Thames Path: Pangbourne to Cholsey

Introduction

On 2 January 2010, Mum and Dad and I did one more stretch of the Thames Path, continuing from Pangbourne to Cholsey (which isn't actually on the Thames, but has a railway station).

Pangbourne and Whitchurch

As we'd arrived late in the day last time, we took the opportunity to have a look around Pangbourne and Whitchurch during daylight, starting with Pangbourne church.

The church.
Tomb with statues.
A skull complete with cobwebs.
Gravestone in the floor.

Crossing the river on the toll bridge, we passed again by Whitchurch, er, church too.

Whitchurchchurchchurchchurch...

The Thames Path leaves the river through Whitchurch and runs uphill on a rise above the Thames for some distance.

A promise...
...delivered. Rather picturesque steps, though.
Presumably this pillbox was intended to stop the Germans invading. Somehow.

Gatehampton railway bridge

The path rejoined the river in time to meet Gatehampton railway bridge; designed by Brunel and very nice too.

The main arch.
Yellow steps up to the line.
Tree shadows on the grey netting they've put up to stop things growing.

After having lunch by the bridge, we continued along the towpath.

Snowdrop; a boat in a boathouse.
Inside another boathouse.

Goring

Goring is another small and disturbingly rich/expensive town on the river.

One of our guidebooks described this bridge as hideous, while the other (older) one said it was a wonderful example of how concrete could look just like the older wooden bridge...

We had a look inside the church.

Goring church.
Screen in church. (You get the impression the church isn't short of money either.)
More nice lettering (especially the 'A.D. 1670' part) and interesting spelling. Poor Ivdith.
Patterned light in the church.

After that (and buying snacks), we crossed the river on the hideous/wonderful bridge.

The river was very high, but this yellow ducky looks set to survive any flood.
Light pattern on back of sign attached to bridge.

The town on the other bank is called Streatley and yes, this has a church too...

The porch.
Plain window.
Window with lettering (on wall).

There was a fun moment as we headed toward the river again and found a lake in the way - but a brave traveller passing the other way demonstrated that it wasn't very deep, so we splashed through the floodwater, getting rather wet feet, and back to the towpath.

Flooded field.
Across the river. Sign: 'Breeding birds keep out'. Not sure they can read, though.

Moulsford

We left the river at a place called Moulsford which has an expensive private school and not too much else.

But one building had a clock with a rather nice lamp.
Graveyard of a small chapel.

After walking some distance along the road and then on a footpath beside the railway, we got to Cholsey station and the end of the walk. We didn't see much of Cholsey itself - maybe next time.

Javascript recommended; browser information

This site requires Javascript and a current browser for the dynamic photo viewer to work. The browser you're using doesn't make the grade.

You can still use the site; when you click on a picture thumbnail, the picture will open in this same window. (Use the Back button to return.)

If you want the site to be at its best, please enable Javascript and use a supported current browser. This site does not use any browser-specific code but it relies on support for core Web standards set by the W3C: XHTML, CSS, and the Javascript DOM.

We recommend using Mozilla 1.0+ or Netscape 7.0+ (or another browser using the Gecko layout engine). The site also works on Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+ (PC), which doesn't fully support the necessary standards but we did a workaround for it. It doesn't work on Opera because Opera doesn't support the DOM. Opera 7.0+ may resolve this in which case it'll work there too.

Site developed in valid XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0. Fully accessible to users in text browsers or without CSS+JS.

Created with leafdigital picstory 1.0