Chesshyre - From Source to Sea: Notes from a 215-Mile Walk Along the River Thames

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PRAISE FOR FROM SOURCE TO SEA

'Chesshyre cuts an engaging figure He has a true journalist's instinct for conversational encounters Kurdistani picnickers in the river meadows upstream of London, pub thugs in the badlands of the lower Thames, other Thames Path pilgrims he rubs up against along the way. He also demonstrates a nose for a juicy tale, from a pre-Raphaelite mnage--trois at Kelmscott Manor to the discreet nookie column in the Marlow Free Press. Chesshyre's journey is rich in history and thick with characters, fables and happenstance a highly readable and entertaining saunter along England's iconic river.'

Christopher Somerville, author of Britain's Best Walks

'Chesshyre's book stands out from other accounts of walking the Thames Path in its contemporary (post-Brexit, pre-Trump) immediacy. A portrait of England and the English in our time, it is peppered with fascinating historical and literary markers. It's also a usefully opinionated guide to watering-holes and B&Bs from the sleepy Cotswold villages to the dystopian edgelands of the estuary.'

Christina Hardyment, author of Writing the Thames

'Beautifully written and exquisite in observation, Tom Chesshyre's latest book, From Source to Sea is a fitting tribute to the mighty Thames that flows like a golden thread through the history of Britain.'

Harry Bucknall, author of Like a Tramp, Like a Pilgrim

PRAISE FOR TICKET TO RIDE

'Trains, dry wit, evocative descriptions, fascinating people and more trains what's not to like?'

Christian Wolmar

'This is an engaging, enjoyable and warm-hearted book that will appeal as much to general readers as to lovers of trains'

Simon Bradley

'Like mini-odysseys, Chesshyre's railway journeys are by turns gentle and awesome, and full of surprises'

John Gimlette

'Funny and illuminating from Crewe to Korea, Ticket to Ride is a hugely entertaining account of the author's travels on the rails the world over chance encounters fly like sparks'

Sara Wheeler

PRAISE FOR TALES FROM THE FAST TRAINS

'Compulsory reading'

Mark Smith, The Man in Seat 61

'Transforms seemingly unsurprising familiar territory whether the Eurostar terminal at St Pancras or the cities of Frankfurt and Antwerp into the stage for insights and adventures'

Dea Birkett, author of Serpent in Paradise

'If you've "done" Paris and Bruges and are wondering, "Where next?", then this may be a quiet revelation'

Andrew Marr

'Splendid twenty-first-century railway adventure. At last this IS the age of the train'

Simon Calder, The Independant

PRAISE FOR TO HULL AND BACK

'Tom Chesshyre celebrates the UK discovering pleasure in the unregarded wonders of the "unfashionable underbelly" of Britain. The moral, of course, is that heaven is where you find it'

The Mail on Sunday

'You warm to Chesshyre, whose cultural references intelligently inform his postcards from locations less travelled'

The Times

PRAISE FOR HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

'Highly readable Bill Bryson-esque travel writing'

Clover Stroud, The Sunday Telegraph

FROM SOURCE TO SEA

This edition copyright Tom Chesshyre, 2018

First published in 2017

Maps by Hamish Braid

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language, without the written permission of the publishers.

Tom Chesshyre has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Condition of Sale

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

An Hachette UK Company
www.hachette.co.uk

Summersdale Publishers Ltd
Part of Octopus Publishing Group Limited
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
LONDON
EC4Y 0DZ
UK

www.summersdale.com

ISBN: 978-1-78685-819-1

Substantial discounts on bulk quantities of Summersdale books are available to corporations, professional associations and other organisations. For details contact general enquiries: telephone: +44 (0) 1243 771107 or email: .

For Robert and Christine

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Chesshyre is staff travel writer on The Times and the author of How Low Can You Go?: Round Europe for 1p Each Way (Plus Tax), To Hull and Back: On Holiday in Unsung Britain, Tales from the Fast Trains: Europe at 186 Mph, Ticket to Ride: Around the World on 49 Unusual Train Journeys, A Tourist in the Arab Spring and Gatecrashing Paradise: Misadventures in the Real Maldives. He lives in Mortlake in London.

www.tomchesshyre.co.uk

CONTENTS

Thames Head, Gloucestershire: A field with no water

Thames Head, Gloucestershire, to Cricklade, Wiltshire: Quicksand and 'a rascally place'

Cricklade, Wiltshire, to Newbridge, Oxfordshire: Poems, pies and a shepherd's hut

Newbridge to Abingdon, Oxfordshire: 'See a bench sit on it'

Abingdon, Oxfordshire, to Pangbourne, Berkshire: Dream homes and a perfect cup of tea

Pangbourne, Berkshire, to Marlow, Buckinghamshire: 'You really live by the river? What a jolly life!'

Marlow, Buckinghamshire, to Staines, Surrey: '34,000 full board'

Staines, Surrey, to Kew: London calling

Kew to Bermondsey: A day in the life of the Thames

Bermondsey to Gravesend, Kent: To the barrier, the badlands and beyond

Gravesend to the Isle of Grain, Kent: 'Look, there's another one of those useless arrows'

The London Stone, Isle of Grain, Kent: River's end

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
Edmund Spenser, 'Prothalamion'

We must build a kind of United States of Europe.
Winston Churchill, 1946

PREFACE

I was born in Hammersmith in west London less than a mile from the Thames. I grew up in East Sheen in south-west London within a mile of its banks. My first flat was in Oval in central London, a few hundred metres from the river. My current home is in Mortlake in south-west London, a minute's stroll from the towpath. I have worked all of my adult life by the river in east and south-east London. One way or another the Thames means a lot to me. I run along it. I walk along it. I take boats on it. I drink with friends by it. I love it. I am drawn to it. I always have been.

Then something happened. One day I noticed a bric-a-brac market at a community centre by my local library, a short distance from the river (naturally). I went inside and the first object that caught my eye, propped against a trestle table as if waiting for me, was a beautiful map of the River Thames. It was a reproduction of an 1834 drawing by the renowned map-maker William Tombleson, showing the river twisting from its source near Cirencester to the North Sea.

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