Mid-Summer, 2022
Our Thames Path walk takes us from the source of the river in the rolling Cotswold Hills, through historic cities, quaint villages and beguiling English countryside before passing through the heart of London and finishing at the Thames flood barrier. It’s a meandering journey of 185 miles (300 kilometres).
We walked the first 55 miles of the path with our friend Geoff and his then 11-year-old son Finn in 2018, following the river from its beginnings in a remote field to Oxford, the City of Dreaming Spires. The next year the four of us walked 50 miles further downstream, through a gentle, green, secluded realm. Now, after an enforced hiatus, we’re taking up where we left off three years ago, at the Angel on the Bridge in Henley-on-Thames.
The world has changed in the intervening years. Finn, the smallest of us in 2018 is now the tallest. We’re keen to resume the journey while he is still amenable. Our intention is to walk the remaining 80 miles to the Flood Barrier and conclude our Thames Path adventure.
Day 1: Henley-on-Thames to Maidenhead (25 kilometres)
All the joy of summer in the early morning sky. Henley-on-Thames basking in the glory of it; the river a mirror reflecting gay canal boats, flower-bedecked bridges and quaint inns.
Henley-on-Thames is home to the famous Henley Royal Regatta. Quintessentially English, the annual rowing race barred anyone ‘who is or has been by trade or employment a mechanic, artisan or labourer’ from entering. In 1886, it was extended to include any person ‘engaged in any menial activity.’ This archaic rule persisted until 1937.
Grand white mansions, white chalk cliffs, white deer. A large herd of them on a well-tended estate. We linger in the bleached landscape, entranced by these mythical creatures, rare ghosts of the forest.
The Benedictines, the Augustinians and the Franciscans were all here until Henry VIII dissolved their monasteries, leaving many of them in ruins. Those that survived had a second life as protestant churches or homes to the gentry. Medmenham Abbey on the banks of the Thames became the notorious Hellfire Club where “persons of quality”, including the Earl of Sandwich, gathered for debaucherous and secret meetings.
Islands in the stream. Wildflower meadows a haze of white and pale green. Tangled Beech forests and green wooded slopes. Beauty in every meander. Then our focus shifts and our hearts sink; an inordinate number of dead and dying trees stand stricken in the landscape. In parts of England, it’s the hottest, driest summer on record and it’s causing untold stress on ecosystems.
People picnicking. Swimmers, canoeists and stand-up paddle boarders in the water. Canal boats and pleasure cruisers plying the slow-moving river. Red kites on the hunt. Canadian geese in flight.
We wander along a secluded shady path, through marsh meadows and wildwoods before coming out onto a maze of brick-walled laneways once used by towpath horses.
Sculptures in the fields. Kissing gates. Water lapping the edge of the Chiltern spur. The Compleat Angler hotel stands on the spit where Izaak Walton wrote the book of the same name. An effigy of broadcaster Richard Dimbleby sits outside his grey wooden house from where he yelled at speeding boats.
All the pretty villages. Marlow, where Percy Shelley lived and kept a skiff for outings on the Thames. Cookham with its church dating back to the 10th century. Maidenhead and its castles and parklands. It’s home to more millionaires than anywhere in England and our abode for the evening.
Day 2: Maidenhead to Staines (23 kilometres)
Another achingly beautiful midsummer morning. The sky cloudless. The world held in the still waters of the Thames.
The Queen’s swans glide stately down the river. Rounding a green bend, Windsor Castle comes into view. Its grandness and dominance in the landscape dazzle us. We detour away from the river here because the Queen determines we must. While her parklands are off-limits, we find ourselves within reach of her blackberries. They’re ripe for the picking and all the sweeter for being forbidden.
On the other side of the river to Windsor is Eton, one of the UK’s most exclusive schools. Its students wear the black mourning jackets they adopted in 1830 to mark the death of King George III and continue to celebrate his birthday each year.
The rustle of fallen leaves. Blue-backed magpies foraging in a field. Grassy commons over which some locals still hold grazing rights. Finn puts his new philosophy of walking into practice. He forges ahead, walking quickly so he can stop walking as early in the day as possible. He’s outgrown the need to be led.
Inside the picturesque chapel of St Mary Magdalene, the only lighting is a candle. Built in the 12th century from chalk rubble with a wood-clad bell tower, the chapel served the bargemen who loaded timber from Windsor Forest. In the 1980s it was saved from demolition by the Friends of Friendless Churches.
Forested tunnels of green light. A pheasant and her chicks scurrying off across a field. We pause at Runnymede, a place symbolic of freedom and liberty. Here in 1215, the English Barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, establishing the principle that everyone is subject to the law, even the king. It guaranteed the rights of individuals, including the right of freedom of navigation on the Thames.
A boatshed, a stretch of stately riverside houses, the first markers of suburbia. In Staines, the railway bridge is painted with yellow stripes to prevent swans from flying into it. The town has been a stopping place for travellers for centuries; we’re part of a long continuum of people who have spent the night here before carrying on towards London.
Day 3: Staines-on-Thames to Kingston-on-Thames (24 kilometres)
The sky a cloudless blue; the river as lustrous as silk. In Saxon times, the control of the river and the revenue it generated was in the hands of the Crown. But in 1197, King Richard I sold his rights over the Thames to the City of London to fund his Crusades. The elusive London Stone that we find in a riverside park marked the limit of the City’s jurisdiction over the Thames.
As arranged, we meet Michael’s sister Terri and husband Warren on the Staines bridge. They’ve flown in from Iceland to walk the last four days of the Thames Path with us. So, now we are six.
We catch the ferry across the river at Shepperton. The ferryman regales us with a story about the would-be summer annex to London’s Savoy Hotel. Built on the island we are passing, it was unable to get a drinks licence and became a (grand) home instead.
There’s a man sitting in a chair by the river, surrounded by geese. He identifies them for us: Grey lag geese, Egyptian geese, Canada geese. The air is thin and sweet. Mute swans fly low over the river, following its flow downstream. The humming of their wings and the slapping of their feet on the water as they glide to a stop create an arresting soundscape.
Houseboats moored on the river’s edge; some of them immaculate and others as unkempt as a squat. Deer parks and rambling walled gardens. Hampton Court Palace, overlooking the Thames, was once the favourite residence of Henry VIII. In 1737, the royal family moved out and its apartments became home to grace-and-favour residents, people given free accommodation as a reward for past services to the monarch (although taxpayers, not the monarch, footed the bill).
The ‘arcadian Thames’ is the stretch of the river between Hampton Court Palace and Kew Gardens. Its bucolic views, richly ornamented buildings and designed landscapes have inspired artists and architects for centuries.
At Hampton Court bridge, we walk off the Thames Path into a world of frenzied movement and wailing sirens. An end-of-day aperitif in a quiet nook at the White Hart Hotel restores our sense of well-being.
Day 4: Kingston-on-Thames to Putney Bridge (21 kilometres)
In Saxon times, the coronation of several kings took place in Kingston-on-Thames. It’s still graced by grand houses with sweeping views of the river and its valley.
A hazy sky. Summer swelling with a wave of heat. It leaves the day sultry and us languid. Even the shade cast by an avenue of ash trees offers little respite.
Cattle graze in a meadow close to the water. They spend part of the year here, keeping the growth down after the hay is cut. This allows wildflowers an opportunity to grow and creates a haven for birds and insects.
We pass the last of the three Teddington locks. From here on, the Thames is tidal. There is a treed estate with an observatory and the original Meridian Line. It kept the ‘king’s time’ before Greenwich became the prime meridian in 1884. On the other side of the river is Syon House. Topped with a monumental white lion, it’s home to the Duke of Northumberland.
We seek out the coolness of Kew gardens and its temperature-controlled glasshouses. The ‘Victoria boliviana’ on display is the largest waterlily in the world, its leaves reaching three metres wide in the wild. Turning from white to pink, its spectacular flowers open one at a time, and for two nights only.
Islands divide the river. The willows on Chiswick Eyot were once cut to make fish baskets. Grey herons, coots, Canada geese and cormorants inhabit the marshes between Kew and Putney. It is a surprisingly wild stretch of the path, although by day’s end we will walk out of rural England and into metropolitan London.
A full moon. A spring tide. The river rises dramatically and we watch in wonder as it rushes upstream, towards its source. Then the tide turns and waterbirds call the river back to the sea again.
Day 5: Putney Bridge to Tower Bridge (15 kilometres)
In the Roman era, the lower Thames was a broad, shallow waterway winding through marshes. It provided food and shelter; a means of trade, transport and communication; and a place to meet, exchange stories and celebrate.
The Effra River once joined the Thames here, near Vauxhall Bridge. During the Bronze Age, people came to this sacred confluence to throw spears and food into the water as offerings to the gods. Towards the end of the 19th century, the Effra was bricked over. It is now one of London’s lost rivers but from time to time it reasserts itself and floods its neighbourhood.
We find a way around the decommissioned art-deco Battersea Power Station. Derelict and abandoned for decades, it’s now a hive of construction. Soon it will re-launch itself as a glitzy space where people come to ‘live, work, shop and play.’
The fortress-like MI6 building at Vauxhall Cross houses the headquarters of the UK’s foreign intelligence agency. Close by, on the north bank of the Thames, are the MI5 building, the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall. It’s an enclave of power and intrigue and perhaps there’s truth to the rumour of a network of subterranean tunnels that serve as covert corridors for politicians, monarchs and spies.
We walk along Albert Embankment, past the National Covid Memorial. It’s a long, solemn wall painted with red hearts, one for every person who has died of COVID. There are now more than 150,000 hearts.
On this hot summer’s day, people stream into the air-conditioned Tate and the Tate Modern galleries. Tourists are finding their way back to London and the city is alive with the lilt and fall of different languages.
We climb to the rooftop terrace of the OXO building and look out over the Thames. We can see Westminster Palace, the glittering, neo-futuristic skyscrapers of the City and the great Dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. Until the beginning of the 20th century, no building in the City of London could be taller than the Dome. Even now, new buildings can’t obstruct the views of St Paul’s from certain vantage points.
The consolation for the trying heat of the day is a balmy evening. We cross over to the north bank of the Thames and find a place to sit by the water at St Katharine Docks, mooring site for a royal barge and the yachts of the moneyed class.
Day 6: Tower Bridge to the Thames Flood Barrier (15 kilometres)
Yesterday, Tower Bridge rippled with people. This early on a Saturday morning, it’s all ours. We cross back to the south bank of the river; the light golden, the stone buildings honey-coloured, the sun glinting off the Tower of London behind us and the glass-sheathed Shard in front. The Thames once fed the moat around the Tower, the ebb and flow of the river determining its depth. In 1843 the Duke of Wellington drained the moat and it’s been dry ever since.
The tide is out. The wash of the river sings on the rocks. There’s a lone mudlarker on the foreshore, searching for long-lost objects where the mud pools and shifts. Further along, a team of archaeologists is brushing centuries of sand and mud from what appears to be the remnants of a pier.
We walk past wharves and warehouses where the produce of conquered lands was unloaded and stored; rubber, cocoa, calico, coffee, spices, canned salmon, wine and spirits. One warehouse had an ivory floor with rows of elephant tusks laid out on view.
Three kilometres to the east of Tower Bridge, on a peninsula that juts out into the Thames, is Rotherhithe. It was from here that the Mayflower sailed on the first stage of its epic voyage to America in 1620. On board were the Pilgrims, persecuted in England and hoping for freedom to practise their faith in the New World.
We come across a memorial to Ada Brown & Alfred Salte, a couple who dedicated much of their lives to helping the people of the Bermondsey slums. Alfred Salter was a doctor, politician, reformer and pacifist who campaigned to improve public health. Ada was a tireless campaigner against poverty. She worked to transform the slums and was in charge of designing model council houses to replace them. In 1934 the London City Council engaged her to beautify the city and establish London’s Green Belt.
A surviving barge building and repair workshop. The former Royal Palace and Naval College at Greenwich. Birthplace of Tudors and home to the Royal Observatory through which the Prime Meridian passes. Downstream of Greenwich are factories, housing estates and a rewilded area of marshland, wildflower meadows and lakes.
A gleaming white cruiseliner in the middle of the river. Herons painted on a wall. A sky full of cranes. Working canal boats. The Thames is the deepest river in England and even though major cargo ships no longer travel up the Thames, it’s still a busy waterway.
The End of the Thames Path
Our destination, the striking landmark that is the Thames Flood Barrier, comes into view. Its ten shiny, stainless steel piers spanning 520 metres across the Thames are designed to protect the floodplain of Greater London from exceptionally high water. At the time of its construction, it was expected to be used 2-3 times a year. However, it’s being called into action with much greater frequency as the climate changes and rising sea levels bring ever-higher tides and storm surges.
Straightened, embanked, diminished. Like the world it flows through, the river is not what it was. But it’s alluring to follow its meanderings through pastoral England and experience London from the shoreline of the river that created it.
At Thames Head, there’s a mural depicting each of the towns along the Thames Path and their height above sea level. Here the Thames National Trail Begins or Ends. For us, it’s the latter. We’re pleased to finish our walk, four years after we set out from the source of the River Thames. The prospect of being able to do so gave us hope in the dark times of the COVID pandemic and walking its length gave Finn, the youngest of us, a sense of accomplishment and wonder.
Additional photography by Geoffrey Blyth
In 2018 we started our journey down the Thames at its source in the Cotswolds and walked to Oxford. In 2019 we walked from Oxford to Henley-on-Thames.
