Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City
In the summer of 2023, my father and I walked the length of the River Thames, along the Thames Path from the source in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds, to the Tidal Barrier in Woolwich, East London. You can read my account of this trip, chapter-by-chapter, here on my Substack.
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City...Chapter Two
"The Thames is no ordinary waterway, it is the golden thread of our nation's history." -WINSTON CHURCHILL. After the persistent rain of a peaceful night at the Old Bear Inn, Cricklade, we woke to brilliant sunshine and quickly movi…
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Three
"Thou too, aerial pile, whose pinnacles Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, Obey’st I in silence their sweet solemn spells, Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, Around whose lessening and invisible height"
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Four
“There is an air about [Oxford], resonant of joy and hope: it speaks with a thousand tongues to the heart: it waves its mighty shadow over the imagination: it stands in lowly sublimity, on the “hill of ages”; and points with prophetic fingers to the sky…
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Five
"At Abingdon, the river passes by the streets. Abingdon is a typical country town of the smaller order—quiet, eminently respectable, clean, and desperately dull. -JEROME K JEROME, THREE MEN IN A BOAT. The ov…
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Six
"Attend Dame Isis down to Dorchester, Near which her lovely Tame doth meet with her, There Tame his Isis doth embrace and kiss, Both joined in one, called Tame or Tame Isis" -JOHN TAYLOR, 1632. Waking to our sixth morning on the path, we fo…
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Seven
"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 sho…
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Eight
“The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spellbound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession o…
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Nine
“When I lived in Cookham I was disturbed by a feeling of everything being meaningless. But quite suddenly I became aware that everything was full of special meaning and this made everything holy... I observed this sacred quality in most unexpected quarters.”
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Ten
“Then suddenly the white flashes of the Heat-Ray came leaping towards me. The houses caved in as they dissolved at its touch, and darted out flames; the trees changed to fire with a roar. The Ray flickered up and down the towing path, licking off the people who ran this way and tha…
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Eleven
“From his oozy bed Old father Thames advanced his reverend head; His tresses dropp'd with dews, and o'er the stream His shining horns diffused a golden gleam: Graved on his urn appear'd the moon, that guides
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Twelve
“Twenty bridges from Tower to Kew - Wanted to know what the River knew, Twenty Bridges or twenty-two, For they were young, and the Thames was old And this is the tale that River told…” -RUDYARD KIPLING. Our original plan for the final, inner-London sectio…
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Thirteen
‘This music crept by me upon the waters’ And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. O City city, I can sometimes hear Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, The pleasant whining of a mandoline And a clatter and a chatter from within
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Chapter Fourteen
“The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin A nuclear era, but I have no fear 'Cause London is drowning I, I live by the river.” -THE CLASH, ‘LONDON CALLING’
Old Father Thames: Walking from Source to City... Epilogue
"Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song." -EDMUND SPENCER, 1596. On reaching the end of the path, our train back to Cardiff would not leave Paddington for a few hours, so we took a bus from the nearest main road back to Greenwich. Instead of stopping here on the walk for a lunch…