by those assailants who have sought to abolish
their privileges all along, even though what is left of their oppressive
footprint pales in comparison to that of politicians, corporations and public
prejudice. If they move the other way, it is the nationalists, with their merciless
tabloid cannons and social media poison-barrels, that bombard them for failing to conform to the strict rules of
their golden-age fairytale in which gallant princes wear military uniforms, shoot
at savages and clink glasses with influential high-flying sex offenders, while
fragile princesses seal their lips and submit with a smile as they are locked
in towers to spam out heirs to the throne. The moment one of the royals breaks
the script of this white masculinist wet dream, upsetting the nationalists’
collective ejaculation thereto, then rather than bothering with the niceties of
sitting them down like John or putting them on trial like Charles I they now go
straight for the throat, rending their private lives to pieces before a baying national
audience till they are hounded to death like Diana Spencer or into exile like
Meghan Markle.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
That
is the significance of the latest in their long line of royal dramas: the
Harry-and-Meghan story, reduced from the glinting, picture-perfect diorama of
England and its monarchy for which it was held up not even two years earlier to
a free-for-all festival of bile. Much may be said about the individual human
beings involved, but this row has become less about them and more about a
ferocious battle for control of their institution’s symbolism – specifically,
the desperation of the nationalists, whose world is the nightmare of racist and
gendered violence we saw beneath Dark Runnymede, to wrest control (wrest <i>back</i>
control they would say) of that symbol and keep it fit to sit on the bonnet of their
drive to their genocidal promised land.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
To
their racism Windsor offers a final irony. English identity of course has no
ethnic basis, this being a population grown from millennia of immigration. What
perhaps occurs to fewer people is that the monarchy itself is entirely a
sequence of foreign dynasties: Germanic Angles and Saxons, French Normans and
Plantagenets, Welsh Tudors, Scottish Stuarts, a Dutch Orange and German
Hanoverians (George I couldn’t even speak English). Then as the monarchy
completed its transition from political to symbolic power, it was this castle town
that crowned it with its name for that new age. It happened because the present
lot were also Germans, specifically the house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which
understandably made them anxious when World War I swept up their subjects in a
tide of anti-German xenophobia. To make matters worse, the Germans then began to bomb
London with an aircraft that shared their name, the Gotha G. IV. This was the
last straw for George V, and he issued a proclamation changing his dynasty’s
name, just like that, to the toponym which by then embodied more than any other
the English royal heritage: the winch by the river, <i>Windsor</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Who
do the English walls let in, and who do they keep out? For so long the monarchy
has played its part in placing those walls, but at times, whether in the 1910s or at
the present moment, it too must share in the struggle of common humankind to
negotiate the impossible boundaries of a tribalistic world. The harsh cruelty of
those boundaries, still wanton in spite of Magna Carta’s best mythographers, has
done in the lives of many who have deserved better. I am perhaps one of the
lucky ones, who could never pay the price of entry, could never belong within,
but at least, for now, have lived to tell of it and can continue to offer this
critical scrutiny from the outside.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkXxe8ZB3lE3ghNLd6ZovutjKOI5Jqq3wViWfgIJe311d1GxkL3Vy5HI5zqwJQTMz4YZWGqBrlAH5k5TPHCn6FR15t-ULHKPPlvMDiBxspsaO0FrAJdoxqXgU6lMQlrS00z-5Zmzdq0tI/s1600/IMG_9193.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkXxe8ZB3lE3ghNLd6ZovutjKOI5Jqq3wViWfgIJe311d1GxkL3Vy5HI5zqwJQTMz4YZWGqBrlAH5k5TPHCn6FR15t-ULHKPPlvMDiBxspsaO0FrAJdoxqXgU6lMQlrS00z-5Zmzdq0tI/s640/IMG_9193.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Once
upon a time two reptiles sat by the river. One was a lizard which could open
great frills around its head to appear much larger than it was. The other was a
chameleon, constantly changing its colours to match its surroundings. They are
still there – for now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
We
have patted the chameleon. But before we leave, the frilled lizard utters a
noise. Stroking it one last time beneath the frill, we feel something. There is
some kind of horn there. A real part of its head, so well hidden that most who
pass by are sure to miss it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
was not called <i>Magna Carta</i> – ‘Great Charter’ – because they thought it
was <i>great</i> as in huge and wonderful. We have seen that they did not.
Rather it was <i>great</i> to distinguish it from a smaller charter, added at its
first re-issuing in 1217 at the peace treaty that ended the First Barons’ War.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
contrast to the main legend, it is likely only a tiny minority of the English
have heard of <u><a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/magna-carta/charter-forest-1225-westminster/">this
smaller counterpart</a></u> which came to be called the <b>Charter of the Forest</b>.
This might be surprising, given that unlike the Great Charter this one
explicitly catered to the rights of the common people. Where Magna Carta
concerned civil and political privileges, the Charter of the Forest set out
economic rights that physically mattered to most people in their day to day
lives. It rolled back the land seized by successive monarchs for exclusive use
as royal hunting grounds, established people’s rights to graze their animals
and forage for vital resources there, and forbade cruel punishments for taking
the king’s deer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
What
happened to this Charter of the Forest? Why, when the myth of the political
charter has soared to the stars, has this one dropped out the national
mythology despite its fairytale-perfect name? Well, if nothing else it was a
rabbit in the headlights of English capitalism which, while eating chunks out
of the illusion of English <i>political</i> democracy while never quite killing
it, drove front and centre through any equivalent culture of <i>economic</i>
rights or equity. Any ethos of common access to resources was <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-5-cross-purposes.html">swept
away by Enclosure</a></u>, industrial capitalism, polarising Cold War ideology and
the present-day cult of the market.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
yet, this is not a done deal. There have been counter-efforts, not least the post-World
War II welfare state which, despite its present struggle to stay afloat against
that remorseless cultural tide, has generated a rousing mythos of its own,
especially around the National Health Service (NHS). The outcome of this
struggle will be decisive in the fate of the English and their Magna Carta
story. Liberty is meaningless if people are left too hungry, ignorant,
unsheltered, tormented and disease-ridden to participate in them. So is
democracy – because when most of the population is left in that state, encouraged
to chomp on each other while its resources are made the preserve of an exclusive club of
land and capital holders, then its material bonds disintegrate, its civic
relationships wither, and it is left, in the end, with no togetherness – no <i>demos</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
If
they would build up this weaker socio-economic side of the mythos, perhaps they
might find helpful materials in the Charter of the Forest. As the river has
made well clear today, myths, whether they puff out big frills or re-adjust their
colours, are powerful. Their blessings and curses can make or break
reality.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Windsor, UK51.4817279 -0.6135759999999663751.442169400000004 -0.69425699999996637 51.5212864 -0.53289499999996637tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-4420282841320179692020-01-17T16:30:00.000+00:002020-01-17T16:30:32.038+00:00THAMES: 5) Cross Purposes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCobbyVF92if9kDemrXBog6sUqUL4oYKV54tbPrt84NRRPUJwPIwL5bUL_2j_WPTaA-4ucYFpBLrc-VJHjeqwIlwnfhmUelcwMnvMdaWIwSdF1YL5w_rc37sMoiohCIo_tKuskklWEe64/s1600/IMG_8944.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCobbyVF92if9kDemrXBog6sUqUL4oYKV54tbPrt84NRRPUJwPIwL5bUL_2j_WPTaA-4ucYFpBLrc-VJHjeqwIlwnfhmUelcwMnvMdaWIwSdF1YL5w_rc37sMoiohCIo_tKuskklWEe64/s640/IMG_8944.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
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Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
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mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Today
we have a tale of two towns. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Chertsey
and Staines emerged for opposite reasons. One was for going <i>to</i>, the
other for going <i>through</i>. Each owed this to a singular crux: in one case a
house of the Christian cross, in the other a river crossing. Those structures
are long gone, yet the towns they birthed stand to this day as important
crossroads on the river. Add to that that one can hardly cross their paths
without being made cross at the political situation, which has seriously
crossed a line, and you begin to – well, that’s enough talking across them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Although,
it really did cross a line. And don’t take my word for it. In the present
constituency, Runnymede and Weybridge, it was a line too far even for some
individuals on the highest balconies of the party responsible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
On
the electoral map we are now well into hardcore Tory Thames, blue surrounded by
blue. In the December 2019 election they changed their minion in parliament regardless.
This was because up till then it happened to be former Chancellor of the
Exchequer Philip Hammond. It isn’t anymore.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimf6kP6M8G1Mlv2B4hIm5tn3g9Gd5WfoSkDN_Upg0dI2ZSIGIPSQsAN76rPrww6RIo0zLIANFTTOa9fepq0SATVxE-WnfyysyCOzD8kMqrF0nBZp4sTWbI3VgiZOWuHiwDqfMgaLmwGII/s1600/IMG_8945.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimf6kP6M8G1Mlv2B4hIm5tn3g9Gd5WfoSkDN_Upg0dI2ZSIGIPSQsAN76rPrww6RIo0zLIANFTTOa9fepq0SATVxE-WnfyysyCOzD8kMqrF0nBZp4sTWbI3VgiZOWuHiwDqfMgaLmwGII/s640/IMG_8945.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Chertsey Bridge is approximately the same colour as Philip Hammond’s
lugubriousness.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Hammond
controlled this country’s treasury during some of the cruellest years of the
Tory austerity programme and must take his share of responsibility for its dire
human rights abuses. Yet relatively speaking, he was a moderate: more concerned
with outcomes – however poorly he assessed them – than ideological zeal, preferring to deal in arguments rather than slogans. Ultimately this found
expression in a stubborn resistance to a hard Brexit which turned him into a
hate figure for the Brexit-rapture demagogues who clawed their way to power
under Boris Johnson. At the crunch, Hammond was one of twenty-one Tory MPs
expelled from the parliamentary Conservative Party, some of its grandest
veterans among them, for voting against Johnson’s Brexit deal. Like many other conservatives he has since wandered into the political wilderness, no longer at home in
a party he believes has left him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
is one of the many subplots of England’s present crisis, and one which will
most trouble the hearts of old Tory heartlands like this. The death of English
conservatism, a tradition devoured by its own children. It always had its
grievous flaws and made terrible mistakes. It had its part in the worst
atrocities of industrial exploitation and colonial racism. But somewhere in
there was also a more scrupulous dogs-and-meadows-and-fireplaces conservatism that
meant something better than violence against dissidents and minorities. An
honest and venerable tradition existed, born from legitimate shock at the
carnage of the civil wars and the French Revolution, whose instinct was to
place a steadying hand of caution on the shoulder of swift and hot-headed
change; that enjoyed discussing disagreements over tea and earnestly sought to
learn from them; that did not beat its chest about the wonders of industry and
empire, but made pragmatic use of those systems to try to do good with their
own little bits of them. A conservatism, that is, with integrity in its bones –
integrity which to the Brexit revolutionaries, in
their contempt for truth and hatred of dissent, has been totally indigestible. Those
bones, spat out with dripping conceit, are all that remain of the English
conservative tradition: scattered, lost, with a body no longer, washed away on
the river.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDycePWPKOTDy-IOTx5lKu0DUG5KJB7X4ySHscpvRQUv33-TfFTjnYAWdTNkO59kXza0064IwfKzYkl8wBfflkkc1NabWDZ54unxyMSPC_EqxGopyU7e6p27dwAMGGmwJ5ktxT8FRHmVA/s1600/IMG_8943.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDycePWPKOTDy-IOTx5lKu0DUG5KJB7X4ySHscpvRQUv33-TfFTjnYAWdTNkO59kXza0064IwfKzYkl8wBfflkkc1NabWDZ54unxyMSPC_EqxGopyU7e6p27dwAMGGmwJ5ktxT8FRHmVA/s640/IMG_8943.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Today’s direction of travel: the view north atop Chertsey Bridge.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhemO3DzBugX3PrEPD9y4I5TuVcnxfY9wcJLdGCj_ruznpwek_7tZYiEn0fyob0-drKkTDwP_a4gyayqzYtJ7gMvIzm0ONWQeZUpSJOSox7wBX6CoOnga6uZa4KkxrRQs9HAosAUozP7pU/s1600/5%2529+Chertsey+to+Staines.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1344" data-original-width="1600" height="536" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhemO3DzBugX3PrEPD9y4I5TuVcnxfY9wcJLdGCj_ruznpwek_7tZYiEn0fyob0-drKkTDwP_a4gyayqzYtJ7gMvIzm0ONWQeZUpSJOSox7wBX6CoOnga6uZa4KkxrRQs9HAosAUozP7pU/s640/5%2529+Chertsey+to+Staines.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
that is what the river does. To the people who live on its floodplain, it
brings possibilities and it takes them away. But it does not choose from them. Only
they, the English and their predecessors and successors, can do that. Let’s
look at a few they did.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Start:</b>
Chertsey Bridge (<i>nearest station: Chertsey</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>End:</b>
Staines Bridge (<i>nearest station: Staines</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Length:
6.4km/4 miles</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Location:
Surrey – Borough of Runnymede, Borough of Spelthorne</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<u>Topics</u>:
<b>Chertsey Abbey</b>, Laleham and the Earls of Lucan, the Penton Hook, <b>Staines</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Chertsey</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Once
upon a time there was someone called Cirotis (or Ceorot, as the historian Bede
calls him, or Cerotus, which sounds like a Latinised variant). Of this
individual nothing is known. Their name is Britonic, not Roman or Anglo-Saxon.
And yet, it made enough of an echo for the Anglo-Saxon immigrants to give this
site the name of <b>Chertsey</b>, that is to say, ‘Cirotis’s Island’. And it
could easily have been an island back then, for it stands on a gravel outcrop in an area where all the water dumped in by tributaries like <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">the
Wey</a></u> give the river a marshy disposition.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA_wO5IaX79ZauQNYJMVbnHcXfFF8c9u5Tg563lYXQ76gZxElM5zFFz_W4_a9kimnrm94rZM7vIJbyh4ubVhuXl81G7meWEoH-VPAE48CXAEIKUWiE0pzQAzowUe_2mzOWQJyr8MEA4-o/s1600/IMG_8922.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA_wO5IaX79ZauQNYJMVbnHcXfFF8c9u5Tg563lYXQ76gZxElM5zFFz_W4_a9kimnrm94rZM7vIJbyh4ubVhuXl81G7meWEoH-VPAE48CXAEIKUWiE0pzQAzowUe_2mzOWQJyr8MEA4-o/s400/IMG_8922.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Chertsey’s old town hall, built in 1851, at the head of its high street. A car
crashed into its pillars last year which likely accounts for the nervous traffic barrier.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
From
the fifth to tenth centuries, the Thames valley’s strategic position and
resources made it hotly contested by the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. This was not a
heartland but a shifting frontier, which the kingdoms of <b>Kent </b>(southeast), <b>Essex
</b>(east), <b>Mercia </b>(northwest) and <b>Wessex </b>(southwest) each controlled at least once. In
the course of these contests they converted from traditional Germanic religion
to Christianity, a complicated process that occurred for different reasons and
in different ways.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Out
of that process emerged the individual who put Chertsey on the map. Little is
known about <i>Erkenwald </i>(or <i>Earconwald </i>– Anglo-Saxon names are not standardised
in modern English) except that he came from another frontier area, Lindsey (now
Lincolnshire). It is believed he was of royal descent, possibly in the Essex
kingdom, which was powerful early on and underwent one of the most internally
turbulent Christianisations. Bede goes further and names him as the East
Saxons’ bishop. As the case may be, in 666 CE Erkenwald decided to come out
into this marshy, desolate and politically unstable middle ground to found the
first monastery in Surrey, <b>Chertsey Abbey</b>. This is not something you
just get up and do and suggests access to supportive people and resources (not
to mention that he founded a second abbey for his sister at Barking, which likewise
grew to great importance). These ventures seem to have done him little harm, because
after serving as Chertsey’s abbot for a few years he received promotion to
Bishop of London.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
original monastery was built of wood and seems to have made a soaring start. It
received generous land grants from the Mercian client kings who came into
control of Surrey, and got to bury the bodies of high-status Anglo-Saxon saints
in its cemetery (always helpful because it means pilgrimages and therefore news
and money). But then it got killed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQHkVd_Eqp9tNGMnT1W6V09INvD1QpB68C3J3UmlPP6XIGE6fdJmfMyF82C3NP6ZAuSYmad-L2WvdBunRUjGEkWqlRXjFYGUagagahrrbLcbvpUd9bjZvXoHlbXJALimT-TkDW8aOroEw/s1600/IMG_8812.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQHkVd_Eqp9tNGMnT1W6V09INvD1QpB68C3J3UmlPP6XIGE6fdJmfMyF82C3NP6ZAuSYmad-L2WvdBunRUjGEkWqlRXjFYGUagagahrrbLcbvpUd9bjZvXoHlbXJALimT-TkDW8aOroEw/s400/IMG_8812.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
Viking raid on Chertsey was not random. It fell under the steamroller of the
great Danish invasion of 865, which by the time it got here had swept aside the
Anglo-Saxon powers of the east coast – Northumbria and East Anglia – and would
soon overwhelm Mercia too. There is a great deal of debate about how much of
the Viking phenomenon was as violent as traditionally portrayed or in fact more
peaceful – the Christians had a tendency to exaggerate the monstrousness of people
not like them – but there seems little doubt that at its sharp end it was seriously
atrocious. Monasteries were glinting, undefended treasure chests of wealth and hostile
religious authority and therefore frequent targets, and Chertsey’s turn to
discover this the hard way came in 871 when Vikings on an expedition down the
Thames slaughtered ninety monks, Beocca the abbot and Ethor the priest among
them, pillaged the monastery’s riches, and laid waste to its lands. Then they
came back and did it again. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
threat subsided after Alfred of Wessex <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">defeated
the Vikings</a></u> and they settled their conquered lands as the Danelaw, but
perhaps understandably this violence appears to have left lasting trauma. It is
only a century later that evidence arises of Chertsey Abbey getting rebuilt and
repopulated, and by monks sent from outside at that. They in turn were chased
off by King Edgar in 964 as part the <i>Benedictine Reforms</i> – a programme
driven by fear that monasteries’ wealth and influence were being exploited by
unserious monks, and thus aiming to give the rules and norms of monastic life
more rigour. From where we stand now that may look little more than some religious
quibble, but two patterns it strengthened would have enormous consequence later.
First, it stuck the king’s authority in the driving seat of religious affairs, which was fine if state and church got on well like Edgar with his Archbishop
Dunstan, but not so much <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">if
your name is Henry</a></u>. Second, it drew heavily and deliberately on
continental European standards.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Re-planted
with Edgar’s regularised monks, Chertsey Abbey escaped the turbulence of its
youth and from there the only way was up. King after king queued up to confirm
the lands it held and grant it more. It not only survived the Normans but won them
over, receiving extensive rights of hunting, foresting and security from
William the Conqueror in person. By the time of his Domesday survey in 1086 its
land was reckoned at over 50,000 acres, which only increased as his successors handed
it more and more. Then in the 1110s a new abbot undertook a massive rebuilding
programme, upgrading the church into a towering stone edifice and surrounding
it with a full-scale self-sufficient monastic complex of not only chapels, a
cloister and domestic buildings but brewing and baking facilities, vineyards,
apiaries, and a hydro-engineering project that turned a side-channel of the
Thames into its own Abbey River for drinking, cleaning, milling, fishing and
sewage. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Needless
to say, this was no longer some ascetic retreat in the middle of nowhere (if it
ever had been). In its heyday, Chertsey Abbey was one of the heftiest privilege
forts of the Thames valley: the brightest star of worship, wealth and scholarship
for miles around and by far the largest landowner in these parts short of the
king. When anything important happened in Surrey or anywhere near it, the Abbot
of Chertsey was sure to be there. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY23ihtasj0YWRQld2uKQiqrV58Kvt8pdzb7keNjqc0iJAve-kqjDgxZJrooZ1MKOwOiEFbqHyXlZ-X4dhDU2-58Zd_CYcXcnyosAndZ6TBfnfACpTEAfugV77m3ffiTCFevaXUqQI2zw/s1600/Chertsey-Domesday-E-30-2-1-944-e1560963711447.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="969" data-original-width="700" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY23ihtasj0YWRQld2uKQiqrV58Kvt8pdzb7keNjqc0iJAve-kqjDgxZJrooZ1MKOwOiEFbqHyXlZ-X4dhDU2-58Zd_CYcXcnyosAndZ6TBfnfACpTEAfugV77m3ffiTCFevaXUqQI2zw/s400/Chertsey-Domesday-E-30-2-1-944-e1560963711447.jpg" width="288" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Chertsey Abbey’s entry in the Domesday Book, courtesy of the <u><a href="https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/chertsey-abbey-reimagined/">National
Archives</a></u>. Considerable paper is taken up to the list the widespread lands
it held across Surrey and beyond. The Archives themselves feature <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">in this
earlier part of our river journey</a></u>.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Beyond
the Abbey walls, the Chertsey settlement began to thrive off its success. The village
grew into a town. The monks took an mounting role in its planning. In a matter
of decades it was an overflowing breadbasket of garden markets and commercial fairs
backed up by tile-making and brickworks and a leading centre of trade in this region.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkAe50O-jZWT9L0F-jwwZH6pp0I9yZsDnyAyK7hxmJLf-Lo1AsT5GqEr1fZltnip8nI7PiIr7SoPTcuh5BmcibA1XOc1lByXIsnorqgrtrOmfy6T7uVxmccALhL7mNuUFK4R82s_DZ4pU/s1600/IMG_8936.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkAe50O-jZWT9L0F-jwwZH6pp0I9yZsDnyAyK7hxmJLf-Lo1AsT5GqEr1fZltnip8nI7PiIr7SoPTcuh5BmcibA1XOc1lByXIsnorqgrtrOmfy6T7uVxmccALhL7mNuUFK4R82s_DZ4pU/s400/IMG_8936.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The Abbey in the fourteenth century, re-imagined in a computer image in the
Chertsey Museum.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Obviously
something changed, because today the Abbey no longer exists and Chertsey is, if
far from destitute, one of the more modest beads on the Thames valley
necklace of glittering affluence. Much as today, the wealthy and successful get
to control how the history is written; look through the cracks however and
signs can be glimpsed of accumulating trouble. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
monastery’s holdings turned its community into a bunch of rich landlords in a
world of downtrodden peasants and serfs. Then as now, as the victims of the
present housing crisis will attest, big landowners in the English story tend to
operate towards the villainous end of the spectrum. The National Archives records
petitions that indicate angry disputes between the Abbey and the tenants and
communities on its land. At times their grievances moved them to refuse to work
or pay rent, in which case chances were they would be violently repressed for
it. This was the kind of structural injustice that fostered the English middle
ages’ explosive rural upheavals, most famously the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381,
whose revenge was bloodily ferocious but whose underlying grievances were
legitimate and would persist. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwZIgykSbZouXGQBUUJOZcOc43SNv56YFTmVMa-Zmje5HB8pTecVk-kEBi6v3up-VdDSXEgjXAayFspNQAW0eYZknfJZjm_PJdBrBf-6Ldhfbr8n6ZT-wKYoJGpoodRYyyEsNGRxGdMvs/s1600/IMG_8937.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwZIgykSbZouXGQBUUJOZcOc43SNv56YFTmVMa-Zmje5HB8pTecVk-kEBi6v3up-VdDSXEgjXAayFspNQAW0eYZknfJZjm_PJdBrBf-6Ldhfbr8n6ZT-wKYoJGpoodRYyyEsNGRxGdMvs/s400/IMG_8937.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A fifteenth-century map showing the Abbey and its dominance of the
surroundings. Its mills, bridge and causeway highlight the underlying importance
of the river in enabling its rise.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Such
over-reliance on agricultural income from landholdings also exposed the Abbey
to shifts in the weather and shocks to the labour supply, most especially from
plagues like the Black Death. In spite of such vulnerabilities it kept up its
prestige, reaching a high point during the Wars of the Roses when it was
temporarily called on to bury the body of the almost certainly murdered King
Henry VI of the Plantagenet house of Lancaster (who had severe mental health
problems so English storytelling has not been kind to him). But by the rise of
the Tudors it appears to have crept into serious debt, and from there reports by inspectors grow more scathing. Accusations appear about obsessive
superstitions, dodgy relic stories, corrupt sales of land, and inevitably
sexual inclinations of kinds the authorities found easy to whip into public
prejudice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
is hard to assess the fairness of these criticisms because the bulk of them
came from the minions of Henry VIII, who as it turned out <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">had
it in for the monasteries</a></u> and actively fuelled such grievances to lay a
foundation for smashing them. But it is hard to imagine that without genuine
cracks in its fabric, Chertsey Abbey, one of the top-tier behemoths of the
English monastic system, would have given in as readily as it did. Many
monastic communities, <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">like Syon
Abbey downriver</a></u>, frustrated the king and his demolition squads for years
and often paid a gruesome price for it. Chertsey surrendered without a fight in
1537. The monks’ sole condition was that they be allowed to keep practicing somewhere
else, and they petered on upriver in Bisham, reduced from their erstwhile
abundance to grinding poverty. Only a few months later they were forced to
surrender again, when they were handed small pensions and this time dispersed
for good. For a powerhouse of half a millennium it must have felt a wretched
way to go.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Chertsey’s
monks might have got away with their limbs intact, but what did not escape
dismemberment was their great complex of buildings. Piece by piece it was picked
apart, its best stones and tiles cannibalised for Henry’s other palaces
(including Hampton Court) and the rest left to local scavengers. Knock on the
doors of some of the older houses in Chertsey and nearby villages and you can
probably still find some bits of it in their walls.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLUzrEDTEYpsPfgt2Xfmt7kk3hUVMZLOS2y3AGshA8MwB9AZadgnO3iaAgBieI_It7cdJ08TUB74FJ-PhSvHWiwIF7mTVIsc8k83b7BDVPCQFz0G_3KTJwjMvgiPSUE_r6bv60_ssDnic/s1600/IMG_8929.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLUzrEDTEYpsPfgt2Xfmt7kk3hUVMZLOS2y3AGshA8MwB9AZadgnO3iaAgBieI_It7cdJ08TUB74FJ-PhSvHWiwIF7mTVIsc8k83b7BDVPCQFz0G_3KTJwjMvgiPSUE_r6bv60_ssDnic/s400/IMG_8929.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This is all that remains now. A bit of inner precinct wall and what’s thought
to have been bread ovens (which would have been pleasant in a section with few
pubs or cafés – thanks Henry). Some of its earthworks also survive nearby: a drainage
ditch, and a few of its crucial fishponds which kept hundreds of fish and
eels.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxa0moSy1Pz4pGTK1504s4kuRmvWkEurS7cNiUkbOpYs_BezJ-VOLODgyc-DoLjPTtUur96QFNAUybBKZHC7-0OqvK6AmU1BQjqTSa-XB-R4xrRjEreS6SzYkcnY6Pdin6nCc8queuxdY/s1600/IMG_8934.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxa0moSy1Pz4pGTK1504s4kuRmvWkEurS7cNiUkbOpYs_BezJ-VOLODgyc-DoLjPTtUur96QFNAUybBKZHC7-0OqvK6AmU1BQjqTSa-XB-R4xrRjEreS6SzYkcnY6Pdin6nCc8queuxdY/s400/IMG_8934.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Some of the most precious surviving pieces of Chertsey Abbey are its floor
tiles, like these in the Chertsey Museum.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Whatever
the political aspects of Henry Tudor’s assault on the monasteries, it was also
a colossal act of orchestrated historical vandalism. It destroyed not only
buildings but monuments, artworks and libraries full of manuscripts, of which
the monasteries looked after some of the oldest and finest in the country. This
puts Henry Tudor on a list he really should not want to be on that includes the
destructors of the ‘Four Olds’ in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Taliban,
Da’esh, and most recently, Donald Trump of the United States with his threats
to blow up Iranian cultural sites. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It also makes this a significant point on our river journey. Chertsey Abbey marks our first
encounter with a central Thames privilege fort that fell. This shows that they <i>can</i>
fall, but the circumstances are unfortunate because it was brought about by a far more oppressive and authoritarian locus of privilege – the
monarch – and would go on to enable the rise of another – the new landowning
class. Such is England.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
before its collapse into rubble the Abbey did unwittingly sneak in one last
little surprise for the people who brought it to its end – a time-bomb of sorts.
In 1538, enough of its buildings remained serviceable for Henry VIII’s
Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, to compile the Book of Common Prayer
here. This would later become the official prayer book of the English
Protestant church and a symbol of the authority of the monarch who now
dominated it. A century later it would be the flint that ignited the
conflagration of the civil wars when Charles I tried to impose it on the Scots
(whose Protestantism was different). In other words, though Chertsey’s power
had gone, it did get a last laugh of sorts by planting the seed of a quite
spectacular flower: a package of Protestant zeal that would drive the new
landowners in Parliament, the lopping off of the king’s head, and the ultimate
shunting of the institution which had wrecked it, the monarchy, out of the
English political scene.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Except,
of course, for the faction that were always uneasy about this and coalesced in
Parliament to fight back, at first for a continued strong monarchy, then, when
that became a lost cause, for fewer loppings of authoritarian leaders in
general. They came to be derided as <i>t</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ó</span>raidhe</i> or Irish bandits – <i>Tories</i>
– which brings us back to where we started.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgisVJkYaFZT4U2f_ddM2GXgmuLTspj7ihZbgzUFH5hlLp0gttprc7DVMSZJ6jRpImHD3tVGs2zX1VgyLC0bBuDEtoxEaX0EAqLCyPy1Kh-zkBNXn7O8oSFmAptL1VYQoNSD96mULzrtNQ/s1600/Manery-doodles-e1560958260896.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgisVJkYaFZT4U2f_ddM2GXgmuLTspj7ihZbgzUFH5hlLp0gttprc7DVMSZJ6jRpImHD3tVGs2zX1VgyLC0bBuDEtoxEaX0EAqLCyPy1Kh-zkBNXn7O8oSFmAptL1VYQoNSD96mULzrtNQ/s400/Manery-doodles-e1560958260896.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Another index of Chertsey Abbey’s holdings from the fifteenth century is
held by the <u><a href="https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/chertsey-abbey-reimagined/">National
Archives</a></u> and stands out because the scribe doodled all over the margins. At
bottom left, he illustrates a nightmare about a terrible creature that would take
power in this land six centuries later – notice how the top left appears to
begin with a B, for Boris – and prophesies that it can only be forced to reveal
its true form by inserting it through a lamp-post.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
So
descended Chertsey, which deprived of its nucleus had to make the best of
things. At least those things, inherited from the Abbey – a thriving
agricultural base, eminent name and strategic position on the river – could
have been worse. It recovered fast, then leapt on board the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">Wey
Navigation</a></u> in 1777 and railways in 1848 to draw in new markets, tourists, a
dash of industry – particularly an iron foundry – and monied London bigwigs in
search of comfortable places to live (among them Charles James Fox, a
figurehead of the Tories’ bitter rivals the Whigs – later the Liberals, later
still a component of today’s Liberal Democrats). A further population expansion
came with the housing boom after World War II, which swelled Chertsey into
roughly the shape it holds today and looked to the local gravel pits for
construction materials. Today’s Chertsey no longer towers like the palaces of
Hampton below and Windsor above, but thus far it seems to have secured its roots well
enough in the wreath of Thames valley prosperity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguCTOLlSf3Ow-lvhU4VAiWo0Z0ytcDcn59ZZq1z0D0u03vPNjE3Cx7QIJjAu8F_FehXwh7okSwe9mNtcZHP-_vrRvrreDoXxKSjeSnfr_bpnSADyMekeJO-aZ8Kqt7dKyoELlQjbnPZcQ/s1600/IMG_8923.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguCTOLlSf3Ow-lvhU4VAiWo0Z0ytcDcn59ZZq1z0D0u03vPNjE3Cx7QIJjAu8F_FehXwh7okSwe9mNtcZHP-_vrRvrreDoXxKSjeSnfr_bpnSADyMekeJO-aZ8Kqt7dKyoELlQjbnPZcQ/s400/IMG_8923.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>St. Peter’s Church in central Chertsey, built around 1300 as the town expanded
though much restored since.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkqDv1rKtX6nyzgRBA1T7HhaWDuPSXBoBOiUxFsPeMkTb8ZyvgrkuGfj78SJZBRl3ZSN8yYBdoBaWgc01zoAcT19Akv6HZMMbm5yOtmnf_Fj64IU3PN7DxOZWQPO6CRzRd_LO8KP-xlZI/s1600/IMG_8921.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkqDv1rKtX6nyzgRBA1T7HhaWDuPSXBoBOiUxFsPeMkTb8ZyvgrkuGfj78SJZBRl3ZSN8yYBdoBaWgc01zoAcT19Akv6HZMMbm5yOtmnf_Fj64IU3PN7DxOZWQPO6CRzRd_LO8KP-xlZI/s400/IMG_8921.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Chertsey High Street. Observe how the shopfronts are roughly level,
representing their core historic structures, while extensions of varying height
and shape were later stacked on top.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj71q8aGfGmJJhQytCa9bG0BF70Sgnfzz0xl5BxKyFENRjtFbODCwjbJ0JY3hDlqI7rMrMIJf-QXaqzvTRggQ10MDLpnIc8BNmCliFKk0GzWJzXTLmIGsMdF5FllFZ2fzYhqQLkBQr0Y8s/s1600/IMG_8916.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj71q8aGfGmJJhQytCa9bG0BF70Sgnfzz0xl5BxKyFENRjtFbODCwjbJ0JY3hDlqI7rMrMIJf-QXaqzvTRggQ10MDLpnIc8BNmCliFKk0GzWJzXTLmIGsMdF5FllFZ2fzYhqQLkBQr0Y8s/s400/IMG_8916.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A monument to Blanche Heriot, one of Chertsey’s local heroes. The story goes
that during the Wars of the Roses (1455-87), when the Yorkist authorities
sentenced her lover to be ceremonially killed at the ringing of the curfew bell
for fighting for the Lancastrians, she rushed to the bell tower, reaching it
just in time, and grabbed the clapper to prevent it from ringing till a
messenger could arrive with a pardon from the king. Whether this literally
happened is unclear, but it is encouraging to see a community with stories
where love correctly asserts precedence over political violence. Chertsey has
both a major road and a unit in its NHS hospital named after Heriot.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
is not far upriver to the other town in this area, Staines. Yet the area in
between is not truly of one or the other. It cannot quite yet be called rural
because residential belts and public works have reached out to occupy most of
it, while it also provides passage for the principal river crossing in present
times, the M3 motorway. But parts of it do introduce a tinge of remoteness, a
sense of being neither here nor there. It is a hint that our journey slowly but
steadily begins to penetrate into the English interior.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglXQg0zV9APCXSJZUa1nDqqUxkA1B-kPldqS1t1UbEO3T6QaGBuvnssyhp4EDbBWKFp9dglsPg9BiE0Mzu0BzRqN-m6dBEL5NK4O7zRWczirSYRY7OyumOS0fAUx5uWej36BMTxnDGBvs/s1600/IMG_8947.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglXQg0zV9APCXSJZUa1nDqqUxkA1B-kPldqS1t1UbEO3T6QaGBuvnssyhp4EDbBWKFp9dglsPg9BiE0Mzu0BzRqN-m6dBEL5NK4O7zRWczirSYRY7OyumOS0fAUx5uWej36BMTxnDGBvs/s400/IMG_8947.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Chertsey Lock, along with its weir one of several built in the 1810s to manage
the Thames’s notorious navigational difficulties in these parts.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZnV0kquIT0Z9u-TyQrwcgWwYsE7AueIOHhtfBBFBktZAr9Uo7EKAxd6ggIQ_BMCi5UPTnaJJvX5ObqXF_iTa-rVcfy4r35nu4XOfgRU0dVmDqQrKRRMerTXKWtwvJQq5ZPs9wYp5QyKs/s1600/IMG_8946.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZnV0kquIT0Z9u-TyQrwcgWwYsE7AueIOHhtfBBFBktZAr9Uo7EKAxd6ggIQ_BMCi5UPTnaJJvX5ObqXF_iTa-rVcfy4r35nu4XOfgRU0dVmDqQrKRRMerTXKWtwvJQq5ZPs9wYp5QyKs/s400/IMG_8946.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Along with those difficulties has come a constant flood risk, which as recently
as 2014 gave rise first to human tragedy and then to political controversy.
When the river burst its banks that year the house of seven-year-old Zane
Gbangbola was flooded and he died of gas poisoning. His parents, both
professionals with environmental expertise, have presented evidence that the
floodwaters came from a disused landfill site behind the house whose release of
hydrogen cyanide killed their son. The government stands accused of a cover-up
and pressure continues to mount for an independent inquiry.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1mr-zp2w-XCB1HyX8j4T-35GuXpkcvNZEgdWOGf2Z_wnyYL7tuxJKOBG2v8UywJDExAdGQFajGX1fDvonEELXcu1EPCM9yj4egjbpOwK-1MzVgEO3OZzHckWmf9UXlgmeazFAE_eYBkk/s1600/IMG_8949.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1mr-zp2w-XCB1HyX8j4T-35GuXpkcvNZEgdWOGf2Z_wnyYL7tuxJKOBG2v8UywJDExAdGQFajGX1fDvonEELXcu1EPCM9yj4egjbpOwK-1MzVgEO3OZzHckWmf9UXlgmeazFAE_eYBkk/s400/IMG_8949.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>An old City of London coal tax post, indicating where tax was due on coal being
shipped to London. This will be one of the last encountered on this journey –
the City’s former jurisdiction ended at Staines.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhORKRng571QMzGuaCn3XZiGhSjId2hqJdS4GOOOyiESskGnub28iuRj-eMyBLu3iW5W9cslLGZS8QPUO1_AWg4jxlvUwRSJk_OQHV4J0jo4Vrj39i2q7T8-043_VaWCW9AobuuR3jtBVY/s1600/IMG_8951.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhORKRng571QMzGuaCn3XZiGhSjId2hqJdS4GOOOyiESskGnub28iuRj-eMyBLu3iW5W9cslLGZS8QPUO1_AWg4jxlvUwRSJk_OQHV4J0jo4Vrj39i2q7T8-043_VaWCW9AobuuR3jtBVY/s400/IMG_8951.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Growling and snarling, the M3 motorway monsters across the river. Today the
main London-to-Southampton road, it was built in stages in the 1970s-90s and
generated a major protest atop Twyford Down near Winchester for its threat of
environmental destruction. The protesters were violently assaulted by private
security officers who have never been prosecuted for it; their employers are
now known as G4S and are infamous for grotesque human rights abuses worldwide.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEjVRlkxOVWBUQppdVM3I0j7Nz6JLsO2REc6Y8JV4z68wUWqVm2AW7Y8RtqAQ5z0t3jUzE5FXrGIr-jTBBZ1KdduG3NGTpMisdhs7cbdjsgv3xwDcdv21RDgyVBmyItTyOZhcpB1rdYm0/s1600/IMG_8952.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEjVRlkxOVWBUQppdVM3I0j7Nz6JLsO2REc6Y8JV4z68wUWqVm2AW7Y8RtqAQ5z0t3jUzE5FXrGIr-jTBBZ1KdduG3NGTpMisdhs7cbdjsgv3xwDcdv21RDgyVBmyItTyOZhcpB1rdYm0/s400/IMG_8952.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Several bodies of water alongside the river here appear to be filled-in gravel
pits, perhaps dug for construction materials during this region’s post-WWII
housing boom. Some have now been repurposed by watersports clubs.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh15l8OP20zh29XG8hqkKXZ86ha7FPxeY2xI4Jd0yW2vGc19clHuZ28M2O6rbk9i9rwrhSNK_iDWN6GROBrfvoyLLiMcfxWIQKfbxvML6RoQeTZS_J8VWEH7V2QIVdOBbfkr6dM5WyVxiI/s1600/IMG_8953.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh15l8OP20zh29XG8hqkKXZ86ha7FPxeY2xI4Jd0yW2vGc19clHuZ28M2O6rbk9i9rwrhSNK_iDWN6GROBrfvoyLLiMcfxWIQKfbxvML6RoQeTZS_J8VWEH7V2QIVdOBbfkr6dM5WyVxiI/s400/IMG_8953.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The river flows on. From here there will likely be more and more stretches that
look like this.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
A smaller
road called Thames Side follows the river up to Laleham, perhaps the first true
village (as opposed to suburbanised village) on this route. Laleham had its own
manor house held by Westminster Abbey, whose old grounds we now encroach on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKQOPgKW73C7r12W0wpr7rgAzxN4iIP0JrTi5ev1tkWHYpYolz4a7qlTV7bJxqluke15ApPjvuwkE0kLbOjhqsqw1yY5sY3awgDcqjnFeJXTJFPQe3YYBWGD2dswKlfyz2HybUwx9saDk/s1600/IMG_8954.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKQOPgKW73C7r12W0wpr7rgAzxN4iIP0JrTi5ev1tkWHYpYolz4a7qlTV7bJxqluke15ApPjvuwkE0kLbOjhqsqw1yY5sY3awgDcqjnFeJXTJFPQe3YYBWGD2dswKlfyz2HybUwx9saDk/s400/IMG_8954.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The road from Chertsey to Laleham, with a playground marking the south end of
the old Laleham manor grounds.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA7X2kfegguoHL_JZqPK50rzFz5XVwogODVI97b6ekxeG3mZT0bBvqJ358mIywn3yaaJkJT-_qzwolKWJfOGzobTHy-HPDB9gzi0kfyh30HjwhYfZ1htsWyBE9hPqaF__Cy5N6Ktab8xY/s1600/IMG_8961.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA7X2kfegguoHL_JZqPK50rzFz5XVwogODVI97b6ekxeG3mZT0bBvqJ358mIywn3yaaJkJT-_qzwolKWJfOGzobTHy-HPDB9gzi0kfyh30HjwhYfZ1htsWyBE9hPqaF__Cy5N6Ktab8xY/s400/IMG_8961.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The west bank here is taken up by the Chertsey Water Treatment Works. It has a
little reservoir whose rim is visible here. This is also the start of a
kaleidoscope of houseboats moored along the riverbank all the way to Staines.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNJv3EI0MQRKCcX-yhKp2x7bFTbAJdgzKhAejMEkKtEhEnDeqGKWk3kEHWFxZl_MBJBPCAgVldJwXy10w6HTcdqM0Mvo7jQICDxhE6_fYZDVW5CZFmVhKD8a97d0IyRkcwpI7GJEj_nEo/s1600/IMG_8963.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNJv3EI0MQRKCcX-yhKp2x7bFTbAJdgzKhAejMEkKtEhEnDeqGKWk3kEHWFxZl_MBJBPCAgVldJwXy10w6HTcdqM0Mvo7jQICDxhE6_fYZDVW5CZFmVhKD8a97d0IyRkcwpI7GJEj_nEo/s400/IMG_8963.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A couple of boat clubs are the only facilities amidst the willows on the east
bank which probably give Laleham its name. There used to be more willows but
many were lost in the Great Storm of 1987.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKbuq5-qtZghrkQl_NgewoDKG1ut17_Lsmt4vzu8GHeIvw9d-UwapwAs-r55mClh2UxBKoKEnus1SZd4NChJOfEAuZHmSRfzkpowvcFqJABPL8e3SxPLhvOzFQ6Q5IVBW5G9tbSounyJE/s1600/IMG_8969.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKbuq5-qtZghrkQl_NgewoDKG1ut17_Lsmt4vzu8GHeIvw9d-UwapwAs-r55mClh2UxBKoKEnus1SZd4NChJOfEAuZHmSRfzkpowvcFqJABPL8e3SxPLhvOzFQ6Q5IVBW5G9tbSounyJE/s400/IMG_8969.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A rosebush which has only produced one flower because of the election result.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Laleham</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The <i>lael</i>
in Laleham means twigs, most likely those harvested from the local willows to
make osier furniture. Positioned on a relatively straightforward site for a river
ferry, this village goes back to at least the tenth century when it appears in
the records of Chertsey Abbey, which of course controlled much of its
surrounding land. Henry VIII annihilated the option of a tasty baked lunch at
that monastery for this walk and therefore necessitated a brief inland
exploration of Laleham, which fortunately found a satisfactory alternative in a
local café that runs out of the pavilion of its cricket field.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC26K7qxv_n_8eWVASarwYbtjrh-NsBOdRkpiApTz9rAPO2oxKjhAuw3cf67H3pZwJ2sG7fsrhZ0VTqOshXQ2SB4runM6z9Q-MB7TDdTnUVN6DjZeDc_gJOgEwPW5ZmXwcBrtpX-CP81I/s1600/IMG_8967.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC26K7qxv_n_8eWVASarwYbtjrh-NsBOdRkpiApTz9rAPO2oxKjhAuw3cf67H3pZwJ2sG7fsrhZ0VTqOshXQ2SB4runM6z9Q-MB7TDdTnUVN6DjZeDc_gJOgEwPW5ZmXwcBrtpX-CP81I/s400/IMG_8967.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Laleham’s outskirts as seen from the river. The roads look remote and are
certainly not congested, but a fair bit of traffic does trickle along them.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6SGSRCNctjxyWHIr55TeI_fN4RqUoZhuKmQdBqgW0WudXRCDQnBSwabp74nBrNhP_ngYCt-OqMq4PohouxvQqPQ-Mbo6g9T38HsVlJK533m1yeNHoiPZMZlvfbYXMUbTvm-yaGG4zE7s/s1600/IMG_8971.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6SGSRCNctjxyWHIr55TeI_fN4RqUoZhuKmQdBqgW0WudXRCDQnBSwabp74nBrNhP_ngYCt-OqMq4PohouxvQqPQ-Mbo6g9T38HsVlJK533m1yeNHoiPZMZlvfbYXMUbTvm-yaGG4zE7s/s400/IMG_8971.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>One of a series of quiet lanes that run between the river and village. River
access must have been of prime importance and would probably make these some of
Laleham’s oldest routes.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbNkzNTvBdwHkI-D2DLBwxx6Ad_nx-OM239FprVWCf_xf7qPVGZ7glpEuCVQTIhjyJOHB6c4D00ksU7M5S54WJntE_OVfneZ1xjxyvdw1XC459HsEO-K-IizQ9KLQo3Sn3kisN0RzisQc/s1600/IMG_8972.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbNkzNTvBdwHkI-D2DLBwxx6Ad_nx-OM239FprVWCf_xf7qPVGZ7glpEuCVQTIhjyJOHB6c4D00ksU7M5S54WJntE_OVfneZ1xjxyvdw1XC459HsEO-K-IizQ9KLQo3Sn3kisN0RzisQc/s400/IMG_8972.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Occasionally in the English interior one comes upon residences whose exteriors
have been lined with eccentric figurines like this, often hatted, dressed up or
otherwise equipped. This was the most eye-catching of this particular
dwelling’s.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_3pjm6NFx6N4LFddhf4cmU9JQeQFhQCHCUat0_jVVW6V-BLbs3Yumwh-QkS4aYNUIunIB2LI0NHe457B3Esiu5vbgbp99F1Mss9dY-uUXxxK8vPyRUFPgVPvc0dxXzZBJlwejDd8H_JM/s1600/IMG_8973.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_3pjm6NFx6N4LFddhf4cmU9JQeQFhQCHCUat0_jVVW6V-BLbs3Yumwh-QkS4aYNUIunIB2LI0NHe457B3Esiu5vbgbp99F1Mss9dY-uUXxxK8vPyRUFPgVPvc0dxXzZBJlwejDd8H_JM/s400/IMG_8973.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Laleham’s All Saints Church. The brick tower is a 1730 replacement job but the
structure’s oldest parts are more than 800 years old.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Laleham’s
former manor house is called Laleham Abbey, which slightly misleads. It is not
an ancient monastery like Chertsey Abbey but a neoclassical mansion born as Laleham
House in 1805, which only picked up Abbey status because it was let out to a
community of Catholic nuns through the middle of the twentieth century. This
being England it is now private apartments, but previously it was notable for
the branch of the English nobility who made their seat here: the Bingham
family, better known as the <i>Earls of Lucan</i>.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
That
might sound familiar on account of either of two members of it who pushed their
way into the history books for all the wrong reasons. One was the third
Earl, George Bingham (1800-1888), who carved a bloody trail of torture and
eviction through the population of Ireland during the great famine of the 1840s
before sallying off to command a cavalry division in the Crimean War, fought
with Russia over ostensibly a religious dispute but really to limit the
benefits to Russian power from the decline of the Ottoman Empire. His division
consisted of heavy armoured cavalry and fast light cavalry – the ‘Heavy
Brigade’ and ‘Light Brigade’ respectively. The latter, whose name might
instantly identify the calamity in question, was commanded by Lucan’s
brother-in-law; the two men despised each other. This may have influenced the
cavalry command’s miscommunications at the 1854 Battle of Balaclava whose
outcome was the Light Brigade charging headfirst into the maws of Russian
artillery and getting utterly blown to pieces for no reason. In the acrimonious
bickering that followed the other officers pinned responsibility on Lucan and
he was hauled back to England, where he continued to insist that he was right
and the others were to blame. But class is everything in England so his
reputation largely got away with it, while the disaster was reborn in imperial
romance as the <i>Charge of the Light Brigade</i>. An unpardonable mistake and scandalous
waste of life metamorphosed into a glorious tragedy about the courage and
heroism of ordinary British soldiers betrayed by the blundering donkeys in
command. They later got this narrative out again for World War I and have never really put it away. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibS3OVlG-Ergm3IQY0AwyWxkOS3mb4GUb8Ahm_A9N6xXBMfyY6pPV1_qG8Rolb94TQzQNEu4Rd6dK5UYCJIZ0H9xYXLixtF2hrLq-PBWxQ0v_KfVEfF55rVZGRNehNnZKZoPgd27MhtUg/s1600/William_Simpson_-_Charge_of_the_light_cavalry_brigade%252C_25th_Oct._1854%252C_under_Major_General_the_Earl_of_Cardigan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1059" data-original-width="1600" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibS3OVlG-Ergm3IQY0AwyWxkOS3mb4GUb8Ahm_A9N6xXBMfyY6pPV1_qG8Rolb94TQzQNEu4Rd6dK5UYCJIZ0H9xYXLixtF2hrLq-PBWxQ0v_KfVEfF55rVZGRNehNnZKZoPgd27MhtUg/s400/William_Simpson_-_Charge_of_the_light_cavalry_brigade%252C_25th_Oct._1854%252C_under_Major_General_the_Earl_of_Cardigan.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The doom of the Light Brigade as it would have appeared from the Russian
perspective, illustrated by the artist William Simpson who was present as a
correspondent in that war. The disaster was swiftly immortalised in a poem by
William Tennyson with verses like ‘Theirs not to reason why,/Theirs but to do
or die./Into the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred.’ Moral: if you don’t
‘reason why’ then it could be you.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
other outstanding Lucan story isn’t much better. It concerns the seventh earl,
Richard John Bingham (1934-?), likely the Lucan known to the greatest number of
people because of his disappearance in 1974 in unsavoury circumstances. ‘Lord
Lucan’, as he remains known, lived a life marked by conspicuous gambling, drinking,
high-speed driving and boating, general extravagance and rancorous marriage
problems until he vanished into oblivion from his London home after apparently
attacking his wife and bludgeoning to death his children’s nanny, Sandra
Rivett, with a lead pipe. He was never seen again, and as is culturally typical
here the main concern has been less for the female victims of Lucan’s violent
upper-class masculinity and more for the legend that has grown up around the
possible whereabouts of what England’s sensationalist tabloid media has turned
into the titillating mystery of a dark and dapper aristocratic folklore figure.
Initial suspicions of suicide or escape abroad have since been overwhelmed in a
profusion of conspiracy theories and claimed sightings from West Africa to New
Zealand, with each lead pursued by police ending in frustration. He has since
been officially presumed dead, but it is unlikely his name has been uttered for the last time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
On
these ignominious notes, let us refrain from bothering the present Earl of
Lucan and instead head further up the river to where some interesting water
features await consideration.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqogSrZO5nNsyFtbMGqS0Bbs5VOYuPXIEyeIUlR9OBlOvsved5Zq2ceZuLfzlsv_3GkUkdNj8aJq9AxB2e7EkidmDiCo2kLIfJYed1aGFe0c-_pWp1LGUd_C_NNUqFq2EGSIkcPf4GjdM/s1600/IMG_8975.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqogSrZO5nNsyFtbMGqS0Bbs5VOYuPXIEyeIUlR9OBlOvsved5Zq2ceZuLfzlsv_3GkUkdNj8aJq9AxB2e7EkidmDiCo2kLIfJYed1aGFe0c-_pWp1LGUd_C_NNUqFq2EGSIkcPf4GjdM/s400/IMG_8975.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The towpath out of Laleham leads to a tentacle of riverside housing which has
stretched out from Staines, colonising what would otherwise be a backyard of fields
and disused gravel pits turned into lakes.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-gcsRzyLyJMjYE3xoxDd2giTG8JikakcfUWCEeAPfQ_ESyC2HabxWE9cWdnvsil0k93X1Gb0ZZub7dwTMhefShVp4V_o88UHdEHFRHix5oL2sIEeTJIqC1Wj838NUDTMq9QSWG78zTk/s1600/IMG_8976.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-gcsRzyLyJMjYE3xoxDd2giTG8JikakcfUWCEeAPfQ_ESyC2HabxWE9cWdnvsil0k93X1Gb0ZZub7dwTMhefShVp4V_o88UHdEHFRHix5oL2sIEeTJIqC1Wj838NUDTMq9QSWG78zTk/s400/IMG_8976.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Boatworks punctuate the housing on the west bank. The gravel pits beyond found
a more creative afterlife: their concrete company flooded them in the 1970s and
raised upon them the Thorpe Park exhibition centre. It is now one of England’s
top-tier amusement parks with rollercoasters, a hotel and themed rides, many
involving water.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigZuoG284ktlf8ZSSQVVDofi0vwupI8GI2Ugzr2Q5KAPF1QoeWzT7HCwqLdv0Y55gDX5KEoebVs7_zqnW6h8uUQrNAKrky55H7RaM5zi2znfmoeh6aipIHyeZ1BrZNQWHMFsMhR6y1Xe8/s1600/IMG_8979.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigZuoG284ktlf8ZSSQVVDofi0vwupI8GI2Ugzr2Q5KAPF1QoeWzT7HCwqLdv0Y55gDX5KEoebVs7_zqnW6h8uUQrNAKrky55H7RaM5zi2znfmoeh6aipIHyeZ1BrZNQWHMFsMhR6y1Xe8/s400/IMG_8979.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This is the intake for the sizeable Queen Mary Reservoir, referred to in the
previous section as one of the many waterworks around here. A lot of
construction is apparent here at the moment, which a display by Thames Water
claims to be for installing eel screens to protect the river’s collapsing
migrant eel population.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For
most of this section the river has glided gently along. Then all of a sudden,
for reasons known only to itself, it twists into an extreme loop of a meander.
It then curves back to within a stone’s throw of where it left and continues as
it was as though nothing has happened. This is <b>Penton Hook</b>, and it is
quite weird.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0r_F1JbmMgIVTolBsmktYpJ7GtRmk5sYYJYQLj8oGRawd58bjdXFR8sNxjH3THDWRhmOfAG7HeUc6nbZJ0CTaJTlNuxYpaUlgcT_nst-IGfrw3GbaAzMSdR7PhM-R-rfM1ZSJ5PRuscA/s1600/IMG_8982.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0r_F1JbmMgIVTolBsmktYpJ7GtRmk5sYYJYQLj8oGRawd58bjdXFR8sNxjH3THDWRhmOfAG7HeUc6nbZJ0CTaJTlNuxYpaUlgcT_nst-IGfrw3GbaAzMSdR7PhM-R-rfM1ZSJ5PRuscA/s400/IMG_8982.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The main river course is at left, swinging back from its loop. At right it now
short-cuts through the lock they built.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5jBRV8nn6AScE7er7OZmhNA80FvsPKodnnWMZwaTLmykYCE-tMrRE2qUZnQFLX5PJ7gUDL7xyrhFrrwujoUaZvccebrBACZzlVwQlfHP-plQmyVjaraeZHlIhs4yp6mtH1PU698FToCU/s1600/IMG_8988.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5jBRV8nn6AScE7er7OZmhNA80FvsPKodnnWMZwaTLmykYCE-tMrRE2qUZnQFLX5PJ7gUDL7xyrhFrrwujoUaZvccebrBACZzlVwQlfHP-plQmyVjaraeZHlIhs4yp6mtH1PU698FToCU/s400/IMG_8988.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The lock’s information display handily illustrates what’s going on here. The
age of the loop is not clear but it is certainly older than the lock and weirs,
which in part were installed because of the flood instability and navigational
challenges caused by the river having, you know, living processes.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi313tPAOj26edslQCvQp2StJ-3JHwHfrvd1HGuNNr2hL8sHTBEbGGUB52QmkMHiFq3HomeNufAUrQXSxf43Y6zWJ6FxqrthzB3VcCIlFwkebpWdwf-gf7U7sRMiuZBJGw-gdVDNyvS0Gs/s1600/IMG_8984.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi313tPAOj26edslQCvQp2StJ-3JHwHfrvd1HGuNNr2hL8sHTBEbGGUB52QmkMHiFq3HomeNufAUrQXSxf43Y6zWJ6FxqrthzB3VcCIlFwkebpWdwf-gf7U7sRMiuZBJGw-gdVDNyvS0Gs/s400/IMG_8984.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Right in front of the lock, two ducks were engaged in a noisy and violent
disagreement about whether allowing narcissistic bullies to use drones to kill
anyone they don’t like on a whim makes the world a safer place. Naturally
neither of them believes it does – only humans could be that ridiculous. The
dispute is over whether it makes it dramatically more dangerous or, because
humans have made it so dangerous already, only a little bit more dangerous.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Penton
Hook looks like a classic case of <u><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbow_lake">ox-bow lake</a></u> formation in
progress – or at least it was until they put the lock through in 1815 and broke
it. Before it had a lock on it the ‘neck’ used to flood on a seasonal basis and
indeed was narrow enough that impatient captains would sometimes force their
barges over it rather than bother to go all the way around. It would probably
have eroded and eventually become the main river channel, leaving the loop to
subside into a lake, but the English have made quite clear of late that they
like to have their cake and eat it so have engineered it in such a way that
they get to keep both the loop and the cut-off.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
question then is how long it will last. It can be surmised that the river
dislikes their attempt to mess with it and they will have to keep sinking money
and labour in to keep it this way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqMR_KuOr1Bh4VjcvftIUzKxhKTOa2_JE1BfppI5O0KBNss5doIftYfEmvg9Y6KarocrI5E3K6vqf41sHtDWqplKUqklRc-NgYsu6spd2Z8NZQ_ucsJTHlxyB52kss7ZlmVOkDPp0psMQ/s1600/IMG_8991.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqMR_KuOr1Bh4VjcvftIUzKxhKTOa2_JE1BfppI5O0KBNss5doIftYfEmvg9Y6KarocrI5E3K6vqf41sHtDWqplKUqklRc-NgYsu6spd2Z8NZQ_ucsJTHlxyB52kss7ZlmVOkDPp0psMQ/s400/IMG_8991.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The lock turned the peninsula inside the loop into an actual insula. Penton
Hook Island is seen here from the east side, atop the weir – you can see the
river looping away at right and coming back at left. The island has been kept
as a wooded green space and is used by the natives for fishing.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3eMvUG4b3mTJNoyr80gQWQ7RhpO1TVqQAGYkMvXzTDv2PfoYZw3KpOU69S_A7Xyq5MDVfExKfxBGTU58K16uT76Tk6c0APHsQv3aGxBetqQP_rszptulBm5G005mq9DlVlyg0JIldCfc/s1600/IMG_8992.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3eMvUG4b3mTJNoyr80gQWQ7RhpO1TVqQAGYkMvXzTDv2PfoYZw3KpOU69S_A7Xyq5MDVfExKfxBGTU58K16uT76Tk6c0APHsQv3aGxBetqQP_rszptulBm5G005mq9DlVlyg0JIldCfc/s400/IMG_8992.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Penton Hook Lock. The large weirs on both the loop and the cut-off appeared
later to further help with flood relief, though there used to be smaller weirs
nearby going back to the milling and fishing of the Chertsey Abbey days.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMnJmCsXZipmQ4hIswQfnGZUDtrCgBPZp8ay3UGdavDNLtDDDjVN2rElUDVYqmtqmNf0s7WMt4MF96Sgl2QjMPNgbxrik26EUGuGsq-P1DDvN0q0qB4BVms3iRMeG0iDkADVsqcO0XQIQ/s1600/IMG_8989.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMnJmCsXZipmQ4hIswQfnGZUDtrCgBPZp8ay3UGdavDNLtDDDjVN2rElUDVYqmtqmNf0s7WMt4MF96Sgl2QjMPNgbxrik26EUGuGsq-P1DDvN0q0qB4BVms3iRMeG0iDkADVsqcO0XQIQ/s400/IMG_8989.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Where there is a lock there is a lock-keeper’s cottage. Penton Hook Lock is the
highest Thames lock that was built by the Corporation of London, whose former
jurisdiction ends at Staines. Its cottage will therefore be the last on this
route to display the City's shield of arms (top).</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Penton
Hook was also important to the Chertsey Abbey complex. In the course of its
great expansion in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the monks marched out
here to dig a side-channel coming off it into the <b>Abbey River</b>, their
very own parallel aqueduct to power their mills and water their fishponds. In
effect this turned the land between Penton Hook and Chertsey into an island,
the north known as <i>Laleham Burway</i> and the south as <i>Abbey Mead</i>.
The division suggests a long history of dealing and quarrelling between
Westminster Abbey, which held the manor of Laleham, and Chertsey Abbey which
held about everything else. Nowadays this middle ground is shared between a
golf course and the water works we saw earlier. In later times they dug out
more gravel to the west of Penton Hook, but this too has been filled and is now
a 600-berth marina, the largest such inland facility in Britain.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Staines</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
From
here the southward residential sprawl of <b>Staines</b> makes first contact
with the river, although the town centre is still some kilometres away. The
bulk is on the east side, outside of the river bend, which has at any rate
hosted the town’s centre of gravity since ancient times. After
industrialisation anything which didn’t fit spilled over onto the west side, including
the tail of riverside bungalows it has dangled all the way down to Penton Hook.
That bank was historically more rural but has long carried the name of <i>The
Hythe</i>, meaning a landing place or inland port (<u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-1-tides-of-time.html">compare
<i>Rotherhithe</i> and its like in London</a></u>), and was likely of great
strategic importance in that capacity with its access to Staines’s bridge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUQbjel3CceItMioOiNYkhDhfd9Fx3T9XOqHD9VHCoae883g_MDlskz2VXiAUoIvFNXq4-mHLFEyqPOtIzzuNS0M4UVdeD8qn_iYLYdRohvUjfC5a01L19OPnpLoW2xJ_aZWTbkWNlntg/s1600/IMG_8994.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUQbjel3CceItMioOiNYkhDhfd9Fx3T9XOqHD9VHCoae883g_MDlskz2VXiAUoIvFNXq4-mHLFEyqPOtIzzuNS0M4UVdeD8qn_iYLYdRohvUjfC5a01L19OPnpLoW2xJ_aZWTbkWNlntg/s400/IMG_8994.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The bungalows begin. From here to Staines the west bank has been almost
entirely monopolised for this residential riverside romance. Most of the houses
look like they were built or restored fairly recently.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi73jVf61vEjnn1z4F-467zgSp-DH0-KCOx-Vm7Mch7-yl_-LvuqF10Mm7BtdJnYaXPDtS0kkFZGTzzVVXuqYUQbbVIo9__o0YVbbRx4kIMZKUeXGFJLHuY2Q5Luqovj_adHIzYvSKkgtI/s1600/IMG_8995.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi73jVf61vEjnn1z4F-467zgSp-DH0-KCOx-Vm7Mch7-yl_-LvuqF10Mm7BtdJnYaXPDtS0kkFZGTzzVVXuqYUQbbVIo9__o0YVbbRx4kIMZKUeXGFJLHuY2Q5Luqovj_adHIzYvSKkgtI/s400/IMG_8995.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Obviously haunted. The bright pastel-colours and tropical plants should fool
no-one. Look at the ‘antenna’ sticking out of the chimney, just waiting to
catch lightning to awaken some unspeakable stitched-up horror which is then set
loose on the land to vote Tory.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKMoOq6dNapl4hHJkoBjP9Dkw7aKLmeiUKauFPRRs7pBb406KnAhQAD-bGwcgp-6cXbFTht4L9Jk-EnqsDx7_rRAY0G18dDdauVAuUbIsmw8codzMJ9pk7adO4m1q1SiC5OeZWrMde0nE/s1600/IMG_8996.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKMoOq6dNapl4hHJkoBjP9Dkw7aKLmeiUKauFPRRs7pBb406KnAhQAD-bGwcgp-6cXbFTht4L9Jk-EnqsDx7_rRAY0G18dDdauVAuUbIsmw8codzMJ9pk7adO4m1q1SiC5OeZWrMde0nE/s400/IMG_8996.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Unusual colours on display. This is in fact the flag of Middlesex, whether the
traditional county (abolished in 1965 because London had eaten most of it) or the
old Anglo-Saxon kingdom (which might or might not have existed). It is not to
be confused with the flag of Essex, whose kingdom controlled Middlesex in its
formative days and whose flag is identical minus the crown on top. The swords
are <i>seax</i>, from which the Saxons and both these kingdoms and provinces
(as well as Wessex, Sussex etc.) got their name, and have served as a lasting
symbol of Anglo-Saxon heritage. Conclusion: its display here indicates a desire
for the resurrection of Middlesex as either a) a county or b) an independent
kingdom.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_oJIXT27h8EtjEZhHN5oMIuCUH0iMefSLcULJU5Du9ryQkHSi9L8-829gEZCrYbGDuPBtUpIgQWEplH0GFubpIAZ6dG8nEqoCMhfKvmy89vpOvBb0g2nbxrSqK9kUrjHgRMz20kvsbrU/s1600/IMG_8997.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_oJIXT27h8EtjEZhHN5oMIuCUH0iMefSLcULJU5Du9ryQkHSi9L8-829gEZCrYbGDuPBtUpIgQWEplH0GFubpIAZ6dG8nEqoCMhfKvmy89vpOvBb0g2nbxrSqK9kUrjHgRMz20kvsbrU/s400/IMG_8997.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The riverside idyll continues. It is quiet and a little suspicious.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1NhstRV2H-hQEoIryj5N_jBsqOMjvuICRI7dTUIu83as5QY6NJ9nRl48seu_RG78KDFnCMNI92vA2zYzBfVwmrTVWF3PPNeKvQwsmThYzHCQXlcdcpILvqgvsb45tTFvy0vPecoQ7ORE/s1600/IMG_8998.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1NhstRV2H-hQEoIryj5N_jBsqOMjvuICRI7dTUIu83as5QY6NJ9nRl48seu_RG78KDFnCMNI92vA2zYzBfVwmrTVWF3PPNeKvQwsmThYzHCQXlcdcpILvqgvsb45tTFvy0vPecoQ7ORE/s400/IMG_8998.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Steps down to the river like these are common here and look considerably older
than the houses.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
At
another meander the west-bank bungalows agglomerate into <i>Egham Hythe</i>, a
clutch of late nineteenth and twentieth-century settlement brought to the old
Hythe by industrialisation and the railways. Various large corporations still
keep their headquarters in the business parks between there and the west bank
of Staines.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFi0lalevygv8a8WsAGCCgV7XJFDUegrs8Y38qcb8ftLOiWRXzD-As0datGEiRtiacULGYENvKUqR7RdckEf8BpIpYnjGR_QDmjqH7nwU2sl6EcQGWQ_Aj9-Hh1pFqXxmsXqkjX718O6c/s1600/IMG_9001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFi0lalevygv8a8WsAGCCgV7XJFDUegrs8Y38qcb8ftLOiWRXzD-As0datGEiRtiacULGYENvKUqR7RdckEf8BpIpYnjGR_QDmjqH7nwU2sl6EcQGWQ_Aj9-Hh1pFqXxmsXqkjX718O6c/s400/IMG_9001.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The inside of the meander opens out to provide a small park between houses and
water, where this animistic spirit was found accompanying a man panning for
evidence of otherworldly material with his cap.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPyJbMiOVpx74sFuG_ta-4R7RgTGZgL8l2oG8UP7Rsmm23vyIvQoXC22lqIfCgmhqKZeY0RZFB9CgZPtB9YAZ8caKa_BS-Z0rZ15dtPj1zlm-iCPbZIzVBp6WJjCWnNbQMSb3taQhHJ5c/s1600/IMG_9002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPyJbMiOVpx74sFuG_ta-4R7RgTGZgL8l2oG8UP7Rsmm23vyIvQoXC22lqIfCgmhqKZeY0RZFB9CgZPtB9YAZ8caKa_BS-Z0rZ15dtPj1zlm-iCPbZIzVBp6WJjCWnNbQMSb3taQhHJ5c/s400/IMG_9002.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A gathering of waterfowl by Egham Hythe. Swans appear of tremendous importance
to Staines’s identity.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS69Nq4rAE9i96GIJDQd_-kmoc9PpL5RFIQwKtjxTAQlDuLv6hbJEKOzk7FpQ3ODLrslIiu0ths0Wv3z1cI1kgG8ILLUdISAR6-3xaiFvevZA_LF55ueVkX0OY54Uj-SKCbfedFWmRa6E/s1600/IMG_9005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS69Nq4rAE9i96GIJDQd_-kmoc9PpL5RFIQwKtjxTAQlDuLv6hbJEKOzk7FpQ3ODLrslIiu0ths0Wv3z1cI1kgG8ILLUdISAR6-3xaiFvevZA_LF55ueVkX0OY54Uj-SKCbfedFWmRa6E/s400/IMG_9005.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The marker stone, again with the Corporation of London’s emblem, indicates
Truss’s Island. This was near the limit of the City’s old responsibility for
the Thames and by the end of the eighteenth century it had badly neglected it,
with the water so obstructed and the towpath eroded that the City’s ancient rights
over it were coming under scrutiny. It appointed a new Clerk of Works, Charles
Truss, in 1774, who spent the next thirty years dredging and restoring this
bend back to navigability and got this island named after him as thanks.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivHngbphxomGGkLf-GlK6Esj0kxXEOndxneZYHa9pWRjKXU841tZ8HCyPuK1F5xZtc6dZHhkDeU75-eh3Q1Xa8yMKqxkM9CDeI477qKzgqDFYIBcvDOGh07KuxBCS-dyb9F_CdmZd8pkw/s1600/IMG_9009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivHngbphxomGGkLf-GlK6Esj0kxXEOndxneZYHa9pWRjKXU841tZ8HCyPuK1F5xZtc6dZHhkDeU75-eh3Q1Xa8yMKqxkM9CDeI477qKzgqDFYIBcvDOGh07KuxBCS-dyb9F_CdmZd8pkw/s400/IMG_9009.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Nowadays the towpath contends with different kinds of obstructions. But it is
the attitudes that have changed, not the material itself: as a working towpath
it must have been decked with horse deposits.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWbS80mLTMR9M0_ESWKLwPlub3XmRKpLRfBzS9FP4dqwUkk1QUhJuP0OMNuqhzYDcoBgvf-F_g127LZsNdreW9ZiXb7CF7O4CMzEYuyuvXU4P6cfU5aSErqXQbNLVaT-lrcwFaERTU1Q/s1600/IMG_9010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWbS80mLTMR9M0_ESWKLwPlub3XmRKpLRfBzS9FP4dqwUkk1QUhJuP0OMNuqhzYDcoBgvf-F_g127LZsNdreW9ZiXb7CF7O4CMzEYuyuvXU4P6cfU5aSErqXQbNLVaT-lrcwFaERTU1Q/s400/IMG_9010.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>And now Staines itself materialises on the horizon.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Then
comes the final kilometre into town, where churches and pubs (which so often go
together) pop up in the gaps between the houses.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-tVTnNnmmifpUJyj5cemSv5zPzV2qHWxR962S-b_1nykCX90HE8tkI-mPIeuDTpxkdW_S-LGKZttDKZTzuGld-gcxDxMLVhyvwXjAFbdd0OKyAQVEV13lOf8k5r8AxqCLLL5vSr3hgkI/s1600/IMG_9012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-tVTnNnmmifpUJyj5cemSv5zPzV2qHWxR962S-b_1nykCX90HE8tkI-mPIeuDTpxkdW_S-LGKZttDKZTzuGld-gcxDxMLVhyvwXjAFbdd0OKyAQVEV13lOf8k5r8AxqCLLL5vSr3hgkI/s400/IMG_9012.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>St. Peter’s Church faces onto the river, an 1894 late arrival to anchor
Staines’s railway-driven southward expansion. Its construction was funded by
the barrister Edward Clarke, better known for defending Oscar Wilde in his
infamous trial the following year to the defiance of public and professional
homophobia.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8LWMw1iW7QzJryHTE2A0_ernkWEohF0O5P_zexWBTYxBkphK4bGDkKlfwbWy5uJ4tVSkGyO0Eo9UIc0_w4bZDDKqhaQnMjUA10svYazu7XJFUUZUF4MdsIcuCGS-FovMaJWuB_6BTR0/s1600/IMG_9014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8LWMw1iW7QzJryHTE2A0_ernkWEohF0O5P_zexWBTYxBkphK4bGDkKlfwbWy5uJ4tVSkGyO0Eo9UIc0_w4bZDDKqhaQnMjUA10svYazu7XJFUUZUF4MdsIcuCGS-FovMaJWuB_6BTR0/s400/IMG_9014.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Staines Railway Bridge, built in 1856 to carry trains between Waterloo and
Reading. The yellow stripe along the top is a more recent addition, painted on
in the 1990s to bring the bridge to the notice of flying swans so they don’t
crash into it.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQXKLUnoFASOh_zbLB8mPEhDuyK2miBWNme_5jd63tTF7WCftHDkgK8pgobyB_AK-2J1BXSnqDa0OdXXOVP6rtrpCsMcPDpnUOkYT29H0rUby2nMVY6ZMm9FSvwM7WBY8dO5xvZem8gVE/s1600/IMG_9015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQXKLUnoFASOh_zbLB8mPEhDuyK2miBWNme_5jd63tTF7WCftHDkgK8pgobyB_AK-2J1BXSnqDa0OdXXOVP6rtrpCsMcPDpnUOkYT29H0rUby2nMVY6ZMm9FSvwM7WBY8dO5xvZem8gVE/s400/IMG_9015.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Beneath the railway bridge the towpath gives way to urban Staines and switches
to the western bank. Barges would push off the riverbank to cross, giving rise
to cottages here that were named <i>Hook On</i> and <i>Shoot Off</i>. The
horses that towed them on the towpath would be walked across Staines Bridge.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_47eHAbzmo3jN0oDKmJgEoCtoTLAx7fFgPko9iViEM4DfHi6Jvz19alz0LomXaAxxpmhEL4yPvI-D7be1cxG5uSqNnaDWzMGXeFS9THRAm3rvMLN636Q12p4bF5fJgw8runTbWMufgxs/s1600/IMG_9022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_47eHAbzmo3jN0oDKmJgEoCtoTLAx7fFgPko9iViEM4DfHi6Jvz19alz0LomXaAxxpmhEL4yPvI-D7be1cxG5uSqNnaDWzMGXeFS9THRAm3rvMLN636Q12p4bF5fJgw8runTbWMufgxs/s400/IMG_9022.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And here is Staines Bridge in person. The present white granite span was opened
in 1932 but the history of bridges on and near this site is much, much older
and is what seems to have brought this settlement into existence.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Staines
comes from Old English <i>st</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ā</span>nas</i>, meaning ‘stones’ (recall the
‘stony ford’ of <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">Stamford
Brook</a></u>). This may refer to the great pile of gravel on which it is built, by
far the most significant patch of hard stone in an area of shifting soils and
marshes. It was only here, it is said, that you could ford the river without
having to put your foot on unstable ground.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But
this would have been of significance long before anyone speaking Old English
showed up here. The town precedes the string of Anglo-Saxon hamlets downriver,
and Staines is not its original name (nor its most recent, as we shall see).
There has been a permanent settlement here since at least the Roman invasion of
Britain in 43 CE, though the evidence of archaeology suggests its importance as
a river crossing goes back far further still. There are several candidates for
its name in Roman Latin, but their common motif is unambiguous: <b>Pontibus</b>,
<b>ad Pontem</b> or <b>Pontes</b> (‘at the bridges’ or simply ‘bridges’). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQtQFEmvH1grlnFLrxTOhaVRRNLfR3K8qlYGEwM8bww51nNi9Osu_iBVHuDmTzZwVDi7shj9gKKLOis5Riqcb-kS61qz3TH8vlHi_CrXgXiU0j9pM2CzGlog8HK3WNyD7unxuu86UChBw/s1600/IMG_9020.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQtQFEmvH1grlnFLrxTOhaVRRNLfR3K8qlYGEwM8bww51nNi9Osu_iBVHuDmTzZwVDi7shj9gKKLOis5Riqcb-kS61qz3TH8vlHi_CrXgXiU0j9pM2CzGlog8HK3WNyD7unxuu86UChBw/s400/IMG_9020.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Just short of the bridge the River Colne arrives from Hertfordshire. This
tributary has put up with a lot of human interference, such as Grand Union
Canal interactions and cuts to supply water features in both <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">Syon Park</a></u>
and <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">Hampton
Court</a></u>. But its valley further north is quite pleasant and can be
experienced on the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/09/london-outer-orbital-path-loop-other.html">London
Loop</a></u>.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
England one of the most symbolic legacies of Roman occupation is their roads, paved
and shaped to superb engineering standards to assist troop movements and trade.
The image of the ruthlessly straight Roman road lingers in the English
imagination to this day as a stamp of Roman regimented authoritarianism that
has permanently disrupted the natural landscape, yet people continued to use
them long after the Romans left and in many places they form the basis
of the modern national network. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Staines’s
present site was where the main road west out of London reached the river again.
Its proposed Roman names are in plural form, suggesting they built not one
bridge but several. If this was a deliberate taking advantage of the ease of
fording at this site then it is likely the bridges determined the road placement and then the settlement's, much indeed as
with London itself. And once they made it across the river, the road continued
to the major crossroads town of Calleva Atrebatum (the Iron Age centre of the <i>Atrebates</i>
people, taken over and expanded by the Romans). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
arrangement did not long outlast the Romans’ departure, after which much of
this route fell into disuse. Calleva Atrebatum was abandoned a few centuries
later in mysterious circumstances, possibly a result of this infrastructural
decline or of devastation by the Plague of Justinian; its ruins are now in the
shadow of the village of Silchester in Hampshire. At some point the road beyond
Staines acquired the name <i>Devil’s Highway</i>, suggesting a sense of mystery
or menace had overtaken its original purpose in the eyes of later inhabitants.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Nonetheless,
the site had taken on the life of its own that two millennia later presents us
with the current town. At first it was important because they came to cross the river, not to visit the ford in its own right. But bridges
concentrate hungry, tired and safety-conscious travellers in one place and are
ideal for people trying to sell them things, especially if one can unload them in
bulk onto armies or catch some governor or general passing by to lubricate
one’s prestige with their patronage. Then the merchants themselves need houses
to live in, as do the craftspeople who come in to build them. So grew the
town-by-the-bridges.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
must have been important enough to make a long-term imprint, because though it
fades into obscurity after the Roman departure and the road system shifts
around it, it reappears in the records a thousand years later and appears quick
to resume business as usual, now under a new name. <i>Stanes</i> is listed in
the Domesday Book as a large settlement of 140 households under the control of
Westminster Abbey. Soon after that, three crucial things take place on its
watch one after the other. In 1215 a bunch of barons assemble there before crossing the river to a field, where they press King John’s nose into
the Magna Carta (to be encountered in the next instalment). The following
decade a bridge resurfaces in written records in the first of many requests to
the government for timber to repair it. Soon after that Staines’s ‘London
Stone’, marked 1285, appears by the river, a first sign of the City of London’s
assertion of its rights up to this limit that it would hold until 1857.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKy1kYp0mIcRVa3yRHqgo8KO3ELN7uoZbPKoi5lbenXwfrJCrYdMaflpylj5SjnFmwUYL7vZP2CiiulgyXAkhhtlouS3noAxpIruPW7TWL-LB6Rg5SEt-Mt43uIi8MwpfkhCZ2JIz8gU8/s1600/IMG_9029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKy1kYp0mIcRVa3yRHqgo8KO3ELN7uoZbPKoi5lbenXwfrJCrYdMaflpylj5SjnFmwUYL7vZP2CiiulgyXAkhhtlouS3noAxpIruPW7TWL-LB6Rg5SEt-Mt43uIi8MwpfkhCZ2JIz8gU8/s320/IMG_9029.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A replica of the London Stone now stands near its original spot in Staines. It
has been re-carved, augmented and moved around many times since its beginning;
the original is now in the Spelthorne Museum. It was customary for the City of
London’s chieftain, the Lord Mayor, to parade up the river to ceremonially
touch it, stopping of course to partake in a grand lunch. The presence of the
bridge would have made an obvious landmark for this boundary, but it is unlikely
a coincidence that Staines is also the highest point where the tide could be
discerned before they installed the locks and weir at Teddington.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
With
all this attention Staines could hardly not revive itself into a bustling
medieval market town. Still on a strategic junction and at a convenient
distance from London for a first night’s rest for road and river travellers,
the processes which birthed it a millennium earlier repeated themselves as
churches and coaching inns sprang up, boosted by the produce of the farm fields
of Middlesex and Surrey while drawing traffic, commerce and big-named customers
with its proximity to sites of national significance like Chertsey Abbey and
Windsor Castle. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMq7djgOR4BhNxKi-NY-aTHVk2GEh85CMJycj-0X39htgBzNbVHRUtoYnV4GgQ0r49qHOTNvkpC-Dp9ZHe50pTSgRTg88P8AXidTSsDwkORf0dF5zXDHUuHDcWjCmk-Qz8IfShvyVnpQ/s1600/IMG_9017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMq7djgOR4BhNxKi-NY-aTHVk2GEh85CMJycj-0X39htgBzNbVHRUtoYnV4GgQ0r49qHOTNvkpC-Dp9ZHe50pTSgRTg88P8AXidTSsDwkORf0dF5zXDHUuHDcWjCmk-Qz8IfShvyVnpQ/s400/IMG_9017.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Staines wants people to know how much swans mean to it. This sculpture depicts
a uniformed ‘swan-upper’, for whose tradition (<u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-4-into-valley-of-imagination.html">as
discussed at Kingston</a></u>) Staines is a key centre.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTq4YGY-QaUajGNRNnXhc5ou-ZkvZjIxjpciqzHekevteFFeF-mcB8EE0JKxGTaQhtFI7KsmDXHZpTx63WGMZII7gpe4mw67RZ2XZaPmFIzThMWaWE9rttE99EEtbHe2ws3-6FDn988Js/s1600/IMG_9018.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTq4YGY-QaUajGNRNnXhc5ou-ZkvZjIxjpciqzHekevteFFeF-mcB8EE0JKxGTaQhtFI7KsmDXHZpTx63WGMZII7gpe4mw67RZ2XZaPmFIzThMWaWE9rttE99EEtbHe2ws3-6FDn988Js/s400/IMG_9018.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>More sculptures depict <i>origami</i> swans behind Staines’s old town hall, an
1880 building and yet another piece of unique local heritage which Conservative
Party planners have marked for conversion to luxury private apartments despite
public pressure to keep it as a cultural and arts centre.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh40gAmW4XpvKGkFXEaAhvBoRZdGsUmRRNNSEJLzkTqFUSJa8ZLNcL05RhOG53mxdqDglyoh4zwA64gHEb2USzKXcB5VnMcrXdTynXok3NNUqjABpWmfSy8GnHCH3h5AXzNIsvj3Bpc1zs/s1600/IMG_9019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh40gAmW4XpvKGkFXEaAhvBoRZdGsUmRRNNSEJLzkTqFUSJa8ZLNcL05RhOG53mxdqDglyoh4zwA64gHEb2USzKXcB5VnMcrXdTynXok3NNUqjABpWmfSy8GnHCH3h5AXzNIsvj3Bpc1zs/s400/IMG_9019.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>More swans: the Swan Hotel, on the opposite riverbank upon the old Hythe. It is
eighteenth century or older, refers specifically to swan-upping and
traditionally provides the teams that do it with lunch.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioLeYCCrJOiXEA15QsrjkBrnPZiDZzf9ry_FNuuX9IHIsr7MZA7RmpHQNYw7zOyLGtTXwuPRpegxlYgOQvIcgta7HUxQST3COt5qUHnkXFTe3egB080wvtgDEqs_aKvILM2KTbUfiY6Ec/s1600/IMG_9021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioLeYCCrJOiXEA15QsrjkBrnPZiDZzf9ry_FNuuX9IHIsr7MZA7RmpHQNYw7zOyLGtTXwuPRpegxlYgOQvIcgta7HUxQST3COt5qUHnkXFTe3egB080wvtgDEqs_aKvILM2KTbUfiY6Ec/s400/IMG_9021.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This isn’t a swan. A heron, more likely. I don’t know what it’s up to. Maybe it’s
some ancient mythic thing like the owl statues in <i>The Legend of Zelda</i>
games. You can save your game at it if heading upriver in case you get ambushed
by nationalists at the Magna Carta place.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
From
there Staines nestles into the familiar pattern of the Thames valley towns,
embracing the fruits of industrialisation and the railways to swell with
housing and relatively genteel varieties of manufacturing to eventually take
the shape it retains today. Its standout was a massive Linoleum factory, built
in the 1860s to become the first and world-leading producer of that composite
floor covering, and the cornerstone of its economy, till its closure a century
later; the Two Rivers shopping centre stands where it stood now. Most of Staines’s
surviving buildings date from the same period, including its present bridge,
which despite the storied footprint it stands in has not been spared the other Thames
bridges’ catalogue of embarrassing design failures and replacements. This might
stem in part from its experience as a notorious traffic bottleneck after the
rise of the motor car, especially in holiday periods, a burden only relieved by
the M25 above and the M3 below in the late twentieth century.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4UrRggyxIebNRPDsAC97oGpIV2AgV_GvZsXnLrPyLGD3fIgRFIsD6fDCdzAA3Hb-9ws6otmwfV0PlIrmlmWtjlSrAQCzTUjUBR3U9CRYSk0Va2sZh67AGiRNATMijBQUwk7YHZ1k9XY0/s1600/IMG_9031.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4UrRggyxIebNRPDsAC97oGpIV2AgV_GvZsXnLrPyLGD3fIgRFIsD6fDCdzAA3Hb-9ws6otmwfV0PlIrmlmWtjlSrAQCzTUjUBR3U9CRYSk0Va2sZh67AGiRNATMijBQUwk7YHZ1k9XY0/s400/IMG_9031.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The centre of Staines, with a sighting of the critically endangered Greater
Spotted Debenhams.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXajakSscLukkYACVoT4-FXJgFOdggUGR7NDSA5VTGDyI2kMqiK6BW4Ct_ff3vBEH5_Ufr35_Xn5Zn1vmjG8_kvSpRY_rgxGrcXQKdBeIPA94AEdjBU3Y2wH3gwaZ8352oCD4KDVxfrE0/s1600/IMG_9032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXajakSscLukkYACVoT4-FXJgFOdggUGR7NDSA5VTGDyI2kMqiK6BW4Ct_ff3vBEH5_Ufr35_Xn5Zn1vmjG8_kvSpRY_rgxGrcXQKdBeIPA94AEdjBU3Y2wH3gwaZ8352oCD4KDVxfrE0/s400/IMG_9032.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Staines’s high street commemorates its linoleum factory with this sculpture of
two workers carrying a roll of the stuff. It even has a poem inscribed on it:
‘Roll out the lino/from Staines to the world!/Release every pattern/from
chessboard to twirl!/In every hopeful kitchen/let life unfurl,/bathrooms are
artrooms/from soapsuds to swirl!’ A celebration for a floor covering. For all
the oppressions of England’s industrial system, its people found a great
dignity in making things. It is hard to imagine anyone dreaming up verses like
this about a shopping mall.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHpGJdgfERXTyx8qfJfps93StBqEj1_1MfZrerebLbl7ht88W_fD__QQGC_1r-WOfERKrFHBoCi9xGt9iKADHTqykl4qZzdGZXL_awp1omnVTQokDRnhWGFovFthFMdK7Cek5JbCP2hpY/s1600/IMG_9035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHpGJdgfERXTyx8qfJfps93StBqEj1_1MfZrerebLbl7ht88W_fD__QQGC_1r-WOfERKrFHBoCi9xGt9iKADHTqykl4qZzdGZXL_awp1omnVTQokDRnhWGFovFthFMdK7Cek5JbCP2hpY/s400/IMG_9035.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Behold – not just any iron bridge as you find anywhere, but <i>The</i> iron
bridge. <i>The</i> one and only. Tremble in fear.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Thus
did a place for going <i>through </i>rather than <i>to</i> outgrow the
structures that birthed it and stake a new identity by the river, much as
Chertsey did after it lost its monastery. Yet in Staines there is one more
chapter which reminds us that history does not end in the present.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In 2012,
amidst some controversy, its name changed again: the town known for the best
part of a millennium as Staines became <i>Staines-upon-Thames</i>. This is now the
official name by which it appears on maps, but in recognition of persisting
dissent and respect for the spirit of democracy, which does not allow majorities
to impose things on people who have not consented, let us continue to call it
Staines till we can be sure everyone there is alright with the change.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
might appear a trivial tweak, but names are important, not to mention expensive
to alter in a hyper-bureaucratic age – otherwise we might ask why the council went
to the trouble in the first place. The ostensible reason was to bring it in
line with the names of other settlements along the Thames and emphasise its
connection to the river. But this is not exactly convincing. They do not call
its neighbours <i>Chertsey-upon-Thames</i> or <i>Windsor-upon-Thames</i>, and
as we have seen there is no settlement whose riverine heritage better speaks
for itself along here than Staines, the town by the bridges. A different explanation
was soon doing the rounds of the newspapers: that the real reason was to break
the town’s association with Sacha Baron Cohen’s television character Ali G,
whose satirical portrayal of a gangster upbringing in the ‘Staines Ghetto’, it
is argued, did it a similar disservice to that done by Borat, another of
Cohen’s characters, to the nation of Kazakhstan. Staines’s chieftains want
business to come <i>to</i> it now rather than merely crossing through it, under
which consideration it seems they were upset at the thought of Ali G giving
them a repellent reputation. If so it is still unclear what adding <i>-on-Thames</i>to its name does to change that, nor whether people won’t be bothered to get used to the extra syllables.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
As
the case may be, Staines, upon Thames or not, is the place where this journey rests
for today. Once its name was moored to its bridges as Chertsey’s was to its
monastery, but clearly that is no longer the case. The river erodes their
stories much as it does the earth beneath them, liberating the fragments that
fall off when the humans break them but also bringing fresh nourishment to
nurture new ones, as though it never gives up hope they will learn the lessons.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
If
this country really does head for ruin, then unless they truly screw up beyond
comprehension the river will still be there afterwards. Perhaps then, in
remembrance of the better things they made here, from linoleum to monastic
bread, they can rebuild something that will not, this time, project violence
out of this valley and around the world. Like the legacies of the abbey and
bridge, it may take a few hundred years, or a thousand. If these words somehow
survive that long and you are reading them in that era, please take a look and
see if they are still calling it Staines-upon-Thames.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZzo3CeFxVy-dPqLS_L9gRGJKuy6pyQgpaRPmQwzJWPCy8jPWyuAl7F5_vGsj0FeNQf_NyC0TRQiCrzfEbRRFF_r-_kKU-zQwcCgHRKpDx64LTx1l_3XS8q1Gp51CRTZmTrEQM9OjnKj8/s1600/IMG_9028.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZzo3CeFxVy-dPqLS_L9gRGJKuy6pyQgpaRPmQwzJWPCy8jPWyuAl7F5_vGsj0FeNQf_NyC0TRQiCrzfEbRRFF_r-_kKU-zQwcCgHRKpDx64LTx1l_3XS8q1Gp51CRTZmTrEQM9OjnKj8/s640/IMG_9028.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>A
special thank you to the </i><a href="https://chertseymuseum.org/"><u><i>Chertsey Museum</i></u></a><i> for much of the information in this section.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Staines-upon-Thames, UK51.43148 -0.515525000000025151.3522675 -0.676886500000025 51.5106925 -0.35416350000002511tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-38079990436679110132020-01-09T15:23:00.000+00:002020-01-09T15:23:43.858+00:00THAMES: 4) Into the Valley of Imagination<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDU-jcg5E-6isSMxL-5RvwSs5ZDIerB-Bqg1gliF8ebaX2iXvukJRJ1frmNAI9RTdRBo-et7tN0wGUqBhk4dkMbCXar_9m5gZKIHNV3iJxTGBDguqNr8PKPAVqXWrb5OP-bE0G2AVYNA/s1600/IMG_8727.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDU-jcg5E-6isSMxL-5RvwSs5ZDIerB-Bqg1gliF8ebaX2iXvukJRJ1frmNAI9RTdRBo-et7tN0wGUqBhk4dkMbCXar_9m5gZKIHNV3iJxTGBDguqNr8PKPAVqXWrb5OP-bE0G2AVYNA/s640/IMG_8727.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Dawn
of a new year, and a new phase. Our journey up the Thames’s central valley
begins here, and like the future of its people, the first light of 2020 finds it
lost in fog. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The triumph
of Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party (a.k.a. the Tories) in the December 2019 general
election presents the English people with a new phase in their own
journey. Our exploration began with them mired in a protracted struggle over whether to leave the European Union – ‘Brexit’. As of now, Brexit
is secondary. The new government heralds not only the triumph of the Brexit movement’s
most fanatical high priests but a far more ambitious project of cultural transformation,
whose values have manifested over this decade in the Tories’ <i>austerity</i>
and <i>hostile environment </i>policies – or to call them by their proper
names, social and ethnic cleansing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiT8uxCp6h-ha1mLjvp78LPSX8gEpWXjVFFz0hIemEZ-Gf08L2QhnoWluNZzTq4QgSxjfNvRX3eiUaKagOpvX_4bvnmSO6YPokN_ycxVRj8JUR-zwJcaVindBYTlujZA_HUFLi88v7jHA/s1600/IMG_8728.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiT8uxCp6h-ha1mLjvp78LPSX8gEpWXjVFFz0hIemEZ-Gf08L2QhnoWluNZzTq4QgSxjfNvRX3eiUaKagOpvX_4bvnmSO6YPokN_ycxVRj8JUR-zwJcaVindBYTlujZA_HUFLi88v7jHA/s640/IMG_8728.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Swans seek their breakfast on the river below Kingston Bridge, shielded by fog from the world of human folly.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
No
secret was made of these leaders’ admiration for the darkest demons of
twentieth-century nationalism, whose violences of gender, race and class, and
contempt for the very concept of truth, have burst back out through the crust
of the Earth in so many places worldwide. The English saw what they stood for.
They chose it anyway.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
most violent consequences will fall on those who did not choose it, who did not
consent, and this will bury once and for all the English’s claims to a democratic polity. As
for those who did select this: they have chosen their fate, and will learn the cost when the lights at the end of their tunnel turn out to be the fires of hell.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2v492B6vcSBWnf00oPFnNw8uZHggKw1oHesqHmj0JhpApHL9CFe7DygLgTDK4z9In_amAK3e7ks3Z8diBMWCGL4nJy36qfnxgFKOfeoNCIt3p_mWQH8Owvd3xLJXv3dUNfGXmFdbemzE/s1600/IMG_8741.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2v492B6vcSBWnf00oPFnNw8uZHggKw1oHesqHmj0JhpApHL9CFe7DygLgTDK4z9In_amAK3e7ks3Z8diBMWCGL4nJy36qfnxgFKOfeoNCIt3p_mWQH8Owvd3xLJXv3dUNfGXmFdbemzE/s640/IMG_8741.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The river, which precedes and outlasts their mistakes, shall guard the true
light in the meantime.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
As
for their organised resistance, the opposition Labour Party crumbled
dramatically in England’s fallen industrial heartlands to the north
as its traditional working-class supporters deserted what they saw as its
arrogant and complacent leadership. Here on the Thames, that world could not feel
further away. The Thames valley, so the stereotype goes, is the winding spine
of England’s protected southeast: the lounging, cosseted, corpulent body of the
octopus which sucks the rest of the country dry. Monopolised by some of the most
privileged sections of English society, these provinces are some of the wealthiest in the country and have returned a nigh-unbroken
ocean of Tory blue in election map after election map, disturbed only by the
occasional red or yellow blip in headstrong urban centres like Reading and
Oxford.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
They include the
domains of some of the Tory Cabinet's most absurdly impervious figureheads of mediocrity.
Beyond Kingston we must cross the constituency of Esher and Walton, then
Spelthorne, respectively the lairs of foreign minister Dominic Raab and business
minister Kwasi Kwarteng, two of the most accomplished performers in the vacuous
trolling that has become the signature of Tory politics. In spite of this both
were returned comfortably in the election, the former in the face of a
committed challenge from his opponents, the latter by an overwhelming
20,000-vote majority.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
That speaks foreboding things about the populations we
are about to traverse. The
crimes of Boris Johnson’s Tories – whose ideologies seek and mock the death of
people like myself, and whose abuses have brought hideous suffering to my
friends in marginalised communities – make it discomforting to venture into
strongholds of such evil. How uneasy lurks the prospect of accepting its populace
as they walk past, as though their murderous voting behaviour can be excused? How
irrefusable the instinct to hold them to immediate account right there on the
towpath one by one?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
If
they are to be spared it then let it be out of respect for the river itself. It
is above their sordid politics, does not deserve to be poisoned by having them pushed in it, and might yet have important stories to tell about just what twisted things had to happen in order
that a nation, any nation, could put itself in so small-spirited and shameful a
position.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUhnP6COLirI07egVzX3D8pa5iMBRael1BZZt9M63GEUKd7TiAQrWyDqFsBltBY9fW88Dipi5drmosaAqtrBHIOc97WsP0r0Cr3MR3SC8RbJBPiq2Fr365KK5bK8eR3UYMWivOUW4hWqY/s1600/4%2529+Kingston+to+Chertsey.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="1600" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUhnP6COLirI07egVzX3D8pa5iMBRael1BZZt9M63GEUKd7TiAQrWyDqFsBltBY9fW88Dipi5drmosaAqtrBHIOc97WsP0r0Cr3MR3SC8RbJBPiq2Fr365KK5bK8eR3UYMWivOUW4hWqY/s640/4%2529+Kingston+to+Chertsey.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Today's section is broad, so click if you want a better view.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
After
all, what can explain the middle Thames’s unyielding grasp on the neck of English
society if not some sturdy historic roots? At a glance, these appear as
varied in shape and texture as they are deep. From the constitutional totems of
Kingston and Runnymede to the elite scholastic keeps of Oxford and Eton, from
the commerce of rich monasteries and industrial boomtowns like Reading to the
warlords’ big damn walls at Hampton Court and Windsor Castle, the wealth and
power of this valley is as much in its stories as in its physical stuff – as
much in emotion and imagination as in armies and bank
accounts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
armies and bank accounts give them power, but it is the stories that have
turned that into <i>structures</i> of power. Resisting siege after siege from their
critics and passing it down from one generation to the next, these bastions on
the river guard their power well. They are the Privilege Forts of the central
Thames valley, and a notebook, camera and pair of walking boots might not
enough to topple them. Nonetheless, England’s redeeming characters will
continue to siege them, and can only liberate their treasures on an
understanding of how they came to be what they are, their habits and
assumptions, their strengths and weaknesses. On this account, it might be
hoped, this passage could one day be of some use. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Start:</b>
Kingston Bridge (<i>nearest station: Kingston</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>End:</b>
Chertsey Bridge (<i>nearest station: Chertsey</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Length:
17.7km/11 miles</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Location:
Greater London – Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, Borough of Richmond
upon Thames; Surrey – Borough of Elmbridge, Borough of Spelthorne, Borough of Runnymede</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<u>Topics</u>:
Kingston upon Thames and <b>the emergence of England</b>, Surbiton, <b>punting </b>in Thames
Ditton, <b>Hampton Court</b>, Molesey and the <b>waterworks</b>, Sunbury and Walton, the
<b>Shepperton and Weybridge Ferry</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Kingston upon Thames</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Kingston
– the ‘king’s estate’. A common place name in England
and beyond (not least the capital of Jamaica), but this, the first of the Royal
Boroughs, is the first of them all. Its fog belongs to a much earlier dawn: the
dawn of the idea of England.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggoe4KyzC1g29_pTuNmGNzN0xYElJvOqWw6kgt6TVxv5PIrHsSv-ZugrXO-mxEr6uHGBwePMZ_ghJcyN82z2RYs-QXnZATy0DSZH3M7e8QoNHvNVLwgKX9f0hr42GEtqumkyI9KzcmLBM/s1600/IMG_8730.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggoe4KyzC1g29_pTuNmGNzN0xYElJvOqWw6kgt6TVxv5PIrHsSv-ZugrXO-mxEr6uHGBwePMZ_ghJcyN82z2RYs-QXnZATy0DSZH3M7e8QoNHvNVLwgKX9f0hr42GEtqumkyI9KzcmLBM/s400/IMG_8730.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Kingston Bridge, by far the oldest Thames crossing upstream of London Bridge in
these parts and till 1750 the only one.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCMCWrvmQ6PrR4Vq3j3zje-D-xXsdH3vci6Bv1L06KD4xm1bCvAiPpkUXmLlHb-AXiCzAWccj-6bP6S-Vxx7eeskOLNW2agvvJUuH0oylAAL-Z0YX4Q8LtTesLP9KYMS8wyj_ObjtuJVs/s1600/IMG_8734.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCMCWrvmQ6PrR4Vq3j3zje-D-xXsdH3vci6Bv1L06KD4xm1bCvAiPpkUXmLlHb-AXiCzAWccj-6bP6S-Vxx7eeskOLNW2agvvJUuH0oylAAL-Z0YX4Q8LtTesLP9KYMS8wyj_ObjtuJVs/s400/IMG_8734.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Like
all nations, England did not blink into existence in a single moment. It
emerged out of layer upon layer of chaotic coincidences and colliding choices,
a Brownian motion of people, goods, ideas and stories with patterns of will, certainly, but no grand plan or
inevitable destiny. Since then its shape and character have transformed again
and again and continue to do so.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
That is important because it is too easy
to take its present territorial claims as its permanent natural extent. They
are not. No country has a natural shape and no land inherently belongs to it.
England is like them all in that regard: joining Norway and Denmark for a bit;
seizing Wales; losing France; settling teeth into Ireland; goading Scotland
into a ‘Union’; then grabbing, abusing and losing large swathes of the
Americas, Asia and Africa. The prospect of the breakup of its United Kingdom –
now made markedly more likely by politicians who, despite their
organisation’s formal name of Conservative <i>and Unionist</i> Party, have
shown themselves English nationalists who do not understand Scotland and Ireland –
would be but one more link in this chain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
At
the other end of that chain, England as a concept did not exist. From around
the fifth to ninth centuries, following the withdrawal of the Roman Empire, the
land now called England was a patchwork of shifting kingdoms established by
immigrants from Angeln, Jutland and Old Saxony, regions now in Denmark and
Germany. From the ninth century on a Scandinavian element joined the picture as
Viking raiders from across the North Sea devastated most of these
kingdoms and established their own domains. They might have overwhelmed the
Anglo-Saxons entirely had not the king of their last independent kingdom,
Wessex, led his people to an astonishing victory and agreed a peace treaty
effectively dividing the island between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings. He
then proceeded to consolidate Wessex with the recovered parts of the other
kingdoms through far-reaching legal, educational and military reforms.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
English now consider this unified Anglo-Saxon realm the crucible of their nation. Its king, this gentle, scholarly, in many ways not particularly English man
called Alfred, is one of only two in their history they call ‘the Great’.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Kingston
upon Thames</b> stood upon the boundary between Wessex and one of the other
major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercia. Perhaps because of the symbolic power this
gave it for unification purposes, Alfred’s dynasty set about crowning its kings here. They included Alfred’s son, Edward the Elder (900), who together
with his capable wife, Æthelflæd of Mercia, took most of Mercia and East Anglia
from the Vikings; then Edward’s son Æthelstan (925), who pushed into
Northumbria and was the first to be called ‘King of the English’ (<i>rex Anglorum</i>).
The invention of a country called <i>England</i>, of a people called <i>the English</i>,
had begun.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1u0MX3xg1nGIILb8qH1B4SG5CSWLgWiuvvkpfh-2jL2tNcKsM3h4dhSB9GEYj7WWDUhWjSqIkTGT6MkkFbyMbWioY6fvF2tm3XE5uDXPtKIMKYwMc2RMyObcudHWokEDOGCgqoLSyMz4/s1600/IMG_6162.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1u0MX3xg1nGIILb8qH1B4SG5CSWLgWiuvvkpfh-2jL2tNcKsM3h4dhSB9GEYj7WWDUhWjSqIkTGT6MkkFbyMbWioY6fvF2tm3XE5uDXPtKIMKYwMc2RMyObcudHWokEDOGCgqoLSyMz4/s400/IMG_6162.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The <i>Coronation Stone</i>, kept in this fence outside Kingston’s guildhall. The
claim is that this is the very magic artifact, recovered in the eighteenth
century, on which seven of England’s first kings were crowned. As a matter of
fact this is beyond verification, but as is usually the case with such things, the
story matters more than the literal object.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMbw17JiJ7ghiSma3d2k4asunIS5pZck7ITJ6M4A3DaR-k2TDeT5BJstdDSlJZ9lBrXpdkYYaGoKFLXfXT00PyU2OZuysxSYBTsjf9cpq_VpcXaTSqt-Uaz85FsvBLoNdu_noTSF-kR2c/s1600/IMG_6173.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMbw17JiJ7ghiSma3d2k4asunIS5pZck7ITJ6M4A3DaR-k2TDeT5BJstdDSlJZ9lBrXpdkYYaGoKFLXfXT00PyU2OZuysxSYBTsjf9cpq_VpcXaTSqt-Uaz85FsvBLoNdu_noTSF-kR2c/s400/IMG_6173.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Clattern Bridge fords the Hogsmill River as it reaches the Thames through
Kingston. The stone arches are the oldest part and date back to at least 1293.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Soon
the coronations moved away as Kingston’s symbolism lost significance,
especially after the Normans, to whom it meant nothing, took over in 1066. But
by then <i>England</i> had little of the ethnic meaning that its name, ‘land of
the Angles’, might suggest. Both the Scandinavians, who ruled it for a time
(especially under the other ‘Great’ king, Cnut), and the Normans, essentially
Frenchified Vikings, made deep and lasting impacts on English politics, class
structures, language and landscape. Nor was this the ‘island country’ of later
imagination, which came only after the failure of centuries of struggle to maintain
an English realm spread as much across western France as the island of Britain.
The concept of <i>race</i>, invented later (yet whose stirrings can be sensed
from this time in prejudice towards Irish people), was as yet meaningless in an
English story whose trajectory, if not destiny, took place in a cosmopolitan
gravitational field.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Kingston
has never forgotten its place at the start of this. With such a distinguished
birth, not to mention control over a crossroads of ancient routes as well as a key ford on the river, its settlement was here to stay
and flourished as a market town with fishing, brewing and trading interests and
a privileged royal charter. It later received a further considerable boost when
Hampton Court appeared across the river, handing its merchants a new mass of
rich and prestigious people to house and feed. Industrialisation brought
railways, suburbs, electricity and a new level of commerce, in particular the
manufacture of fighter aircraft. Even today its market squares and high street
have functioning shops – not exactly something English high streets can take
for granted these days. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifsAorjx52jmwAyJ-YV6yDkhIQz8ntaw5duIx0IsXBwlggbLMXuUBenwsjQxkQIinNNHdxykmEz5El5HfHgHj9a-HiUFlvLQe3RZm60r59iWHhCqij010N6KLGFN-P7l1JYpgWLQIdCM4/s1600/IMG_8723.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifsAorjx52jmwAyJ-YV6yDkhIQz8ntaw5duIx0IsXBwlggbLMXuUBenwsjQxkQIinNNHdxykmEz5El5HfHgHj9a-HiUFlvLQe3RZm60r59iWHhCqij010N6KLGFN-P7l1JYpgWLQIdCM4/s400/IMG_8723.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Central Kingston, early in the morning. It gets a lot more crowded during the
day.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgghAxLYJ9lqVQG5lzMeetM-IuF1YFpIkIxZeNXp6bTvj-NgYUStMdVLUwfsqCzQRUJuJg1TntQYVqJFWRQdtZRUcGB4sS9Rhe3sOVdhPtO-XCy5xx30aEivZYuO3y1K7kzJNBimPgZD44/s1600/IMG_8724.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgghAxLYJ9lqVQG5lzMeetM-IuF1YFpIkIxZeNXp6bTvj-NgYUStMdVLUwfsqCzQRUJuJg1TntQYVqJFWRQdtZRUcGB4sS9Rhe3sOVdhPtO-XCy5xx30aEivZYuO3y1K7kzJNBimPgZD44/s400/IMG_8724.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Much of Kingston has been taken over by huge department stores with the usual soul-sapping atmosphere of twenty-first-century consumerism. The largest of these is the <i>Bentall Centre</i>, opened in 1992.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhViflUfISdagC4mRqAoMDZmqbk63opp1xNJ0c9a6xIw1DEkE_8lOsEs6ayKeMQATnlrUeGSlwUZ8jBhK9-ONuaERNDqzkRYgd5nqj9AbqafU1xe7ScvVlkvYCLeiq5ZPlyEmc2CQpjjHk/s1600/IMG_8725.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhViflUfISdagC4mRqAoMDZmqbk63opp1xNJ0c9a6xIw1DEkE_8lOsEs6ayKeMQATnlrUeGSlwUZ8jBhK9-ONuaERNDqzkRYgd5nqj9AbqafU1xe7ScvVlkvYCLeiq5ZPlyEmc2CQpjjHk/s400/IMG_8725.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>But in Kingston this culture is preceded by an older, more substantial thread of
commercial history. Before the Bentall Centre there was <i>Bentall’s</i>, which began
as a drapery in 1867 and grew by the 1930s into England’s largest department
store outside central London.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Kingston
remains an archway between England’s centre and provinces, benefiting from its
position with a column in both worlds. Technically an outpost of Greater London
since 1965, in the centuries till then it was considered part of Surrey and
like neighbouring <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">Richmond</a></u>
still identifies as such in its postal addresses. In fact it goes one step
further: Kingston continues to function as the administrative capital of Surrey despite being officially no longer
in it, much to the
consternation of Surrey’s other centres like Guildford and Woking which have
made repeated though as yet unsuccessful attempts to take this status off it. It is the only case in England of which this is true.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Surbiton and Thames Ditton</span></u></b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Beyond
Kingston’s riverside parade of shops and restaurants, the path gives way to
private houses and boating facilities. So let us cross the river for the first
time on this journey and proceed up the northern bank, which in stark contrast
to Kingston is sweeping parkland.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVn2dNNIgU6ae54iczjKuq_OZej4kp822EgmG3SogJPh14ymntGIoT1qndZSfIxAUtGnl_L3yRh1kFGOmmWZ6KHuSHX39X5j6mpGZ6KNNqzD3TP1al5uS_bQCPaXpxyXihMTyp9f1CRpA/s1600/IMG_8731.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVn2dNNIgU6ae54iczjKuq_OZej4kp822EgmG3SogJPh14ymntGIoT1qndZSfIxAUtGnl_L3yRh1kFGOmmWZ6KHuSHX39X5j6mpGZ6KNNqzD3TP1al5uS_bQCPaXpxyXihMTyp9f1CRpA/s400/IMG_8731.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNR6lKWIg3uRBAw-wEqWe4R3lmc19BK1yyl0hnRjcNlb9Es2PFskpU1g6U4LdSamQNwR9NscqhxzC1URIOHEu4kT8ZZuXbdsxV5NGKE4_XN-oDkiAtj8rKIOaReiFdTqVkVTAMxV1s9kI/s1600/IMG_8736.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNR6lKWIg3uRBAw-wEqWe4R3lmc19BK1yyl0hnRjcNlb9Es2PFskpU1g6U4LdSamQNwR9NscqhxzC1URIOHEu4kT8ZZuXbdsxV5NGKE4_XN-oDkiAtj8rKIOaReiFdTqVkVTAMxV1s9kI/s400/IMG_8736.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS4vQI2ksQfooF24Cj4wTSoS_24ln1bahOs4AWPE1trTDCHWrcWKsBTuxsHyO4QFl26nP4BKxSxgaugdWfhDAM6k6JhAvW6MVF8Cw83vDcZu_0TqGiiF3OfIf1GvPkpTvz8NJcseglRuY/s1600/IMG_8729.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS4vQI2ksQfooF24Cj4wTSoS_24ln1bahOs4AWPE1trTDCHWrcWKsBTuxsHyO4QFl26nP4BKxSxgaugdWfhDAM6k6JhAvW6MVF8Cw83vDcZu_0TqGiiF3OfIf1GvPkpTvz8NJcseglRuY/s400/IMG_8729.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Notice the rings on their legs. The inheritance of legal history currently
places the Thames’s swans under shared ‘ownership’ of the monarch and two of
the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">City
of London livery companies</a></u>, the Vintners and the Dyers. Every July they
perform the ancient ceremony of <i>swan upping</i>, effectively a swan census
and health check. While originally this was to manage their numbers so rich
landowners could eat them, today it is more for education, conservation, and generating TV images of said friendly landowners letting children cuddle fluffy cygnets.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Most
of this parkland is walled off from the riverbank, to which it concedes only an
outer palisade of trees and grass. That is because this entire peninsula, from
here all the way up to <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">Teddington</a></u>,
was enclosed and landscaped for the pleasure of one of English history’s
biggest and fattest Privilege Forts of all – even though we still have three
kilometres to go just to catch sight of it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi6tG-x4T5JnPB95Meso9KYa67G4e0v4MNSK53EZc9KFO2T0HhbsYfT_i6jJ4l_TzBd6q_6ip7Pluz1AkmRxdSnDxIrWRrjH1Y9Ug7j9maalKNrw0_4zoALaTiDtiltfxW47JfMcEfDvU/s1600/IMG_8732.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi6tG-x4T5JnPB95Meso9KYa67G4e0v4MNSK53EZc9KFO2T0HhbsYfT_i6jJ4l_TzBd6q_6ip7Pluz1AkmRxdSnDxIrWRrjH1Y9Ug7j9maalKNrw0_4zoALaTiDtiltfxW47JfMcEfDvU/s400/IMG_8732.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Looking back across at Kingston, the fog is just light enough to make out the
gap where the Hogsmill river, historically milled but now a vibrant ecological
habitat, arrives on its journey from Ewell. <u><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-ophelia-n01506">John
Millais’s famous 1851-2 painting of Ophelia from Shakespeare’s <i>Hamlet</i></a></u>
took its setting from the Hogsmill, whose scene of riverbank ecology, studied
and expressed in the painting in remarkable detail, is considered almost as
English as the voracious flies, trespassing litigation and terrible weather
that together besieged Millais as he fought to complete the work.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-fAMVFCjKo7PCwl8O8tS0Fe9h9lEuNHnV-iyuXPr6tvWCMsg6NXNunRusC03neeHQSrhT1sFFghTJcVKarMh3MAVNnLoJuNg2VosfGK8pQbCLUVbxhg_ax7F3XYjBwO9dSFJi0u7VzBU/s1600/IMG_8733.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-fAMVFCjKo7PCwl8O8tS0Fe9h9lEuNHnV-iyuXPr6tvWCMsg6NXNunRusC03neeHQSrhT1sFFghTJcVKarMh3MAVNnLoJuNg2VosfGK8pQbCLUVbxhg_ax7F3XYjBwO9dSFJi0u7VzBU/s400/IMG_8733.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The turn of a year it may be but nothing stops <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">the rowers</a></u>,
with obligatory dictator-in-a-motor-boat, heading out for their early morning
self-punishment. The far bank bustles with restaurant-goers and
pleasure-boaters during the day, while John Lewis’s visage looms on in the
background.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-EhbWDksUspbeTP0eN1hEAxlnehLNwIkXaEtPVVATlplPu8L876aMlqpj-RXZvLtZKUGintEbRAbM4XaIE9KghoVblSZ3mIkxbXehXs1rsHXFv3Xzpzp2WcrJCmq0waKEiMlMznenzPA/s1600/IMG_8735.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-EhbWDksUspbeTP0eN1hEAxlnehLNwIkXaEtPVVATlplPu8L876aMlqpj-RXZvLtZKUGintEbRAbM4XaIE9KghoVblSZ3mIkxbXehXs1rsHXFv3Xzpzp2WcrJCmq0waKEiMlMznenzPA/s400/IMG_8735.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Against the regional trend, Kingston voted for the Liberal Democrats in the
election. Here its residents are escaping the national result by fleeing through portals to other dimensions, whose flashes of light erupt through the apartment windows.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Everything
now tumbles toward Hampton Court, nest of that ubiquitous historical singularity
called Henry VIII who we last saw getting <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">munched on
by dogs at Syon Abbey</a></u>. Rather than entertain him, let’s save Hampton Court
for when we get there and meanwhile give due consideration to the smaller
communities across the river.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Most
immediately there is <b>Surbiton</b>, whose name, <i>south farm</i>, identifies
a) its agricultural heritage and b) its position in the orbit of Kingston (contrast
Norbiton nearby). But in the 1830s the railways came and, unable to lay the
London-to-Southampton line through historic and congested Kingston itself,
they ran it past the south side instead. Around it grew a settlement which
for a time, in a plainness uncharacteristic of English toponymy, carried the
name of <i>Kingston-upon-Railway</i>. When Kingston got its own station thirty
years later, they repurposed the name of the old Surbiton farmstead for this
new suburb the trains had cultivated in its place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Born
of the railways with a short hop to London in one direction and Southampton in
the other, Surbiton has shared in Kingston’s affluence. It also has a
neighbourhood called <i>Seething Wells</i> which despite the chilling heat of
its name suggests that Surbiton’s health might have been contributed to by the
presence of medicinal springs. The sanitation reforms of the 1850s brought
waterworks out here whose clean water was used by Dr. John Snow in his famous
experiments to demonstrate the water-borne bacterial transmission of cholera.
They would not be the only such installation along what would turn out a
popular stretch of river for the water supply companies once the lower river
was put off limits to them by the Metropolis Water Act of 1852.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1vh2byfGOmcl9NDdV3JNszdtUM7-P_ShsxVZ7Q6pKKRYfA3ef-XE1ZSgC8WVozoC403gC1Cc62_yc6UBkvd3ABNUho4kgHaKOPRrqaatcOeGsMbsuHk-4bU0MWJpr15R0FzCEJsnT3Tc/s1600/IMG_8738.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1vh2byfGOmcl9NDdV3JNszdtUM7-P_ShsxVZ7Q6pKKRYfA3ef-XE1ZSgC8WVozoC403gC1Cc62_yc6UBkvd3ABNUho4kgHaKOPRrqaatcOeGsMbsuHk-4bU0MWJpr15R0FzCEJsnT3Tc/s400/IMG_8738.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The fog lingers over the outskirts of Surbiton.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm3wVeGauVHIZS52GOk3H4MNHZuk820W9DcbHVtE5IZWEbwms5l3YNZJH4m0quU4xqeIxSLinjQlntqUpAQD4nIrwUqtkKpb2M9zsgZ9giQ0TWtFk0m8HFpiNaM47JjRtKkuioJ6jRR_4/s1600/IMG_8742.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm3wVeGauVHIZS52GOk3H4MNHZuk820W9DcbHVtE5IZWEbwms5l3YNZJH4m0quU4xqeIxSLinjQlntqUpAQD4nIrwUqtkKpb2M9zsgZ9giQ0TWtFk0m8HFpiNaM47JjRtKkuioJ6jRR_4/s400/IMG_8742.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>St. Raphael’s Church, built in the 1840s – a Roman Catholic serving of Italian
Renaissance with seagull on top.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Then
resumes the <i>aits</i> or <i>eyots</i>, the river islands that laced the
previous bend. The most common use of these seems to have been to harvest osier
(willow) sticks for crafting baskets and furniture, and Raven’s Ait by Surbiton
was no exception. In the twentieth century it was taken over by a succession of
rowing and sailing concerns, many of which still operate along the riverbanks
here, but then it fell victim to the 1980s Thatcherite revolution and is now a
private asset hired out for luxury events like conferences and weddings. This
was challenged in 2009 when in a reprise of a contest that recurs throughout
English history, a group of activists, labelled <i>squatters</i> by their enemies, occupied the unused island on the argument that it was common land
and attempted to turn it into an eco-friendly community centre. Alas, England’s
undead modernity belongs to its super-rich class of property owners,
not to its citizens, and Kingston Council sent the police to evict them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixdp3sYiYZE4L0zYVC9RUqI1oHxO6MPOE0D8NGdjryEF2FAXcrlkfl6Qn-HdN1Iu9LGStDoEJtd8xC5flB-YWn6i4V1rfF42YU0J_QFiMzboAmLRpzF3stlCtI3sZX-HX3FfxmaMdWjbA/s1600/IMG_8745.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixdp3sYiYZE4L0zYVC9RUqI1oHxO6MPOE0D8NGdjryEF2FAXcrlkfl6Qn-HdN1Iu9LGStDoEJtd8xC5flB-YWn6i4V1rfF42YU0J_QFiMzboAmLRpzF3stlCtI3sZX-HX3FfxmaMdWjbA/s400/IMG_8745.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Raven’s Ait, still waiting for its country to work out what democracy means.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvoRoMrgm8ukjm_QfgBQy0RDir5Bf45MCNPPPJUMbtuAcRzzKRp-AKNPBnu07QyQW6uCzZfBiHNjNwfKfILjCItNSV6Cw_bQmMCIeX-UmAmUNkbd_UY9BAWvN4hyphenhyphenrjAF5doJOEJcOBRgg/s1600/IMG_8747.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvoRoMrgm8ukjm_QfgBQy0RDir5Bf45MCNPPPJUMbtuAcRzzKRp-AKNPBnu07QyQW6uCzZfBiHNjNwfKfILjCItNSV6Cw_bQmMCIeX-UmAmUNkbd_UY9BAWvN4hyphenhyphenrjAF5doJOEJcOBRgg/s400/IMG_8747.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Boating clubs and marinas adjoin the ruined filter beds of the Seething Wells
waterworks, now an ecological conservation zone.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO3Yqt-65KJNc6VO0e-nNwpzekX_LdcZncCj3sEYP8FN6ap1eUy64JVo10_vsqw6yvxVpD6UhdEQ8a9f6fscOdogriuB5J7ymF8jhbSWZ6s2E2GoV97Fx9zL4xtc1Du52vWmajhr8u6_A/s1600/IMG_8750.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO3Yqt-65KJNc6VO0e-nNwpzekX_LdcZncCj3sEYP8FN6ap1eUy64JVo10_vsqw6yvxVpD6UhdEQ8a9f6fscOdogriuB5J7ymF8jhbSWZ6s2E2GoV97Fx9zL4xtc1Du52vWmajhr8u6_A/s400/IMG_8750.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>On the north side, the outer belt of the vast Hampton Court site shambles on.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbrsgf_sBMwLX4Mgr1tIR-OfdmgoKeeKcUljAs9bywhyphenhyphenF2-2rK3pYo3r90zK7KG8MnplonJ__J9OfsnA1kmkp2jVg7uY28EdH4Sm767RI-9Z5JMSiZbHqjhQ9Lvo_hlpMI22XM4bMZsA8/s1600/IMG_8754.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbrsgf_sBMwLX4Mgr1tIR-OfdmgoKeeKcUljAs9bywhyphenhyphenF2-2rK3pYo3r90zK7KG8MnplonJ__J9OfsnA1kmkp2jVg7uY28EdH4Sm767RI-9Z5JMSiZbHqjhQ9Lvo_hlpMI22XM4bMZsA8/s400/IMG_8754.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Assessing the sheer scale of the land enclosed for Hampton Court’s hunting
grounds by sight alone requires taking into consideration the curvature of the
Earth. Henry VIII couldn’t do without his hunting. Deer, rabbits, hares,
pheasants – if it moved and had fur or feathers, it was likely bred and shot in
this park. And this is just the bit on the north side; the next several settlements on the south had their land overwhelmed by it too.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Soon
the fence becomes a wall because Henry VIII wants you to go away. We can lure
him into a false sense of security by appearing to focus on the pretty village-suburb
across the river, then suddenly spin around and resign to giving his damn
palace the attention it obviously craves.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7NsrqUo6XbjZGE-sWq54WR-mj68DFj76zluQVPXlISGtN7S50ibtZXCjTqZaefSyw-gqkf5pjxpMtFztWqvCc5PNRlGX702_db8VoZAm8j3XXJ5flJJJI65eGWb1qTEg71RLbiedcHbE/s1600/IMG_8753.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7NsrqUo6XbjZGE-sWq54WR-mj68DFj76zluQVPXlISGtN7S50ibtZXCjTqZaefSyw-gqkf5pjxpMtFztWqvCc5PNRlGX702_db8VoZAm8j3XXJ5flJJJI65eGWb1qTEg71RLbiedcHbE/s400/IMG_8753.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This brick mushroom has sprouted by the river path to confuse passers-by.
Apparently it is a ventilation shaft for a gas main that runs beneath the
river. That does not necessarily mean it can’t function as a UFO too.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgywAf7beymRCz4EsE9edS_oTDpe-hUJWvbh51dV05CclJoKHxFfA128xSpD5gmuOWvrFueetABw2IfRUxmHlyXN5Xy8fhdLdjdhz-awk9eYc_L6nVQau1EzscAby2l9_lIpB_BIFA-tVg/s1600/IMG_8759.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgywAf7beymRCz4EsE9edS_oTDpe-hUJWvbh51dV05CclJoKHxFfA128xSpD5gmuOWvrFueetABw2IfRUxmHlyXN5Xy8fhdLdjdhz-awk9eYc_L6nVQau1EzscAby2l9_lIpB_BIFA-tVg/s400/IMG_8759.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The closer to Hampton Court, the greater the severity of the enclosing barrier.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFdvQTDIWvim_WNLkxN4hW8ucr8GztNpZ9lx5YLPWBerJd9DpIRcq-dXXMyqVgEYDpK39lpS6-jGfaJsiVFQ0eZUuZYCuPI6uHn_irtP7fVxFxVmrUDAR_3X8l9iiaRshDaZl-3YheO38/s1600/IMG_8757.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFdvQTDIWvim_WNLkxN4hW8ucr8GztNpZ9lx5YLPWBerJd9DpIRcq-dXXMyqVgEYDpK39lpS6-jGfaJsiVFQ0eZUuZYCuPI6uHn_irtP7fVxFxVmrUDAR_3X8l9iiaRshDaZl-3YheO38/s400/IMG_8757.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Cosy riverside bungalows line up along the bank of Thames Ditton, each with its
own boat and little garden-cum-landing-stage.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Thames
Ditton</b> clusters on the opposite bank and spills out onto another river
island. The village is old, appearing in a charter in 983, but sat there farming
in relative isolation owing to marshy surroundings on a volatile arc of the
river. It is worth remembering that before weirs like Teddington appeared the
tides were free to rampage up and down here at will, making the river here at
times a raging torrent, at others an unworkable trickle. There are suggestions
that Summer Road, the village’s main thoroughfare (see map), got
that name because it was only passable in that season, being submerged or lost
to permanently wet mud the rest of the year.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Then
one morning its residents woke up and saw Hampton Court had materialised across the
river. Suddenly Thames Ditton found itself perched on a monster’s shoulder,
which needless to say was a dramatic change in its situation. The monarch's minions
dug around in the river channel, possibly alleviating the floods but really to secure
a more stable water flow so their masters could enjoy a grand approach to the
palace. Much to the frustration of the locals Henry VIII also enclosed much of
the village’s land for his deer-killing amusement, although they managed to
prise it back after his death. A more abiding change was the large quantity of
staff attached to the palace who now found in Thames Ditton a convenient place
to live and spend their money.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8H_zaLHVYBgM0tjLsJogJsoepiPqmDlkmeMAqZ4qiWxo5ZrjDpBoajrvqUv-yDNQgmnr6jjS7OBTvdF41QFxFEvBTi5aTnTFtiCZHkiYbaLquumbfNwEg0VnoNQtwJ85GSXLv0avUVPw/s1600/IMG_8756.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8H_zaLHVYBgM0tjLsJogJsoepiPqmDlkmeMAqZ4qiWxo5ZrjDpBoajrvqUv-yDNQgmnr6jjS7OBTvdF41QFxFEvBTi5aTnTFtiCZHkiYbaLquumbfNwEg0VnoNQtwJ85GSXLv0avUVPw/s400/IMG_8756.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Thames Ditton Island, with bridge visible at left. It grew popular for picnics,
camping and the occasional holiday bungalow, but only sprouted permanent
settlement around the 1940s.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgOm-bOkuhr7Jx9AEocro26l1KfUiSESDLkMv7pT5Z1Vorr24WhsjJVvjAC2tkodx7sZgN0bvZLHt-XgbcobL3uWw6FIU_bpbBtFv5bH2kkzs9ohnVY5TogUWTgn_wLNwYjvAJEHC3M1w/s1600/IMG_8782.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgOm-bOkuhr7Jx9AEocro26l1KfUiSESDLkMv7pT5Z1Vorr24WhsjJVvjAC2tkodx7sZgN0bvZLHt-XgbcobL3uWw6FIU_bpbBtFv5bH2kkzs9ohnVY5TogUWTgn_wLNwYjvAJEHC3M1w/s400/IMG_8782.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A display map from 1768. Thames Ditton (bottom), Kingston (right) and Hampton
Court with its huge grounds are all in plain sight, but so is the
overwhelmingly rural character of the south bank even on the eve of
industrialisation. Most of these fields are now residential suburbs or water
works.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Increasingly
populated and connected, the village nonetheless remained adrift in a swathe of
farm fields and bandit-ridden coaching routes. But when the railways came in
the 1840s, that agrarian character underlay the growth of a picturesque
reputation for the perfect weekend getaway to its holiday villas, market
gardens and pubs merely a brisk ride from London. It picked up a smattering of
local industry – engines, cars, a renowned bronze foundry. Even as the spread
of suburbs at last made it contiguous with Surbiton and Kingston, Thames Ditton
retains an air of riverside relaxation.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It
also has some personal significance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2fzk4KBEgNjSsFBTL8SREqUavlJtwn5cmpokKD9_tOxbzfKpszVoeBbeSuJpnpL7e2SV4jm2O12uqZjlpopGrKE4xRTRzkgqORa1zYYYbMxFBHePmyYwc1kd0OAgE5tVxj3qmHvYyYLA/s1600/IMG_8760.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2fzk4KBEgNjSsFBTL8SREqUavlJtwn5cmpokKD9_tOxbzfKpszVoeBbeSuJpnpL7e2SV4jm2O12uqZjlpopGrKE4xRTRzkgqORa1zYYYbMxFBHePmyYwc1kd0OAgE5tVxj3qmHvYyYLA/s400/IMG_8760.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
the previous section we came across the English rowing culture, which perhaps
with a hint of bias, I contrasted with ‘more peaceable boat-racing cultures’ I
was involved in earlier in life. To be specific, that involvement was in <b>punting</b>,
and the majority of it took place on this very site courtesy of the Dittons
Skiff and Punting Club (above), with which my school, which need not be named
here, had an arrangement. As such, on two afternoons each week (but not in
winter, when the river is too temperamental), we would unload our punts and
ferries from that slipway and cross to here, where the straight and shallow
riverbank offered excellent conditions to practice the art of propelling a punt
by pushing on the riverbed with an aluminium pole.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIvHA6Nx4_BNQy-uZBrsz3KdpGcoV7nMYDOp8apVstyQsO9VvIzCdktKQT709pZlGJ_HDh9NPAG7GVOAXZa6_CPaSIh8w7Y8sQgS1M9aNkToySynO8-UQNkszt2aJEmWu1AIxFe4MZ32k/s1600/IMG_8761.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIvHA6Nx4_BNQy-uZBrsz3KdpGcoV7nMYDOp8apVstyQsO9VvIzCdktKQT709pZlGJ_HDh9NPAG7GVOAXZa6_CPaSIh8w7Y8sQgS1M9aNkToySynO8-UQNkszt2aJEmWu1AIxFe4MZ32k/s400/IMG_8761.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The patch of grass and towpath by the wall of Hampton Court that became the
most familiar to me of all the Thames’s riverbanks. The bench is new; I
remember the old bench on which some of the senior punters once stood in a poorly-thought-through
attempt to demonstrate punting technique.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Punting
is typically imagined as something leisurely, posh and
idiosyncratically English, perhaps largely thanks to the way it is performed
for tourists by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. But here we punted
for sport, which entailed all the serious technique and formalised competitive
framework of the rowers but – and this is why I chose it – none of the
militaristic psychosis. We were mentored not by a totalitarian with a megaphone
but by a gnomic and marvellously eccentric old fellow who lived on the river
and, in hindsight, might easily have been a spiritual expression of it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3Yd956UNDC2hPTQ-48xqcpPmvmYLEkhofK2_OSmYt7hKomKu2g9q-3WTonXeWX0Ie7khz2Vo679DaLS3HiE4q_BGiOt5BuRYA5ldCWDrOa8CKk9NQ3WzMNzmuL-PQdNFT6C6p2ZQZI30/s1600/IMG_2067.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3Yd956UNDC2hPTQ-48xqcpPmvmYLEkhofK2_OSmYt7hKomKu2g9q-3WTonXeWX0Ie7khz2Vo679DaLS3HiE4q_BGiOt5BuRYA5ldCWDrOa8CKk9NQ3WzMNzmuL-PQdNFT6C6p2ZQZI30/s400/IMG_2067.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Behind us there was always this gate in the Hampton Court wall. England
was such an uncharted alien world to me then that this door might have led off
into some unfathomable other dimension for all I knew.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi99NituBvbHO68UpAIQfvqYcrJoEm8ovo_C76VKgvNH0_0THJABq5fGz1lOoLVJw7TyjlysSwaFTb5jFjxN2agZwKq7mpBd5byzsZ4S-Z-brNp6uwBDKs2SckDf7Mp604a6MIHr3jCaGs/s1600/IMG_8763.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi99NituBvbHO68UpAIQfvqYcrJoEm8ovo_C76VKgvNH0_0THJABq5fGz1lOoLVJw7TyjlysSwaFTb5jFjxN2agZwKq7mpBd5byzsZ4S-Z-brNp6uwBDKs2SckDf7Mp604a6MIHr3jCaGs/s400/IMG_8763.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The view through that gate now, fifteen years after I last set foot here.
Surely it was not reasonable for the English chieftains to enclose all this for
their private amusement.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
basic punting technique follows a repeating four-part sequence: you <i>throw</i>
the pole down, <i>reach</i> up it with your other hand, <i>cover</i> that hand
with the first, then <i>pull</i> to move the boat forward. <i>Throw, reach,
cover </i>and<i> pull</i>. This motion also allows you to steer, ‘pinching’ the
pole into the side of the boat to turn into it or leaning out over the water to turn away. In Oxford and Cambridge they stand at either end of the punt
and each insists that only their own way is correct, but any proper punt racer
knows that you actually stand in the middle (except in a ‘doubles’ race with
two people to a boat, where one stands at the bow, the other at the stern; the
first has more power, the second more control). And in accordance with <i>The
Rules of Punt Racing</i> as issued by the sport’s governing body, the Thames
Punting Club, each race is opened by a Starter who makes an announcement in the
following formula:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>This
is a (Championship/Status/Handicap) race over (x) legs of a buoyed course,
turning (x) sets of ryepecks from outside to in – you must therefore keep to
your Station throughout the race or you are liable to be disqualified. When I
see that you are both straight and ready, I shall ask you once if you are
ready, and if I receive no reply, I shall say “GO”.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
Starter then asks the participants to get themselves ready please, but the
layperson might already have got stranded in the first sentence on account of its containing one of
the obscurest words in the English language. The <i>ryepeck</i>, which is not
found in dictionaries, is a large pole anchored into the riverbed at either end
of the punting course, one for each competitor, who must ‘turn’ it during any
race longer than one leg of the course. Turning a ryepeck is an art form in
itself, requiring the racer to pass on one side, spin around within the boat, throw
the pole down to stop, and simultaneously steer so as to push the boat off past
the ryepeck’s other side. This is probably the sport’s most complex technical
challenge, with the time lost to screwing it up often the difference between
winning and losing a race.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
As
with rowing, punt races are held in events called <b>regattas</b>; the word is appropriately
from Venetian. Regattas are structured tournaments with formal rules, race
schedules (encompassing multiple formats), stern-bearded officiation and award
ceremonies, but tend to double as big fun social occasions by the river with a peculiar
and charming cultural flavour of their own. The most established regattas recur
every year on the same sites, and most of those, as it so happens, lie along
the next few kilometres of river, where the names of towns and villages –
Sunbury, Chertsey, Egham and so on – double as bywords for those events and read in sequence like their
calendar.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
that is where we shall leave these recollections, because Henry VIII’s
annoyance now comes into sight and we need to get it out of the way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-lr9scn55a5Fm9GW1xIgkJhZuo8bBe4oieXmWSSrWppY-4Xk-23hIgW93WEVoIN1yEkkfPLxy46LEbwLGmLpXs52LYFWrdgc8vU-h8vUIS_pnfkN6M-0GxiC-f1KpXFpKVDX11epVkEE/s1600/IMG_8766.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-lr9scn55a5Fm9GW1xIgkJhZuo8bBe4oieXmWSSrWppY-4Xk-23hIgW93WEVoIN1yEkkfPLxy46LEbwLGmLpXs52LYFWrdgc8vU-h8vUIS_pnfkN6M-0GxiC-f1KpXFpKVDX11epVkEE/s400/IMG_8766.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hampton Court</span></u></b></div>
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Once
upon a time, a kilometre or two ahead near the corner of old Middlesex,
they built a settlement by this river bend. <i>Hamm </i>(river bend)
<i>t</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ū</span>n</i>
(village/farmstead): Hampton. So far so simple, till at some point after
the Norman conquest it sprouted a base for the Knights of St. John (a.k.a.
Knights Hospitaller), who we last met <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">at
the Temple in London</a></u>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSvvErKX5zCeGeO6p3Tax5wGYqGQbHxqfcCTPSsdSUMncs0XAKsIIYnQfZlNceaFlzmv5xKNd9MYZoVmi6bP4P70eAOswv8ueJe-1FTpQo3mjOZkjrFp6twjoSuoQnOGbk5GKQy6zSLOo/s1600/IMG_8767.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSvvErKX5zCeGeO6p3Tax5wGYqGQbHxqfcCTPSsdSUMncs0XAKsIIYnQfZlNceaFlzmv5xKNd9MYZoVmi6bP4P70eAOswv8ueJe-1FTpQo3mjOZkjrFp6twjoSuoQnOGbk5GKQy6zSLOo/s400/IMG_8767.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The first clear glimpse of the palace from the riverside. More importantly,
what terrible crime did that bush commit to deserve to be cut like that?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Then
King Henry VIII manifested his way into this world and with him, in his early
reign, came his formidable chief minion <b>Cardinal Thomas Wolsey</b>:
Archbishop of York, Lord Chancellor, all-round rising star and unstoppable happener
on behalf of the king. In English storytelling Wolsey was no mere henchman but
one of the most ambitiously formidable politicians in their nation’s history.
His meteoric rise to power, which at its peak virtually rivalled Henry’s own, set
up the equally high drama of his fall as well as the murderous paranoia that
would go on to consume Henry’s future.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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It
was Wolsey who bought the manor at Hampton off the knights in 1515. By then it
appears to have grown into a pretty decent complex by manorial standards, with
its own hall, garden, church and so forth. For a man to whom architecture
was but a resource to express his own prestige, this was nowhere near good
enough. So over the following years he dumped colossal money on it, adding
rooms, wings, courtyards, kitchens, gatehouses, gardens, and in particular the
lavish state apartments where he could entertain Henry as his guest and make
him feel like a true Renaissance god, all of course while whispering in the
king’s ear just how much he needed his faithful servant Wolsey.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUdz9bw04IKzWzfBYe5zaa5likXWGMCGbAnldoghE3AuS7bvcHGBZRig7xQxnt4H4pY0AYiYuo-lId6V_mh8HH0s34IDnZty68w7Ax3OUsa1DrvR5TVGnkmPoarKMErM8IaKNcHtBgGH4/s1600/IMG_8768.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUdz9bw04IKzWzfBYe5zaa5likXWGMCGbAnldoghE3AuS7bvcHGBZRig7xQxnt4H4pY0AYiYuo-lId6V_mh8HH0s34IDnZty68w7Ax3OUsa1DrvR5TVGnkmPoarKMErM8IaKNcHtBgGH4/s400/IMG_8768.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>They still can’t find their democracy. Have you seen it? It's about this ]---[ big.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie0uirbmdA7a_6h_aibFAKZQQApyIrRkC0p-Hxw9NdM6_R3layp8cm5V8y6UOzL2qhh2xiKWePVJsN8JbZUFNuU7tSIi0V6koYeEj__ZdgSgNLC6Licm2ggmquuO42rzWznF5dHszwuL0/s1600/IMG_8770.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie0uirbmdA7a_6h_aibFAKZQQApyIrRkC0p-Hxw9NdM6_R3layp8cm5V8y6UOzL2qhh2xiKWePVJsN8JbZUFNuU7tSIi0V6koYeEj__ZdgSgNLC6Licm2ggmquuO42rzWznF5dHszwuL0/s400/IMG_8770.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Though the structures themselves were much changed in later centuries, it was Thomas
Wolsey and Henry VIII who were responsible for the sheer scale of the thing.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Needless
to say, politically Wolsey became too tall. His dominance in the government and
church made him many powerful enemies. None was a match for him individually,
but together all they needed was an opportune chance to take him down and they got it
in the prime drama of Henry’s reign. Because England was and is a sexist
country that had little precedent for women’s succession to the throne, Henry became
obsessed with producing a male heir to shore up his Tudor dynasty’s weak
legitimacy. He resolved to cancel his marriage to Catherine of Aragon
(formidable intellect, former ambassador, and acting monarch during a war with
Scotland) in order to marry his crush, Anne Boleyn, which led to his famous
confrontation with the Pope and steamroller ride through the English
constitutional framework. When Wolsey failed to get this arranged for him, his
opponents, in particular the Anne Boleyn faction, put it in the king’s ear that
Wolsey was on the Pope’s side instead of his. Wolsey was instantly stripped of
his property and placed under arrest on accusation of treason. But
Nemesis allowed him one final mercy: unlike other minions Henry went on
to abandon, Wolsey had the great fortune to fall ill and die on the journey back
to London and thus escaped his painful reckoning with the king’s wrath.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Seeing
his fall from favour coming, Wolsey had unloaded Hampton Court onto Henry in
1528. By then the king had got used to enjoying the palace and wasted no time
in turning it into his primary residence. That meant expanding it beyond
comprehension. Its Great Hall, tennis court, ridiculously enlarged hunting park
and nifty water supply infrastructure date from this burst of aggrandisement,
as does its astronomical clock which, significantly, reported Thames tidal
information. So much of the subsequent drama for which Henry is known – whether
in politics, recreation, or his extremely personal brand of toxic monogamy –
took place at Hampton Court, and such is its grip on the national mythology
that despite all the palace’s later uses and transformations, including its
imprisonment of Charles I in the civil war and loss of much of its Tudor
structure under the 1690s Versailles-style renovations of William and Mary, it
is with Henry VIII of the Tudor dynasty, more than anyone else, that Hampton
Court remains associated in English imagination. </div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAzrNXF1y_EmdcYSJ9tpNVuB2KUeJ0o9Y8i1oK531CNPj-Wvo_qUdk43fxNtSXXs20H6zDjwc2WH4QdUCtPG3qvW7b0h1Uhcc8Z6DjwgSCmAaotA45iHsz76oy8QzpI_Ck-xZLWORVfpc/s1600/IMG_8777.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAzrNXF1y_EmdcYSJ9tpNVuB2KUeJ0o9Y8i1oK531CNPj-Wvo_qUdk43fxNtSXXs20H6zDjwc2WH4QdUCtPG3qvW7b0h1Uhcc8Z6DjwgSCmAaotA45iHsz76oy8QzpI_Ck-xZLWORVfpc/s400/IMG_8777.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The Great Gatehouse of Hampton Court Palace. The monarchs stopped living in it
from George III on and in 1838 it was opened to the public after a huge
restoration, with visitor numbers exploding once it got its own railway
station eleven years later. To this day it stands as one of England’s
top-of-the-pile national tourist attractions.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi18G2gONhWKYoLR6CFN4H4pB1ifqumj8rlu8t-HN8ndC5-fzoZsk-fqXXAKfnM1TRJip5-i_3MgFtxFku9tnjyQcZFVPmiZwLEgVpCr27w95-1KJIjHGA44Jo29MU3kPHlNbUw1h38EAE/s1600/IMG_8775.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi18G2gONhWKYoLR6CFN4H4pB1ifqumj8rlu8t-HN8ndC5-fzoZsk-fqXXAKfnM1TRJip5-i_3MgFtxFku9tnjyQcZFVPmiZwLEgVpCr27w95-1KJIjHGA44Jo29MU3kPHlNbUw1h38EAE/s400/IMG_8775.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Even a fraction of it glimpsed through a window has more towers, chimneys and
crenellations than most people will get through in a lifetime.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6cXZmZBIG8Gcw_ltth-UhEwnXVR89y9Km1j12k9WLo1m1Pd0cIwqswCqEA3hAji4j8AIqFWDvhbWR8dEE9Toe8ZLplG8rROEpLZneuUvaSOnip2b8Ak9iC5CsKhMkLAcVb_qAteKM35E/s1600/IMG_8778.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6cXZmZBIG8Gcw_ltth-UhEwnXVR89y9Km1j12k9WLo1m1Pd0cIwqswCqEA3hAji4j8AIqFWDvhbWR8dEE9Toe8ZLplG8rROEpLZneuUvaSOnip2b8Ak9iC5CsKhMkLAcVb_qAteKM35E/s400/IMG_8778.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Nowadays of course they squeeze all the commercial value they can out of such
sites. This Christmas ice-skating rink has been erected outside the Great
Gatehouse and is clearly proving popular.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Why
does Hampton Court retain such a gigantic profile? What does it really signify
in the English universe of stories? Has it simply become the grandest
structural expression of that one particular king, who stands similarly larger
than life in that universe for how his forceful personality and shamelessly
gendered behaviour happened to mishmash together to produce a revolution in
what it meant to be English? But then, why him, and not those who came here
later whose roles in that revolution were just as important?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Even
now it is Citizen Henry Tudor who features in Hampton Court’s latest advertising
campaign, menacing London Underground passengers as he <u><a href="https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/">towers far too tall over
his Renaissance playground</a></u>. Is it that his story helps these
people imagine some golden age of a strong, independent England under a proud
authoritarian strongman who believed he could do whatever he wanted – despite
his constant struggles with domestic and foreign political tides, the fragility
which underlay his dynasty, and the self-consciously European style in which he
and Wolsey chose to build this his greatest lair?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
There
is history in the sense of what happened, and history in the sense of the deeper
patterns and archetypes which those who come later read into those facts and re-arrange to build worlds of their own. After years of having my historical explorations of
this country barrelled into by this king I am fed up of him and will not give
him any more space here, but there can be no doubt that his sizeable place in
the English historical consciousness owes to far more than his physical effect
on their country. There are symbolisms in his story, meanings embodied right
here in the bricks and turrets of Hampton Court, which say so much more about
how these people imagine themselves.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Molesey</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
For
most of time there was no Hampton Court. The water precedes it, and has its own
presence here whose effect is to be measured on a broader timescale than the
humans’.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The <b>River
Mole</b> arrives here after a long descent off England’s southern weald. It seems
too tempting to believe it is named after the animal it sounds like for its
burrowing through the chalk of the North Downs. More of its course rather takes
place over impermeable clay, implying a wild temper under heavy rains that does
much to account for the instability of the river here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiLj_6Qc-Ayhz46eK5cprpfH6YEhz8JnMaOAdQ6-7I8q4y5zVUjoVvfVvtpZVa-nd_0bVrOkskrwZtRtzeciVXYfjO9C7HBnS_Cd-IIw79d968xCPr_Mj85_Oo-Veaq518QbBRoMxGSdk/s1600/IMG_8772.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiLj_6Qc-Ayhz46eK5cprpfH6YEhz8JnMaOAdQ6-7I8q4y5zVUjoVvfVvtpZVa-nd_0bVrOkskrwZtRtzeciVXYfjO9C7HBnS_Cd-IIw79d968xCPr_Mj85_Oo-Veaq518QbBRoMxGSdk/s400/IMG_8772.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The understated arrival of the Mole, opposite Hampton Court’s Great Gatehouse.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
Mole gives name and shape to the Mole Valley which dominates central Surrey but
not to the village-turned-suburb of <b>Molesey</b>, from which it might even be
a back-formation. Molesey is rather ‘Mul’s Island’ – <i>Mulesei</i> – as it
appears in a charter endowing its lands to Chertsey Abbey soon after the
latter’s establishment in the seventh century. Chertsey is the goal of today’s
progress, and here we begin to feel the tug of its gravitational pull.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3-D2skp8xiYMe1c5EYsY1YQbNpY_WJjxKprHIfhftFmUvozYx5rOjtg92EkNTjhxy7mhUUJKafxDqaS8Yjn8flVNjojyOXv_9gYMjm9nOb27_3zkHGS_Pv40J-8qE1s8dRGVJ3dtBiPI/s1600/IMG_8776.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3-D2skp8xiYMe1c5EYsY1YQbNpY_WJjxKprHIfhftFmUvozYx5rOjtg92EkNTjhxy7mhUUJKafxDqaS8Yjn8flVNjojyOXv_9gYMjm9nOb27_3zkHGS_Pv40J-8qE1s8dRGVJ3dtBiPI/s400/IMG_8776.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Hampton Court Bridge links the palace (right) with East Molesey (left). The
bridge came well after the palace’s heyday under Henry VIII – the first was
built in 1753, while the current, opened in 1933, is the fourth on this site. Here we cross back to the south bank.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlz1WUgy8urhZktbiaMkKEyfCCOXkO2QaGCVPmkzSDtryh4WVdzJQMXboZ_mTcln2mUTRE1v-Jbls5p_vpblqTMq76Jcc0G9HKLlcZGlvXrAWKFIyXXl3HoZtIKHAnJqsVFRUVrJjIxpQ/s1600/IMG_8786.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlz1WUgy8urhZktbiaMkKEyfCCOXkO2QaGCVPmkzSDtryh4WVdzJQMXboZ_mTcln2mUTRE1v-Jbls5p_vpblqTMq76Jcc0G9HKLlcZGlvXrAWKFIyXXl3HoZtIKHAnJqsVFRUVrJjIxpQ/s400/IMG_8786.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And this was the original 1753 bridge: a wooden ‘Chinoiserie’-style willow-pattern
thing privately built and run for toll money. It and its successors gave way to
each other as decay, traffic and changes to water flow caused by Molesey Lock
and Weir necessitated functional improvements.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Molesey’s
story in many ways parallels Thames Ditton’s, though on a slightly larger
scale; large enough that by around 1200 it was already divided into East and
West Molesey, a distinction it still makes today. It was parcelled out to Norman
knights after their invasion dispossessed the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants. The
appearance of Hampton Court brought good business to its artisans, labourers
and ferrymen, only to then visit on them the loss of much of their land to
Henry VIII’s hunting pleasure, utterly ruining the people who relied on it till
its recovery after his death. Then came the trains and the suburb movement, and
that, as they say, is that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Only
not quite. Molesey also extends quite a way west and south of its settled area,
over the old lands grabbed for that bloody hunting park. Both there and on the
river itself, the strategic importance of Hampton Court along with the holiday
cruising and boat-racing romance it helped beget, the constant flood threat,
and the prohibition on corporate water extraction on the tidal reaches below,
combined to motivate the inhabitants to exert control over the river flow in
these parts and make the Thames ahead a fervour of industrial-era hydro-engineering.
The first major instance of this is Molesey Lock and Weir, which they finally
got the technology to attempt in the early nineteenth century.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYWEHPQ_K2luGeD3w1TVjDCKRLPTtQmYSiI-9WtJFYebvPn5MHWFAe8WiQjAoBdrtZzPU9PjIO3VbKwRCY76Zc_7_WpT2ZOP9GWo80y1F_khD6bnwfciZpjCkWCAKWJI1MvhEI_FxhYA8/s1600/IMG_8791.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYWEHPQ_K2luGeD3w1TVjDCKRLPTtQmYSiI-9WtJFYebvPn5MHWFAe8WiQjAoBdrtZzPU9PjIO3VbKwRCY76Zc_7_WpT2ZOP9GWo80y1F_khD6bnwfciZpjCkWCAKWJI1MvhEI_FxhYA8/s400/IMG_8791.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Molesey Weir, constructed in 1812 to supplement the first set of four
weirs and locks that included Teddington. Beyond the weir is Ash Island,
densely wooded and privately owned.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzbe_knLXOqmCAmIJhf6QOGvG2R-62Gzp7Z_oRC9hjzv7GSfVcbEmcPfJbRlPcCHWOvBJshSDzP0NF59fGyNGl0PptgjHDtjUnXw9NRrl2fGZb1SK9wsScvw6FGUoABzI_hTDW4qdxURU/s1600/IMG_8790.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzbe_knLXOqmCAmIJhf6QOGvG2R-62Gzp7Z_oRC9hjzv7GSfVcbEmcPfJbRlPcCHWOvBJshSDzP0NF59fGyNGl0PptgjHDtjUnXw9NRrl2fGZb1SK9wsScvw6FGUoABzI_hTDW4qdxURU/s400/IMG_8790.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Accompanying the weir is Molesey Lock, indispensable for the armadas of
pleasure boats that came to frequent this stretch of river. Many of these were
operated by people with little or no river experience, resulting in a
year-on-year catalogue of disagreeable accidents amidst this hazardous set of
machinery. As a result the lock and weir and their operational doctrines have
been frequently refurbished and improved.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUTeuObhKPixo6nfSajjIX3YIMu8q7qQl9fNbRFzKZVm_0IBvQxJrd17U9odNyMCDM2jgiI7ATixYKKHdjMdOWj9GCpwq4eMXgWZ5XK2Yhk_S9TsSF8zao2wrVnRD6vBfv7px-DIM17VE/s1600/IMG_8792.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUTeuObhKPixo6nfSajjIX3YIMu8q7qQl9fNbRFzKZVm_0IBvQxJrd17U9odNyMCDM2jgiI7ATixYKKHdjMdOWj9GCpwq4eMXgWZ5XK2Yhk_S9TsSF8zao2wrVnRD6vBfv7px-DIM17VE/s400/IMG_8792.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A cormorant graces Molesey Weir with its professional consideration.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv9mrMm8mNdV1FnGVqmF2gVWjWG5qXzW1IOqA4OXbTvB21DHjqpoyos2UcIl9k1uc_y37EqO9-OFh_Vo0TDhNZVaBQzZhLYpCC4-99R1feA027IxSn58ax-P2IN49z3XNdlfdL1lAFjnE/s1600/IMG_8795.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv9mrMm8mNdV1FnGVqmF2gVWjWG5qXzW1IOqA4OXbTvB21DHjqpoyos2UcIl9k1uc_y37EqO9-OFh_Vo0TDhNZVaBQzZhLYpCC4-99R1feA027IxSn58ax-P2IN49z3XNdlfdL1lAFjnE/s400/IMG_8795.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Ash Island is one of a pair, of which this, <u><a href="http://www.moleseyhistory.co.uk/books/molesey/tm/tm_10.htm">Tagg’s Island</a></u>,
formerly Walnut Tree Island, is the other. This one was coveted by the royals,
then by rich developers who threw off its local osier-growers for greedy
property speculation purposes. Eventually it fell into the hands of Thomas
Tagg, a boat-builder and royal waterman, who ended up running a luxury resort
on it while selling his boats to customers of the highest international
profile. As is plain to see, the island now boasts some of the most expensive and
exclusive houseboats on the Thames.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOu6MfvZYAeuzJaCuEodF7WGyN1zL6y_SqJP8rNLbHguMARABbpz0xc5CMF96WEMY4Wg3QdZWghVfApKQyKkSOEqT0qxV1tDfhipmspv0advUDKgj8MofZHvEubdsbPuuwIj10vStfQPQ/s1600/IMG_8794.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOu6MfvZYAeuzJaCuEodF7WGyN1zL6y_SqJP8rNLbHguMARABbpz0xc5CMF96WEMY4Wg3QdZWghVfApKQyKkSOEqT0qxV1tDfhipmspv0advUDKgj8MofZHvEubdsbPuuwIj10vStfQPQ/s400/IMG_8794.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Through the gap between Ash and Tagg’s Islands, a chunky piece of Switzerland
that was brought from that country and put here in 1899.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
encroachment of waterworks does not inhibit some displays on the theme of
Englishness by Molesey or its adjacent green space, Hurst Park.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnsiWea0gTP2nuC75E_kYeevzJhzj-Cs6_gxiYKKRZtfsKkTwW8VZ6ghoJu_wTMsD3EBbng1wEGeFSgP5WvzJbG7mNwHoZUUfSRSxe4LmmspVi90clUVd9J5mk0qNoDxDDY9rRunp2oM/s1600/IMG_8789.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnsiWea0gTP2nuC75E_kYeevzJhzj-Cs6_gxiYKKRZtfsKkTwW8VZ6ghoJu_wTMsD3EBbng1wEGeFSgP5WvzJbG7mNwHoZUUfSRSxe4LmmspVi90clUVd9J5mk0qNoDxDDY9rRunp2oM/s400/IMG_8789.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The local war memorial in East Molesey. If the English are serious about
feeling bad about these wars then they should reconsider their election of
hate-stoking nationalists.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiYZ3lUEe2bAZfjKVgNet5Ht1cmiRi2Ind4k-YU3IVWMan02zZuyU9KI0uGcm10dJrztqvYwmqGTTv1uLJp08etwitAbyO4cGqrh7S1XVoc-egNgDrAwhR1iQwS7GW98GUEz1ukdRIf9o/s1600/IMG_8796.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiYZ3lUEe2bAZfjKVgNet5Ht1cmiRi2Ind4k-YU3IVWMan02zZuyU9KI0uGcm10dJrztqvYwmqGTTv1uLJp08etwitAbyO4cGqrh7S1XVoc-egNgDrAwhR1iQwS7GW98GUEz1ukdRIf9o/s400/IMG_8796.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A more unusual depiction of a rowing crew. This would be an unfortunate
position to end up in during a race, so perhaps this is a wider symbol of English
tendencies in sport.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiCt1DcGgiceCP8B-m2Ayc2KI_rD-yAKoRT-6oX6P_YNne8_VdtqIAFoNslKzcmOphoCUOxT-NavyyZElzhGji0JeTw7rMedg-S8WrNzkIMkphRYLG4LkzrG4xZmxawWwd5KUMLWjwlDU/s1600/IMG_8797.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiCt1DcGgiceCP8B-m2Ayc2KI_rD-yAKoRT-6oX6P_YNne8_VdtqIAFoNslKzcmOphoCUOxT-NavyyZElzhGji0JeTw7rMedg-S8WrNzkIMkphRYLG4LkzrG4xZmxawWwd5KUMLWjwlDU/s400/IMG_8797.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>East Molesey Cricket Club: ‘THIS IS HISTORIC GROUND’. Moulsey Hurst, the
riverside part of West Molesey now occupied by Hurst Park, is considered one of
England’s oldest sports grounds. Those interested in cricket may find it of
note that it is said the first ever dismissal of a batsman by leg-before-wicket
(LBW) was recorded near here in 1795.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjufPwSwxRufr1A1u6BJhwtj0omphaWZ5qG1UkCivD0cW6GJqzU27tNtimXgDewExpgFn1MmReIXbe_NZUqvrI8X9i8PdTEl0SUMNs0RfTGo9hAhmNuImUGfXYkFqnOfdSocC49WfxWnhU/s1600/IMG_8801.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjufPwSwxRufr1A1u6BJhwtj0omphaWZ5qG1UkCivD0cW6GJqzU27tNtimXgDewExpgFn1MmReIXbe_NZUqvrI8X9i8PdTEl0SUMNs0RfTGo9hAhmNuImUGfXYkFqnOfdSocC49WfxWnhU/s400/IMG_8801.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The Hurst also featured a prominent racecourse until it was sold off in the
1960s to build housing. Now its site is mostly open green space.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It
is here that <b>Hampton</b>, the settlement that had Hampton Court inflicted on
its identity, comes into view on the north bank. Largely overshadowed by the
worlds on either side – palaces and pleasure boats east, reservoirs and pumping
stations west – it is a sleepy place that has supported them both while feeding
commuters to London and other nearby centres.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKjX71LkM6uOI5r-7zRzNe2m8tlAA2VfmZ2dwnlNaNHAan2EKhKoGb08xpPwjoNBTf0OidhwVO3svvf7s2IUOtzpo0oYD4tNQOiHk5u5bbhXS9zGQ6qiWTPoJQDgouOLZlCwAVbObyRCg/s1600/IMG_8805.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKjX71LkM6uOI5r-7zRzNe2m8tlAA2VfmZ2dwnlNaNHAan2EKhKoGb08xpPwjoNBTf0OidhwVO3svvf7s2IUOtzpo0oYD4tNQOiHk5u5bbhXS9zGQ6qiWTPoJQDgouOLZlCwAVbObyRCg/s400/IMG_8805.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A temple, but not as they know it; the divinity it enshrines happens to be
William Shakespeare. It was built in 1756 by one of his great admirers, the
playwright David Garrick, who gave celebrated performances of his characters and
housed in this temple his enormous collection of Shakespeare memorabilia.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOKvKT_OzD8yznRLYBBc911SdMRCm2GQFBL8FN7onsaRmgdLAZ-ZyzA91jBocKTPbxSOoNfbkKffoyC2sd3PlQ7C2pwJetpqO1jH9odUT3tQoroFr1EN2ig92A8jE1AjSUgRqiqIjsTvE/s1600/IMG_8806.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOKvKT_OzD8yznRLYBBc911SdMRCm2GQFBL8FN7onsaRmgdLAZ-ZyzA91jBocKTPbxSOoNfbkKffoyC2sd3PlQ7C2pwJetpqO1jH9odUT3tQoroFr1EN2ig92A8jE1AjSUgRqiqIjsTvE/s400/IMG_8806.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Floating restaurant? Mobile supervillain base? Ghost ship from a spectral nocturnal
parade whose captain got drunk and forgot to fade it away when the sun came up?
In fact it appears to be a recording studio owned by the guitarist from <i>Pink
Floyd</i>. Who knew?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilNoi9zh2vcRUct2nYj9KuKEw7nfynyi6aQEUUMENEhyphenhyphenpNrcSehLIMnTZUfRz7518BZrMKT-FmJFwaHqaotWImD7RYg4_h1lg9-V7P84_JPD1CvDl1af0gv9vlb2cFKWlPrayDmk0FyaQ/s1600/IMG_8810.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilNoi9zh2vcRUct2nYj9KuKEw7nfynyi6aQEUUMENEhyphenhyphenpNrcSehLIMnTZUfRz7518BZrMKT-FmJFwaHqaotWImD7RYg4_h1lg9-V7P84_JPD1CvDl1af0gv9vlb2cFKWlPrayDmk0FyaQ/s400/IMG_8810.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>St. Mary’s Church, Hampton, in its nest of boatyards, pubs and housing. The
present building dates to 1831, though there was probably a place of worship on
its site for several hundred years.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiKQHSfn7P68rUbv2k-aBEfPQ4hd05qO8u93KUrqxxXD0yJPQVmtpc_EMH0YRa76sYqj_cp8lIfnkFHs47MjOkUQpso8zeCivnIMcGmMD14EHzArfJoN3kGX7OZH2GjtKTBgmtVRlossE/s1600/IMG_8809.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiKQHSfn7P68rUbv2k-aBEfPQ4hd05qO8u93KUrqxxXD0yJPQVmtpc_EMH0YRa76sYqj_cp8lIfnkFHs47MjOkUQpso8zeCivnIMcGmMD14EHzArfJoN3kGX7OZH2GjtKTBgmtVRlossE/s400/IMG_8809.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Back on the south side, here are some political opinions being expressed in
Hurst Park.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
As
the park opens out onto quieter riverside another large island appears, and its
structures, along with those on the far bank, take a decidedly proletarian
turn. It is not long before the Molesey side similarly closes in. Soon it has
diminished to a narrow track, hemmed in between the river and a grumpier,
brusquer wall than Hampton Court’s.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsjERsKDSc35l9qICW6jYbMDg6VAgmIiagzIGG-fNUMpOn33Mlv0kezI8uHfBYM8nofeLu-TqflGo_LlbGrlGHiAfF9RiKVWc5PGYCQ0FrwYpnVXLZW3W-dvu5WL9wg6J_An1w7cGO_Ms/s1600/IMG_8816.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsjERsKDSc35l9qICW6jYbMDg6VAgmIiagzIGG-fNUMpOn33Mlv0kezI8uHfBYM8nofeLu-TqflGo_LlbGrlGHiAfF9RiKVWc5PGYCQ0FrwYpnVXLZW3W-dvu5WL9wg6J_An1w7cGO_Ms/s400/IMG_8816.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Upstream of Molesey, with the far bank beginning to take on a more workmanlike
quality.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipt3QOuYIsZH4vC8Id5f_j8LDOgM3B7elXyYtS_tI8n3iSpqhsPPvmcJW1OP2fcDmRk-Wt9zblWfVAZCIkuA3pkmbZs3Q3EQUNI-WpdDxt7yMqtJqBTp0KPz-l3kpjXgcxDLPKou3b9HA/s1600/IMG_8812.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipt3QOuYIsZH4vC8Id5f_j8LDOgM3B7elXyYtS_tI8n3iSpqhsPPvmcJW1OP2fcDmRk-Wt9zblWfVAZCIkuA3pkmbZs3Q3EQUNI-WpdDxt7yMqtJqBTp0KPz-l3kpjXgcxDLPKou3b9HA/s400/IMG_8812.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>An installation in Hurst Park displays a series of historical scenes. This one depicts
the incursion of Viking longboats up the Thames in the ninth century, most
likely with the treasures of Chertsey Abbey in their sights.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYKe0sC-NWydjzsSPgp5xpKGhu0q0kn0HK1KUW2pX96cBKSQJHPvL3h7IPHMNr34cGe9JXMhLQOJ341wVMITN7hQvM_tOrqwEsh7Vp7TOFLCD16cwwMMyc5HJCIt0mN5jpud-c_-_UPW0/s1600/IMG_8815.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYKe0sC-NWydjzsSPgp5xpKGhu0q0kn0HK1KUW2pX96cBKSQJHPvL3h7IPHMNr34cGe9JXMhLQOJ341wVMITN7hQvM_tOrqwEsh7Vp7TOFLCD16cwwMMyc5HJCIt0mN5jpud-c_-_UPW0/s400/IMG_8815.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>As this one indicates, Molesey was and is prime regatta territory. The
Shakespeare temple stands out clearly at the back.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic7jJ8XyFzpjdYxDy1G1tg8HJpJwwS8KCUatoyhu06Gf-997a1pfQV6Ob2opnoKxy19onS0MC1IPWghvrqMhTao4di-c1Qs1spoMNOCVjSutwWOWEJNCvJuC-thbmrlfhva1ckxE8prc4/s1600/IMG_8817.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic7jJ8XyFzpjdYxDy1G1tg8HJpJwwS8KCUatoyhu06Gf-997a1pfQV6Ob2opnoKxy19onS0MC1IPWghvrqMhTao4di-c1Qs1spoMNOCVjSutwWOWEJNCvJuC-thbmrlfhva1ckxE8prc4/s400/IMG_8817.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The island, Platt’s Eyot, was originally another osier ground. Clearly this is
not luxury resort territory anymore, though it is plugged in to that heritage:
Thomas Tagg over on Tagg Island reached out to put a boatyard and electrical
works on it to power his pleasure-boating enterprise. In the twentieth century
the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">Thorneycroft
shipworks in Chiswick</a></u> had their secondary boatyard here for building
military-grade torpedo boats. The Eyot keeps a lower profile these days.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEoYQbXVnpvITSrl5u2cZ28C0qp4lIUSNYWv181nUw70CVG1FE9Dc8T9I_m76-mWmPt568Gl7e_0imtVZG2oDm4Qwfa9aCw4-te41YU19LAR5jsZVVI_ioW17psH4yZLZyDyNkzIRwS-Y/s1600/IMG_8819.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEoYQbXVnpvITSrl5u2cZ28C0qp4lIUSNYWv181nUw70CVG1FE9Dc8T9I_m76-mWmPt568Gl7e_0imtVZG2oDm4Qwfa9aCw4-te41YU19LAR5jsZVVI_ioW17psH4yZLZyDyNkzIRwS-Y/s400/IMG_8819.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>England’s answer to the Parthenon. Don’t put it beyond them to try and
sellotape the Elgin Marbles to this.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-APr-tCI0ALWqrY9m481ulMDgPS5v5S7OCQjYL3wJ2K5bVjNwGR4Y87tsIM3OuRW_obJFvDb8y5Jd3SBIldRU3uvHWshRoZF228i59Fm9mwuZ0_ZbH1HJ82Gatvt6sgEmawN9XSXdOWY/s1600/IMG_8821.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-APr-tCI0ALWqrY9m481ulMDgPS5v5S7OCQjYL3wJ2K5bVjNwGR4Y87tsIM3OuRW_obJFvDb8y5Jd3SBIldRU3uvHWshRoZF228i59Fm9mwuZ0_ZbH1HJ82Gatvt6sgEmawN9XSXdOWY/s400/IMG_8821.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>And then, Molesey is this.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The
reason for the low-key scenery around here is that both sides of the river
house a great batch of waterworks: the <b>Molesey Reservoirs</b> followed by
the <b>Walton Water Treatment Works</b> on this side, and the <b>Hampton Water
Treatment Works</b> on the other. These have been well-concealed by the
landscaping and it is almost impossible to get good views, perhaps because they
are afraid of Vladimir Putin dripping poison in them, but on the map their
dominance is obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
All
this is here because of Victorian London’s sewage and hygiene disasters, making
this area, the first stretch beyond that period’s toxic metropolitan Thames,
the closest where the water companies could get a supply that was passably safe
to imbibe. The Seething Wells filter beds were one of the first examples, but
when those struggled with mud they opened the Hampton works instead, whose
reservoirs, which still operate, came with cheerful names like Sunnyside and
more worrying ones like Stain Hill. Rival water companies opened the Molesey
Reservoirs over this wall, although these closed down in the 1990s. Beyond
them, clearest on the map, appeared a set of much larger reservoirs associated
with the Walton works: the Knight and Bessborough pair and the Island Barn
Reservoir in the 1900s, and the sizeable Queen Elizabeth II reservoir in the
1960s. The picture is not complete without also mentioning the comparatively
colossal Queen Mary Reservoir, installed a little way inland to the northwest
in the 1920s. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
As such this layout was the product of fierce competition between the Victorian
water companies, much as characterised the rise of the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-1-tides-of-time.html">docks</a></u>,
canals, railways and other industrial-era infrastructure sectors. And like
those, a similar sequence followed: they nationalised the lot into the
Metropolitan Water Board in 1903, which later became the Thames Water
Authority, but then came the Thatcher free-market revolution which saw it
privatised again into the ubiquitous and frequently dodgy <b>Thames Water</b>. All the
waterworks here that are still operational are run by them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC-RqhnHBILDI7bIXOhTarjDGikb7XGhsQFTs9NV8gYhhAnoYIbt9pDz2ZQwHyrfmtdmjXfdQ4ZokIZfBwVLPlDocKjYUpbvqt4P4kiKoiToIv-D2C9o9GwoEIh5tZ7nDxC9ZheovnHg4/s1600/IMG_8832.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC-RqhnHBILDI7bIXOhTarjDGikb7XGhsQFTs9NV8gYhhAnoYIbt9pDz2ZQwHyrfmtdmjXfdQ4ZokIZfBwVLPlDocKjYUpbvqt4P4kiKoiToIv-D2C9o9GwoEIh5tZ7nDxC9ZheovnHg4/s400/IMG_8832.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>This wall still bears the Metropolitan Water Board’s name.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_U7aNUY1WwJdViEx9ONUETHmgW-WyW6ZrTRTw-Ix9kuxVJc0ChtdXiAJ31zgLJhMNDRUzQIdOBBrfUQ7db-ZryFHU7S1Ww1uWVOT9nIF4aopHKjIFLaHR4n-1FIeaLdTQKKQLePuQ4Kg/s1600/IMG_8824.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_U7aNUY1WwJdViEx9ONUETHmgW-WyW6ZrTRTw-Ix9kuxVJc0ChtdXiAJ31zgLJhMNDRUzQIdOBBrfUQ7db-ZryFHU7S1Ww1uWVOT9nIF4aopHKjIFLaHR4n-1FIeaLdTQKKQLePuQ4Kg/s400/IMG_8824.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A glimpse of one of the Molesey Reservoirs through a hole in the wall. These
are now disused, but the Hampton works and the larger reservoirs still supply
water to London. Many of them double as ecological conservation sites and/or
water sports venues. The latest major additions were more than 20,000 floating
solar panels on Queen Elizabeth II (the reservoir, not the individual) to
offset some of the considerable energy demands of the modern waterworks.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOt5ZP_wBBESiS44tle2JI_Gv3qEjKX8Ar3Hacikd6bccw-zvEnBxR0HYasbyDh3UXQuN6eZpSuGbYssgkzaKHZCHclVNJAKrG7YUzE0GSPFQCaPtdsvIUWa6aHjsntMaigLlT-WvkL9Y/s1600/IMG_8826.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOt5ZP_wBBESiS44tle2JI_Gv3qEjKX8Ar3Hacikd6bccw-zvEnBxR0HYasbyDh3UXQuN6eZpSuGbYssgkzaKHZCHclVNJAKrG7YUzE0GSPFQCaPtdsvIUWa6aHjsntMaigLlT-WvkL9Y/s400/IMG_8826.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>More resources for storytellers of the island nation under siege: tank traps
placed here in World War II in case a Nazi invasion chose to land on this exact
spot.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-3OZImJpWsPcljJMRpLdqQtmFjaNjlofblq8KfUFjBhRZe80W2utQGqBX_ppxQQpqaH4Iv-gDOJaPLCxbqemLhabY-2MiJ2nIDgiSFQDOWW86DR0DThUegJdCFQnUua5vssf8VD25aOc/s1600/IMG_8831.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-3OZImJpWsPcljJMRpLdqQtmFjaNjlofblq8KfUFjBhRZe80W2utQGqBX_ppxQQpqaH4Iv-gDOJaPLCxbqemLhabY-2MiJ2nIDgiSFQDOWW86DR0DThUegJdCFQnUua5vssf8VD25aOc/s400/IMG_8831.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>They apologise for any inconvenience.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And
yet, in a valley unequivocally claimed by the leisure classes, this intrusion
by such mundane concerns as watering the urban corporate serfs was unlikely to
last for long. One need not stroll much further to witness riverside comfort
resume business as usual.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhymaGEfZtDuOZh-G0p8_7wo8yg1CS7swMRoIZ1vCBVWlx7c02vKsZsq3RUOGoHO2tF0fs2tGS6ezeqMmplu52YlEEdSzCPzWP874cDX0o7whDUkRuW2Cg4Ew6zjNTkbNCyMT3FFfDvn1g/s1600/IMG_8827.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhymaGEfZtDuOZh-G0p8_7wo8yg1CS7swMRoIZ1vCBVWlx7c02vKsZsq3RUOGoHO2tF0fs2tGS6ezeqMmplu52YlEEdSzCPzWP874cDX0o7whDUkRuW2Cg4Ew6zjNTkbNCyMT3FFfDvn1g/s400/IMG_8827.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The outskirts of Sunbury. On appearances a long way from the Tory pogrom
against poor people.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNM8526lvamLSbYahqXyZjW8kW-4EP4vcoo36m-rQ6gzP5lbggbD5k6QVRUX8suusCfjRFi1jgQcTC6xJUhpz_MJ71aGGe71-tt99gl2F_xQh-I1OG-ZYeOe71a4SPVghUXql4M1y3C5w/s1600/IMG_8829.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNM8526lvamLSbYahqXyZjW8kW-4EP4vcoo36m-rQ6gzP5lbggbD5k6QVRUX8suusCfjRFi1jgQcTC6xJUhpz_MJ71aGGe71-tt99gl2F_xQh-I1OG-ZYeOe71a4SPVghUXql4M1y3C5w/s400/IMG_8829.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Lurking at the back there is Sunbury Court. This eighteenth-century mansion is now
used as a training and conference centre by the Salvation Army, the Protestant
Christian charitable organisation that has come under serious controversy
because of harmful practices arising from sexual and gender-based prejudice.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sunbury and Walton</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Sunbury</b>
is a suspicious name. In England natural instinct takes issue with anything that
has ‘sun’ in it and in this case is correct to do so: Sunbury was named not
after the sun but as the fortification (<i>burh</i>, as in <i>borough</i>) of
someone called Sunna. This makes it another in this long chain of riverside
settlement whose permanence likely begins with Anglo-Saxon immigrants,
although as usual the evidence of archaeology indicates people coming and going
since long before.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
Sunbury the river supported trade and small-scale industries like rope-making
in its otherwise chiefly agricultural corner of Middlesex. Now largely
suburbanised, it too retains a distinct flavour of riverside leisure like the
other settlements along here. It is a key location in the ‘swan-upping’
mentioned near the start, as well another popular annual regatta.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjve90wS1yj-2D35R4lWAaVyc6t-0GfLYaAJSIULTnJiO8vDJfeLSsnDGL16QQBwcCBwq3Z6Fz2laYfTX4soQPn8wFVNNj4TCY2qRGzd9BMRK-81U2xSjQU-8RMqyZ_eyrkt67d84Di5q8/s1600/IMG_8833.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjve90wS1yj-2D35R4lWAaVyc6t-0GfLYaAJSIULTnJiO8vDJfeLSsnDGL16QQBwcCBwq3Z6Fz2laYfTX4soQPn8wFVNNj4TCY2qRGzd9BMRK-81U2xSjQU-8RMqyZ_eyrkt67d84Di5q8/s400/IMG_8833.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The waterfront of Sunbury Park, which appears to slope straight into the water.
On the few days when the sun does actually exist in this country this must
become quite an exciting riverbank.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuknj8mDs_sOLlf02fzKH3q4td_jN8CTpOAe_CO2Ll_lHSbntJ7sdSU9ujvtVBK_K_oZaENCtWVFDm_zyr4fqjgKEV_PI-yI7pw3R7_qMRKa2CtyK8WW65XZiGDSrVEvNie-JJ3lehMAE/s1600/IMG_8836.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuknj8mDs_sOLlf02fzKH3q4td_jN8CTpOAe_CO2Ll_lHSbntJ7sdSU9ujvtVBK_K_oZaENCtWVFDm_zyr4fqjgKEV_PI-yI7pw3R7_qMRKa2CtyK8WW65XZiGDSrVEvNie-JJ3lehMAE/s400/IMG_8836.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Most of the Sunbury suburb has extended well out of sight of its riverside
origin. In England church sites, like St. Mary’s in the background here, are
often an indication of the core from which a settlement grew (because ‘before
one can have somewhere to live, the temple must be built’, as says Gilbert Rist
in <i>The History of Development</i>). The ground in Sunbury slopes slightly up
from the river, which would have favoured it with reduced flood vulnerability.
In the foreground is Sunbury Lock.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ezB4tzqMAY5NTBBJX9Wf9jXZBaevfRpVnbyHp8S-9ZfseJjpplmzCfCEJtsN6q0JydGThyphenhyphenQqFXoTALFnYXQMQ88c6v5kSLo97Lo5-Y7zRphES2BKc_4ob9bjdYcF3uUXAvDTmRZPUkg/s1600/IMG_8837.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ezB4tzqMAY5NTBBJX9Wf9jXZBaevfRpVnbyHp8S-9ZfseJjpplmzCfCEJtsN6q0JydGThyphenhyphenQqFXoTALFnYXQMQ88c6v5kSLo97Lo5-Y7zRphES2BKc_4ob9bjdYcF3uUXAvDTmRZPUkg/s400/IMG_8837.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The lock was built in the 1810s to improve navigability for working craft, but
these days mainly serves pleasure-boaters.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrGqrnxmIAlsMHa5N7QearucPxIlR9o7VuWgHqgpVmjY_gblmIL1LGf0fFp_JLq8VvmZFw09Hc-PlTugT49K9t1Ek383Csuvumcjj18Pw8HKeadiWPd3bd7eJfnEXrB7t6zIptB0DgB5w/s1600/IMG_8840.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrGqrnxmIAlsMHa5N7QearucPxIlR9o7VuWgHqgpVmjY_gblmIL1LGf0fFp_JLq8VvmZFw09Hc-PlTugT49K9t1Ek383Csuvumcjj18Pw8HKeadiWPd3bd7eJfnEXrB7t6zIptB0DgB5w/s400/IMG_8840.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Their playing around on the river diverts attention from some residues of
industrial heritage – gas works, gravel pits and leftover open spaces – that
have been shunted into the background on the south side. Much of it once fed or
ate from the wharf in Walton up ahead.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeit7sO1SlKEqEPE2waAFVG6uDDRrWsib2yguzl6ioX1KqbLLRdvO4BdEDM9KFS_UHnSAUxwARgBiqavpFvfvtkl5O7FPQ9waWy_JGuxKPjU_pkG9Ff62Gc2A_yFw1jqK8Tq29pAYVtM4/s1600/IMG_8841.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeit7sO1SlKEqEPE2waAFVG6uDDRrWsib2yguzl6ioX1KqbLLRdvO4BdEDM9KFS_UHnSAUxwARgBiqavpFvfvtkl5O7FPQ9waWy_JGuxKPjU_pkG9Ff62Gc2A_yFw1jqK8Tq29pAYVtM4/s400/IMG_8841.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Sunbury Weir. As at Teddington there has recently been a row about whether to
install ecologically-destructive hydropower machinery in it.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-LVmoT54gzOyvaJWqbnaaUgGejSKJ7PTATL13rzoFpw8-cq_alLAUkHRdagaPKFBLikcH0nisynsWq4VVHAJElFUuBms9la7lTTD7tf2dx5nJD91vbyl8WXzbicRG9UYBQB55T4QQ3Xc/s1600/IMG_8842.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-LVmoT54gzOyvaJWqbnaaUgGejSKJ7PTATL13rzoFpw8-cq_alLAUkHRdagaPKFBLikcH0nisynsWq4VVHAJElFUuBms9la7lTTD7tf2dx5nJD91vbyl8WXzbicRG9UYBQB55T4QQ3Xc/s400/IMG_8842.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Another trace of a pocket of hard-working heritage that intrudes on the
leisured idyll. The helpfully if not imaginatively named Weir Hotel is
well-positioned for a recreational clientele, but in industrial times would
have mainly catered to working cargo barge crews.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Then
the river shifts from the Sunbury sphere of influence to that of the next
settlement along. <b>Walton-on-Thames</b> is one of the larger inhabitations in
this area as well as one that most rewards putting a magnifying glass to its
name. Like the others here it is Anglo-Saxon Old English, with <i>ton</i>
signifying a town. But <i>Wal</i> evokes <i>wealas</i>, a momentous word for
‘foreigners’ or ‘strangers’ that became the immigrants’ name for the people now
called <i>Britons</i>, that is, the Celtic peoples already living here (not to
be confused with <i>British</i>, a separate concept that only came much later with
the invention of the United Kingdom). <i>Wealas</i> is most tangible today in
the name of Wales and the Welsh, literally ‘the foreigners’, whose country, as
John Higgs observed in his excellent <i>Watling Street</i>, is ‘not just the
place to the west of England (but) also what is underneath England’. (Needless
to say their name for themselves in their own language is the completely
different <i>Cymru</i>, whose original meaning is close to ‘land of compatriots/fellow
countrymen’. See also the related <i>Cumbria</i>.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The provocative
suggestion is that the Anglo-Saxon settlers were observing
Walton-on-Thames as a ‘settlement of the Britons’, whose established life preceded their arrival. While not simple to verify, what is certainly true is
that the town has offered a rich archaeological yield that includes flint
blades from Neolithic times and an Iron Age fort up on the hill where the main
town is now. As an ancient fording point between the difficult Mole and Wey
valleys Walton is also spoken of a candidate for the place Julius Caesar
crossed the Thames in 54 BCE on his second invasion, finding it fortified with
wooden stakes by the local Celtic people, the Trinovantes. Legends
like these are commonly romanticised, especially when they give local areas
claim to participation in big historical phenomena; in Walton’s case the
serious attention of such reputed historians as William Camden, along with the
discovery of actual wooden stakes here, have argued with challenges based on
the arrangement in which those stakes were found – suggesting a bridge rather
than defensive work – and the changing position of the river over time. But as
with the legends of Henry VIII and Hampton Court, the shapes these stories take
in the minds of successive generations can tell us more about these people than
the facts they derive from.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF2-D-5wy9AlbyKploOoEGI7pRDFiTRbHgAX4inh_72i3TBEIIHIenDigMyNWkSLLuXP-UsVQGOjxRSkMjDTPMRvaUhki1lEllwdT32ytBz9Fxfq1DWgTGJYhROcmIpHdPj882Ohtp_hQ/s1600/IMG_8846.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF2-D-5wy9AlbyKploOoEGI7pRDFiTRbHgAX4inh_72i3TBEIIHIenDigMyNWkSLLuXP-UsVQGOjxRSkMjDTPMRvaUhki1lEllwdT32ytBz9Fxfq1DWgTGJYhROcmIpHdPj882Ohtp_hQ/s400/IMG_8846.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Wheatley’s Ait occupies the centre of the river at Walton, where it has mirrored the other islands’ journeys from osier harvesting ground to exciting
weekend getaway. Today a few residential houses and holiday bungalows share it
with what looks like an Environment Agency dredging facility – because they
know the river isn’t going to just sit there and let them stick all these locks
and weirs in its flow unless they keep a constant and vigilant eye on it.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
core of Walton is up on the hill, away from this historically marshier
riverside which has its own peculiar set of names. The principal one seems to
be <i>Cowey Sale</i>, whose provenance can be traced through orbiting asteroids
in space and time like <i>Cow Way</i>, <i>Cowey Stakes</i> (a reference to the
Caesar legend), and an old wooden bridge over a nearby stream called the <i>Seale</i>.
It seems likely cattle that grazed on the nearby farmland would have been
herded around here to drink water or be loaded onto barges. Another possible
influence is from the <i>sallows</i> or willow trees that grow hereabouts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Industrialisation
turned Walton into a bit of an anomaly in these parts. Rather than getting
descended on by London’s wealthy escapees, Walton put on its overalls and built
a wharf to cater to the surge in working cargo traffic. Until the canal link
was put through to Brentford it was the middle Thames that had to cope with the
boatloads of raw materials, agricultural produce and crafted goods from the
northern and Midland workshops, and the wharf at Cowey Sale emerged as one of
their last key waypoints on the way to London.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTVtfsqzwH3EOhNqwQ44YMbDLJRtgZhZkklA-TrLSQztmtesvNBxp_K2h-bK0PgxH4Xx2yfGW11g1T5Znrlsg4qhaxcltF6n14iUvA2DoCbeBm_yL-L9uqjbR0ifWDktwuUjH1hLaLKfs/s1600/IMG_8855.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTVtfsqzwH3EOhNqwQ44YMbDLJRtgZhZkklA-TrLSQztmtesvNBxp_K2h-bK0PgxH4Xx2yfGW11g1T5Znrlsg4qhaxcltF6n14iUvA2DoCbeBm_yL-L9uqjbR0ifWDktwuUjH1hLaLKfs/s400/IMG_8855.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Walton Wharf as it looks now. A great deal of coal was unloaded here to feed
the nearby gasworks.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2cKVooGcZjkhWdO2y8K_oPvVUcPncAhIt7JDuOHgo89D-WDhjfC8sYEvh0TcHCzfPybXvE8ZIc2H1pyOBEyEXlowvC-tC_tcZbiC6DdLivmG5dKPYjEg-umxor7HIB2pEUA1VhuM1deA/s1600/IMG_8850.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2cKVooGcZjkhWdO2y8K_oPvVUcPncAhIt7JDuOHgo89D-WDhjfC8sYEvh0TcHCzfPybXvE8ZIc2H1pyOBEyEXlowvC-tC_tcZbiC6DdLivmG5dKPYjEg-umxor7HIB2pEUA1VhuM1deA/s400/IMG_8850.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>As the cargo barges gave way to pleasure boating, the long, straight length of
the Thames past Walton came to be known colloquially as the <i>Walton Mile</i>.
Between the 1860s and World War I this was one of the most popular and crowded
regatta locations of all. The water looks peaceful but in fact is fast-flowing;
notice its height.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgakTBXW-CKSPPxTIpJHmoJ4-V8ttLfRMzM7fxiR3ioe8fNfcNkhVOt9r6x6gROng8ASLdKaIHYmctWrsIDfZi1nwq1o9ztDzJ0sfEAQL3rlFDXrE2-IYgG_fkFbiT_nt_FqSosb5va3WY/s1600/IMG_8863.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgakTBXW-CKSPPxTIpJHmoJ4-V8ttLfRMzM7fxiR3ioe8fNfcNkhVOt9r6x6gROng8ASLdKaIHYmctWrsIDfZi1nwq1o9ztDzJ0sfEAQL3rlFDXrE2-IYgG_fkFbiT_nt_FqSosb5va3WY/s400/IMG_8863.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>More inhabitants take some rest by the riverbank, reflecting darkly on the
difficult times to come.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBY5RD3j-4N_Qnu7vjCR8UI5lJqjWQZFQNB05Ye0wLUXdQ1_Ahl9E8bIMPVNfZwfMTgjvf8x9xSkm3Bp1ajZKNQ9BbjNtKB66XCGcxUwvy2P7hCMlIfuv1R0BsUHzK93i0GHSTbhXUQ5E/s1600/IMG_8864.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBY5RD3j-4N_Qnu7vjCR8UI5lJqjWQZFQNB05Ye0wLUXdQ1_Ahl9E8bIMPVNfZwfMTgjvf8x9xSkm3Bp1ajZKNQ9BbjNtKB66XCGcxUwvy2P7hCMlIfuv1R0BsUHzK93i0GHSTbhXUQ5E/s400/IMG_8864.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Walton can be escaped via this footbridge over a marina entrance. Fishing, as
seen here, seems a common pastime for the local hunter-gatherers on this part
of the Thames.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Walton’s
west side opens out onto meadows where the town shows off its bridge. It is not
the first, not the second, but the sixth on this site in a
two-hundred-and-fifty-year cascade of collapses and criticisms.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWwxlXefSbxDEwajF7QDAB-T2mFGRcTOWyQS-qkk5t8-muM1gJ_fZ3oLCBg2YLv8vBSAbJvmbT27ZRb7PPgjvTKekqN6CxPHx_8OJZtweoGu2hfmWDVg9yqk4SrObUrW6nDhaVyO266K8/s1600/IMG_8865.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWwxlXefSbxDEwajF7QDAB-T2mFGRcTOWyQS-qkk5t8-muM1gJ_fZ3oLCBg2YLv8vBSAbJvmbT27ZRb7PPgjvTKekqN6CxPHx_8OJZtweoGu2hfmWDVg9yqk4SrObUrW6nDhaVyO266K8/s400/IMG_8865.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Walton Bridge v6.0, opened in 2013. The less said the better.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicwZm1g9dxNawM4lfKo7i1DEHFBpJP5S_ZJwOXfmogEwfyfYdKIqWimrwDBQWY43EIsz1yI-siunkDOzm1I4jFFYlR8kTDk70_YO8P2Rotu4RiJXXodVyK5J6hJT0l2NlUVlrVI_syxS4/s1600/IMG_8860.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicwZm1g9dxNawM4lfKo7i1DEHFBpJP5S_ZJwOXfmogEwfyfYdKIqWimrwDBQWY43EIsz1yI-siunkDOzm1I4jFFYlR8kTDk70_YO8P2Rotu4RiJXXodVyK5J6hJT0l2NlUVlrVI_syxS4/s400/IMG_8860.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A rather more creative pile of matchsticks that was Walton’s first bridge,
built in 1750 but an unfortunate victim of decay and demolition thirty-three
years later.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyFHUfXL8YxyoloiKqOL5kN2RMLD7uYEwls0Tv3HsUsR_olo_pK0fKsI42Ss5zyuaZbeL7_O3Na7Q87uB5Vxd2JjXQZbxVUEVgqmK2zKWsYBjdGQUTOLmbLbBRQKGz_T7plK9AunrKJHo/s1600/IMG_8866.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyFHUfXL8YxyoloiKqOL5kN2RMLD7uYEwls0Tv3HsUsR_olo_pK0fKsI42Ss5zyuaZbeL7_O3Na7Q87uB5Vxd2JjXQZbxVUEVgqmK2zKWsYBjdGQUTOLmbLbBRQKGz_T7plK9AunrKJHo/s400/IMG_8866.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Here’s the current bridge from the other side with the sun on it, as though
that represents an improvement.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now
the riverbank gains a hint of a rough edge again as we approach some more
complex behaviour on the water’s part. Most of that concerns its branching into
a network of channels at the confluence with a major tributary, the Wey.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcxHvAudsbARcx1SwSWNMHiJY4Vczp16yZlW_77wh0qIN4lTgKM7lNAVDifrmgIMAYboIMZJnNzvfMmlvRQqzeWEFYxNYGpx4_vYbCkxZtmnzuOkZmuCozdbYaQpoKUrHUAwg8-UecdA/s1600/IMG_8867.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcxHvAudsbARcx1SwSWNMHiJY4Vczp16yZlW_77wh0qIN4lTgKM7lNAVDifrmgIMAYboIMZJnNzvfMmlvRQqzeWEFYxNYGpx4_vYbCkxZtmnzuOkZmuCozdbYaQpoKUrHUAwg8-UecdA/s400/IMG_8867.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A further instance of provisioning the local river life, though in this case
the seagulls have got involved and, practicing what they have learnt from the
political culture, are harassing the other birds and taking their bread off
them.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVdgZr3iCrlatP6cTJj17jno3AaOYW_mStaF07TFOQ-PJUlXGI65zog69YB93Z5iu4QFoNKnhtSMtOOfGejO-3wuO5kks-hnsgAepIH4k0CBcGyU-lwSGGFStPsPDafpcSSlQPTwh0vhg/s1600/IMG_8868.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVdgZr3iCrlatP6cTJj17jno3AaOYW_mStaF07TFOQ-PJUlXGI65zog69YB93Z5iu4QFoNKnhtSMtOOfGejO-3wuO5kks-hnsgAepIH4k0CBcGyU-lwSGGFStPsPDafpcSSlQPTwh0vhg/s400/IMG_8868.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>It is this kind of territory. Somewhere behind the trees meanwhile flows a
side-channel with the curious name of the Engine River, with significance for
the humans in that it used to mark where Middlesex gave way to Surrey. Now this
entire zone is in Surrey, but the Engine still separates that province’s
council districts of Elmbridge and Spelthorne.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Between
the Wey and Walton the river swings north in a wild set of U-shaped meanders,
which of course it is completely entitled to do and should be further
appreciated by the humans for keeping them perfectly navigable. This was not
however to the satisfaction of the Thames Conservancy, who figured that
precious minutes could be shaved off of navigation, and upstream flooding made
gentler somewhat, if they dug a quick shortcut to bypass that entire set of
bends.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The
result is the <b>Desborough Cut</b>, an artificial straight line chopped audaciously
from Walton to the Wey confluence in the 1930s. It has created one of
the only places on the Thames where the main channel splits into two. In so
doing it turned the land in between into the artificial <b>Desborough Island</b>,
which hosts another water works but is otherwise trees and playing fields.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim_iYtUe9BUCgbg-Wq58pkRV2whxxetOe8Z0gQB3WxQvQlKeMAKROz7ZrfoOUNRC2doNQmebyMyTXEW0FkRS6QO6SDp749livRrF-_B8KPxiaRt9NZakDWHVahkkutvyBTaXm4ncSpP1I/s1600/IMG_8869.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim_iYtUe9BUCgbg-Wq58pkRV2whxxetOe8Z0gQB3WxQvQlKeMAKROz7ZrfoOUNRC2doNQmebyMyTXEW0FkRS6QO6SDp749livRrF-_B8KPxiaRt9NZakDWHVahkkutvyBTaXm4ncSpP1I/s400/IMG_8869.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The eastern corner of Desborough Island, where the Cut rejoins the main Thames.
A bridge at either end of the Cut connects to the island.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwfyf8IaLP-JjYo5r7vgAEci_mRkwvZ-ugtaalxipRkwYiJKcEL2thbL0kvEWVHjTEl7AYkjbZFMzWah9dV2hhwQLf_cnnXcbGqrGc1Z3E4ty0bHzKcvcaeaAJeYKv3opMbn86-eJuirY/s1600/IMG_8871.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwfyf8IaLP-JjYo5r7vgAEci_mRkwvZ-ugtaalxipRkwYiJKcEL2thbL0kvEWVHjTEl7AYkjbZFMzWah9dV2hhwQLf_cnnXcbGqrGc1Z3E4ty0bHzKcvcaeaAJeYKv3opMbn86-eJuirY/s400/IMG_8871.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>At left, the bridge also serves as a forum for political commentary.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBE4IVKGGnJcgmE6HDUuNqLaf7j2wK4SZKfUvnS2cTnDDtrl_J5waMO6H1QHTFbsL9QNAVyYnmcwTPTRtYxp8wBkh-3RK1wX4uAPT27g6S3W3ncTBR-sJyJwfRfTSO3RAa0bPDzcCiTE/s1600/IMG_8872.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBE4IVKGGnJcgmE6HDUuNqLaf7j2wK4SZKfUvnS2cTnDDtrl_J5waMO6H1QHTFbsL9QNAVyYnmcwTPTRtYxp8wBkh-3RK1wX4uAPT27g6S3W3ncTBR-sJyJwfRfTSO3RAa0bPDzcCiTE/s400/IMG_8872.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Desborough Island’s water works can be glimpsed through the trees. The name is
from the first Baron Desborough, who chaired the Thames Conservancy at the
time. Desborough was his title in the nobility; his actual name was William
Grenfell (not to be confused with Francis Grenfell, namesake of <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-grenfell-tower-disaster-noble-idea.html">Grenfell
Tower</a></u>).</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL4otnffHmU8_yD42_O0MuKXJMqp8YEUnJQkMeHvKJdHLQI4WJBg3Md0uOFgKrINQEDFqmSZ5gZ-pLz8D5Jk2NtoIMffwyhD9QqtIJv45kNgBQvTxbuLMk6fiddrOug8TzVuenw31MX60/s1600/IMG_8873.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL4otnffHmU8_yD42_O0MuKXJMqp8YEUnJQkMeHvKJdHLQI4WJBg3Md0uOFgKrINQEDFqmSZ5gZ-pLz8D5Jk2NtoIMffwyhD9QqtIJv45kNgBQvTxbuLMk6fiddrOug8TzVuenw31MX60/s400/IMG_8873.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The rest of Desborough Cut looks like this. What Desborough actually brings to
mind is <u><a href="https://zelda.gamepedia.com/Desbreko">Desbreko</a></u>, the large,
angry skeletal fishes from <i>The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask</i>. They
wouldn’t look too out of place in here. Let's call it Desbreko Island from now on.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUX6zFdUiOsJP8Qpsja3GAaiEbM0DPRouugNQpEq6XX2DBtB1TZjreJu3RZ3anOPGdGTmZR4x508UIXCkxArPPA3V9XjLtIXqDR9Q43AvcirrWiVGZV2TpVdTJATjjydiImGgtSzr5g1Y/s1600/IMG_8877.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUX6zFdUiOsJP8Qpsja3GAaiEbM0DPRouugNQpEq6XX2DBtB1TZjreJu3RZ3anOPGdGTmZR4x508UIXCkxArPPA3V9XjLtIXqDR9Q43AvcirrWiVGZV2TpVdTJATjjydiImGgtSzr5g1Y/s400/IMG_8877.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Just beyond Desbreko Island is D’oyly Carte Island. Yes. The fault is theatre
manager and hotelier Richard D’oyly Carte’s, whose name suggests Norman French
origins. Founder of the extremely exclusive Savoy Hotel, he bought the island
and tried to set up an annexe for the Savoy on it but was refused a licence to
sell alcohol by the local magistrates so settled for a mere grand guesthouse
instead. <u><a href="https://www.onthemarket.com/details/6967030/">It appears
currently to be on sale if you happen to have £3.2 million to hand</a></u><span class="MsoHyperlink">.</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Shepperton and Weybridge Ferry</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
arrival of the <b>River Wey</b>, whose name origin is unknown, marks a
meaningful meeting of ways. At its confluence the three-way junction flowers
into a web of curvy, crisscrossing channels with inhabited islands in the
middle, some of them either created or complicated by human engineering. The
Wey cuts through the North Downs from the bottom of England much as the Mole
does, but on its way it passes Guildford and was thus targeted for
transformation into a special role that boosted that town into the major Surrey wealth-fortress it is now. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
the seventeenth century a local magnate, Richard Weston, wondered what it might
do for Guildford’s merchants if the unnavigable Wey could be made accessible to
ships, thereby connecting them to the Thames. Though his work was interrupted
by having to flee the civil war in the 1640s, he happened to spend his exile in
the Netherlands which gave him some quite instructive exposure to what you can
accomplish through skilled waterway engineering. Completed after his return the
next decade, the <b>Wey Navigation</b> became one of the first and heaviest
river canalisations in England. It anticipated the canal boom that would serve
as the bloodstream of the coming industrial revolution a hundred years later, and
gave Guildford, as well as Surrey more broadly, a massive head start.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCM5c8jdn8dogxeFedOpAblWb-56WXzOc1xnnfYfqtjY24SuSQTFvyWQsV7LILN7FhNraMKJ4qI1CfZAY6hLZHGoOk5pHY8A5a8yKkte3frrDP2fqBUyXnrou1gdTlg432Lvh5MgSxum0/s1600/IMG_8879.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCM5c8jdn8dogxeFedOpAblWb-56WXzOc1xnnfYfqtjY24SuSQTFvyWQsV7LILN7FhNraMKJ4qI1CfZAY6hLZHGoOk5pHY8A5a8yKkte3frrDP2fqBUyXnrou1gdTlg432Lvh5MgSxum0/s400/IMG_8879.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The confluence with the Wey, the lowest of whose channels comes in at left.
Beyond it is one of several islands colonised by Weybridge. The outskirts of
Shepperton are at right.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Two
towns control the land on either side of the Thames-Wey meeting. To the north
is <b>Shepperton</b> – ‘shepherd’s hamlet’ – whose urban area is set a little
away from the river. Long a quintessential Middlesex breadbasket, it has grown
into a leafy and fashionable village-suburb with a dash of small industrial,
film and literary flavouring. On the south side, upon the Wey’s approach and
spilling onto the islands in the confluence itself, is self-explanatory <b>Weybridge</b>,
at whose name I must confess a deep-seated reflex of irritation ever since the
time, many years ago, when I read an old Chinese history book by an author who, struggling to render in English the difference between the states of Wei (<span lang="JA" style="font-family: "MS 明朝",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "MS 明朝";">衞</span>)
and Wei (<span lang="ZH" style="font-family: "MS 明朝",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: ZH;">魏</span>) in the Warring States Period, followed
the maddening standard of writing one as ‘Wei’ and the other as ‘Wey’ – and then,
in a further unforgivable act of Englishness, added as a pronunciation note ‘as
in Weybridge’. I should swiftly add that this recollection is not in any way
intended to defame the residents of this town, who I am sure, in spite of their
conspicuous whiteness, are guilty of nothing in this matter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Enriched
by their position on these canalised trade networks, Shepperton and Weybridge
burgeoned into quintessential postcard-towns for this valley of privilege, cosy
nests laid thick with wealth on branches encircled in money-vines. If they fly
the flag for the idyllic village daydreams of English conservatism (in which we
should distinguish the traditional, questionable but honest kind from the cult
that has captured its party), then that flag is perhaps hoisted highest in
Weybridge’s appearance in H. G. Wells’s <i>War of the Worlds</i> (1897) when
during the Martian invasion of England, it is here that the humans manage to shell
down a Martian tripod into the Thames – a rare moment of victory and defiance
before its vengeful comrades rake both towns with destruction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Despite
the election result we are not here to follow the Martians’ example today.
There is another phenomenon here which once was commonplace on the Thames, but
whose eclipse by the roads and railways has left it, so they say, the river’s
one surviving instance. The trail on the south bank continues on the north, and
there is no bridge. The river is too cold, too fast and too English to swim. The
only way to cross is by ferry.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYExIVYsWe2Cj40K5U_susNbv0jX126nbYHtFZ3J9AxG8yfy0vNApXTDVbda3XQ0YDsXm8Rjq2moZf9zVEsox5_SBmpNEEcljPLPmQ0fMmMmqjdR3rghYU3YsjaLR1OOiqXYHoFlEU2U/s1600/IMG_8880.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYExIVYsWe2Cj40K5U_susNbv0jX126nbYHtFZ3J9AxG8yfy0vNApXTDVbda3XQ0YDsXm8Rjq2moZf9zVEsox5_SBmpNEEcljPLPmQ0fMmMmqjdR3rghYU3YsjaLR1OOiqXYHoFlEU2U/s400/IMG_8880.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The Weybridge berth of the Shepperton and Weybridge Ferry.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
ferry, and in particular the ferry operator, is of course not some mere piece of scenery but an archetype whose potency is ancient and immense. A ferry provides passage
between two worlds the traveller cannot cross on their own. Those worlds might
be geographic like Weybridge and Shepperton, or they might be metaphysical,
such as, say, the worlds of life and death. If a ferry is required for that
crossing, the one who controls it thus gains enormous power and can charge an
ominous toll – say, your soul – in exchange for the only means to overcome the
dividing obstacle. The alternative is to be stuck in some unfulfilled limbo
between one world and the other, be it to wander in undeath or stay stranded by
the Wey and unable to complete a certain journey up a river.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The very
suggestion that such a liminal space exists, let alone that it’s where you’ll
go if you don’t pay up, is a compelling way to introduce trouble in the binary
cosmologies of this world. It is also the secret of the ferryman’s power and
mystique: as they ply that space, they too are a liminal figure. They know the
world of either riverbank they moor on, but they are not truly of one or the
other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The best-known example in the
European narrative universe is Charon, who ferries departed souls
across the river of the dead in Greek mythology – a versatile figure who can be
represented as anything from a demonic monster to a gentle old cosmic civil
servant, but always with the gravitas of his role behind him. In Ireland a
related office is occupied by the sea-god Manannán mac Lir, who is associated
with, and possibly gives his name to, that strange land in the mists at the centre
of the British maelstrom called the Isle of Man. A broader exploration reveals
countless further variants that inform the symbolisms and practices of the
ferryman in different lands and cultures, such as Urshanabi, whose expertise is
called on in humanity's first known great written story of all, the Sumerian <i>Epic of Gilgamesh</i>; the irascible Harbaron in <i>World
of Warcraft</i>, whose position on the ferry of the damned seems to play to a
more impenetrable set of cosmic rules that the politics of undeath around him;
and those who captain ferries in the thalassocracies that utterly rely on them,
like Indonesia and the Philippines, who as a result get to be all the more
reckless.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
may pass well over the heads of more literal-minded English materialists these
days (something lamented by those among them who do sense its importance –
consider for example Philip Pullman’s concept of <i>The Secret Commonwealth</i>).
But perhaps someone here does have the right idea, because in spite of the
impatient demands of their technocratic modernity, you summon this ferry by
ringing a bell.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzWODqRgPLsCM29ej8BiBeBDH1-DkvxrK0FGAxpcNA7eLnd8WeXKk7eFQuia4y8RfK72ku0k69A_zW9XwmES1W_Ln3tvVHItsbUqoHEYyg-IZiQogFiKZJiTwODtf1maahTBRkTPefgUo/s1600/IMG_8881.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzWODqRgPLsCM29ej8BiBeBDH1-DkvxrK0FGAxpcNA7eLnd8WeXKk7eFQuia4y8RfK72ku0k69A_zW9XwmES1W_Ln3tvVHItsbUqoHEYyg-IZiQogFiKZJiTwODtf1maahTBRkTPefgUo/s400/IMG_8881.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Yes.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif4ls3ofTHZx0ThpQ73VORYhNAhO7qSs2V5IUYmRb0GeK-Hj6eRBiSJTx22SZzfukkgbMQIzp8rIx5204Nzz0Tj0ndE5vwkVr-jvax8tNG5_WZrAl8aYxOh1G6NLGuQckes5NUOsoQ5sI/s1600/IMG_8884.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif4ls3ofTHZx0ThpQ73VORYhNAhO7qSs2V5IUYmRb0GeK-Hj6eRBiSJTx22SZzfukkgbMQIzp8rIx5204Nzz0Tj0ndE5vwkVr-jvax8tNG5_WZrAl8aYxOh1G6NLGuQckes5NUOsoQ5sI/s400/IMG_8884.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>And here it comes – helpfully labelled in case people have gone too long
without remembering what a ferry looks like.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
A
ferry has been recorded operating here since at least the fourteenth century,
sometimes submerging into history only to resurface soon after with a new
vessel and service terms appropriate to the culture of its age. Naturally that
means that these days it is run by a company: Nauticalia emerged in the 1970s selling
antiques off a converted barge but now runs a chain of stores on land selling
marine equipment and décor, including one on the Shepperton side of the ferry
whose hallowed operations they were selected by fate to revive.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
boat itself runs all year round, though stops when the river conditions grow
too rough. It has two motors now instead of being propelled by a swirl of departed
spirits, and mercifully the toll is not in flesh, blood or pieces of your soul
but £2.50 for adults and £1.50 for children for a one-way crossing – a little
more with a bike or, indeed, if you would think the unthinkable and dare cross
back to the world you embarked from. And perhaps most important of all, the
ferryman comes very much with a beard, though it is a scaled-back,
wetsuited-professional sort of beard rather than the great bristly nightmare of
a Charon or a Harbaron.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsBY03fjz57CfYOIn3SGooJDN8kGYZiwbjK9XfTN03bPCnoSsdGrkFCutxFw3mZKqvvbj2BF25cQzAOI3QxhjbwRzPd4vVGdemgI6WnGm6XHv5ZaTdmFndMf1H0u8sJcKZRsAaEmgxpD4/s1600/IMG_8883.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsBY03fjz57CfYOIn3SGooJDN8kGYZiwbjK9XfTN03bPCnoSsdGrkFCutxFw3mZKqvvbj2BF25cQzAOI3QxhjbwRzPd4vVGdemgI6WnGm6XHv5ZaTdmFndMf1H0u8sJcKZRsAaEmgxpD4/s400/IMG_8883.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Nauticalia’s shop and café – which, incidentally, does excellent chicken and
pesto panini – beside the ferry’s Shepperton berth.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6aO35GIyt8Ohi1-SRi1AnzY3sl-hW_v1695u8HVs3pHwjb6IVUQswPB1xsjUzsbLRJt_maRQ3M4u46mzFnyFkB_x8Yg598BRt2UUqJ5ObWMCNe9o2y7zCJliHarFVnZek-r0IhyphenhyphenR165c/s1600/IMG_8887.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6aO35GIyt8Ohi1-SRi1AnzY3sl-hW_v1695u8HVs3pHwjb6IVUQswPB1xsjUzsbLRJt_maRQ3M4u46mzFnyFkB_x8Yg598BRt2UUqJ5ObWMCNe9o2y7zCJliHarFVnZek-r0IhyphenhyphenR165c/s400/IMG_8887.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>An old photograph, surreptitiously captured in Nauticalia’s lavatory, portrays a
previous incarnation of the ferry from around 1900.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQpYoK__np_vA1mFMUi5S3Js296ZE5Qev6HYnvr2sf3PBKBLF6cJbZsbyxQFfX1d45-HUTZk0kHM9LKT-TXZg49iLM_bnF6lzjsnU6UzoRLSIk4Qyv3kbSMjco_QHTSJio5Lm9LakP9m4/s1600/IMG_8886.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQpYoK__np_vA1mFMUi5S3Js296ZE5Qev6HYnvr2sf3PBKBLF6cJbZsbyxQFfX1d45-HUTZk0kHM9LKT-TXZg49iLM_bnF6lzjsnU6UzoRLSIk4Qyv3kbSMjco_QHTSJio5Lm9LakP9m4/s400/IMG_8886.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Another image on display suggests the lively character of the local regattas in
that period.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoqVA-rOUGcBSnaHCoPpdFFX3S9RzzLiDxnO6aV_i0mrGSPGTiSNCZ9pbgJgB2aKDd36QEvRB5GCjW5aFamjk6nHZLjlKJu9r_FZR1pA62js5zDzkcIJeYw9gaicEbyg67ia1LdBAHLZU/s1600/IMG_8889.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoqVA-rOUGcBSnaHCoPpdFFX3S9RzzLiDxnO6aV_i0mrGSPGTiSNCZ9pbgJgB2aKDd36QEvRB5GCjW5aFamjk6nHZLjlKJu9r_FZR1pA62js5zDzkcIJeYw9gaicEbyg67ia1LdBAHLZU/s400/IMG_8889.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Just ahead of the ferry, the complex river flow around the Wey confluence posed
considerable difficulties for navigation. So Shepperton got a lock of its own
in 1813, which had the effect of slicing off the tip of the north bank and
setting it to drift into this little archipelago as another island.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisXvJKb2-xRCiRz5B6Xa7iXFqQfafJlaeu0_b1T3RZNr20QWpSdJ8quF6d4Pnz-ivTdSIIyjSxuNoIfuxPgLKSAFLrmnfGonMZ7ZMD16xZ7ipIFdkxa3tFfo7-B5bQwtpif1CI6dGa8ng/s1600/IMG_8891.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisXvJKb2-xRCiRz5B6Xa7iXFqQfafJlaeu0_b1T3RZNr20QWpSdJ8quF6d4Pnz-ivTdSIIyjSxuNoIfuxPgLKSAFLrmnfGonMZ7ZMD16xZ7ipIFdkxa3tFfo7-B5bQwtpif1CI6dGa8ng/s400/IMG_8891.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This map on the lock’s information board is a good illustration of the
river’s convolutions here. Note that north is towards the top left. The
double-humped Desbreko Island created by that brazen Cut is in the middle. At
the bottom is the confluence with the Wey with lock, bridge and weir drawn on.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
With
safe passage secured to the Shepperton side, a final trawl through a quieter
stretch of river is all that remains to today’s destination of Chertsey. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRpiqbUn9LVQzEsqNkFud-0P2g8J0LtxQFxGRzMD95S-DIaRv_2D4ij2PNM0Z-mv062c61mAMcEkIUdRxjzdUHtUny1CP_r9Ybrc_ip8hwJs-rLg7-c3ogC1ipIV2CfLuvD6CpRDzG-K4/s1600/IMG_8893.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRpiqbUn9LVQzEsqNkFud-0P2g8J0LtxQFxGRzMD95S-DIaRv_2D4ij2PNM0Z-mv062c61mAMcEkIUdRxjzdUHtUny1CP_r9Ybrc_ip8hwJs-rLg7-c3ogC1ipIV2CfLuvD6CpRDzG-K4/s400/IMG_8893.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Pharaoh’s Island, a western outlier of the Thames-Wey archipelago. The odd name
is an imperial relic: formerly Dog Ait, it was renamed and gifted to
Vice-Admiral Nelson after his navy’s defeat of Napoleon in the Battle of the
Nile of 1798. With it the French ascendancy was supplanted by a British one
that eventually would put this country in effective control of Egypt; in the
meantime it produced a craze for Egyptian symbols among its people. This island
was one of the places they went overboard with it, and to this day its brutally
expensive residences carry names like Sphinx, Osiris and Luxor.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGDkLS1iKtxZ-OWYsbdl_oirRhbXAiYv3oEMvVb7R7LFSZOEck3YEu1sww4rBD9ZLOVZl2JUivpLglMbWUCsS0E3Gf9PgXRr3DH9LBo7ipIWJQESvUrzMe9MHONvA35k9B1tTHxNRH93U/s1600/IMG_8896.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGDkLS1iKtxZ-OWYsbdl_oirRhbXAiYv3oEMvVb7R7LFSZOEck3YEu1sww4rBD9ZLOVZl2JUivpLglMbWUCsS0E3Gf9PgXRr3DH9LBo7ipIWJQESvUrzMe9MHONvA35k9B1tTHxNRH93U/s400/IMG_8896.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Riverside luxury resumes regular service but now the properties are fewer and
farther between, interspersed with gaps and undeveloped bush.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoHAqU5rWfsOS_NpeZ5_HfJ5mMOrA72oDP3GWvoAMlTZUvnieXS4B4eC6GonN79J1WEiAbZiq2xNkx44tMeNtbtNMyl6fF7vVd3l-tHyUvNSFx29y2ljR-LCo2PzxBy7ZyMg_0uBA_DoU/s1600/IMG_8897.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoHAqU5rWfsOS_NpeZ5_HfJ5mMOrA72oDP3GWvoAMlTZUvnieXS4B4eC6GonN79J1WEiAbZiq2xNkx44tMeNtbtNMyl6fF7vVd3l-tHyUvNSFx29y2ljR-LCo2PzxBy7ZyMg_0uBA_DoU/s400/IMG_8897.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Another citizen of the river stands pensive in the evening light.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibXs6VD0bhVbjwuhxVJr9tkNZHL3kJx2aabcFEgqQFbdjGv4MEY_eE2XT1QecAZ0cpZweGs4c2dzkeui6N9CFrS5_vGv-YhQu2ocPlDtfnhNJFD8wn__QWXt2F7MrDPtPCEXiGh0bji74/s1600/IMG_8898.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibXs6VD0bhVbjwuhxVJr9tkNZHL3kJx2aabcFEgqQFbdjGv4MEY_eE2XT1QecAZ0cpZweGs4c2dzkeui6N9CFrS5_vGv-YhQu2ocPlDtfnhNJFD8wn__QWXt2F7MrDPtPCEXiGh0bji74/s400/IMG_8898.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Depositories for letters and milk set well clear of the front door, perhaps to
put some distance between the resident important personages and the
working-class delivery people. One is reminded of the scene in <i>The Legend of
Zelda: The Wind Waker</i> in which the newly rich inhabitant of a mansion
becomes so drunk on class contempt that he refuses to accept letters from the
postman.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjti3xOkBI2AGFj8H4CGSYjq1WxuVAP7oitKAYdm0auQ92hty-a0EPWZm8n73psa3H2F7vz9wLR17s2FdLyAhiqlpV3RVIVTK8wG1St5PQFZloMGctDDQxDMOesxMyho5HHH1IuYf1PyCU/s1600/IMG_8900.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjti3xOkBI2AGFj8H4CGSYjq1WxuVAP7oitKAYdm0auQ92hty-a0EPWZm8n73psa3H2F7vz9wLR17s2FdLyAhiqlpV3RVIVTK8wG1St5PQFZloMGctDDQxDMOesxMyho5HHH1IuYf1PyCU/s400/IMG_8900.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The fenced enclosure is typical of dwellings around here. Note also the
buoyancy ring and the flag.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
One
of this section’s most noticeable features has been the great number of
national flags on display, far more than back in the capital. This is not
typical in this country, which since the flag’s embarrassment by the far-right
racist movements of the 1970s and 80s has been known for a lower-key approach
to flag displays than many countries – not that its nationalism is any less
intense than theirs, rather that the simultaneous pretence to politeness is of greater
cultural importance. On top of that, when they do display their flags, it is
more common to see the red-on-white St. George’s Cross of England, typically
associated with in-your-face white supremacists or football fans getting drunk
and smashing other countries’ windows. Here however the overwhelming preference
is for the Union Jack, whose official symbolism is of the British United
Kingdom, not just England.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Given
that a particular affinity for the other parts of that Union feels no more
likely along this riverfront than in the heat of the aforementioned mob – least of all an
appreciation of why they are alienating those parts toward leaving
that Union – it can only be surmised that the flag preference is because <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the nationalism here has a class dimension
too: an assertion of similar underlying sentiments to the window-smashers, only
expressed in a higher, more respectable register.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz00Wvfq7cIua0EdaBTl8mrgYBdn505bVeKPcLNTtQOrG7kHF-l-8aU6uGlahQkZ3j_evUcxhquePR8NSCGwakWd-CYN6YncbosnCLeTmz6fwBCi3l-ToQ4G3pjId2bXRVHdXhm_dOIrI/s1600/IMG_8902.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz00Wvfq7cIua0EdaBTl8mrgYBdn505bVeKPcLNTtQOrG7kHF-l-8aU6uGlahQkZ3j_evUcxhquePR8NSCGwakWd-CYN6YncbosnCLeTmz6fwBCi3l-ToQ4G3pjId2bXRVHdXhm_dOIrI/s400/IMG_8902.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A sign identifies the greenery here as Ryepeck Meadow. Unlike 99.9% of English
speakers you know what a ryepeck is now.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjho_Cq1aE7DtlnM7qd5MT90L4mlEbnibWm_APf8V5h-r3ixIdhZq2fqx3k3cC1VrGmzBIcm-NokqByft7kEmS7wXEWkbmlVqGyWvJv50bYUG5yQzCRQ62OKerl9bRIzI6Wt_N1ZiX4vBI/s1600/IMG_8904.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjho_Cq1aE7DtlnM7qd5MT90L4mlEbnibWm_APf8V5h-r3ixIdhZq2fqx3k3cC1VrGmzBIcm-NokqByft7kEmS7wXEWkbmlVqGyWvJv50bYUG5yQzCRQ62OKerl9bRIzI6Wt_N1ZiX4vBI/s400/IMG_8904.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The white ‘X’ on blue in the Union Jack comes from the Saltire or Cross of St.
Andrew, that is to say, the flag of Scotland. If or as seems increasingly
likely <i>when</i> Scotland storms out of the Union to escape the Tory mine
cart ride to doom, the English’s continued use of this flag could come into
question. This might seem a trivial consideration amidst problems of far
greater substance, but symbolisms matter, and the impact on the English psyche
of such a mythically meaningful and internationally legendary flag coming to ruin
cannot be discounted.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And
at last, our destination comes into sight across a glorious field of cowpats.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZoaiiPyDq8VdnKGNREBLSMpWbX4LjTAfscc0wLFxTTBm32eNY_PQMOgrgODx_avOuIstj3YqcOqfg2bAaZOauQceOICaq5Gb6tzk7UHqMgz__1mLJoSvJQJSMMT9Okh0v2pFny3a_NAg/s1600/IMG_8906.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZoaiiPyDq8VdnKGNREBLSMpWbX4LjTAfscc0wLFxTTBm32eNY_PQMOgrgODx_avOuIstj3YqcOqfg2bAaZOauQceOICaq5Gb6tzk7UHqMgz__1mLJoSvJQJSMMT9Okh0v2pFny3a_NAg/s400/IMG_8906.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Dumsey Meadow.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Chertsey</b>’s
eastern green buffer extends over both sides of the river. Though true wilderness
is hard to come by in England, a slight dip into its possibility space can be
discerned here. On the south side are the wide-open wildflower meadows of the
Chertsey Meads, while here on the north side this Dumsey Meadow is about a
quarter the size but a special and protected ecological site in its own right. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Far
from a mere field, local displays claim that it harbours extraordinary
biodiversity on account of being the last ‘unimproved’ grassland by the Thames
left in Surrey. The meaning of <i>improvement</i> here is not intuitive: in
fact it is an oblique usage that comes from a specific historical context.
‘Improvement’ was the chief English euphemism for turning land into a
profit-generating resource for those in power, especially in line with the
Enclosure movement. In practice this meant the seizure of common land, small
farms and ecologically diverse wilderness into the private ownership of
powerful landlords, frequently through violent force and with the backing of
the apparatus of law. They would then turn their captured land to the mass
cultivation of whatever they calculated to be most profitable, in particular
the grazing of sheep. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
‘improvement’ then is measured only by the weight of their wallets – and not by
the experience of vulnerable rural people nor the ecological health of the
Enclosed habitats, both of which were devastated as a result (the first by
being turfed off their land and persecuted by the legal system, the second by toxic fertilisers, reduction to
monocultures and ruthless agricultural machinery). Today the abuse of the word <i>development</i> in a similar manner is probably the closest equivalent. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Enclosure
was a vast and complex process but also quite possibly the most consequential change in
the structure of English society short of industrialisation, and it is
under-stated in both English storytelling and political discourse in their
present bout of amnesia about land issues. The industrial revolution was itself
only made possible by Enclosure’s creation of masses of dislocated and
desperate peasants who then became the urban working class. On top of that, some
of the early waves of landlords made powerful by Enclosure’s profits were the
very people who packed the English Parliament and turned it into a political
expression of that power that, in the century after Henry VIII’s rampages, <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">challenged
the monarchy and violently overturned the constitutional order to put
themselves on top</a></u>. More immediately, the landscape of cows, sheep, cows,
sheep and endless rectangular fields that passes for the standard image of the
English countryside, both literally outside train windows and fantastically in
a world’s worth of minds, is not some original English idyll but the outcome of
specific historical processes that were carried out, as seems typical of these
people, with far more greed and oppression than it could have been. Its threads
continue to weave today and one need not look far to find them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr8zjbUu1OKEdGnzTJaNanPrLh1qoBmGjHbsm2Maf8Hz3q9eyH-hsCl85NV9ZyTBzxW5-JbPkDqBdAdGjMoO6vggqvn2sABea9F_E74TC6JD_tn66DdL8Td59k-kTk1Z3bovyy5b0rJ9g/s1600/IMG_8910.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr8zjbUu1OKEdGnzTJaNanPrLh1qoBmGjHbsm2Maf8Hz3q9eyH-hsCl85NV9ZyTBzxW5-JbPkDqBdAdGjMoO6vggqvn2sABea9F_E74TC6JD_tn66DdL8Td59k-kTk1Z3bovyy5b0rJ9g/s400/IMG_8910.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Speaking of cows, they are absent today but the evidence heaped in piles
underfoot implies them to be a regular feature of this meadow. Dumsey Meadow is
also the site of the Chertsey Regatta, which if the punting folklore I was
exposed to of old is correctly recalled, was notable for its risk of bovine
interference.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Dumsey
Meadow likely survives because there has always been a countervailing
consciousness that Enclosure and its values should be resisted. At times that
consciousness has erupted: numerous rural revolts and riots, <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">the
Levellers (whose name is instructive) and other progressive movements in the
wake of the civil wars</a></u>, and the successful attempts to preserve public
green spaces that to this day carry the name of such-and-such Common, can be
counted as grassroots expressions of this active, critical political engagement
in the face of powerful interests and punitive dominant belief systems. In this
context it seems a safe bet that this meadow’s survival has been down to
concerted efforts and political struggles by local people.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLIkKH_iwSODEAwTv_UiuMbslYwGZeD_5dmwUP9B4v8lMNaoMtTMQ0pG1K6W-PN9JKrHXYddtdj8gJeLXKmK4apAn59ztlslYd4UIqyZ6QsYgyzpW9ky1oqwybm1zZbOCm1lIjNqI-wTY/s1600/IMG_8912.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLIkKH_iwSODEAwTv_UiuMbslYwGZeD_5dmwUP9B4v8lMNaoMtTMQ0pG1K6W-PN9JKrHXYddtdj8gJeLXKmK4apAn59ztlslYd4UIqyZ6QsYgyzpW9ky1oqwybm1zZbOCm1lIjNqI-wTY/s400/IMG_8912.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The end of Dumsey Meadow, where the river bends again – from here a long climb
to the northwest follows. Chertsey is to the west, across the bridge.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyIl-Sz2vu_pG0a-E-V57p_aIhVdGU4K89JHV-w0dIAf53VHs4eMbB1H2EeNAFOFKnqwNd1eoIp_Gn3V3kqxMOTgCS-qQKkEUuj584CoLI8dHOWhlhOYZbBYpCH4EelGY17_HpC70FL0E/s1600/IMG_8914.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyIl-Sz2vu_pG0a-E-V57p_aIhVdGU4K89JHV-w0dIAf53VHs4eMbB1H2EeNAFOFKnqwNd1eoIp_Gn3V3kqxMOTgCS-qQKkEUuj584CoLI8dHOWhlhOYZbBYpCH4EelGY17_HpC70FL0E/s400/IMG_8914.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Chertsey Bridge. This seven-arched veteran is a rare survivor, with only
limited alterations since its construction in 1783-5. Chertsey Abbey made this
an important site; there has been a bridge here since at least around 1410.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Chertsey
itself shall receive due consideration in the next stage, which could be put
down to thematic suitability but is actually because its local history museum
was closed for the New Year. In any case, this first foray into the Privilege
Forts of the river’s central valley has thrown up more than enough to ruminate on for one day.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
has been quite the assorted landscape. Imposing repositories of keystone
stories in the national collection, like Kingston where the English kingdom
began to awaken, Hampton Court with its hulking Tudor mythos, and their garland
of sub-urban, sub-rural baskets of vested wealth, interspersed with what appear
more innocuous strands – punt-racing and pleasure-boating, ferries and
waterworks – all threaded through by the unifying string of the river. For its sense of relaxing around on the highest slopes of the class pyramid, it is
a quite different effect to the Thames of London’s immediate outskirts in the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/12/thames-3-arcadia.html">previous
section</a></u>. There it seemed the projection of that higher ‘Arcadian’ vision
was as important as what was done within it, whereas here it is more like they
just do what they want and roll in it – blocking, diverting and digging around
in the river; seizing the land that keeps people alive for profit or shooting
animals for the fun of it; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>a subtle but
definite shift in culture, in values, in worlds.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
How
far are these ones responsible for the misdeeds that
characterised the project of English modernity, built upon industry and empire only
to crumble to the moral and constitutional breaking point that imperils them
now? What seeds of that peril could be dug from the soil of stories we crossed
today? Where on this river is the line between joyful, innocent pleasures, and
the more tainted pleasure which, convinced of exclusive birth, jealous of its
world of comforts and convinced the world is fine so long as enemies beyond the
water are kept at bay, dabs a tick by the name of a Raab on a ballot paper and casts
that very future to its doom?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
A
valley broad in some senses yet too narrow in others; a landscape of
picturesque sunlit beauty yet maddening in the darkness that wafts from its
cosy corners. Such important elements in the English story, in its very mythology,
were written and illustrated on the river here. Is this also where it comes
back to drown? </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
journey through the middle has only begun. We can only
hope to see it to its end before England’s own makes it too dangerous to
venture further.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRnP96CRSMLHqWPnimF2CS-Ddv1TcG4xFa_iu3B5j2IhqzoU56swlge9fiLmQK8eJzryibtcZtT1sK43nWwxzHj7JxQkwDbQdlP6NJ_wyaH7FROBF5odQSSrOwvyEWpmony6Zc30sseqw/s1600/IMG_8915.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRnP96CRSMLHqWPnimF2CS-Ddv1TcG4xFa_iu3B5j2IhqzoU56swlge9fiLmQK8eJzryibtcZtT1sK43nWwxzHj7JxQkwDbQdlP6NJ_wyaH7FROBF5odQSSrOwvyEWpmony6Zc30sseqw/s640/IMG_8915.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com2Chertsey, UK51.386491 -0.5094560000000001351.346854 -0.59013700000000013 51.426128 -0.42877500000000013tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5540266691729205856.post-81902196491661696802019-12-17T13:36:00.000+00:002019-12-17T13:36:12.876+00:00THAMES: 3) Arcadia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaB_1BAZKwNUfVkbb8Tg5M7v0ksdCn8H8I2QJ9xzlgmrwH0YjNLn1c8m6an_iIyaooCFNDQXYhycSkQ5RDR37R7C94U2TcH8nT9xdMkVZVpjSYtvEq2EQzZfvMDX-WQPG7ev27-oPwamc/s1600/IMG_8525.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaB_1BAZKwNUfVkbb8Tg5M7v0ksdCn8H8I2QJ9xzlgmrwH0YjNLn1c8m6an_iIyaooCFNDQXYhycSkQ5RDR37R7C94U2TcH8nT9xdMkVZVpjSYtvEq2EQzZfvMDX-WQPG7ev27-oPwamc/s640/IMG_8525.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
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The chill
light of a winter morning falls on Putney Bridge, riding a tide that rises
beyond the capital city. Having cleared the urban core, the water’s mood
changes dramatically as it swings hard to the south in a great ninety-degree
bend. Could this be a memory of 20,000 years ago, when the glaciers of the last
ice age advanced all the way down here and shunted the Thames to the south? </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Coincidence
or otherwise, the bottom of that arc sends it right into what in a single human
lifetime has become the corner of the Greater London conurbation, where on
meeting the water that falls from the English interior, the sovereignty of the
tides finally ends.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY-C5c7YgLz2G2f1qV75uU-aqlREMqz8gdXXzSrVlhPBYKLjgxEKSb7xOF30JjYObCoPXdiMPtMT9LPJ0a9V6HH2D47Y0iYXj1ZgAuX8eE0nnQeo_qBbe3kX5s22owTH6e3pZRW_euCzM/s1600/IMG_8693.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY-C5c7YgLz2G2f1qV75uU-aqlREMqz8gdXXzSrVlhPBYKLjgxEKSb7xOF30JjYObCoPXdiMPtMT9LPJ0a9V6HH2D47Y0iYXj1ZgAuX8eE0nnQeo_qBbe3kX5s22owTH6e3pZRW_euCzM/s400/IMG_8693.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The limit of the tidal Thames, at Teddington Lock.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
But more
than water comes and goes this way. For thousands of years before trains and
motor vehicles the river was the prime means of travel for the people of its
watershed. Far better after all to let the tides take you where you want to go
than drag yourself and your belongings up and down the muddy, potholed,
bandit-ridden land routes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
If
you had the means and status for it, that is. Under English class hierarchy, this
privilege of escape from <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">the
struggles of London</a></u> was primarily the preserve of those on the highest levels
of the social pyramid. Above all that meant the monarchy, whose palaces and
hunting grounds duly colonised all the best floodplain they could grab off the
common folk. In their wake came their obligatory orbiting constellations of
nobles, clerics, sycophants and concubines, some of whose families still occupy
these prize mansions and riverside villas. Theirs are the upriver domains of
Richmond and Kingston, towns whose roots lie in the legends of English royalty,
but the intervening distance was settled by the middle-class affluents on the next
tiers down as they popped up through the thick foam of the industrial
revolution, into the fresh river air, and followed the old nobility out that
way. Entranced by the splendour of the riverscape, these escapees imagined up
and passed down an Arcadian paradise of swans and ducks and herons, of comfortable
housing whether ruddily historic or ostentatiously gentrified, of lazy
promenades lined with elaborate lamp-posts and hanging flower baskets, along a riverside
of leaves and willows everywhere managed and in places manicured.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Yet
the question, the very English question, remains. <i>Who is it for?</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGUtZYVLQffOIA_jFfhxGMZHI_6WJ_yJKC-hggxJGLd5L8J5pwj7vS5w7ttCaE2gBYx3NCGpdHy0cW39G5KK_pZXPlZGvTD-_n5Ny_yyOCfH-V6ZJ40etfv9rdcVlEYgWTzhmZ5eVXr5M/s1600/3%2529+Putney+to+Kingston.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="977" data-original-width="1600" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGUtZYVLQffOIA_jFfhxGMZHI_6WJ_yJKC-hggxJGLd5L8J5pwj7vS5w7ttCaE2gBYx3NCGpdHy0cW39G5KK_pZXPlZGvTD-_n5Ny_yyOCfH-V6ZJ40etfv9rdcVlEYgWTzhmZ5eVXr5M/s640/3%2529+Putney+to+Kingston.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Before
we embark, ongoing events should serve as a reminder that history is alive
around us. Not two days after the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">previous
section’s article</a></u> there was a terrorist attack at one of its most prominent
landmarks, London Bridge. The attacker stabbed two people dead in the hall of
the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers before being shot by police on the
bridge, having been subdued by, among others, someone wielding a narwhal horn
from the aforementioned institution. This violence fed into one of the dirtiest
and bitterest general elections in this country’s living memory, in which, as
has typically been the case, the old royal lairs on the path ahead were some of
the most fiercely contested constituencies in the country. Past and future,
local and global: all are present and inseparable.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
was not a regular election. The outcome has struck a whole new level of shock
and despair into many people and looks likely, to say the least, to irreparably
alter the destiny of Britain and England. But even in this extraordinary
instance, the boroughs of Richmond Park, Twickenham, and Kingston and Surbiton defied
both the national trend and that of London’s division into working-class Labour
Party urban areas versus white and affluent Conservative Party sub-rural
outskirts. This corner alone chose a third option and put in Liberal Democrat
MPs with comfortable majorities: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/dec/12/uk-general-election-2019-full-results-live-labour-conservatives-tories"><u>the sole phalanx of Lib-Dem amber on a map that has otherwise scattered it to particles</u></a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Pinned
between core and periphery; shaped by both upstream and downstream worlds but
not entirely of either. Who are the people who live on the riverbend, and what
makes them different?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Start:</b>
Putney Bridge (<i>nearest stations: Putney Bridge, Vauxhall</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>End:</b>
Kingston Bridge (<i>nearest station: Kingston</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Length:
20.9km/13 miles</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Location:
Greater London – Borough of Wandsworth, Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Royal
Borough of Kingston upon Thames</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<u>Topics</u>:
University Boat Race, Barnes, Hammersmith, Chiswick, Mortlake, the National
Archives, Kew Gardens, Syon House/Abbey, Richmond, Isleworth, Twickenham,
Teddington Lock</div>
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</div>
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
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<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Barnes Peninsula</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Here,
unusually in this land, is a place whose name sounds like what it meant.
The <b>Barnes</b> peninsula was named for its granary barns that supplied the
manor of Mortlake, of which it was part till Barnes village grew in its own
right.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
These
low-lying fields were more isolated than nearby Putney. As Barnes village
abided on the west side of the peninsula, the farmlands and estate grounds on
its east, named Barn Elms, seemed to preserve more of the river’s
wild underlying character. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl0v49hw1a-iY3uztjr4faz6JvsOhiXmzx4c1OhsYnf19jobfPpIV_HxsCXKkA2QfgcHytoZ3_K5sXoP-S4yA50vSxCOCaqSOpM-gOV1kCRe8-scIQBe4zAIShwa1CCjCfQCCPgaOoJ94/s1600/IMG_8527.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl0v49hw1a-iY3uztjr4faz6JvsOhiXmzx4c1OhsYnf19jobfPpIV_HxsCXKkA2QfgcHytoZ3_K5sXoP-S4yA50vSxCOCaqSOpM-gOV1kCRe8-scIQBe4zAIShwa1CCjCfQCCPgaOoJ94/s400/IMG_8527.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The view up the east flank of the Barnes peninsula. The outskirts of Putney are
on the left, the grounds of Fulham Palace on the right.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8JCq57HcTPtyYweD5maVjdKLOORu80Y0gREJE4Xlxn8OxoqlNVr_DSssfuPSdBXGC4OGe_AOqyoQIu4yrDOf-jhen5DWuBGvyOWTd-hTgNR6R08gYlhs4zgAvlCkRTOtrlgidf_eD164/s1600/IMG_8526.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8JCq57HcTPtyYweD5maVjdKLOORu80Y0gREJE4Xlxn8OxoqlNVr_DSssfuPSdBXGC4OGe_AOqyoQIu4yrDOf-jhen5DWuBGvyOWTd-hTgNR6R08gYlhs4zgAvlCkRTOtrlgidf_eD164/s400/IMG_8526.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>On the Putney riverside the stylish bricks and stripes of Kenilworth Court,
built in the 1910s, offer a flavour of the storied affluence ahead.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
riverbank out of Putney is lined with rowing clubs, which could be taken as a
sign of a recreational turn in land use if you are prepared to stretch the
definition of ‘recreational’. In English professional sports, especially those
with a certain status in its elite public school establishment, competitive
rowing can be observed to occupy a place further from recreational and closer
to military, with a seeming purpose not so much in propelling one’s boat faster
than other people’s as in turning hapless youngsters into ferocious, red-faced,
iron-disciplined, burning-sinewed engines of destruction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Perhaps
I carry some bias here, having encountered that rowing juggernaut years ago in
the course of exploring more peaceable boat-racing cultures on this river
(punting, if you must know – maybe more on that further upstream). Either way, it is one of the pinnacles of that
rowing culture that does most to fix the following stretch of the Thames in English imagination.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTSIL0hB7RSXOHlzXoiPVglpgZWilNylVL6kjmZI8oZ3JY3CIOX4QjFNzbcVHIhLm4AX9KQ4ImZFTOvG3HMAQi4uP4cQH8s3WP6ZL8luOH35la3WV_okJkHQD7MYwnlVXN9uHrAHi3Ik/s1600/IMG_8532.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTSIL0hB7RSXOHlzXoiPVglpgZWilNylVL6kjmZI8oZ3JY3CIOX4QjFNzbcVHIhLm4AX9KQ4ImZFTOvG3HMAQi4uP4cQH8s3WP6ZL8luOH35la3WV_okJkHQD7MYwnlVXN9uHrAHi3Ik/s400/IMG_8532.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A long slipway caters to the stampede of rowboats in and out of Putney’s rowing
clubs.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxz-qWQkXUyWnQzsYbWc5OmcPdXwnXWlu1QLFCUJ0oTYROtD81bCmfuhIe8KbXtzpSMD3ni5DfjJF86pw0D9V9fPUdadwOgUN2iTp5mQnDKFw2HZHMWhwyP_89WF0Un6fDOpgw2JdtUu4/s1600/IMG_8533.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxz-qWQkXUyWnQzsYbWc5OmcPdXwnXWlu1QLFCUJ0oTYROtD81bCmfuhIe8KbXtzpSMD3ni5DfjJF86pw0D9V9fPUdadwOgUN2iTp5mQnDKFw2HZHMWhwyP_89WF0Un6fDOpgw2JdtUu4/s400/IMG_8533.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Most of the clubhouses here are held by select public schools, corporations,
or other organisations with a distinguished rowing tradition. I have never
rowed, but have come here before. The memories are difficult. Not for obvious
reasons. We shall not discuss this.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDOy1qWYaaE8xvpoAaA8bEGjneeHRueqcG_g2VMZFiNkx5yFjjw7EZ3c1y9FIXlCuhbbNr-kHKCojI7A4Jmm-pvHm8YvEUqPh-bXVMtWh2-smL7VTYYJax62VygzghOS__PiQpyMPq060/s1600/IMG_8534.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDOy1qWYaaE8xvpoAaA8bEGjneeHRueqcG_g2VMZFiNkx5yFjjw7EZ3c1y9FIXlCuhbbNr-kHKCojI7A4Jmm-pvHm8YvEUqPh-bXVMtWh2-smL7VTYYJax62VygzghOS__PiQpyMPq060/s400/IMG_8534.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Putney Bridge in the morning haze. It is here that the Oxford and Cambridge
University Boat Race begins.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
February 1829, a letter made its way from a college of the University of
Cambridge to the University of Oxford, challenging the latter to a rowing race
‘at or near London, each in an eight-oared boat during the ensuing Easter
vacation’. This race was held far upriver near Henley, but when they gave it a
second go in 1836 they brought it here to London. In no time <b>‘The Boat Race’</b>
had grown into an annual tradition, held every year since the 1850s except
during the world wars.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Because
this was and is a sexist country, all these race crews were men. Sports and
elite academia both tend to be bastions of misogyny in such societies, likely due
to men’s fear that any reminder of women’s strength or intellect, respectively,
would re-awaken women’s power to annihilate those patriarchal power structures
by demolishing the fragile lies on which they are built. A women’s race began
only in 1927, more than a hundred years after the men’s, held in Oxford with
crowds of people on the riverbank jeering their offence at the idea of women
rowing. Not until 1964 did the women’s race stabilise as an annual event, and it
was only in this decade – yes, that’s right – that it came here to the same
course as the men’s, although the two are still held as separate races.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
Boat Race quickly became a fixture of the English cultural calendar. Every year
it brings excited crowds onto the riverbanks ahead, where they pack the pubs
and cram onto the bridges to cheer for the racers as they pass, while millions
more follow it on television or the radio. Both universities take the race
seriously as a reflection of their increasingly interrogated prestige and set
their teams preparing months in advance, so both have had their share of
victories, though as of this year Cambridge is slightly ahead in both men’s and
women’s races.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbMt2LpvaPvwX7cRUmTL9Gj5B-9vIYP7KU29qa8n25jcYgmYIG_m2Y6XyVvUAqapJhx-kctdAxITuu892XdVjhy_b6OdXtx_aIbZC2KnA6_95mqXdASFUOEOvQ9L-9xIG-7pAONItL5VM/s1600/IMG_8552.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbMt2LpvaPvwX7cRUmTL9Gj5B-9vIYP7KU29qa8n25jcYgmYIG_m2Y6XyVvUAqapJhx-kctdAxITuu892XdVjhy_b6OdXtx_aIbZC2KnA6_95mqXdASFUOEOvQ9L-9xIG-7pAONItL5VM/s400/IMG_8552.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>There are rowers out this morning for early training. A typical English rowing
party is led by a megaphone-toting totalitarian in a motor boat, who motivates
the rowers by bellowing public humiliation of their every motion to all people
in hearing range.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqcDKNC80sC6UZ-D8wCmjFXw5RJJaFF_DDnr4iilLgfImk2pfnPlJWx4dtcMZ_IBXxo-uXCmK9xqyVItScPmKUxXRaTnCtQtQ6yNV1A1j94FkB0yqWEl1o53t1PW_w6LCvUlOpwAtkFQ0/s1600/IMG_8530.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqcDKNC80sC6UZ-D8wCmjFXw5RJJaFF_DDnr4iilLgfImk2pfnPlJWx4dtcMZ_IBXxo-uXCmK9xqyVItScPmKUxXRaTnCtQtQ6yNV1A1j94FkB0yqWEl1o53t1PW_w6LCvUlOpwAtkFQ0/s400/IMG_8530.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Across the river are the grounds of Fulham Palace, residence of the Bishop of
London from the eleventh century to 1973. It has now been restored as a public
museum with gardens and a café. Fulham itself, traditionally a centre of
crafting and brewing, takes its name from someone called <i>Fulla</i> in
Anglo-Saxon Old English. The suffix is not from the more common <i>ham</i>,
meaning a hamlet or homestead, but <i>hamm</i> (obviously completely different)
which means a river bend.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
At
the end of the rowing base arrives the <b>Beverley Brook</b>, a Thames
tributary from the green fields of Merton to the south. With it a significant
threshold is crossed, for this is the start of the <b>towpath</b>. It is the
first point on this route where the paved or cobbled urban riverside gives way
to a dirt track.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcav93qnuhcSAdX9QehVMXDl8FVatW-F1YqhfBwXp7nBokVlAKwaL7KHomwipEbjs2BcAKtr7PDl-jHkhs00tmoruI75SqABT1hOPDeZqW_AvEij8cuHlTNFEC3PG18mLL0XX_4tC87q8/s1600/IMG_8537.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcav93qnuhcSAdX9QehVMXDl8FVatW-F1YqhfBwXp7nBokVlAKwaL7KHomwipEbjs2BcAKtr7PDl-jHkhs00tmoruI75SqABT1hOPDeZqW_AvEij8cuHlTNFEC3PG18mLL0XX_4tC87q8/s400/IMG_8537.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The Beverley Brook’s name indicates that beavers lived in it, but the English
allowed them to go extinct around the sixteenth century. Then they horribly
polluted the river with sewage, but more recent efforts have improved its
biodiversity and it is now a special conservation area. Wouldn’t it be nice to
have the beavers back?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS6jFXfWZiV5PDZ5k1o-oiF5pYuY40docCecT8SdgPJNWovvKUkGXd-2y23ZJKmQNC0eTVZsUfqGFlDB3vww5Nly1A1vCSDEC6ANme0cQtU6V5Db7zcCK3__ov3t5p6Ecx7Xx4_IE4Vh4/s1600/IMG_8536.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS6jFXfWZiV5PDZ5k1o-oiF5pYuY40docCecT8SdgPJNWovvKUkGXd-2y23ZJKmQNC0eTVZsUfqGFlDB3vww5Nly1A1vCSDEC6ANme0cQtU6V5Db7zcCK3__ov3t5p6Ecx7Xx4_IE4Vh4/s400/IMG_8536.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Despite
towpaths’ popularity with joggers and dog-walkers today, they were built
so people or animals could haul boats along before the advent of industrial
engines. They are a common feature along England’s canals, where they were
specifically designed for horses, but since these functions were made obsolete
by road, rail and air travel towpaths have largely survived by turning into
recreational walking or cycling tracks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
indeed, it is people out for just that sort of casual exercise who seem to
populate the Barn Elms towpath today. On top of that, their strolling is of a
class register distinct from people downriver. In general they are whiter,
older, in less of a hurry, and converse in Received Pronunciation about their
relatives’ conformity to bourgeois norms like the nuclear family, education
ladder and pretend monogamy. On a brighter note, there are lots of pleasant dog
encounters to be had too.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ7Y6bB1vt1xa3-AoqpAePPiuX_HmNfVzzxfdQ_cpn7P-OxIal83oh1L3hQ1wThdxSJciBfTssmhHbCIziHhn167eUHcjP0_lKf1T9I77B3cwKrila6SUGwASI70W7VF1u6QqZFs7onsU/s1600/IMG_8535.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ7Y6bB1vt1xa3-AoqpAePPiuX_HmNfVzzxfdQ_cpn7P-OxIal83oh1L3hQ1wThdxSJciBfTssmhHbCIziHhn167eUHcjP0_lKf1T9I77B3cwKrila6SUGwASI70W7VF1u6QqZFs7onsU/s400/IMG_8535.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Opposite the towpath used to stand a picturesque cottage, built in 1780 by a certain
noble called William Craven. It went through a series of wealthy hands before
burning down in 1888, but its ruins drew the attention of the newly-formed
Fulham Football Club. Within two decades they had built their home stadium
there, which sustained them right through to their Premier League efforts a
century later while never relinquishing its inherited name of <i>Craven Cottage</i>.
It is currently sacrificing its guts to be devoured by these colourful beasts
so it can reincarnate with a larger crowd capacity.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZUxFc7K-JEpnJfCi4Oz4GS6e-cAhuTEvH65vu8-f8macLciik03EVJF1fiU0vOC_yrW38mxbb1UqLpXG3HtI0lUtdw7J5sjbEyWP89reSuxRKIW8jAK9dij6ty0ZhomtbY4HgAxPIiQA/s1600/IMG_8542.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZUxFc7K-JEpnJfCi4Oz4GS6e-cAhuTEvH65vu8-f8macLciik03EVJF1fiU0vOC_yrW38mxbb1UqLpXG3HtI0lUtdw7J5sjbEyWP89reSuxRKIW8jAK9dij6ty0ZhomtbY4HgAxPIiQA/s400/IMG_8542.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDxXHA6o8ORe1syf8Og-c8UG1TnNQPalxYCrS6RIEYuW2FowrJbNWq0K37LiBjdMxMX42YTYZkqBQfKGblSxRoI5_LTQYBZ5sjzqvvZlO7iB2At1assUTET9qR0GR9bCveRPjwOQdEkHo/s1600/IMG_8550.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDxXHA6o8ORe1syf8Og-c8UG1TnNQPalxYCrS6RIEYuW2FowrJbNWq0K37LiBjdMxMX42YTYZkqBQfKGblSxRoI5_LTQYBZ5sjzqvvZlO7iB2At1assUTET9qR0GR9bCveRPjwOQdEkHo/s400/IMG_8550.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>This is clearly a managed riverside, with trees tagged and cropped and paths
kept in good condition.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFpLe26M2k5K3q2rzDAH4LNXeMckijIo6JjT8u9k577ajVKM-FjTBYJs0FjmRmt-efQ_3i_3CTMqLG7TP2OuNCR75C51Jnery9NAvORzW8u77DoHuQynnApCvekNo36b81YeDDmRTWXt0/s1600/IMG_8548.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFpLe26M2k5K3q2rzDAH4LNXeMckijIo6JjT8u9k577ajVKM-FjTBYJs0FjmRmt-efQ_3i_3CTMqLG7TP2OuNCR75C51Jnery9NAvORzW8u77DoHuQynnApCvekNo36b81YeDDmRTWXt0/s400/IMG_8548.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The manor of Barnes eventually grew up under the control of the clerical
authorities of St. Paul’s Cathedral, but Queen Elizabeth I of the Tudor dynasty
bought it off them in 1579 and gave it to Sir Francis Walsingham, her
secretary, spymaster and political fixer. Many of the manor’s old grounds are
now playing fields.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Hidden
over that grassy brow is possibly the Barnes peninsula’s richest treasure.
Where formerly languished some obsolete reservoirs now spreads the <u><a href="https://www.wwt.org.uk/wetland-centres/london/"><b>London Wetland Centre</b></a></u>,
whose hundred acres of wetland habitat are the new home for a thriving community
of feathery creatures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was opened
only in 2000 but the organisation which runs it, the Wildfowl and Wetlands
Trust, was founded in the 1940s (by Peter Scott, son of Captain Robert Scott of
Antarctica fame) and has long campaigned for the protection of these critically
important wetland environments.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
These
green and pleasant lands contrast with a more muddled mix on the north bank.
Through the old Middlesex settlements of Fulham, Hammersmith, Chiswick and
Brentford, the entitled landowners and middle-class city escapees jostled with
millers, brewers and boat-builders who approached the water out of industrial
and commercial interest, if usually with smaller spheres of influence than the
City big beasts. The result is a patchy mosaic of prosperity and poverty that
continues as the regeneration brigade makes its move on those that did not make
it into the new millennium.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPaP6-p95lPQ9ml1J_URWc9Pb6ewR5WLD4A7sjZqxfBkzeRYLlRBZjUYggNlPTZyPPyQovGWwb8ZTMPNWS0qIAVS3cEPRF9rBhf9vffmCHKiirlGPx8UIsB9fWEi77Ry1q1_CbCNx1ZBY/s1600/IMG_8551.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPaP6-p95lPQ9ml1J_URWc9Pb6ewR5WLD4A7sjZqxfBkzeRYLlRBZjUYggNlPTZyPPyQovGWwb8ZTMPNWS0qIAVS3cEPRF9rBhf9vffmCHKiirlGPx8UIsB9fWEi77Ry1q1_CbCNx1ZBY/s400/IMG_8551.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Thames Wharf in Fulham used to serve the Duckham engineering company which produced
lubrication oil for machines. The depot closed in 1979 and was converted into
the present Thames Wharf Studios (at left), with its former canteen becoming a
famous Italian restaurant.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkqUGXbSsD7bvTsVTRbuaMTbSMg9NQds05wSnp80eyI9UoZROezWCBpH-c8XP1St-0j-42seUz4ar1Os0GiPGqL33fgLgjSl1-SLdQbMcDxX15pBRfjqBhIAiwK9D9o2w2EiBQG2aprZs/s1600/IMG_8555.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkqUGXbSsD7bvTsVTRbuaMTbSMg9NQds05wSnp80eyI9UoZROezWCBpH-c8XP1St-0j-42seUz4ar1Os0GiPGqL33fgLgjSl1-SLdQbMcDxX15pBRfjqBhIAiwK9D9o2w2EiBQG2aprZs/s400/IMG_8555.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Further up the Barnes peninsula stands this incongruous facsimile of Harrods
department store in Knightsbridge: renowned, exclusive, and currently owned by
the state of Qatar. This is in fact its old furniture depository, completed in
1913 as a warehouse for whatever wouldn’t fit in the main store, as well as to
look after the belongings of people travelling overseas to serve the British
Empire. It was positioned on the river for easy movement of goods on and
off barges by crane, and is now – of course – extremely expensive apartments as
part of the rebranded ‘Harrods Village’.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY1b59c3geyYrzWaxsDlaQ60mblWg65FNvwZ2bgDYHMe1LBdTqB-rPutBV-2nkNoI5AuAR8DK4QNzY6rI7HLXXFkrcJCPQ9gTeS0bYWy9WTdTZPNObBXefUwP9H5x-TLIhSS1BB_FECoI/s1600/IMG_8558.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY1b59c3geyYrzWaxsDlaQ60mblWg65FNvwZ2bgDYHMe1LBdTqB-rPutBV-2nkNoI5AuAR8DK4QNzY6rI7HLXXFkrcJCPQ9gTeS0bYWy9WTdTZPNObBXefUwP9H5x-TLIhSS1BB_FECoI/s400/IMG_8558.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Hammersmith Bridge.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
appearance of Hammersmith Bridge in 1827, the Thames’s first suspension bridge,
finally flung the noose of civilisation round Barnes’s neck. But like <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">so
many of the downstream bridges</a></u> it began to buckle under traffic, especially
once the Boat Race got popular and over ten thousand people at a time crowded upon
it to watch. So they replaced it in 1887 with the current structure, another
Joseph Bazalgette design, but while admittedly attractive – not to mention
strong enough to survive three IRA bombings – it did not match the other new
bridges’ success at handling modern traffic loads. After years of on-and-off
closures it is now shut to vehicles indefinitely while they work out what to
do. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNzdAGLWAV-XIeahWefd1sao-6tU4yYrwxzD1azm3H-xRBy4eQIHBZ7BodzxR97ZNid8RcQbxC8cFeQx9hWmhMlc5-o1-HvRdTf7ACeoFTCahfTzUxyK4NAeIwb9j0-XalQPIcogDf4AU/s1600/IMG_8560.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNzdAGLWAV-XIeahWefd1sao-6tU4yYrwxzD1azm3H-xRBy4eQIHBZ7BodzxR97ZNid8RcQbxC8cFeQx9hWmhMlc5-o1-HvRdTf7ACeoFTCahfTzUxyK4NAeIwb9j0-XalQPIcogDf4AU/s400/IMG_8560.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The closure of Hammersmith Bridge provided a delightful political football
for Zac Goldsmith’s Conservative Party over in Richmond, which enjoyed regularly
beating the Labour Party-controlled Hammersmith and Fulham council about the
head with it. Presumably this is because they’d prefer the spectacle of its
collapse dumping cars and screaming pedestrians into the river so they could
blame them for that instead. Goldsmith held Richmond Park constituency by a majority of 45 but was kicked out in the December 2019 election, in the face of the national trend, in favour of the Liberal Democrats' Sarah Olney.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Hammersmith
</b>itself is thought to have been an old Anglo-Saxon fishing village, with its
name suggesting a notable blacksmith or forge. Its main draw was that its
ground was gravelly rather than marshy, making it attractive both for the
monied escapees’ villas and for small-scale riverside industries. Some of
these also made use of a tributary long vanished into the local sewers, whose
name, which survives in <b>Stamford Brook</b> station on the District Line –
from ‘stony ford’ – likewise whispers of stabler earth here. Today Hammersmith
is a jumble of offices, shopping centres, arts venues and pockets of
architectural heritage, anchored around its service as a major transport
junction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9JebunhPWr3aP4JBh6zQWOnSJB-fXD2kBYwx3K5fAdqxARkfD9KpBiLjqK-bsBe6813VkBOtWUZYXWmBGIfp9hxet6ROKYGfNjdeRIfrArEZTB1QjF8Fi9MaWF-72fZkTDm6TethfKX0/s1600/IMG_8561.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9JebunhPWr3aP4JBh6zQWOnSJB-fXD2kBYwx3K5fAdqxARkfD9KpBiLjqK-bsBe6813VkBOtWUZYXWmBGIfp9hxet6ROKYGfNjdeRIfrArEZTB1QjF8Fi9MaWF-72fZkTDm6TethfKX0/s400/IMG_8561.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The waterfront of Hammersmith, with its embankment, low-rise buildings and
riverside pubs.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnL6k9mnzHEzdTHIdOpS_d1kiii5f6SFWslvXle_V4G2lew5aTMcFZAgTNZkdtNQv6DfOBpZ81KX5zftDMx6E-e7tZkz1XmeFtsBeanprqkPDBpT3C4mx90PxFBIArlWuX4BIoSuT0RXo/s1600/IMG_8564.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnL6k9mnzHEzdTHIdOpS_d1kiii5f6SFWslvXle_V4G2lew5aTMcFZAgTNZkdtNQv6DfOBpZ81KX5zftDMx6E-e7tZkz1XmeFtsBeanprqkPDBpT3C4mx90PxFBIArlWuX4BIoSuT0RXo/s400/IMG_8564.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>In contrast the Barnes side remains leafy and recreational. Concealed through
the dense curtain of foliage is St. Paul’s boys’ school, one of England’s elite
public schools that was founded in the City by St. Paul’s Cathedral, hence the
name, but moved here in the 1960s onto land made available when Barnes’s
reservoirs were filled in.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
There
then appears the first of several small river islands that string the meanders
ahead. The locals call them <b>aits</b> or <b>eyots</b>, a very old term with
the same Old English root as the word <i>island</i> which this area – perhaps
in a sign of its own insularity? – has somehow preserved separately. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
first of these, Chiswick Eyot, shields the district of <b>Chiswick</b> from
view. Like Hammersmith it has long served as a transport hub, being on both the
river and the west road, and grew as a community with a complex economy of its
own. As well as the fishing and boating there was farming: they cultivated
willows (‘osiers’) on the Eyot for making baskets and furniture, and the barley
grown here was said to be particularly good, which in turn made Chiswick a
prominent beer-brewing centre. This status consummated in industrial times when
it produced Fuller, Smith and Turner, better known as <i>Fuller’s</i>, who still run
pubs up and down the country on the output of their famous Griffin Brewery. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLp2KfEtOX-hwBMXet2TVFGiGr1eqfsEeD0XvF1AiLcqzEGBx3sYyJQYORzvYAmry4LUoghHahMzeE2DqcWWIRdNeYZzPytP3C7JfV7_PeA_agc_cm2QYp6je1wn8YT-q1P7bQWgc3_s/s1600/IMG_8566.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLp2KfEtOX-hwBMXet2TVFGiGr1eqfsEeD0XvF1AiLcqzEGBx3sYyJQYORzvYAmry4LUoghHahMzeE2DqcWWIRdNeYZzPytP3C7JfV7_PeA_agc_cm2QYp6je1wn8YT-q1P7bQWgc3_s/s400/IMG_8566.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The Griffin Brewery casts a malty fragrance across the river, while the
remainder of Chiswick is largely hidden by Chiswick Eyot. Fuller’s was a
family-run business for over 150 years, but at the beginning of 2019 they caused
shock by selling their entire brewing operation, including this facility, to Japanese
beer company Asahi in a choice to focus instead on their more profitable pubs
and hotels.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsViKkiA9s9wm15kw1x_q39Yh58b-r9_D-bElZkd2dC_FGakWPDUwLVbycJyOWJWt9zznzwphEnWsU2S0NFx1AjQTEuC1tlPXX0h9oO2S2Ovq5PQ8iUofJggBJ7ejGQgDc-u9CuZT2ZlQ/s1600/IMG_8571.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsViKkiA9s9wm15kw1x_q39Yh58b-r9_D-bElZkd2dC_FGakWPDUwLVbycJyOWJWt9zznzwphEnWsU2S0NFx1AjQTEuC1tlPXX0h9oO2S2Ovq5PQ8iUofJggBJ7ejGQgDc-u9CuZT2ZlQ/s400/IMG_8571.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Church Wharf, a little upriver of the brewery past Chiswick’s church. In the
1860s the Thorneycroft father-and-son partnership came and installed a ship-building
works here. Their high-speed ships featured creative design innovations, and
eventually they supplied torpedo boats and destroyers for the Admiralty. It is
said every time a ship was launched here the ceremony drew crowds of excited
spectators, which must have been quite a sight, but soon the destroyers grew
too big for London’s bridges and after too many obstructed masts and hulls
stuck in mud they moved the works to Southampton. The area remained industrial
till the 1980s and 90s, when housing developments became more profitable, but
the houseboats around the pier preserve a hint of the old connection with the
river.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeLjdTmMA0sad5D8KgAcMGrmZzM89uVEYFFrtLZlhnDkEM6cVWRgKHE4Lvi8ZGRkw33hkYBvcs-bAQyUISLxBg7eqHzu6uZVkNs6qQ0dVIAhnpHxUCSmZZUI3eLAYSMfI_YXOMQaUSfEA/s1600/IMG_8575.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeLjdTmMA0sad5D8KgAcMGrmZzM89uVEYFFrtLZlhnDkEM6cVWRgKHE4Lvi8ZGRkw33hkYBvcs-bAQyUISLxBg7eqHzu6uZVkNs6qQ0dVIAhnpHxUCSmZZUI3eLAYSMfI_YXOMQaUSfEA/s400/IMG_8575.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The birdsong here is noticeably richer than in the urban core. Green parakeets,
who have very effectively conquered large swathes of several cities worldwide,
have powerful strongholds in this corner of London.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb-2j03Jf4A0xgV-NybQ2R15jqeJRFPESvWWzQoUDVTLJjW_UFGg9tEWNKHQA1qlrJVUj_wVu_8blneVfX4lvakWJy-kpA2mgq_ZJ6tu1LgGqD-sPeEa2jpREAgGDD_ScS1fKeo1ooV_k/s1600/IMG_8570.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb-2j03Jf4A0xgV-NybQ2R15jqeJRFPESvWWzQoUDVTLJjW_UFGg9tEWNKHQA1qlrJVUj_wVu_8blneVfX4lvakWJy-kpA2mgq_ZJ6tu1LgGqD-sPeEa2jpREAgGDD_ScS1fKeo1ooV_k/s400/IMG_8570.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The rest of Barnes’s disused reservoirs are now the designated Leg O’Mutton
Nature Reserve. Look, I don’t come up with the names here.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Only
then, down the peninsula’s west flank, do you come to <b>Barnes</b> itself. The
village is old, at least twelfth-century, and was relatively remote and
agrarian till they opened Hammersmith Bridge, followed in the 1840s by a
railway link. Its farmers and gardeners could now more easily sell stuff across
the river, while London’s escape middle class found in it a fresh place of
refuge. Steadily suburbanised, they have nonetheless made efforts to preserve
the old village’s picturesque heart with its green and pond.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQO_LLbNnebXFhAaj-R6B4EjOyK3YbdYWPMtg4ABEfV1UzkSbxaC1_eOOkolSbXs7vXpkxcCVM2cZDIeV_y25YoQR4kBF5ck9CnJK55qrpQhos_nhQ5evU4H-Kkg5rcNcfhOw8I_VP7IA/s1600/IMG_8576.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQO_LLbNnebXFhAaj-R6B4EjOyK3YbdYWPMtg4ABEfV1UzkSbxaC1_eOOkolSbXs7vXpkxcCVM2cZDIeV_y25YoQR4kBF5ck9CnJK55qrpQhos_nhQ5evU4H-Kkg5rcNcfhOw8I_VP7IA/s400/IMG_8576.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The Barnes waterfront. The railway bridge is an 1890s replacement of the
original 1849 structure, and like most large buildings and bridges along here
has become a popular landmark in the Boat Race.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmTGgP5T0xdbfU0bKGPmSy40bW7NuTOO1AdgtJhTP2z_rHp9Z6DxPQP2_8LickY1rBOADMp5VTAs7WnMxgg6_of7SZqRvHAarAqxXXwQlsB4BUGTRfcs1G7SHTEPuyESsQU42DoS-EElM/s1600/IMG_8577.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmTGgP5T0xdbfU0bKGPmSy40bW7NuTOO1AdgtJhTP2z_rHp9Z6DxPQP2_8LickY1rBOADMp5VTAs7WnMxgg6_of7SZqRvHAarAqxXXwQlsB4BUGTRfcs1G7SHTEPuyESsQU42DoS-EElM/s400/IMG_8577.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>This key probably drains the river. Have they tried turning their country off
then on again?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhztHLTBGGAfzLNZ3tqbXwex6eRnbBchGh3y7mh-MBa0dkOH591JFzT0afR_DAltHC1bFrxKBlggs8IOQmYL_kLz59U6jN_z_aF6hdP0gD70mZ27b6KLe3GZo81HX0dXK85waxbKyIFXHg/s1600/IMG_8581.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhztHLTBGGAfzLNZ3tqbXwex6eRnbBchGh3y7mh-MBa0dkOH591JFzT0afR_DAltHC1bFrxKBlggs8IOQmYL_kLz59U6jN_z_aF6hdP0gD70mZ27b6KLe3GZo81HX0dXK85waxbKyIFXHg/s400/IMG_8581.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Barnes’s riverside street, called The Terrace, started sprouting elegant little
mansions in the eighteenth century when it was still relatively isolated.
Numerous notable cultural figures were drawn out here over the years. The blue
plaque identifies this as the house of composer Gustav Holst in the 1910s,
shortly before he wrote <i>The Planets</i>.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1baiPEHHbewJdHaEtjgnunjTPcxAKY3MnxbzXDnrCDfttOm-BAhkP5auSFVQijMjel3GiK4eOprX8gYnYJX14RYkAILx16hrXYdKtesCgxaXtYuEHHXsLH5hrOGPUvlaVfdZ6FJFDxHM/s1600/IMG_8582.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1baiPEHHbewJdHaEtjgnunjTPcxAKY3MnxbzXDnrCDfttOm-BAhkP5auSFVQijMjel3GiK4eOprX8gYnYJX14RYkAILx16hrXYdKtesCgxaXtYuEHHXsLH5hrOGPUvlaVfdZ6FJFDxHM/s400/IMG_8582.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A seventeenth-century pub at the edge of Barnes, with Mortlake visible in the
distance.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
centre of Barnes is still quite small, and its riverside soon blends into <b>Mortlake</b>.
This was the dominant manor in the area stretching south into what is now
Richmond, but the riverside village itself was limited to a single street,
while the rest – now a London commuter suburb – was predominantly rural. It
might have stayed a nondescript fishing settlement – its name implies a stream (<i>lacu</i>)
with salmon (<i>mort</i>) in it in Old English – had not King James I financed
the creation of a major tapestry works here in 1619, staffed mostly by skilled
Flemish weavers from what is now Belgium. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Most
of Mortlake’s development took it away from the river, where its main landmark
is another big brewery. Unlike Fuller’s in Chiswick, Mortlake’s Stag Brewery
changed hands several times and was finally closed down after 2010.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAbyn9BSlfEmEthwxMl6pFZbuNkUQD-XCoxcDigfr3Jt4B6KRzmaAa38ti6iQ5qUHw3Ay-21Zi70up6W2jpExgZAL0zSi-eJYbOVZOBJ4Y4HSIuW0_FNbI-AhDPB2qi2FuqOZkAIE0t5E/s1600/IMG_8583.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAbyn9BSlfEmEthwxMl6pFZbuNkUQD-XCoxcDigfr3Jt4B6KRzmaAa38ti6iQ5qUHw3Ay-21Zi70up6W2jpExgZAL0zSi-eJYbOVZOBJ4Y4HSIuW0_FNbI-AhDPB2qi2FuqOZkAIE0t5E/s400/IMG_8583.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The old heart of Mortlake. The concrete Chiswick Bridge was added in 1933 to link
it to the Chiswick peninsula as both settlements’ populations grew. The head of
the latter is now dominated by sports fields.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfq9T5bLdOFrbNqfPXGiknfdq_cHaaLIGpMICjFNRpTe12iD3qWNPnq8QSs-mKSpCfiGqwAeqZgHz6G0ZwfDfemk8aNvWzqV9O6pfLkS1_eD6GXb7yJbqYESEGgMjxTbZoljxX1rODK3s/s1600/IMG_8585.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfq9T5bLdOFrbNqfPXGiknfdq_cHaaLIGpMICjFNRpTe12iD3qWNPnq8QSs-mKSpCfiGqwAeqZgHz6G0ZwfDfemk8aNvWzqV9O6pfLkS1_eD6GXb7yJbqYESEGgMjxTbZoljxX1rODK3s/s400/IMG_8585.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This area has fewer embankments and river walls than downstream, making it far
more vulnerable to flooding. After heavy rains it is common to find these
waterfront paths completely submerged.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrFyFUEA8YidfQMU73yqtliAqGQgnF0fBV7LtBrpE7XvtKPoZ0oZdX9oCIIREs8lZPl4565KK6CzpKadoyTHdZFHkFLm1p6kYLHjkQNgnpy9YXtD-GfErqWcSnC5keV9-E1r89e7F9v8/s1600/IMG_8588.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrFyFUEA8YidfQMU73yqtliAqGQgnF0fBV7LtBrpE7XvtKPoZ0oZdX9oCIIREs8lZPl4565KK6CzpKadoyTHdZFHkFLm1p6kYLHjkQNgnpy9YXtD-GfErqWcSnC5keV9-E1r89e7F9v8/s400/IMG_8588.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The former Stag Brewery. Its final operator was the American brewing company
Anheuser-Busch which produced beer for its <i>Budweiser</i> brand here.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcsxwANJb3P_vftT7laZ-MbxTj2zO7jZajJ3ATl2V2QIjDKQufJM5k9558mt_ATnXs88Sbo5SrZSu2CgSUgYvOPON6pxKCJ-2bLhSBMZ5uQHsyVK6W3JSnYTCY4btg6kMuAt_KQx01UzQ/s1600/IMG_8589.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcsxwANJb3P_vftT7laZ-MbxTj2zO7jZajJ3ATl2V2QIjDKQufJM5k9558mt_ATnXs88Sbo5SrZSu2CgSUgYvOPON6pxKCJ-2bLhSBMZ5uQHsyVK6W3JSnYTCY4btg6kMuAt_KQx01UzQ/s400/IMG_8589.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The derelict brewery was sold in 2015 to a Singaporean development company and,
like so much else, is slated to be turned into apartments.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Mortlake
effectively ends at Chiswick Bridge, which also overlooks the finish line of
the University Boat Race. <i>The Ship</i> pub, which sits in the shadow of the
brewery and is hundreds of years old, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries
of that when once each year its premises and riverfront swell into a heaving
mass of triumphant inebriation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj4dGR6Qwj1GnmKuvXgeZszCDoGerZ-blOEwY9WoSWxLt8vCSRQXh7_AOWV1gJTpRbuhWmybP7hHW1JeOZcC66dpHK7yP16ET3C-0Ae5goNYQQ-1S1g5nYra6AXxzLxiBSJmwQ92lr6NM/s1600/IMG_8590.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj4dGR6Qwj1GnmKuvXgeZszCDoGerZ-blOEwY9WoSWxLt8vCSRQXh7_AOWV1gJTpRbuhWmybP7hHW1JeOZcC66dpHK7yP16ET3C-0Ae5goNYQQ-1S1g5nYra6AXxzLxiBSJmwQ92lr6NM/s400/IMG_8590.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b><i>The Ship</i>. The road in front is also heavily exposed in flood conditions,
and there are warning signs advising that parked cars can be washed away.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEP8SiRUKHRVmq5ZMiO33VwthVL_dDH8QevbEmRJDkFdU1ugVbmEe9T6IrwHBiFOL7KAJHNqNK0p3EZAeX9_THQ0x9M43DBjHxtqEQZhpFUN2sSw-wvWTokqREVb2r10P99L3N1uCZDIo/s1600/IMG_8591.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEP8SiRUKHRVmq5ZMiO33VwthVL_dDH8QevbEmRJDkFdU1ugVbmEe9T6IrwHBiFOL7KAJHNqNK0p3EZAeX9_THQ0x9M43DBjHxtqEQZhpFUN2sSw-wvWTokqREVb2r10P99L3N1uCZDIo/s400/IMG_8591.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Chiswick Bridge.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmamx8lnPEMppbaXfOsmN6nqsIvtq4lJV_Re3nD6uuFcR_6JpIl6P5IOC03V4EGqEfYC9q_Mf-oPMFpqiTsR4Nal1S9H_SEW1i_greCmDWmOHzmPAeDu0NC1SGeTT9RyM3u9hzab9mcng/s1600/IMG_8593.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmamx8lnPEMppbaXfOsmN6nqsIvtq4lJV_Re3nD6uuFcR_6JpIl6P5IOC03V4EGqEfYC9q_Mf-oPMFpqiTsR4Nal1S9H_SEW1i_greCmDWmOHzmPAeDu0NC1SGeTT9RyM3u9hzab9mcng/s400/IMG_8593.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Just short of the bridge is the finish line of the University Boat Race
(‘UBR’), marked on both sides of the river.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Kew Peninsula</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Here
the Thames turns south. In so doing it defined this corner of land for the
people who first named it <b>Kew</b>, or <i>Kayho</i> as it used to be: a <i>h</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ō</span>h</i>,
or spur of land, described for its <i>key</i> (quay) or <i>c</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">æ</span>g</i>
(key shape).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Kew emerged
much like its neighbouring districts out of the royal leisured interest in escaping
London by river, but then took a turn in completely its own direction as its
gardens sprouted exotic plants and drew in specialist botanical researchers. While
it charted a unique path of its own round the outside of the river bend, the east
side remained a little more isolated. The large Mortlake Cemetery appeared here
to catch Hammersmith’s overspill, as did a sewage treatment plant.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2fpb8JmGi8JKOzKheU1hibPwnqWBwqiFJ_At9n_55R6hVSlsyPiTb_i7eJ0fbzf2zpgOAv1FpUEMWSCm8FL7DcpNJpFGI4WK7x2tK8oP8mYWYQbOxzpw2mDrPQ3g2X-0msNyDK0jx0FQ/s1600/IMG_8597.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2fpb8JmGi8JKOzKheU1hibPwnqWBwqiFJ_At9n_55R6hVSlsyPiTb_i7eJ0fbzf2zpgOAv1FpUEMWSCm8FL7DcpNJpFGI4WK7x2tK8oP8mYWYQbOxzpw2mDrPQ3g2X-0msNyDK0jx0FQ/s400/IMG_8597.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The sewage farm was closed in the 2000s and has now been replaced by this Kew
Riverside housing development. It is directly accessible from the towpath and will
be in serious trouble once sea level rise and storm surges overwhelm the Thames
Barrier.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg26L7wUsRbj1MQEuq1nyRbAsoM0N2AsJ0gYNeejARpTZ0SwQBtNVTYSxWqaxoxUw9sllxRioxyruD6MTfqx7vSyfSFyu75birQd3cRp49uc7QVhSqAq6jOKgE3IPI5_rjK7AIdPrGW4P8/s1600/IMG_8598.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg26L7wUsRbj1MQEuq1nyRbAsoM0N2AsJ0gYNeejARpTZ0SwQBtNVTYSxWqaxoxUw9sllxRioxyruD6MTfqx7vSyfSFyu75birQd3cRp49uc7QVhSqAq6jOKgE3IPI5_rjK7AIdPrGW4P8/s400/IMG_8598.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Over the years I have had personal encounters with the Thames in several
places. Here I once shook hands with Death. We shall not discuss it.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Then,
in 1977, Kew’s eastern backyard was joined by a major public institution, the
most important of all as far as history is concerned. The <b>National Archives</b>,
formerly the Public Record Office, moved here when its old home on Chancery
Lane in the City began to run out of space. This is the official public archive
of England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own), and looks
after an enormous treasure trove of documents going back more than one thousand
years: government papers, legal records, maps and plans, statistics, correspondences,
wills and other materials, a great deal of which anyone can browse online and
make bookings to come view the originals.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Some
of England’s fabled national treasures are kept in this collection, including
the <u><a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/">Domesday Book</a></u>
and one of the four 1297 re-issues of the Magna Carta. But perhaps richer still
are its fragments from a millennium’s worth of lives lived up, down and across
English society, into which even a random sample can give startling and
remarkable insights. Indeed, a large number of people who come here are private
individuals investigating their own family histories.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyjt7qoTL6ylgUN0uZELmaRnedBESAXms4jrTKyiDI2XsAuQCOl6Qz74EIykJvH6pDTrn4zFwp7zCWAXZGfhhAFuHTOJHOYljFi1mkbK70ep3ORttJyVxBe4ZuN8U9NzUtUrF3lNFTE4E/s1600/IMG_8600.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyjt7qoTL6ylgUN0uZELmaRnedBESAXms4jrTKyiDI2XsAuQCOl6Qz74EIykJvH6pDTrn4zFwp7zCWAXZGfhhAFuHTOJHOYljFi1mkbK70ep3ORttJyVxBe4ZuN8U9NzUtUrF3lNFTE4E/s400/IMG_8600.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The National Archives complex, of which a better view is afforded from the
windows of the District Line between Gunnersbury and Kew Gardens stations. I
recall exploring its records before travelling to <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/p/travelling.html">Guyana</a></u> and
unearthing records from its departure from the British Empire in the 1960s,
including a letter to the British queen from an indigenous Guyanese concerned
about his country’s ethnic strife, which began: ‘Well Mrs. Elizabeth II…’. With
it was stored a reply from a Foreign Office mandarin telling him that as Guyana
was now independent, he should direct his concerns to its new president.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
A
more curious aspect of the National Archives site is that it has a little
nature reserve in its corner, claimed to house one of Britain’s only
communities of the extremely rare Two-Lipped Door Snail (<i>Alinda bilplicata</i>).
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimPwetgYFFCJAj3Rlv5Ge0KRyPhC7H_sfDVFoP-Jp4JL_3BTC7QRVZib3h8rg6NmSIAAUzVWJSu9GhLlUM3A97v1mtTVWEH4tRnVScGux5E0cFFW5rReHtdKnOAQb1MXO2UcxhIJW69aU/s1600/IMG_8601.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimPwetgYFFCJAj3Rlv5Ge0KRyPhC7H_sfDVFoP-Jp4JL_3BTC7QRVZib3h8rg6NmSIAAUzVWJSu9GhLlUM3A97v1mtTVWEH4tRnVScGux5E0cFFW5rReHtdKnOAQb1MXO2UcxhIJW69aU/s400/IMG_8601.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Kew Railway Bridge gets the Richmond branch of the District Line and the London
Overground across the river. This bridge is the 1869 wrought-iron original.
Along its east riverbank, considered the outskirts of Chiswick, is an
attractive stretch of eighteenth-century pubs and small houses known as
Strand-on-the-Green.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj99CK0rQ_deyO8lNR3_BhYEGhb5yveJjMI54woB2DsgT6hL5RJVr8qQ9IKwwp9TJ9jEwsIo8jzWiGawgv3STF5wRNwNyasDz9Z-zw9zwga6nmnt3IyerJ6cxSsN4xdRT_ZfFDXtu5SF68/s1600/IMG_8604.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj99CK0rQ_deyO8lNR3_BhYEGhb5yveJjMI54woB2DsgT6hL5RJVr8qQ9IKwwp9TJ9jEwsIo8jzWiGawgv3STF5wRNwNyasDz9Z-zw9zwga6nmnt3IyerJ6cxSsN4xdRT_ZfFDXtu5SF68/s400/IMG_8604.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Another small island, Oliver’s Ait, is named after Oliver Cromwell because of a
story that he took refuge on it during the civil war, though there is no
evidence to support this. It has featured a City toll booth for river vehicles,
boat repair works, and a Port of London Authority (PLA) storage depot, but now
has no structures and is managed by the PLA to support wildlife.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOtwzcLR7IA__U2gAcE3zEZjjlq9MIUmOiqQ2IBbZbejZ9Cvn5OpYYtEh9MFBXnEWZBrr1KGJTEY5kdnQ0bhWACvkft8rVVG5_Nol0dRlZ6EIWYiBizVq7xS2tzqil_E7N_MAUYrzauic/s1600/IMG_8606.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOtwzcLR7IA__U2gAcE3zEZjjlq9MIUmOiqQ2IBbZbejZ9Cvn5OpYYtEh9MFBXnEWZBrr1KGJTEY5kdnQ0bhWACvkft8rVVG5_Nol0dRlZ6EIWYiBizVq7xS2tzqil_E7N_MAUYrzauic/s400/IMG_8606.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Around the riverbend the gentrifiers of Brentford raise their cladded banners.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b>Brentford</b>,
Kew’s counterpart across the river, is distinct. It sits on the Great West Road
and crosses another tributary, the <b>Brent</b>, right where it spills into the
Thames (hence <i>Brent-ford</i>). This is a very old river, with both its name
– of deep Celtic origins – and the settlement at its bottom well pre-dating
Roman London. Heavily worked in industrial times, it expanded in human
importance many times over when they connected it to the Grand Junction Canal –
now the <b>Grand Union Canal</b> – in the 1790s, thus making Brentford the link
between London and the national canal network which served as the bloodstream
of this country’s industrial revolution.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
With
so many people and goods moving through its strategic situation, Brentford
emerged as a bristling commercial and industrial centre. For a long time it was
in effect the provincial capital of largely agricultural Middlesex, a barnacle
of hard work and seedy political fisticuffs on a reef of indolent country
mansions. Its factories, workshops and wharves coexisted with market gardens
and prosperous professional neighbourhoods in a flux reminiscent of <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-1-tides-of-time.html">the
Thames below London</a></u> in microcosm, and despite the collapse of English
industry this continues today. Now it is the unaffordable-housing regeneration
squads who descend on Brentford, along with numerous large corporate
headquarters taking advantage of its position at the head of the latest corridor
to the west, the M4 motorway; their employees, in suits and ties, walking to work
through derelict warehouses and haunted boatyards.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihIbmSwoTdFzTm_ItlF_H9uQ0-w_eHzwHMtTRXGC45c5Y4l6TyTgYC-PYKPiBsLpEDrXaXHYh7D2tg0wu-7NKk-htKQNcRq825f_1k5iBTtg2lfYXEEUKt2QBJEtU_Ogcz6hx2fGG1x0E/s1600/IMG_8608.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihIbmSwoTdFzTm_ItlF_H9uQ0-w_eHzwHMtTRXGC45c5Y4l6TyTgYC-PYKPiBsLpEDrXaXHYh7D2tg0wu-7NKk-htKQNcRq825f_1k5iBTtg2lfYXEEUKt2QBJEtU_Ogcz6hx2fGG1x0E/s400/IMG_8608.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Because both Kew and Brentford were significant, a bridge has joined them as
far back as 1759. The present granite Kew Bridge is the third, opened in 1903.
Notably all three were opened by either the contemporary king or his heir, perhaps
reflecting how attached they were to their Kew paradise.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiODQZdKOI6TEGskjJSMRCYtjduePD7L38Nmyo6OMLbno7SAlwWcEp8AIXJTvUEj79sau8ai_GqzeRw5qCXsFtLzYJLrVCtqauTTuNmmFpoN2kwo4oVVWlaKH4hmQxzIWYxFmPW8i07l10/s1600/IMG_8609.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiODQZdKOI6TEGskjJSMRCYtjduePD7L38Nmyo6OMLbno7SAlwWcEp8AIXJTvUEj79sau8ai_GqzeRw5qCXsFtLzYJLrVCtqauTTuNmmFpoN2kwo4oVVWlaKH4hmQxzIWYxFmPW8i07l10/s400/IMG_8609.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Brentford’s formerly wharf-lined riverfront has been a glistening prize for the
gentrification brigade. Much of the town is a massive construction site at
present, the centrepiece being a new stadium for Brentford Football Club which
currently plays at Championship level. The brick tower is one of Brentford’s
icons and belongs to the old Kew Bridge Pumping Station, now the London Museum
of Water and Steam.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Brentford
has its own <i>ait</i>, a great long one which shields much of the town from
view. Apparently this was deliberate: it was planted with tall, thick trees in
the 1920s so visitors to <b>Kew Gardens</b>, by then open to the public,
wouldn’t have to see Brentford’s gasworks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNEhIv7EmqM3ft96czKZDG-MpCt6_FkyfhbTPP00yZdmz5Kd54U56JxtwGWQkVjhQTtsBHr6fLvfpSN2RrgzDp921dS3hD-oklfXOff-mbeeb7DZFu_T_F-HDWhag0xIpS1h_Mf5gc5b8/s1600/IMG_8612.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNEhIv7EmqM3ft96czKZDG-MpCt6_FkyfhbTPP00yZdmz5Kd54U56JxtwGWQkVjhQTtsBHr6fLvfpSN2RrgzDp921dS3hD-oklfXOff-mbeeb7DZFu_T_F-HDWhag0xIpS1h_Mf5gc5b8/s400/IMG_8612.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Brentford Ait.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgjO5o8vtXLz2psNYniZXZoTNCPguvvfFsk_QkMqAJFNtXBSmZxXD_UBZVWNPgXUMh6mJI7DNdUiHT3RNUdeuZZYupPURmdD47_tMoiLlGoslYBzhEOwptYajA873sg-dnS4TDoBky_W8/s1600/IMG_8615.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgjO5o8vtXLz2psNYniZXZoTNCPguvvfFsk_QkMqAJFNtXBSmZxXD_UBZVWNPgXUMh6mJI7DNdUiHT3RNUdeuZZYupPURmdD47_tMoiLlGoslYBzhEOwptYajA873sg-dnS4TDoBky_W8/s400/IMG_8615.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The river Brent comes in from the west, having passed through Brentford’s locks
where goods coming down the canal were weighed and charged tolls. Brentford was
also the site of a small but extremely significant battle in 1642, early in the
<u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">civil
wars</a></u>. On their way in to take back London the Royalists overcame a small Parliamentary
force defending the ford town, but robbed and abused the citizenry such that a
huge throng of angry Londoners then came out to confront them alongside the
Parliamentary army up the road at Turnham Green. Taking London might have ended
the war when it had barely begun, but unprepared to risk a monumental bloodbath
the king’s forces fell back upriver, ultimately spreading the war across the
country.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
<b>Royal Botanic Gardens </b>are what really made Kew’s name, and in their field that
name is internationally celebrated. With a collection of some 8.5 million
varieties of plants and fungi it is one of the largest and longest-established
botanical gardens in the world. It is a leader not only in the aesthetics of
the English gardening tradition – attractive landscapes, spectacular greenhouses,
colourful flowers and so on – but also in its scientific work of collecting,
studying and conserving a planet’s worth of flora. Its massive banks of seeds,
tissues and DNA from countless plant species ought to be useful one day if, as
presently seems likely, humankind persists in its intent to wipe out as much
life on Earth as possible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
That
such an installation took root here, in this corner of the Thames, seems an
interesting accident of history. Kew marks the start of a long and continuous
stretch of pleasant riverbank which, because of that pleasantness, was
monopolised by successive English royal dynasties. Their interest in Kew goes
back at least seven hundred years, intensifying as it was drawn into the orbit
of Tudor Richmond in the sixteenth century and soon sprouting a <b>Kew Palace</b>
complex of its own. Its occupants were hardly atypical for their class in their
enjoyment of green and pleasant landscapes with not a pauper or political
dissident in sight, but it so happened that some of them, in particular
Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (of the Hanoverian dynasty – these
were Germans), had a more eccentric flavour of gardening interests and in the
1760s had the gardens filled with exotic plants and fantastic structures like a
towering Chinese-style pagoda.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKHT2ObMZyt_FXTRzZfm7wM41GjqYBIrDu0dvyAxYrCEoD_X54Ny9mdlamDBRyWUmWrzrYSgtDHxaAIDZb89vi7fj3nBoUrUr6pOcY8e_p4YO7NTuOpbJvzszkj0LQ4OCJi7JtUbm5FV0/s1600/IMG_2057.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKHT2ObMZyt_FXTRzZfm7wM41GjqYBIrDu0dvyAxYrCEoD_X54Ny9mdlamDBRyWUmWrzrYSgtDHxaAIDZb89vi7fj3nBoUrUr6pOcY8e_p4YO7NTuOpbJvzszkj0LQ4OCJi7JtUbm5FV0/s400/IMG_2057.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This is the ‘Dutch House’, the only surviving part of Kew Palace. Kew
Gardens is not accessible from the riverbank and must be entered through its
own sets of gates, so this and the following pictures are from separate visits.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
in turn drew the attentions of professional botanists, all of them children of
the confluence of the currents of science, industry and empire that now began
to propel the English to a new level of power in the world. These were serious researchers
who passionately devoted themselves to collecting as many specimens as possible
and studying them to smithereens so that an empirical understanding could be
built of plants’ relationships, ancestries, medicinal uses and economic
applications, whether for the fun of it or to better serve the higher mission
be it divine, Enlightened, Imperial or all of the above. Initially they worked
with the blessing of the royal landowners, but by 1840 had turned these gardens
into a research centre of such unique and potent national significance as to
press them out of the crown’s hands and into government ownership, opening them
up to the public that same year.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0SsCvNjSe5ucRP3-yvN2hbHB074MdeAmdCmkNzXlcXIBRmgOsvN-YYwPtRwuKSDkA3aIsB9g4MUAITY4UnUcqV05-YwDy9GmCaq5AiLmbhaXpV4xBX1-Ssz35N6-_rMS7hUs6Kz_O58A/s1600/IMG_1723.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0SsCvNjSe5ucRP3-yvN2hbHB074MdeAmdCmkNzXlcXIBRmgOsvN-YYwPtRwuKSDkA3aIsB9g4MUAITY4UnUcqV05-YwDy9GmCaq5AiLmbhaXpV4xBX1-Ssz35N6-_rMS7hUs6Kz_O58A/s400/IMG_1723.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Kew’s 1762 Pagoda, which has just come out of a twelve-year
refurbishment. The original dragons on the eaves rotted away in the rain within
a few years and have now been restored after a two-century absence. This time
they are supposed to be more weather-resistant because they came out of a 3-D
printer.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijhc50sFgn-BuSvj1g4eEWYiTyyf0cghHovpNMXBmB9jkqPQ6iBzJbxWhJ5gmFSOThfX3NYMs5GxczH1I94e6LimwuFmMu_tV-RUmRWj-HXU-47Ot4Lu823kQ1gWb8vTgs7mz8PAPRhKc/s1600/IMG_1725.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijhc50sFgn-BuSvj1g4eEWYiTyyf0cghHovpNMXBmB9jkqPQ6iBzJbxWhJ5gmFSOThfX3NYMs5GxczH1I94e6LimwuFmMu_tV-RUmRWj-HXU-47Ot4Lu823kQ1gWb8vTgs7mz8PAPRhKc/s400/IMG_1725.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The Palm House, built in the 1840s. Kew’s grandest greenhouse maintains
permanent tropical conditions to look after a towering assembly of rainforest
plants.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCh3e7N2ewPy_HwPdEd5_S9hCMn2jvMU6Xba56gY5a6QnAIXwCNA3STCQE4fouI7MaHqxxBKOid0mZJfymKPigAKKzd_qG4AaEEdSJgtDVRbRF0mMunhu4Rf_klVuGCbKFOxcCGkDopak/s1600/IMG_8616.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCh3e7N2ewPy_HwPdEd5_S9hCMn2jvMU6Xba56gY5a6QnAIXwCNA3STCQE4fouI7MaHqxxBKOid0mZJfymKPigAKKzd_qG4AaEEdSJgtDVRbRF0mMunhu4Rf_klVuGCbKFOxcCGkDopak/s400/IMG_8616.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The gardens have a large artificial lake that brings in diverse waterfowl, many
of whose species are uncommon and – speaking from personal experience – beakily
opinionated. They don’t observe humans’ boundaries, so fellows like this on the
towpath are frequent encounters in Kew Gardens’ wider neighbourhood.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
This
too fits a pattern in these parts: of estates once closed off for the
enjoyment of the English ruling class, eventually relinquished, with varying
degrees of struggle, so that ordinary people can now enjoy it too. But facing
Kew across the river is an opposite case: of land seized <i>by</i> the entitled
classes and kept ever since. Granted, most of <b>Syon House</b>, and its
grounds of <b>Syon Park</b>, are also open to the public despite being the
London residence of the Percy family, known in the nomenclature of English
nobility as the Dukes of Northumberland. It even has a garden centre, of all
things, and a café. But in that café’s outdoor seating area can be found an old
stone barn. It does not fit in the picture because it is the last remnant of
what stood there before the house appeared, at around the same time as Kew’s committedly
botanical turn, and the secrets it harbours are dark and bloody indeed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH9Og6eX7AbnUic2-YyoQMUuRTxxokRj9DYxrk4-1E2irTiL1CPHTOIABIJI2jiXuSa3aeVAcvt-sEMttlVN8CZpJGxpJH9Y8TrhgGC9DHXtOuVI5CUAEWAExEvM02ifLMjfQhiMlVT-o/s1600/IMG_8618.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH9Og6eX7AbnUic2-YyoQMUuRTxxokRj9DYxrk4-1E2irTiL1CPHTOIABIJI2jiXuSa3aeVAcvt-sEMttlVN8CZpJGxpJH9Y8TrhgGC9DHXtOuVI5CUAEWAExEvM02ifLMjfQhiMlVT-o/s400/IMG_8618.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Syon House, with the lion of the Percy family crest on top.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Before
Syon House there was <b>Syon Abbey</b>. This was one of the later of England’s
old Christian monasteries, arriving here in the 1430s with a community of
mostly nuns, along with a few male priests, who were followers of Saint Bridget
of Sweden (the name <i>Syon</i> is from Mount Zion outside Jerusalem). In
contrast to monastic stereotypes, this was a resolutely strong-womaned order known
for the leadership of its female members as well as its promotion of
independent thought and critical engagement in the political and worldly
affairs of the time. The abbey they founded here was said to have grown into a
thriving hub of cultural exchange, economic activity and cutting-edge
scholarship, run by literate people from world-curious and often well-travelled
backgrounds, and frequented not only by pilgrims but by the leading political
and intellectual heavyweights of the day such as Katherine of Aragon and
the great Dutch humanist Erasmus.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Until,
that is, King Henry VIII <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">brought
his sledgehammer down upon it</a></u> in the 1530s. Like many religious
institutions in this country, the nuns and priests of Syon Abbey were willing
to make compromises but could not in good conscience accept the king’s demand,
by law, that they accept him, not the Pope, as the supreme religious authority
in England. After they insisted as much to Henry’s enforcer Thomas Cromwell and
his heavies, the authorities decided to make an example of them by dragging
away one of their top priests, the Cambridge-educated humanist scholar Richard
Reynolds, so they could publicly cut off his parts and burn them in front of
him – penis, then guts, then head – along with dissident priests from other
monasteries. They then returned one of his limbs to Syon Abbey, dangling it
above the front gate in an attempt to terrorise its nuns into submission.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Instead
the nuns demonstrated the correct response to authoritarian violence by
redoubling their resistance. Cromwell and his inspectors bombarded them with
threats and enticements for years on end, but none of it so much as made a dent
in their iron wall of integrity. Only when Henry escalated his assault into the
total subjugation of the English monasteries and seizure of their property did
Syon Abbey fall – and even then the sisters refused to surrender, but rather
packed up and left the country, carrying with them both the keys to the abbey
and the bit of pillar where a hanging chunk of one of their own had failed to
intimidate them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
For
them there followed an epic exile of three hundred years through an unhinged
and warmongering Europe: from the Netherlands, to France, to Portugal, through
riots, religious warfare, pirates, hunger, disease, the monstrous Lisbon
earthquake of 1755 and hostile political and social forces, even from their own
Catholic authorities in Rome who tried and failed to impose the authority of
male bishops on them. In spite of all these trials it is said they managed to
maintain their serene monastic equanimity, entertaining curious locals and
travellers and baking cakes for them regardless of their religious persuasions.
At long last they made it back to England in the 1860s, still holding the
pillar fragment that had dangled Reynolds’s body part, as this country’s
anti-Catholic hatreds were at last simmering down. They settled in Devon, the
only English monastic community to survive Henry VIII’s purge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
As
for their old Abbey buildings here, the royals kept them for a time as a useful
waypoint on the way upriver to centres like Hampton Court and Windsor Castle. They
then passed through a series of entitled hands before ending up with the Dukes
of Northumberland, who had them rebuilt and landscaped into the mansion they
are today. But the Abbey’s <i>genius loci</i> got one last symbolic revenge on
Henry VIII before following its community out on the tides. As he took over the
church, the king had been confronted by a priest who warned he was like the
arrogant and corrupt Bible character Ahab, who ended up with his blood licked
by dogs. Sure enough, after Henry died in 1547, his morbidly obese and
gout-stricken corpse spent a night here at Syon on its way to Windsor Castle.
Bloated, putrefying and having spent a day rattling on the roads, it is said
that it exploded out of its coffin, and when the repair crews came in the next
morning they found some local dogs lapping away at his blood.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Gfu72euogQVNOe216Fn_Q_En8XkTveveWBs73ep_2IsLMDxOPOLszPCPw7bW5Pdph6FWB5V3QEgNadPAnAMY6cyhB23FgLhfxCPoCnnxa3Cu9_W3OuVtuEfS_YcdOZo-wZJDUJA_6zI/s1600/IMG_8620.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Gfu72euogQVNOe216Fn_Q_En8XkTveveWBs73ep_2IsLMDxOPOLszPCPw7bW5Pdph6FWB5V3QEgNadPAnAMY6cyhB23FgLhfxCPoCnnxa3Cu9_W3OuVtuEfS_YcdOZo-wZJDUJA_6zI/s400/IMG_8620.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Lick, lick, lick. Woof.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Richmond</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Further
inside the riverbend stands a hill. From some angles it might even look like a
strong hill, or for Norman French speakers like the medieval English, a <i>riche
mont</i>. It was Henry VIII’s dad, the Tudor dynasty founder Henry VII, who
gave it this name when it brought to mind the Richmond in his Yorkshire earldom
(although his family was originally from Wales). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrincYxJeD7kKjaLs5Em08v-lGY93Oo7q2Gt8d0FIrZSPgdY2CAdqHoRsE-D52DywCSom9IgeqA2OFOFGJOajmUHBX6rBUi5_xXqfXpysKQzrgtu5M9wqZlRQNarLYjIcxYP_oPQ4hQm4/s1600/IMG_8621.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrincYxJeD7kKjaLs5Em08v-lGY93Oo7q2Gt8d0FIrZSPgdY2CAdqHoRsE-D52DywCSom9IgeqA2OFOFGJOajmUHBX6rBUi5_xXqfXpysKQzrgtu5M9wqZlRQNarLYjIcxYP_oPQ4hQm4/s400/IMG_8621.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>From Kew Gardens to Richmond most of the riverside looks like this.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Previously
the land from here to Mortlake was called <b>Sheen</b>, pragmatically meaning <i>sheds</i>
or <i>shelters</i> (compare <i>Barnes</i>). The transformation of the west part
into Richmond is why you still find East Sheen on maps, but no West Sheen (or
indeed North Sheen, now absorbed into Kew). The centrepiece of that
transformation was Richmond Palace, which no longer exists. Its grounds
stretched up to Kew and included the fields between, now known as <b>Old Deer
Park</b> since their use in the Stuart period as a deer-hunting park.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7txRZXFYZnnYrt01qevt8OqTrAQ_K61Y7B92MyccbbyadCh5R5o-GACSVf2ahXvo3mbPolAn8Dqnw8ifAMEqmKeSKCGQQZdzDrYO4LFWqq0lzgSMkX4Wo03OC_G21mUM9yjZLxkdSVvA/s1600/IMG_8623.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7txRZXFYZnnYrt01qevt8OqTrAQ_K61Y7B92MyccbbyadCh5R5o-GACSVf2ahXvo3mbPolAn8Dqnw8ifAMEqmKeSKCGQQZdzDrYO4LFWqq0lzgSMkX4Wo03OC_G21mUM9yjZLxkdSVvA/s400/IMG_8623.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>A great swathe of Old Deer Park, seen here through the trees, has been turned
into the Royal Mid-Surrey Golf Club. There is also a rugby field.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf9TV-qJOkCAM9KfYBGjK9H0XPu7CPFLMUPr3-78yBP5gNMoYoKP0hA3s_E2HVX-N23je6YwuG1DDiIo5T819dJptrR0SbIAtglbGvVnZHMdO-M8KXWxSjN4_UZI4Kaw1WYarVN65Mpqk/s1600/IMG_8624.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf9TV-qJOkCAM9KfYBGjK9H0XPu7CPFLMUPr3-78yBP5gNMoYoKP0hA3s_E2HVX-N23je6YwuG1DDiIo5T819dJptrR0SbIAtglbGvVnZHMdO-M8KXWxSjN4_UZI4Kaw1WYarVN65Mpqk/s400/IMG_8624.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This marker invites you to imagine a straight line running through its slit, via
the obelisk, to the faintly visible observatory in the background. The
observatory was installed by King George III of the Hanover dynasty (of losing the
American colonies and <i>The Madness of King George</i> fame), and together
with the obelisks marked a meridian used for setting time before the
introduction of <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-1-tides-of-time.html">Greenwich
Mean Time</a></u>.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb0UHKcQ-CUdUDXOhuS5A79PKav8SDN-6NMm3RZuyxGRzyJsyfqzL0QgQEvxyMNHDZuKoaGQApDsim5VcIYXnEqhBfBGAhYEzZ95dM2SRjTa-8Lr8Sp70lNuEoGJHHJbIYKyLX43JadC8/s1600/IMG_8626.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb0UHKcQ-CUdUDXOhuS5A79PKav8SDN-6NMm3RZuyxGRzyJsyfqzL0QgQEvxyMNHDZuKoaGQApDsim5VcIYXnEqhBfBGAhYEzZ95dM2SRjTa-8Lr8Sp70lNuEoGJHHJbIYKyLX43JadC8/s400/IMG_8626.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Look, they did a science.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Any
of the monarch’s extended family enjoying Old Deer Park might have had a view
across the river to <b>Isleworth</b>. This ancient hamlet rose to prosperity in
the orbit first of Syon Abbey then the Duke of Northumberland’s Syon House, though
even before those its own little port is said to have received trade vessels
from as far as France and Scandinavia. The settlement pre-dates England, being
named for the enclosure (<i>worth</i>) of someone called G<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ī</span>slhere,
who lost the G at some point but still bequeaths an <i>s</i> they do pronounce
in this case. Any tongues yet undefeated can then try the Anglo-Saxon charter
of 677, where it appeared as <i>Gislheresuuyrth</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihPX_w6cRkmx5-AHHsBZOHQjaR6Rq0wWs5g9yRw754Pco9Ycy9m8Cgpdf4ri7rdxz2W22yxhc8ZClDN72XsOee68GayzOGIX6RfEa1kQI1gFtSP9P-6HXs9w16jR-3_i3eb9L1QgRIYcM/s1600/IMG_8628.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihPX_w6cRkmx5-AHHsBZOHQjaR6Rq0wWs5g9yRw754Pco9Ycy9m8Cgpdf4ri7rdxz2W22yxhc8ZClDN72XsOee68GayzOGIX6RfEa1kQI1gFtSP9P-6HXs9w16jR-3_i3eb9L1QgRIYcM/s400/IMG_8628.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>When the railways arrived in the 1840s, the rich nobles migrated further out
and Isleworth became more commercial, with bountiful market gardens supplying
the capital city. These receded as the urban professional classes took over,
and lots of Isleworth’s characterful old neighbourhoods have now been devoured
by the gentrification brigade. The riverside church is an architectural jigsaw
puzzle whose tower, one of its oldest pieces, is about seven hundred years old.
Just visible at left is Isleworth Ait, which despite being a nature reserve has
swallowed much of the discharge from the Mogden Sewage Treatment Works whose
arrival in the 1930s ruined south Isleworth.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbXxFvqFMOEjSn-f1j31osyyMJhRkANLeg9zrXwaSRj46s8ULsflAVgqfhePR4QZqJShIOHauje6s_KJor0wAJH7DV9mDoCJURJGcb-M8sIQAg7DOsMdSKf7_woHttY1cvxp_4Vb_O9_E/s1600/IMG_8629.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbXxFvqFMOEjSn-f1j31osyyMJhRkANLeg9zrXwaSRj46s8ULsflAVgqfhePR4QZqJShIOHauje6s_KJor0wAJH7DV9mDoCJURJGcb-M8sIQAg7DOsMdSKf7_woHttY1cvxp_4Vb_O9_E/s400/IMG_8629.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Isleworth’s <i>The London Apprentice</i> pub, on record in 1731, overlooks the
position where the Richmond Palace ferry used to run. Its name establishes the
reach of the <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">City
of London livery companies</a></u> all the way out here, whose apprentices would
apparently row up to celebrate at this pub on their qualification as
journeymen. It appears Father Christmas has got stranded on its balcony.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3QTwhNRLsZ53rqTbOzxwcsXn5hZEJE99SbOvRXr10RX5ZfoebKYPJuIGqiQPYogbwUaFKOj1ZO_OwZxK0ht95OCO1_yI63GPi5QZRSaTUd0cPE01uaPSsQjlA3frWlxbNc0z9Zr9Nlv4/s1600/IMG_8627.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3QTwhNRLsZ53rqTbOzxwcsXn5hZEJE99SbOvRXr10RX5ZfoebKYPJuIGqiQPYogbwUaFKOj1ZO_OwZxK0ht95OCO1_yI63GPi5QZRSaTUd0cPE01uaPSsQjlA3frWlxbNc0z9Zr9Nlv4/s400/IMG_8627.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A former boathouse, transformed in the Hanoverian period into this pretty pink
pavilion.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
approach to Richmond crosses another threshold: the first lock on the Thames
itself. <b>Richmond Lock</b> is the only Thames lock controlled by the Port of
London Authority (PLA), and combines the functions of a lock, a weir and a
footbridge: that is, it lets ships pass between different water levels, causes
that difference in the first place, and allows pedestrians to cross the river. It
was built in the 1890s because the demolition of the old London Bridge with its
stacks of houses removed what had effectively been a dam, causing the tides to
fluctuate much more intensely. Added to the effects of the Teddington weir upstream,
this left the river past Richmond a muddy trickle at low tide. Richmond Lock
addresses that by maintaining a navigable water level above it when the tide
goes out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8vZGsygRGWFkG_tA4PQW2MQCadLLcrUWvMKUjJHwaC_x2dDq4BCQAWEejodK_aHCAVN5mAgSWe4BFLvFk-gUYMUGJlzcsL5KmLFoVhI_xhV_bel1d62WI0t8-to913JCgO88oKHcVElM/s1600/IMG_8635.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8vZGsygRGWFkG_tA4PQW2MQCadLLcrUWvMKUjJHwaC_x2dDq4BCQAWEejodK_aHCAVN5mAgSWe4BFLvFk-gUYMUGJlzcsL5KmLFoVhI_xhV_bel1d62WI0t8-to913JCgO88oKHcVElM/s400/IMG_8635.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Richmond Lock. I have memories of this striking structure from a few short
years in earliest childhood spent near here. But we will not discuss this.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Richmond
Lock signals a changing phase in the river’s course. We are now high enough
above its mouth that the human inhabitants felt confident enough to dare make
large, planned interventions into its rhythm, at least until they found the
technology to build the Thames Barrier in its throat many years later. The tide
still reaches up the river beyond here, but it is mitigated now, and soon
concedes the rest of it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfMh3kW5lWVzO67dlAWNgxqS_5tHeBpdohLc-fCzwxzp5STyARbyxNbFeKrI8GZp30VBoNThmz-zPFy_TiNnnPkmO00p2B5b0jlV1cuudadhIz3nHGaK9_M0GMdrNBeLpa6CbFzLyyW8U/s1600/IMG_8637.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfMh3kW5lWVzO67dlAWNgxqS_5tHeBpdohLc-fCzwxzp5STyARbyxNbFeKrI8GZp30VBoNThmz-zPFy_TiNnnPkmO00p2B5b0jlV1cuudadhIz3nHGaK9_M0GMdrNBeLpa6CbFzLyyW8U/s400/IMG_8637.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Twickenham Bridge. Until this was built in 1933 there was no road crossing between
Richmond and Kew (though pedestrians got Richmond Lock in the 1890s). The
railway bridge behind it is from 1908, but replaced an older bridge carrying
trains further up the Thames valley since 1848.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxuWkHDrl1gqMjx7_bKtj-v1YEl3wEcnVFNsUgUFuv23OqGNl-j9usYSbsVm-kffRVOCC_rowS3AlMs6dpku0-j2bvgjPKpRaoIw-jcv3VsKNLd2oyRykfiJqvzWWuvnzq0cM-bCzOJrs/s1600/IMG_8639.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxuWkHDrl1gqMjx7_bKtj-v1YEl3wEcnVFNsUgUFuv23OqGNl-j9usYSbsVm-kffRVOCC_rowS3AlMs6dpku0-j2bvgjPKpRaoIw-jcv3VsKNLd2oyRykfiJqvzWWuvnzq0cM-bCzOJrs/s400/IMG_8639.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Beyond the bridge, Richmond materialises round the corner.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
was here that Henry VII of the Tudors built his <b>Richmond Palace</b> and in
so doing birthed what would later grow into a relatively prosperous London
suburb at the end of the District Line. Though the palace has vanished without
a trace it was a serious piece of work, and its founder, remembered as a more
shrewd and sober character than his son, sank considerable resources into
developing it. In a way it is surprising there is next to nothing left to mark
its existence, given that the creator of English modernity’s foundational
dynasty both built and died in it, as did that dynasty’s consummator, his
granddaughter Elizabeth, whose passing here in 1603, after much enjoyment of
this palace and hunting in Old Deer Park, brought that dynasty to an end (Henry
VIII for his part disliked the palace and largely ignored it). On top of that, it
was not long after building the palace that Henry VII watched his own daughter
get married to the king of Scotland here, an event which meant that a century
later it was the Scottish monarchs, the Stuarts, who would travel down to
inherit Elizabeth’s crown. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMQgMInyWYqaW8uMnZjnI1fUDD2KbISdHqcfPXKNSO7BFISZjIxixVJgiaGtjS2NWVPrG_p5bqu3oPFRSruklcHi_U2aXRg25K3nKAcy0au5-3RKFOhth2uuYV48mUn2vGkuh4WpVa3Iw/s1600/IMG_8643.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMQgMInyWYqaW8uMnZjnI1fUDD2KbISdHqcfPXKNSO7BFISZjIxixVJgiaGtjS2NWVPrG_p5bqu3oPFRSruklcHi_U2aXRg25K3nKAcy0au5-3RKFOhth2uuYV48mUn2vGkuh4WpVa3Iw/s400/IMG_8643.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The site of Richmond Palace was roughly here. That’s not a lot to go on, but <u><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtCy_P5uM7I">Time Team did an excavation
here in 1997</a></u> if you’d like to know more.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlFhGRVZ_CYnp9ZYUytg_JM_68KmgPY6FocG3S2OSySmqdBwLEMPohufnaAPo9AodxAHZNnICtz5v2UH53Qbd67VqwDvrCenApCtny5reMpal81iSyWsTI54szp4tRw5B7D_ZhYkhIqkY/s1600/IMG_8644.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlFhGRVZ_CYnp9ZYUytg_JM_68KmgPY6FocG3S2OSySmqdBwLEMPohufnaAPo9AodxAHZNnICtz5v2UH53Qbd67VqwDvrCenApCtny5reMpal81iSyWsTI54szp4tRw5B7D_ZhYkhIqkY/s400/IMG_8644.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The palace met its end in the civil wars, when <u><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/2019/11/thames-2-great-english-power-struggle.html">after
killing the king</a></u>, Parliament confiscated and sold it off as it did many
royal holdings. It was demolished for building materials soon after. But the
supporting town endured, and became fashionable as the Hanoverian nobility’s
mansions and lodges sprouted round Richmond’s hill and park over the following
century. Richmond remains a pocket of relative wealth with many surviving
houses and civic buildings from that period.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
stretch beyond the palace site is now Richmond’s main waterfront. By here it is
clear we have crossed to a different world from London. Gone are the pirates,
gibbets, fortress docks, industrial effluents and towers of doom whose shouts and
shadows shroud the metropolitan Thames. Instead, the monied castes who ran all
that, rather than living in it themselves, found in Richmond the perfect
template for an alternative vision just for them: the Thames romance of an <i>Arcadian</i>
world, a green and pleasant land right out the gates of their mansions with idyllic woods and meadows and drooping willow trees. The river was there not
for work – that was something people who did not exist did far away – but for staring
at dreamily or pleasure-boating on in skiffs and wherries, especially once the
canal link to Brentford meant the working barges no longer had to inflict
themselves on the picture.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjncSOzALcEGrkayd_gMoOaopCrzKm2iGoOsgpyAKr5559svM2pzDOtXA5kXWtto33fLhFaGGvZxQTsuDxo0leKps637uyrWrkFynx45cuBgi4IQh58h2qv9bAghcXbTC0kKqz5krEn8A/s1600/IMG_8645.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjncSOzALcEGrkayd_gMoOaopCrzKm2iGoOsgpyAKr5559svM2pzDOtXA5kXWtto33fLhFaGGvZxQTsuDxo0leKps637uyrWrkFynx45cuBgi4IQh58h2qv9bAghcXbTC0kKqz5krEn8A/s400/IMG_8645.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Pleasure-boating boomed here in the Victorian period and is still popular today.
Not so much in winter perhaps, but on hot summer days the water is packed with
revellers with the pubs and shops of Richmond on one bank and luxurious
willow-lined mansion gardens on the other.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEEXwxuO4nRqQGkiiTDr2q1spEPVzMiXu7gZZJcTfLAbPpjii75hL1z9w60a8B5FxSJ1C2MCRVi4KGz2196TUuEg7IpI4o-tpwDq8Y-YDiGqnB7d6QNdHMcfUSlI-nqLejf18ZWZoy3-0/s1600/IMG_8648.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEEXwxuO4nRqQGkiiTDr2q1spEPVzMiXu7gZZJcTfLAbPpjii75hL1z9w60a8B5FxSJ1C2MCRVi4KGz2196TUuEg7IpI4o-tpwDq8Y-YDiGqnB7d6QNdHMcfUSlI-nqLejf18ZWZoy3-0/s400/IMG_8648.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Even in December the promenade is rarely empty. The grassy slopes on the left,
beneath the grand Georgian facades and ornate lamp-posts with hanging flower
baskets, are a popular place for the natives’ performative monogamy.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcCiXBig1qgBOiEgFYOecrRxxmzoWqdYLXRZAOU2ukHIvsTAItFSY7tzj2rBgp2PEHiV1PEA2yiVdt1t7iA-35xCdTpc51g8kCcSUfUhHihdUNgLY-Wb9TDAWYrwdzfyP0cHHt2L7D1lg/s1600/IMG_8649.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcCiXBig1qgBOiEgFYOecrRxxmzoWqdYLXRZAOU2ukHIvsTAItFSY7tzj2rBgp2PEHiV1PEA2yiVdt1t7iA-35xCdTpc51g8kCcSUfUhHihdUNgLY-Wb9TDAWYrwdzfyP0cHHt2L7D1lg/s400/IMG_8649.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Water Lane continues to link Richmond’s high street straight to the riverside
draw dock.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNBuw31ZZT0PzXTlmDPS5vOrX_cevGVY2YbW6ldRCJSuz7mm3sRYohuYBlkthSgoDPZNgU0Oj8tSz5w64G5X3LhR6Gj1-OV5NvRd5HH_NHdRFftNWzVNxHjUWaKdnMDp6CkkEfEbkvYYc/s1600/IMG_8652.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNBuw31ZZT0PzXTlmDPS5vOrX_cevGVY2YbW6ldRCJSuz7mm3sRYohuYBlkthSgoDPZNgU0Oj8tSz5w64G5X3LhR6Gj1-OV5NvRd5HH_NHdRFftNWzVNxHjUWaKdnMDp6CkkEfEbkvYYc/s400/IMG_8652.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Richmond Bridge was completed in 1777 as Richmond grew fashionable. Remarkably
it has stood till the present day, though it was widened in the 1930s.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNnUCOnle65W2LveNCVYU677isPuhCex0FoQBYmv3vEVp0OOxNP5jFHAT41dp12dCLH2J-u7JU4Mkjayx_EtayY7faBD-eMgbxpTQNlHFfP8w4PaiugsyynVgW6piot4IZD8QeRlvrx8/s1600/IMG_8654.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNnUCOnle65W2LveNCVYU677isPuhCex0FoQBYmv3vEVp0OOxNP5jFHAT41dp12dCLH2J-u7JU4Mkjayx_EtayY7faBD-eMgbxpTQNlHFfP8w4PaiugsyynVgW6piot4IZD8QeRlvrx8/s400/IMG_8654.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Idyllic visions tend to require a suspension of disbelief that breaks if you
look too closely at the details. Whether because of the humans’
irresponsibility or the fact the river has a will of its own, some forms of
pleasure are not in safe contention.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqBwQ4Js7qsJOegneJ0Fib6GP01_Zv49_mQAqCONoP7_ubfRSaTF7zuKLs0kcEmMIcKn0_ck88IffTp_BOmRtykalQCfZ8bMLSdaB12b_kIdObLzyQ1I3TRG4-Lt4G2Y5DFc57lI-wjyw/s1600/IMG_8655.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqBwQ4Js7qsJOegneJ0Fib6GP01_Zv49_mQAqCONoP7_ubfRSaTF7zuKLs0kcEmMIcKn0_ck88IffTp_BOmRtykalQCfZ8bMLSdaB12b_kIdObLzyQ1I3TRG4-Lt4G2Y5DFc57lI-wjyw/s400/IMG_8655.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>This is also a popular stretch for herons.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Though
the Tudor palace arguably set this ball on the move to begin with, it is the
gravity of <b>Richmond Hill</b> that has kept it rolling. The <i>strong hill </i>itself
anchors this imaginary Arcadia with its fantastic views over the river bend,
capturing the hearts of generations of artists and driving its custodians to
protect it by law. This is one patch of land the gentrification squad won’t be
getting its hands on: to this day, no view-spoiling development is permitted
along the river from here to Kingston.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3JyZiLcaGxDH9c-CZvssczMBoWvC6Sw8_2cmHw79yWC20tmWVR87v39SeqsKt1tuKIVR4LH_XeMDSsuTbpF5rBXKbZhD3NcTF5Hz-Zu5vFHway_wGGmmgEMhDCbA4kjes4tOr06j7Ad8/s1600/IMG_2058.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3JyZiLcaGxDH9c-CZvssczMBoWvC6Sw8_2cmHw79yWC20tmWVR87v39SeqsKt1tuKIVR4LH_XeMDSsuTbpF5rBXKbZhD3NcTF5Hz-Zu5vFHway_wGGmmgEMhDCbA4kjes4tOr06j7Ad8/s400/IMG_2058.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The view from Richmond Hill, facing south (photo taken a few days after
the walk). Yet the 1902 Open Spaces Act was controversial for reasons of its
own. Many of these meadows were common land on which local people had the right
to gather resources and graze their farm animals, and the Act turfed them off
it so the rich people at the top could enjoy the view without them. Technically
this was illegal, but in England the law only happens to people below
certain incomes.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi67-6YQPgCEYAQUVuefqQZ2tvC0klIXWS0VZm7h1-GzIrJ0DDdo1igNvGbZiQRdE-dLZN4burGyEGeJ1QeJGz-o7J6JAsSeyoc9C7hBcf-a2LjSVI3-jD5kU4-jb1u2y98ULqCZjXDoRQ/s1600/Turner+-+Richmond+Hill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="1024" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi67-6YQPgCEYAQUVuefqQZ2tvC0klIXWS0VZm7h1-GzIrJ0DDdo1igNvGbZiQRdE-dLZN4burGyEGeJ1QeJGz-o7J6JAsSeyoc9C7hBcf-a2LjSVI3-jD5kU4-jb1u2y98ULqCZjXDoRQ/s400/Turner+-+Richmond+Hill.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>JMW Turner’s 1809 impression of the same view.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEfT03sSxykN5KUKLhvj6zAIbBqHYBKQxkVLNYoI67Ud5YZQj31uOUqG0RTNt4uaEyS8d45h1JJz4ocKB_y8tu7ftPvnY-GFmZ5TYQFDkqovmCEQoxuJxvyka_Qi1alW8RxIj_iu8Cvk/s1600/IMG_8663.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEfT03sSxykN5KUKLhvj6zAIbBqHYBKQxkVLNYoI67Ud5YZQj31uOUqG0RTNt4uaEyS8d45h1JJz4ocKB_y8tu7ftPvnY-GFmZ5TYQFDkqovmCEQoxuJxvyka_Qi1alW8RxIj_iu8Cvk/s400/IMG_8663.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This is how the hill looks from one of those fields, the meadow of Petersham, where
cows have been allowed back to graze. The huge building is the former Star and
Garter Hotel, for a time a care home for disabled soldiers but now – of course
– luxury apartments.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN0q5Chp6fH-4w4NMTHgI2PHXNSdm3zl6xH5EnUxabaEnG9-TDfdqRkE15FOH2LUvdwPwneZ90pqR7yfGG4PEL2sSFusoMKll4F5fkuokYRLoUBUBCUVyRcL3Y6JCO5DRR6V4wtZQlZ6E/s1600/IMG_8662.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN0q5Chp6fH-4w4NMTHgI2PHXNSdm3zl6xH5EnUxabaEnG9-TDfdqRkE15FOH2LUvdwPwneZ90pqR7yfGG4PEL2sSFusoMKll4F5fkuokYRLoUBUBCUVyRcL3Y6JCO5DRR6V4wtZQlZ6E/s400/IMG_8662.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>On the other side of the hill unfolds Richmond Park, by far the largest of
London’s royal parks. It too was common land till Charles I enclosed it as a
private deer-hunting ground in the 1630s, shortly before the civil war. This
provoked fury in the local people who relied on it for resources, setting off
over a hundred years of ugly confrontations with the royals’ rangers and
keepers who called them poachers for trying to take back their rights. In 1758
a local brewer successfully sued the royal family and at last won legal
recognition for ordinary people to walk through the park, hence its
status today as technically owned by the royals but in effect a public right of
way. It is still known for its packs of deer, especially since the <u><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRSbr0EYYU">Fenton Affair</a></u> of 2011.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
With
the scenery from here to Kingston protected by the Open Spaces Act, the river
has all but left the city behind. Amidst green fields, blue skies and the
autumn reds and yellows, the tide slows towards the last few checkpoints into a
different country.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmXStxpIj-3-Exty9lL5Baymba4EMYVytjzyg4HZMVx3E0VMIbcEB6VxGyiiRWOdTzlhweQXirBVBr2pgx7S-4vLPOZYj4hN9ZyOCxYznCT2gB0pLA1XARcRaYFGE8JQ8oLan3j-rPozw/s1600/IMG_8664.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmXStxpIj-3-Exty9lL5Baymba4EMYVytjzyg4HZMVx3E0VMIbcEB6VxGyiiRWOdTzlhweQXirBVBr2pgx7S-4vLPOZYj4hN9ZyOCxYznCT2gB0pLA1XARcRaYFGE8JQ8oLan3j-rPozw/s400/IMG_8664.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Before the rise of Richmond this was a sprawling agricultural area known simply
as Ham, after the <i>hamm</i> that means land in a river bend.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoyyRyqEtoVw61gAe2sCXbHrwNXBDWMCRJs6ALS2d44qZEvIlwYokxjw-5kE8S-s1GDdhlEriVqQ-DhdiYAMSCcqH1t38vsXw3IeLot_ef5NbNra1mIRHf041dGg0FS6u7E2u5lM2Saic/s1600/IMG_8665.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoyyRyqEtoVw61gAe2sCXbHrwNXBDWMCRJs6ALS2d44qZEvIlwYokxjw-5kE8S-s1GDdhlEriVqQ-DhdiYAMSCcqH1t38vsXw3IeLot_ef5NbNra1mIRHf041dGg0FS6u7E2u5lM2Saic/s400/IMG_8665.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The only buildings close to the river here are aristocratic mansions like this.
Marble Hill House, as they call it, was built in the 1720s for the Countess of
Suffolk, Henrietta Howard – one of King George II’s mistresses. As in many
class systems pretend monogamy here has operated differently at the top than
lower down. In this case, it appears Howard was a respected and formidable
intellect who the king’s official wife knew about and got on well with.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt0_6vnPSGuJZkGtXFDeTvLnW6l_G4UZUpZ91y6gYjsed7nJacYzeM2Mda4xIDjH9Z997BGuBzn0aXx9_fiyGhth0R6Kw3yIriuY5jRr-LghDdE4ghAQMY9zlnVKvgzd_8hSpKNtGBU-o/s1600/IMG_8666.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt0_6vnPSGuJZkGtXFDeTvLnW6l_G4UZUpZ91y6gYjsed7nJacYzeM2Mda4xIDjH9Z997BGuBzn0aXx9_fiyGhth0R6Kw3yIriuY5jRr-LghDdE4ghAQMY9zlnVKvgzd_8hSpKNtGBU-o/s400/IMG_8666.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The big beast of the local mansions is Ham House, which they say has kept well
since its construction in 1610. It survived the civil war and has been held by
a long sequence of <i>n</i>th Earls and Dukes of one place or another till 1948,
when the last set donated it to the National Trust. They now keep it open to
the public for £12.50 per head.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Richmond’s
waves of affluent prestige washed across the river, where they met with those sweeping up in the opposite direction from Hampton Court. The two influences
merged over <b>Twickenham</b>, another old Anglo-Saxon river hamlet like
Isleworth named after someone called Twicca. It, too, duly became fashionable,
especially as London’s escapees followed the new railways and bridges out to
it, although a less popular arrival was a set of gunpowder mills which kept
blowing up and killing people. Nowadays Twickenham is best known for Twickenham
Stadium, the largest rugby union stadium in the world and home ground to
England’s national team.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihVpswzvzenJVswt5Lkx4DQGZ2q41rrPh7QyB1WaxvOSAwIavVod0EFu50BtGQrleJQ4UN3E87bW7334FXopwDGtilSGKqpAjxi_p6OFoNuXFBsJ4G3cIs6LPP6BZ4yblxyTsAOBYrRvg/s1600/IMG_8667.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihVpswzvzenJVswt5Lkx4DQGZ2q41rrPh7QyB1WaxvOSAwIavVod0EFu50BtGQrleJQ4UN3E87bW7334FXopwDGtilSGKqpAjxi_p6OFoNuXFBsJ4G3cIs6LPP6BZ4yblxyTsAOBYrRvg/s400/IMG_8667.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Well-off riverside houses in Twickenham. At left is the start of another ait,
Eel Pie Island. No really, I don’t come up with the names here. Eel was once
common in English cuisine, and apparently this island had a tavern that served
a popular dish of it when the island was a favoured picnic site.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbBrPBmVY50VnfjIoYQy1gdwjQSVy6nOsK_01EdMbPXcBt2-IBXSq1Bu-g1REOJfaa_6jIm3jqOC5o3NhYg2uvdgQ3-FOlA3fpSMlJalvDRnOcBAsXmDM0tZ3a4lC-sliMURGLB1BvVVY/s1600/IMG_8668.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbBrPBmVY50VnfjIoYQy1gdwjQSVy6nOsK_01EdMbPXcBt2-IBXSq1Bu-g1REOJfaa_6jIm3jqOC5o3NhYg2uvdgQ3-FOlA3fpSMlJalvDRnOcBAsXmDM0tZ3a4lC-sliMURGLB1BvVVY/s400/IMG_8668.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Eel Pie Island blocks most of Twickenham from view. Unlike the other islands
this one is heavily lived on, and since the later twentieth century has been
associated with musicians (especially jazz and rock and roll), artists, and
dissident political cultures.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoybBjsuw0vjHO7kpfMGjDsL5tf8bb7iUTume8EYRlgWIxUESFJBM85ymUuuZ9vl0oK7IP_Be9ZF8KPnw1qv3uPWH9SvQ0sDiCdQn2iT-j0henfGW1pHxRlOK_6bGtP17PYrU5JSTM5eM/s1600/IMG_8669.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoybBjsuw0vjHO7kpfMGjDsL5tf8bb7iUTume8EYRlgWIxUESFJBM85ymUuuZ9vl0oK7IP_Be9ZF8KPnw1qv3uPWH9SvQ0sDiCdQn2iT-j0henfGW1pHxRlOK_6bGtP17PYrU5JSTM5eM/s400/IMG_8669.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>An obviously haunted dwelling on Eel Pie Island, complete with dock for a quick
speedboat escape after the underground lab blows up and its hordes of undead
gribblies break loose.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj28dDjIJZngNVewRhdlLC-eVx8UgwQ3Nlg8RCSZ-mnTFh9L5Wa9MUmp5UbMwxq4EQLPNeO_BOU1M65PeqxI0WLvfb98O0WNs5wAgB95HBqmBIgQ6hvztb-nL9UzSK242Bzr_k5jwfYBqw/s1600/IMG_8671.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj28dDjIJZngNVewRhdlLC-eVx8UgwQ3Nlg8RCSZ-mnTFh9L5Wa9MUmp5UbMwxq4EQLPNeO_BOU1M65PeqxI0WLvfb98O0WNs5wAgB95HBqmBIgQ6hvztb-nL9UzSK242Bzr_k5jwfYBqw/s400/IMG_8671.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The east bank remains wooded and green with a wide, well-maintained towpath.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqziOuOiHEFGHd24ERv1aEaPqFAkUgDrWxaFg011kzua3a5DbMwiajxFl4EZglsPZRkzsstUUkCYKBzHrzajboQPD4B_-NMrGEJzZXBmBcZwUrJFMCBlcORUf0oF7HnOrGB3WXDVKDtE/s1600/IMG_8673.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqziOuOiHEFGHd24ERv1aEaPqFAkUgDrWxaFg011kzua3a5DbMwiajxFl4EZglsPZRkzsstUUkCYKBzHrzajboQPD4B_-NMrGEJzZXBmBcZwUrJFMCBlcORUf0oF7HnOrGB3WXDVKDtE/s400/IMG_8673.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This Tudor Gothic-style goliath, now Radnor House Independent School, stands on
the old villa where the poet Alexander Pope lived in adulthood. Beneath it
survives an underground grotto he built and, inspired by geological experiences
in England’s southwest, layered with crystals, stalactites and precious
minerals to resemble a Cornish mine. They open it to the public a few days each
year.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Teddington Lock</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
While
Twickenham occupies the west bank, the east remains committedly swathed in the
Ham Lands nature reserve. There is now no doubt that the river has reached the
edge of its zone of occupation by the English capital, and its transition thereon is marked by
three noticeable thresholds.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
first is that for the first time on this expedition, riverside passers-by are
attempting greetings. After more than fifty kilometres of being ignored by
everyone who wasn’t trying to sell something, a slow change of phase is
occurring here. For a while there are lingering exchanges of eye contact.
Further ahead, they grunt. Then at last, a spontaneous ‘heya’ from someone
marks the first vocalised salutation of the journey. That is the point at which
you know you are not in London anymore.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4cJNzTqAz8LK6ruAkfzsBEbIWqB0_pz2ii-5GiCVDqiCvvrh4_8TPEbSnYN1HB6zhtCH8kwvZbgQwTc6h_eR2k4ZNdTwWdbT_nmo_WnCQlI2c5FJP-nq7300W1KDB1HfUuWbRUdX0uEs/s1600/IMG_8675.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4cJNzTqAz8LK6ruAkfzsBEbIWqB0_pz2ii-5GiCVDqiCvvrh4_8TPEbSnYN1HB6zhtCH8kwvZbgQwTc6h_eR2k4ZNdTwWdbT_nmo_WnCQlI2c5FJP-nq7300W1KDB1HfUuWbRUdX0uEs/s400/IMG_8675.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">
<b>In the English winter the sun has begun to set by 3pm.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCvHhQxE7cLGKK2pMBLhTU5ZCRNed_lIn7G8_eHp9JqDybMKAYpf66AS2Xgx6nEU-OLKKaM-jEfN_0uP4rTXdh78Fxve54-81UQA-ja6-W1UvRp5bW3QkNWnG1UNO2KwPoo85m0xcnsbI/s1600/IMG_8676.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCvHhQxE7cLGKK2pMBLhTU5ZCRNed_lIn7G8_eHp9JqDybMKAYpf66AS2Xgx6nEU-OLKKaM-jEfN_0uP4rTXdh78Fxve54-81UQA-ja6-W1UvRp5bW3QkNWnG1UNO2KwPoo85m0xcnsbI/s400/IMG_8676.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The only real break in the greenery is this dock, now held by the Thames Young
Mariners who run a range of outdoor adventure programmes. The dock used to
serve gravel extractors who opened pits here in 1904, but those fell into
disuse and were filled in by the 1950s.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV7vCvkTvROSS1MiGphD-eXsReBcb2kfmHJ-alRjwiLGvAd8fHoR4YpCHFTWieAU6EAk8QaKZsXRld-LAd-WY6dMBICOAcMUg0fgkVRQB4X1FJcN8d-JIxTWh9GDe4JszBk2Oh79-3YHA/s1600/IMG_8678.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV7vCvkTvROSS1MiGphD-eXsReBcb2kfmHJ-alRjwiLGvAd8fHoR4YpCHFTWieAU6EAk8QaKZsXRld-LAd-WY6dMBICOAcMUg0fgkVRQB4X1FJcN8d-JIxTWh9GDe4JszBk2Oh79-3YHA/s400/IMG_8678.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>If the London Plane with its resilience to toxic air is the tree that best
represents the urban Thames, we have now left its territory and are well into
the domain of the willow.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
The
second threshold is an unassuming boundary stone. There are plenty of old
markers hiding in the bushes around these parts, the relics of old road or
river travel information or jurisdictional boundary posts, but this one is
still relevant. It marks the end of the sovereignty of the Port of London
Authority, which since 1909 has exercised its authority over all human activity
on the river from here to the North Sea.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9i3gSE5jsqKX1k7DWkBU2FISvGhzSaDo4HJ0jyDQGlwQYObT7tSbce5Q5tEsd-U6oL9mzP3GOXkm1xIhmAWqzHKfOgX9NQOZQvB73-Pf-U1EJCkeaJbjDBchy82gI1eZalrGPW-sQlxs/s1600/IMG_8679.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9i3gSE5jsqKX1k7DWkBU2FISvGhzSaDo4HJ0jyDQGlwQYObT7tSbce5Q5tEsd-U6oL9mzP3GOXkm1xIhmAWqzHKfOgX9NQOZQvB73-Pf-U1EJCkeaJbjDBchy82gI1eZalrGPW-sQlxs/s400/IMG_8679.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The boundary stone. Control of the upstream Thames from here on was subject to long
power struggles between the monarch, the government and the City, from which
emerged the Thames Conservancy in the 1850s. In 1974 this was brought under
Thames Water, but taken off it again when it was privatized in 1990. Eventually
it passed to the Environment Agency, who manages it now as an arm of the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). All of these names
suggest work of a character distinct from the Port of London Authority.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8sldfVU8NYob_SF84a4jx5FkDPnSBcaR9uBsFIli1nBL8ZDSJvLEYpSxDMwPfTwM2Xo7T8AZvRtYN8DhGrC10XwDvic5mBr_U-jbo7TGs4jPTDL0_qVXhmlbYegDx1wrai5xdkgQhAg/s1600/IMG_8681.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8sldfVU8NYob_SF84a4jx5FkDPnSBcaR9uBsFIli1nBL8ZDSJvLEYpSxDMwPfTwM2Xo7T8AZvRtYN8DhGrC10XwDvic5mBr_U-jbo7TGs4jPTDL0_qVXhmlbYegDx1wrai5xdkgQhAg/s400/IMG_8681.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>An Environment Agency sign. Someone has evidently found it lacking and updated
it to be more relevant to Brexiting times.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwZFToRGS96TGOuUyAqXugxozjIwbAS10ogd41NIfwfwZqnD123hYEDI5G5zmCh0KdfqbisMwTj_PgB6otj7xK9S0l5PREBO5IHVCQDVWMkua13N59BipR2KCuMClg5LxNNPRLxKNh9fo/s1600/IMG_8680.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwZFToRGS96TGOuUyAqXugxozjIwbAS10ogd41NIfwfwZqnD123hYEDI5G5zmCh0KdfqbisMwTj_PgB6otj7xK9S0l5PREBO5IHVCQDVWMkua13N59BipR2KCuMClg5LxNNPRLxKNh9fo/s400/IMG_8680.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The approach to Teddington.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Then
comes the third threshold, the most important of all because of its drastic
physical effect on the river. <b>Teddington Lock</b>, in fact a sizeable
complex with three locks and a weir, halts the tides.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
It
was not always this way. Before this weir appeared – for it is the weir that
dams the river, while the locks let ships of different sizes pass between its altered
levels – the tides reached all the way up and round two more corners to
Staines. Small-scale weirs for fishing have come and gone at this location for
some centuries, but the true precursor to the current one, along with the first
lock, was built in 1811. It ran into trouble from the start, both with local
fishers and boat operators, whose attacks on the structure impelled them to arm
the lock keepers, and with the river itself which rotted the locks to pieces
and broke the weir under ice. The latter conflict continued for the best part
of a century, with new locks added and the weir repeatedly rebuilt after one
devastating collapse after another. Only in 1904, with the construction of the
largest lock for barges, did the system settle into the basic shape it retains
today.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhixez2FOSM9HPm6h5HA3psjFizRF0BmeoX3xdiUDuWRoBXIECf0ticddKy2rn0iBwuR_rpMQMtAbVhOHlPUWqOD1Hma-pE64U4w0tPkxDWpjVqrSjokr8m9PQivp28ga4ovxW1uCAIVJw/s1600/IMG_8683.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhixez2FOSM9HPm6h5HA3psjFizRF0BmeoX3xdiUDuWRoBXIECf0ticddKy2rn0iBwuR_rpMQMtAbVhOHlPUWqOD1Hma-pE64U4w0tPkxDWpjVqrSjokr8m9PQivp28ga4ovxW1uCAIVJw/s400/IMG_8683.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Teddington’s barge lock, the largest of the three, adjoins the east riverbank.
At right is the lock-keeper’s office. Though many English locks have such a
structure, it is nowadays usually obsolete and sometimes (as in Brentford) used as a museum. But Teddington’s locks are a complex system that handles
heavy and diverse river traffic, so are still staffed 24 hours by a dedicated
team of lock-keepers all year round.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvyPdXSdc3mH2i2EZpby1HMB-ysPt49HRoniJCldZn3jeET37cjktbHNlcdI0LkBSo79TnXSnAYBwZDz4R1pDTQAv9MIh32YY2jqLkqAgdb36pWmaGY6wo2Ko0cYRO6e7XNqMADU4bvrQ/s1600/IMG_8685.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvyPdXSdc3mH2i2EZpby1HMB-ysPt49HRoniJCldZn3jeET37cjktbHNlcdI0LkBSo79TnXSnAYBwZDz4R1pDTQAv9MIh32YY2jqLkqAgdb36pWmaGY6wo2Ko0cYRO6e7XNqMADU4bvrQ/s400/IMG_8685.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Make no mistake, this is a serious installation.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP4nbR45q6ptzS7DMCdPooPhaV0qXKeMJ9K-l3CdkjmU1QDm7g6Bi9j8v6_d_7Meu-dst0L2WIb8dKvmf_fpOlJuK_Z81tGX72rENrHYHVtlLdylmp-Q_jCBwkzExPRBBgTwn_uPKvnhk/s1600/IMG_8691.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP4nbR45q6ptzS7DMCdPooPhaV0qXKeMJ9K-l3CdkjmU1QDm7g6Bi9j8v6_d_7Meu-dst0L2WIb8dKvmf_fpOlJuK_Z81tGX72rENrHYHVtlLdylmp-Q_jCBwkzExPRBBgTwn_uPKvnhk/s400/IMG_8691.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>And this is what the locks open onto. On the right the tide continues unabated
as far as the weir, marked by the white structure. The latest drama in
Teddington Lock’s story is an ongoing debate about whether to use the weir to
generate hydroelectric power.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-WxZazcDzBTRrpnREWuHvwOfzN006RXEydSx8xpk1elxZTXR1NQxYFuOsqVio9ksONeD0e53iPLrPQntDYUIKeYtlK6CT8e0EIM4X-62AN4wJ4TBQPtZjwzon_d96sx3gNLZuYUylR5s/s1600/IMG_8694.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-WxZazcDzBTRrpnREWuHvwOfzN006RXEydSx8xpk1elxZTXR1NQxYFuOsqVio9ksONeD0e53iPLrPQntDYUIKeYtlK6CT8e0EIM4X-62AN4wJ4TBQPtZjwzon_d96sx3gNLZuYUylR5s/s400/IMG_8694.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The tidal limit. Most of the time.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
For
now, it seems the river has assented to these schemes. Though the tide occasionally
sees fit to remind the humans who the real power is here and pushes past
Teddington under heavy rains, most of the time the river no longer flows up
beyond here. From now on our journey will be into the flow, meeting the water
as it glides gently down from the English interior. Wary of it, the humans have
put many more locks and weirs upstream to try to keep it calm, but it is only
here, when it realises it is soon to enter London, that it holds its temper no
longer and churns and roils in rage at the bad governance it must witness
ahead, after experience of which it turns round and storms back for the hills
twice a day as though deciding that no, it should have stayed home.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcizeIYf5mmA9jEx-PHlFPA7pYviUjXx9_W9ISNb2omdqodGaaCyJ8JsKWx_SS7L6uvrdKVA-trkhg8BoDEVQPkPIVuHcjYN0A2-E-ladHJQxGZrtLtneXeQL7d00QY2c6IrY81c3Zins/s1600/IMG_8695.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcizeIYf5mmA9jEx-PHlFPA7pYviUjXx9_W9ISNb2omdqodGaaCyJ8JsKWx_SS7L6uvrdKVA-trkhg8BoDEVQPkPIVuHcjYN0A2-E-ladHJQxGZrtLtneXeQL7d00QY2c6IrY81c3Zins/s400/IMG_8695.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The Thames’s new, placid disposition from Teddington on. Hopefully those who
have parked their boats on the opposite bank – right next to the weir – have
taken care to bind the ropes extremely tight.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCHAFJTHXCKqc3B0AFAgFwdew5fK-g2O3Qv3CgSa8sjxgOnmm5zwFU8-UXOVEHiEGeJZl30xPBze3jqD-v8k2SDxeWnaQTEfWsT1aRho5KR6OHX2gOc26fAea98vibP5eTb5XYgIhsllY/s1600/IMG_8697.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCHAFJTHXCKqc3B0AFAgFwdew5fK-g2O3Qv3CgSa8sjxgOnmm5zwFU8-UXOVEHiEGeJZl30xPBze3jqD-v8k2SDxeWnaQTEfWsT1aRho5KR6OHX2gOc26fAea98vibP5eTb5XYgIhsllY/s400/IMG_8697.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>This stone marks the boundary between the Borough of Richmond (right) and the
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (left).</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqOXIkLfNOvE2Rl0YvvQkjJ_z-9uxM9FcHEc6yS8iIFs2zdseENTRY5_F1M8ih1fMMpHaHPpGLTEr64W5xJLprUvXg9a75Ayq-EmQiBBDHwgYwMWyHWs8l9TuNaPTAcgvx5VLJi0CVP3U/s1600/IMG_8698.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqOXIkLfNOvE2Rl0YvvQkjJ_z-9uxM9FcHEc6yS8iIFs2zdseENTRY5_F1M8ih1fMMpHaHPpGLTEr64W5xJLprUvXg9a75Ayq-EmQiBBDHwgYwMWyHWs8l9TuNaPTAcgvx5VLJi0CVP3U/s400/IMG_8698.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>As the east bank draws into the outskirts of Kingston, the west continues
through the posh riverside dwellings of Teddington.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Criminally
<b>Teddington</b> itself has nothing to do with teddy bears, nor does it come
from ‘Tide’s End Town’ in a suggestion attributed to Rudyard Kipling. Rather it
is another in the string of ancient riverside hamlets that became permanent
settlements in Anglo-Saxon times, named in this case for the farmstead (<i>t</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ū</span>n</i>)
of someone called Tuda. As with Twicca and G<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">ī</span>slhere, it will be apparent
how foreign these Anglo-Saxon names sound to the English language today, which
should help frustrate the nationalists’ attempts to draw their imagined
connection of ethno-cultural purity between the Anglo-Saxons and the present-day
English. Like its neighbouring towns Teddington bubbled up with aristocratic
mansions fuelled by the surrounding royal suns, in particular Hampton Court on
its far side, before swelling into a middle-class suburb with the coming of the
railways. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRJhUUrsavKshJoWYpdRBzxt60Cb9zsjsLeC_jxy7HCg6yNdGIe_FB-LGKhCQLPSPBMOo6CpOjaO1xZZan9ujo5E1FicntAcN5VYDo72_Mh8-OfIJF0pWjt6vtqtbyUDupr9kgFylYBxw/s1600/IMG_8701.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRJhUUrsavKshJoWYpdRBzxt60Cb9zsjsLeC_jxy7HCg6yNdGIe_FB-LGKhCQLPSPBMOo6CpOjaO1xZZan9ujo5E1FicntAcN5VYDo72_Mh8-OfIJF0pWjt6vtqtbyUDupr9kgFylYBxw/s400/IMG_8701.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>One of many chubby squirrels encountered on this section. This one appears to
be busily gathering materials for its winter nest.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9hXkvS8IQsIZb29_NQu6JkCS6QVLj9x-yJEz8VYJGHR46jTd-pmGCam2TV0i4LkdolXZsPdlyamxZ39av_PzNYlOLG1IPLEYnFzZPTvAlm6jyhMJNDdUDTv5S9vHyOjPbNWpaKbBhm6c/s1600/IMG_8702.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9hXkvS8IQsIZb29_NQu6JkCS6QVLj9x-yJEz8VYJGHR46jTd-pmGCam2TV0i4LkdolXZsPdlyamxZ39av_PzNYlOLG1IPLEYnFzZPTvAlm6jyhMJNDdUDTv5S9vHyOjPbNWpaKbBhm6c/s400/IMG_8702.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Sunset over Twickenham.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4mdSyZpW3FihqTKbQVnEPZBDxNrIJoTyzgllwbG2LKh9bpmm6edfQ0XHsb3ctDgPk7u_6smeqI-YZPnmO3KazuMAmQNFmJlrvC4NWdAmbW_3OaZvRu13J7gp3h4V0llZ__g6iY13XXSc/s1600/IMG_8703.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4mdSyZpW3FihqTKbQVnEPZBDxNrIJoTyzgllwbG2LKh9bpmm6edfQ0XHsb3ctDgPk7u_6smeqI-YZPnmO3KazuMAmQNFmJlrvC4NWdAmbW_3OaZvRu13J7gp3h4V0llZ__g6iY13XXSc/s400/IMG_8703.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>The towpath transitions to a road at this horse chestnut, indicating that
central Kingston is near. The sign claims that the tree was planted in 1952 to
replace a five-hundred-year-old elm known locally as the ‘Half Mile Tree’
because it marked half a mile from Kingston. They cut it down however ‘due to
its dangerous condition’, which probably means it ate people.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHxY0lunKSwlJPAQeyhx3JZxyLP3oO03FswWB_SqsxcEvKlSiZXnwbXUswvQ8Xqcdw2ZM9snjrsIz8IP3Lg_zxB3M5HvlA0Fw2GYrdApEIF45BUnIyWoFPwNZqJLYoK39Ib7HZKQ6aldM/s1600/IMG_8707.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHxY0lunKSwlJPAQeyhx3JZxyLP3oO03FswWB_SqsxcEvKlSiZXnwbXUswvQ8Xqcdw2ZM9snjrsIz8IP3Lg_zxB3M5HvlA0Fw2GYrdApEIF45BUnIyWoFPwNZqJLYoK39Ib7HZKQ6aldM/s400/IMG_8707.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The last light of the day falls on evidence that Kingston too is for people
with money.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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And
so we draw upon the final bastion of the English ruling classes for today: <b>Kingston
upon Thames</b>, where the river arrives at Greater London at that city's present widest
extent in its history, and where those fleeing it by water awake the
next morning in the English provinces. In all important senses they would be
there already: Kingston remains the county capital of Surrey even though it is
no longer in it on the map, and indeed has resisted multiple attempts to get
the seat of regional government transferred to towns that still are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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From
its name – <i>King’s Town</i> – it will be obvious that this, too, was one of
the English monarchy’s pieces of work. But Kingston is no mere playground. In
this case its royal association goes right back to the crucible of the English
nation, indeed to a day when England as they recognise it today had yet to
exist. Outside their timeline, and outside their core territory: let us save
its story for tomorrow.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI5Gzs96EpDWwjajfc4Ndmj6AypgD1nB29MuSad8fyKBvHUOtQov2TaC3NPLJrnZsYM3iEv0pBz4Pdp6x-VIzXL_dgp21Wpd51hXvJUZeoTPzz-qtO7EUBKl15cCI7rAcQE9tx2UeEnYU/s1600/IMG_8709.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI5Gzs96EpDWwjajfc4Ndmj6AypgD1nB29MuSad8fyKBvHUOtQov2TaC3NPLJrnZsYM3iEv0pBz4Pdp6x-VIzXL_dgp21Wpd51hXvJUZeoTPzz-qtO7EUBKl15cCI7rAcQE9tx2UeEnYU/s400/IMG_8709.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz-dRw8Vt-Dil3SXxIgUk_6sQPDD4tQq85qkccOza1myFlSD2RDOzEbKx96CYBY8yCpLTnputHVwBZ1UzlPeUlQVfWM0bTVPsgM0xSsOUfPSVQHCqA655_wuyZAsrIZSC8zJfNs0qkY-Y/s1600/IMG_8710.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz-dRw8Vt-Dil3SXxIgUk_6sQPDD4tQq85qkccOza1myFlSD2RDOzEbKx96CYBY8yCpLTnputHVwBZ1UzlPeUlQVfWM0bTVPsgM0xSsOUfPSVQHCqA655_wuyZAsrIZSC8zJfNs0qkY-Y/s400/IMG_8710.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Canbury Gardens in northern Kingston, formerly foraging and grazing land till
they started digging out gravel here to build the roads. Deciding that looked
ugly next to the river, they turned it into this little park in the 1890s.
Kingston Power Station stood behind it till it was demolished in the 1990s and converted
to flats – <u><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay6pQl6VBGg">here it is being blown up on YouTube</a></u>.</b></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo_MMMeIEK2x46gRlKlNDLcS-GuWyghK44VAz5OGxYyzn45tABBjx-KHJKjbUpE-kb3m4sb57rgJDY-Td5Z_riCbdB3kNuZ06SkIhPwn6-FDSeMSeZMafgjFD9KJwrmTp5unozFbb4Mtk/s1600/IMG_8718.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo_MMMeIEK2x46gRlKlNDLcS-GuWyghK44VAz5OGxYyzn45tABBjx-KHJKjbUpE-kb3m4sb57rgJDY-Td5Z_riCbdB3kNuZ06SkIhPwn6-FDSeMSeZMafgjFD9KJwrmTp5unozFbb4Mtk/s400/IMG_8718.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Kingston Railway Bridge, first opened in 1863 then replaced with this iteration
in 1907. Railway bridges are more easily ignored than road ones, but in fact
have completely transformed all the towns along here. Consider how different
this entire stretch of the river might look if the trains had never brought
those crowds of middle-class Londoners out to settle it.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0F9xsSEukDTRc7jD06IenyRXOT5FRGFK6tBWufGU1WzdVeiNmE5HpXN0RoLjRn4s1xb_G-GmRK53wor_l3oWXyLZBToQucYPKrDxFFbh2CZp3zIJDEZKLb86QIMo2AuVYCZ8jemLIgc/s1600/IMG_8720.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0F9xsSEukDTRc7jD06IenyRXOT5FRGFK6tBWufGU1WzdVeiNmE5HpXN0RoLjRn4s1xb_G-GmRK53wor_l3oWXyLZBToQucYPKrDxFFbh2CZp3zIJDEZKLb86QIMo2AuVYCZ8jemLIgc/s400/IMG_8720.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="justify"><td class="tr-caption"><b>Kingston Bridge, which ends today’s progress. This is one of the lower Thames’s
oldest bridge sites, with a permanent wooden bridge attested by 1219 but a
likelihood that still earlier versions existed. It has experienced a much more
turbulent saga of destruction and replacement than the bridges downstream, and
even now its strategic location makes it one of the busiest bridges in Greater
London.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Formally
that completes the metropolitan stage of the Thames. But this corner was never
truly of London to begin with, and its course today seems to strive for more in
common with its rural upper provinces than its urban punch-through. When those of
leisured power got in their boats to ride away from the polluted air and angry democratic
demands from their workers and subjects, here is where they were first far
enough away to erect alternative worlds for themselves behind the high walls of
palaces, on the neverending fields of Arcadian dreams, and in the protective
rituals and jargon of watersports from the work-repellent hulls of pleasure
boats to the crimson-faced bellows of elite competitive rowing.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
river had no responsibility for creating these social distinctions. Its water
was everybody’s to drink, fish and ride. But the English class inheritance runs
through everything the people of this land do, and though this heritage has
left them beautiful views, invigorating nature walks, and splendid buildings to
poke around in, the costs of transport and entry tickets in an age of disempowering
government policies and cultural attitudes still place them out of reach of
much of the population. The Arcadian dream still belongs to an exclusive English leisure class with permanent
housing, secure livelihoods, and a stake in their country's adult white masculinist power strucutres. No: not
until <i>all</i> its people have been secured the means to come and enjoy this
dream can they begin to ponder how far their country is <i>developed</i> or <i>democratic</i>.
</div>
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<b><a href="http://aichaobang.blogspot.com/p/thames.html"><u>BACK TO INDEX</u></a></b></div>
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<br /></div>
Chaobanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02661257320091252500noreply@blogger.com0Kingston upon Thames, UK51.41233 -0.3006890000000339651.372719499999995 -0.38137000000003396 51.4519405 -0.22000800000003395