Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Seven
Trip Three, Day One: Goring & Streatley to Reading
(Catch up on the previous chapter: Here!)
We came in sight of Reading about eleven. The river is dirty and dismal here. One does not linger in the neighbourhood of Reading.
-JEROME K. JEROME
We returned to Goring nearly two months later like the donkey cart after the Lord Mayor’s show. The cheerful bunting, fluttering flags, and pictures of a smiling King which had adorned the sleepy riverside town on our last visit had all been tidied away and a very proper normality resumed. The other notable difference from our last trip to the Thames was the weather. Sudden and heavy showers were replaced by one of the longest periods of hot dry weather I can remember in the UK, which peaked on this particular weekend in early June. Clear blue skies, dry cracked ground, and plenty of pollen awaited.
Goring itself has some very picturesque buildings, a mixture of red brick Arts & Crafts and white barge-boarded riverside homes. Oscar Wilde spent the summer of 1893 at Ferry House in Goring, shocking this respectable country town by living scandalously with his lover Bosie, the young Lord Alfred Douglass. Whilst here he wrote The Ideal Husband, the hero of which is a pleasure-seeking dandy philosopher called Lord Alfred Goring. Sixty years later the same house became the home of Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, the controversial leader of Bomber Command during the Second World War and the theorist behind the ‘area bombing’ strategy which saw cities including Dresden and Hamburg entirely levelled by the RAF and US Air Force. He died here in the 1980s and is buried in the cemetery.
The path runs on the north bank of the Thames out of Goring, between the bank and the flat meadows which precede large detached houses in the distance. On the opposite side of the river, the villas are much closer to the water as they benefit from a much higher, steeper bank. These immaculately kept houses have equally immaculate and equally tedious gardens. There are opportunities for charming tiered gardens of meandering paths and steps, at once cottage-y and grand, a haven for nature on the fringes of the river, but instead, there are only perfectly striped featureless lawns which are made functionless by being far too steep for picnicking or sports. This kind of garden speaks of an expensive country home, not used enough for the maintenance of a garden to be possible or desirable. Instead, some teenager from the local landscaping firm comes once a month on a sit-on mower.
As the river bends to the left the final houses of Goring splutter out and the path departs from the river bank into a hedged lane that gently begins to rise. We have reached the Goring Gap, as discussed in the previous chapter, the point where we pass through a river-carved cleft in the North Downs/Chiltern Hills ridge. The path here reaches its most significant elevation of the whole journey, steeply climbing up into a mature woodland where complex root systems anchor pines and oaks above the precipitous drop. The river, of course, takes the easy level route at the bottom of the hill, but we must labour up the increasingly rocky path. Before long, the muddy clay path worn through the grass that we have been used to since starting becomes paler and paler, the polygon chunks of flint become more and more frequent and the geology tells us we’re in the Chilterns for sure. The name Chilterns comes from the Anglo-Saxon and derives from their word for chalk: chilt.
It is strange looking down from such a height at the river which has been side-by-side with us the whole way. From this birdseye view its position in the landscape, slicing through the soft chalk downs, becomes very clear. Now around midday, we are thankful for the cover of the woodland against the sun as we slowly make our way up and down along the ridge line towards Pangbourne.
Occasionally, when Britain gets a spell of unusually European weather, temperatures in the high twenties and strong midday sun, one can catch glimpses of scenes that one had assumed were the exclusive purview of continental summer holidays. One such view waits at the edge of the village of Whitchurch. At the side of a long tree-lined avenue, a herd of cattle, some white and some brown, shun the centre of their sandblasted field and stand shoulder to shoulder along the fence to take advantage of the green-tinted shade of the trees. They breathe softly and beat their tails against their legs, watching us as we make our way along the line like monarchs reviewing troops. It is rural France, distilled, and served up in the back lanes of Berkshire.
Having taken the salute of the cows, we make our way downhill, back to the riverside, through the pretty streets of Whitchurch. With each house and cottage we pass, the classic Berkshire vernacular, redbrick with decorative bands of flint, is ornamented by a display of climbing roses worthy of Chelsea or Kew. The community notice board lists six candidates who have been recently ‘elected unopposed’ to the parish council. The path signs us into the churchyard and we briefly stop into the church itself which is not especially noteworthy except for a framed pencil drawing of ‘The Flint Christ’. This would seem to be a collection of the flints set into the church's exterior that, by chance or divine providence, resemble the shape of the crucified Christ, head lolled to one side and all. We have a brief look for the real thing on the way out, but, looking at the thousands of flints in the walls and tower, begin to think of needles in haystacks and swiftly move on. It is, after all, lunchtime.
Reaching Pangbourne on the opposite bank means crossing the venerable old Whitchurch Bridge, the second and final of the privately owned toll bridges on the Thames (see Swinford Bridge in Chapter Four). The Company of Proprietors of Whitchurch Bridge came together in 1792 in order to fund the construction of a bridge which would replace the old ferry, and despite comprehensive reconstructions in 1853, 1902, and 2014, the bridge retains the flavour of its early design. Tolls for vehicles are still collected and The Proprietors still exist, although they are now an arm of a company owned by the Percy family, historic Dukes of Northumberland. Once across, we cut back on ourselves, a little upstream, to The Swan.
This pub on the side of the river, surrounded by pleasure craft and boathouses, dates back to 1642, the year the Battle of Edgehill marked the opening of the English Civil War. It’s an important stopping point on our pilgrimage as it marks the end point of the expedition in Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat. Having travelled from London to Oxford, the chaps get as far as Pangbourne on the return leg before the torrential weather causes a flight back to the city…
“If we hadn’t made up our minds to contract our certain deaths in this bally old coffin,” observed George, casting a glance of intense malevolence over the boat, “it might be worthwhile to mention that there’s a train leaves Pangbourne, I know, soon after five, which would just land us in town in comfortable time to get a chop.”...
Twenty minutes later, three figures, followed by a shamed-looking dog, might have been seen creeping stealthily from the boat-house at the “Swan” towards the railway station…
…We had deceived the boatman at Pangbourne. We had not had the face to tell him that we were running away from the rain. We had left the boat, and all it contained, in his charge, with instructions that it was to be ready for us at nine the next morning. If, we said—if anything unforeseen should happen, preventing our return, we would write to him.
Today The Swan has been stripped of almost all character. The old building is inexplicably painted baby blue, the inside is a generic restaurant and the plastic furniture on the terrace is cheap and dull. Pangbourne itself is equally disappointing. Despite being in prime place on a pretty bend in the Thames, the town centre is entirely cut off from the water by the Great Western Railway, slicing through the shops and houses at third-storey height on a series of brick arches. What is left of a pretty Berkshire town is scattered with a number of luxury car dealerships. Dropped amongst the redbrick cottages like UFOs, there is Aston Martin, Range Rover, Lamborghini and many others. It's clear that Pangbroune has become the fashionable place to be for the Reading nouveau riche and as such, any soul has been sucked out of the community.
Our brief stop here is salvaged by Green’s Butchers, a wonderful little shop which is heartily recommended. A scrupulously clean glass counter displays a cornucopia of meats and pies from the area, and the slices of pork pie we enjoyed on a riverside bench were excellent. The shop continues the tradition of paying for your order at a little teak and glass booth, separate from the meat counter for hygiene, but also adding a charming old-fashioned flair to proceedings.
Leaving Pangbourne involves walking through a meadow owned by the National Trust. Despite being a Thursday, the whole town seems to be out on the grass, picnicking, playing football, swimming in the river and walking dogs. Around them three large tractors mow and bail the tall dry grass at the edges. These meadows, becoming increasingly wild, continue for a number of miles towards Reading, with large houses poking out from the wooded hills on the distant bank. One of these, with lawns reaching down to the water, is Harwick House. A simple and solid red brick manor of the Sixteenth Century where Charles I briefly stayed and reputedly played bowls whilst on the journey from Oxford to London as a prisoner of Parliament. It's one of a number of large riverside houses between here and Henley which claim to be the inspiration for Toad Hall in The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, sometime resident of Pangbourne.
After Mapledurahm lock, the path begins an extended and poorly signposted detour through Purley, the westernmost suburb of Reading. The first part of this wander is extremely odd, we pick our way through unmetalled and potholed gritty roads between recently built bungalows and miniature houses each of a vastly differing design. What first seemed a pretty normal housing estate develops into a kind of permanent shanty town with some oddly temporary-looking infrastructure. Crossing the railway and up the hill we came to a more conventional 1980s housing estate with pedantically tidy front lawns, which we then followed for what seemed like an eternity. In the hot beating sun and without much of a lunch we begin to seriously flag…with the prospect of Reading ahead of us not the most appetising of destinations.
Eventually, we discovered the main road and a large ‘Welcome to Reading, twinned with Speightstown, Barbados’ sign. From here we cross the railway again and then follow the path now threaded between the river and the tracks almost all the way into Reading itself. This strange narrow hinterland is home to the river people of Reading, living on dilapidated narrowboats or moss-covered pleasure yachts, their lawn chairs, bicycles, and barbecues spread out onto the towpath and surrounding undergrowth in a semi-permanent encampment. As we pass these groups of almost exclusively men, enjoying the sun on camping chairs with larger cans, they greet us cheerfully and occasionally offer us some barbecued meat of unidentifiable origin. There is a wonderful sense of freedom about these communities, on the edge of the city, on the edge of the river, and most probably on the edge of the law, as there seems to be no official mooring along this neglected stretch of the river. Only accessible by the footpath they seem safe from the majority of officious officials.
We skirt the edge of the empty fields that play host to Reading Festival, allegedly the world's oldest surviving popular music festival, and before long the path becomes tarmacked and enters a neat riverside park with large homes and small boat houses on the opposite bank. As we get closer and closer to the middle of Reading the rowers and the geese come thicker and faster. Amongst them, floating sedately up the middle of the stream, an older lady in a swimming costume navigates her paddleboard between the waterfowl, at her feet a supine chocolate labrador surveys the river bank with the bearing of a retired admiral.
Our hotel for the night, the Crowne Plaza, is the closest we’ve slept to the river yet, we walk straight from the Thames Path onto the front steps of the hotel and into the quiet and cool atrium. It's an early 2000s red brick bunker of a building but the interior is modern and sleek. Sadly, our room overlooks the staff smoking area and the carpark rather than the river but we’re not complaining, it's comfy and clean and has air conditioning.
That evening we decided to brave the centre of Reading. There are few towns in England that hold quite the same reputation, the name Reading is almost synonymous with boring, grey, uninteresting, and urban. The second largest conurbation on the Thames after London, it lacks a cathedral and has never been granted city status despite bids in 2000, 2002, 2012, and 2022. Home to the second busiest junction railway station outside of London, it's a town that thousands of people pass through daily but few stop and stay. Certainly, I’ve seen its grey towers from a railway carriage more times than I can count, but I’d never stepped outside of the ticket barriers.
Reading’s origins go back to the Eighth Century, as a major trading post for wool and grain at the meeting of the Kennet and the Thames. Those precious resources would be brought down the river Kennet from farms on the Wessex Downs, then, at the confluence, they’d be transferred to larger barges for the journey to London and the sea. In 1121 an abbey was founded at Reading by Henry I who generously supported the foundation and would ultimately be buried there. The abbey would become one of the largest and richest in England until, during the dissolution of the monasteries, it was shut down and the final Abbot, Hugh Faringdon was hanged, drawn, and quartered in front of his own church. A lengthy siege during the Civil War destroyed the economy of the town and its fortunes would not revive until the arrival of the railways in the mid-Nineteenth Century. The industrial boom that came with the rails led to a huge expansion of the town, in 1869 the title of County Town of Berkshire was taken from the shrinking Abingdon and granted to Reading. Jane Austen came to school in Reading and Oscar Wilde was imprisoned here, it's the hometown of the architect Sir John Soane, Archbishop William Laud, artist Evelyn Dunbar, actress Kate Winslet, and HRH The Princess of Wales. So it's not a town without history and culture.
However, getting from our hotel into the centre is a challenge, a maze of many-laned ring roads, roundabouts and multi-level junctions. The Reading of the Twenty-first Century is immured within bands of dual-carriageway as formidable as any medieval fortification. Once you eventually penetrate the historic heart of the town, you’re rewarded by some proud Victorian architecture, including some grand uniform shopping streets, a gothic folly for a town hall, and some substantial if dismembered ex-department stores. A large formal park is laid out around an enormous statue of a lion, the memorial to those men of the Berkshire Regiment who never returned from the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The regimental surgeon, a Major AF Preston who was injured on the campaign, became the inspiration for Doctor Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories.
At the far end of the park are the humble ruins of Reading Abbey. There is not a lot left, some roofless fragments of the chapter house and the odd arch here and there. On that warm summer evening, we had to make do with glimpses through the railings, an outdoor theatre company had taken over the ruins for a dramatisation of the life of Henry I performed, quite literally, over his dead body. We head to a pub in the old quays on the banks of the Kennet, a much less substantial river than we’re used to. After dinner, we pick our way back through the labyrinth of ring roads and collapse into bed.
Next time: the longest day, pretty pubs, posh houses, pink trousers, deer and tennis.
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