When I came up with the idea for a TADS walk that would end up in, and investigate, Reading over two years ago, part of the reason was that it would have fallen on the anniversary weekend of the death of my friend Bugsy in 2019. As well as on his birthday weekend.
The pandemic stopped us from doing the walk in 2020 and then again in 2021 and by the time 2022 had come around I'd decide to play down that aspect of the walk. Not because many of us don't still miss him but because to make it overly explicit would possibly have upset his partner Carole and son Dylan (and me too) and, more than anything, I wanted to get them out to join us for dinner in the evening.
Which I did. But I still want to dedicate this walk, and this blog, to Bugsy who not just inspired the walk and the title of the walk but was also key to some of the memories we shared along the way.
Bugsy's last ever Facebook status (on 4th March 2019) was "....is resting" and, sadly, that is now all too true. The penultimate one, on 27th February 2019, read "I must be an optimist. Whenever I look at the bin it always seems full or overflowing and NEVER half empty".
His words, as so often, proved quite prophetic to the walk. Though we were anything but resting, my life did seem to be overflowing a bit of late. Overflowing with booze after a very heavy Hastings weekend and overflowing with worries about the state of my health, the state of some friends' and family health, the state of my future, the state of the nation, and the state of the world.
As with so many times before, a TADS walk with friends proved to be just the balm I needed to ease those concerns and realise my life was also overflowing with friendship and positive experiences - and laughter. I'd met Pam and Kathy at Paddington and we'd taken the train to Reading and changed for Pangbourne where we met with Adam, Neil, Bee, Shep, and, for the first time on a TADS walk, Laura.
My planned breakfast stop, Cafe St Louis, was marked up as permanently closed so, instead, we headed to the slightly peculiar Garden Cafe. Where Chicken Tikka is listed under Beer/Wine, where the menu includes a 'Frout Salad Bowl', and where the toilet cubicle had four small chairs scattered around the actual loo.
For spectators!? Deciding against either a 'Berkshire Breakfast' or a 'Pangbourne Breakfast' I took a cheese toastie (the lady serving thought I'd ordered a 'tea toastie') and a can of Coke. The general consensus was that the breakfasts were perfectly good and for a village that boasts both a Lamborghini garage and an Aston Martin garage, the prices were not prohibitively expensive and the atmosphere none too stuffy.
Fed and watered we headed down to Pangbourne Meadows and the side of the Thames. Young lads stripped to their pants had just been in for a dip which will tell you just how clement a May day it was. There was no swimming for us but there was time for the day's first blast of spiel. It had been so long since I'd written this walk I could barely remember most of it myself.
Pangbourne was recorded, as far back as 844, as Pengingaburnan ("the stream of the people of a man called Penga"). The river Pang, which flows into the Thames here and which we'd unknowingly crossed, flows fourteen miles from Compton and its water voles are said to have inspired Kenneth Grahame in creating Ratty for 1908's Wind in the Willows. The Pang is also said to have a "a good head of brown trout" though there is concern about signal crayfish replacing white clawed crayfish.
In Norman times, Pangbourne's Bere Court was the summer residence of the abbot of Reading. The last person to hold that title, Hugh Cook Faringdon, was arrested for high treason in the village in 1539, imprisoned in the Tower of London, and executed in Reading. In 1895, he was declared a martyr and beatified by the Catholic church.
It's an incredibly pleasant stretch of river to walk or, in the case of the gent below, row. Spectacular mansions with riverside views look across from the far bank and so do a field full of curious alpacas.
A more direct encounter with nature came when we passed through a field of cattle, one taking a drink of Thames water, and somebody mentioned how statistically likely it would be to get killed by one. Even going so far as to suggest if we were charged our best bet would be to jump into the river!
Thankfully, it didn't come to that as the bovines simply stared unemotionally at us as we passed through them into a car park where someone had parked a Love Bug. Shep attempted a pee in a riverside toilet only to open the door while someone was 'doing their business'.
As we veered away from the river, Laura left us, and we continued, past some ludicrously expensively looking - though rather beautiful, cottages, into Purley-on-Thames. Or, more usually, Purley. For a reasonably hilly off river section that, in the early afternoon heat, proved more challenging than it should have done. I'll blame that Hastings weekend.
Purley has been settled since, at least, Saxon times with the parish church, again, coming under the remit of Reading Abbey. The one currently standing, Gothic in style, is from 1870 and by the architect George Edmund Street who also did the Royal Courts of Justice in London, St Luke's in Norwood, and a temple in Norwood Cemetery.
Near Tilehurst we passed over the railway tracks and on to a reasonably lengthy covered glade that took us back along the riverside and, eventually, round the back of the Reading Festival camping site. Neil pointing out spots we'd hung out together over thirty years ago now. Feels like a different lifetime but oh to be that young, to have that much energy - and that much life in front of me, again.
As we entered Reading proper, still Thames side, there were rusty petrol pumps to look at and a rowing team successfully managing to plonk their boat in the water without falling in themselves, but the main attraction, as Shep had warned Pam, was the sheer abundance of waterfowl. A spectacular sight at any time but with the chicks, and very many of them, around it was even more impressive.
Swans, ducks, coots, and geese all competed for food with pigeons as golden goslings and juvenile cygnets all splashed around cutely in the water and on the banks. For the next mile or so, I think I can honestly say it was the most waterfowl heavy experience of my life so far.
Though it did also incorporate a pub stop and some history of Caversham Bridge (which we passed to get to said pub). The first bridge on the site was built circa 1163 and in 1643 it was the site of an English Civil War skirmish. In 1806/7, Turner painted Caversham Bridge with Cattle in the Water (now in the Tate), but the current bridge dates from after that.
It was opened in 1926 by Edward, Prince of Wales - later King Edward VIII - the one who abdicated in 1936 and died in Paris in 1972. Piper's Island, which the bridge overlooks, is the third smallest island on the Thames to be named (behind Firework Ait in Windsor and Benn's Island in Hampton, Sheppey is the largest - by far).
The Crown proved a decent, and well earned, pit stop and soon Teresa, who had been grafting all morning, joined us as drinks and squeezers went down as easily as the conversation and I dished out a bit of the ol' Caversham history.
Before 1106, a Shrine of our Lady, had made Caversham a popular place of pilgrimage (Catherine of Aragon is recorded as having visited in 1532). But only six years after her visit it was destroyed by Henry VIII. 1643 saw fighting around the bridge in the English Civil War. Reading had been held by Royalists but fell to Parliamentarians under the Earl of Essex. In 1911 Caversham moved from Oxfordshire to Berkshire.
We passed through the pretty Christchurch Meadows (still flanked in every direction by waterfowl galore) and under the pedestrian Christchurch Bridge (opened in 2015 and built by Design Engine Architects). The area's called Christ Church because it was once owned by the Dean of Christ Church in Oxford. Fry's, or De Montfort, Island to our right is only accessible by boat (or swimming) and it was, in the 12c, the site of a duel between Robert de Montfort and King Henry II's standard bearer Henry of Essex. Henry of Essex fell and, believing him dead, the king ordered monks to bury his body. Instead they nursed him back to health. He is thought to have eventually died in Reading Abbey in 1170
At Reading Bridge, we bade farewell to Kathy (who, as ever, had a busy agenda for the rest of the weekend) and we continued on to a small series of islands that are bridged so we can cross the river. Despite being Reading born, I had never been on any of these islands before. I didn't know this area at all and nor did Shep which seemed truly remarkable.
Heron Island took us to View Island which took us De Bohun Island and Caversham Lock and we were back on the south side of the Thames and in King's Meadow.
King's Meadow, as so much else, is a former possession of the abbey which passed to the king following the dissolution of the monasteries and, in 1869, to the town council. It now hosts Reading Pride and the Reading Beer Festival though on Saturday was mainly full of people relaxing on walks and laying back in the grass enjoying the sun.
We followed it until we met the confluence of the Kennet (which has come 45 miles from Silbury Hill via Marlborough, Hungerford, and Newbury) and the Thames. We crossed a bridge to the other side of the Kennet and were greeted with a convoy of nearly one hundred swans - possibly the biggest lamentation of the dudes I'd ever seen and quite an impressive sight.
It was time for a second pit spot and The Fisherman's Cottage seemed perfect. Ben Lanes even joined us for a quick one, having motorcycled down, as we sat in the glorious, now late afternoon, sunshine. It would have been easy to stay there all evening but I had a few more sights I wanted to include first so there was one last stretch of history and walking.
I wouldn't be able to take all the sights in but there were some I felt shouldn't be missed. Luckily, I think everyone more or less agreed with me. We had to miss Chocolate Island but we did pass the former Huntley and Palmer's biscuit factory, founded in 1822 and once the world's largest.
Coaches would stop in a pub on journeys from Bath and Bristol to London and Joseph Huntley would sell his wares to passengers. In 1841 his son, Thomas Huntley, took on George Palmer as a partner and, at one point, the factory was so large it operated its own steam railway. They had royal warrants from the UK, Napoleon III, and Leopold II of Belgium and each week a barge of flour came down the Thames from Hambleden. Palmer Park in Reading was given to the town but the company, in 2006, re-established itself in Sudbury, Suffolk. In 2017, a 106 year old Huntley and Palmer fruitcake was found in Cape Adare, Antactica - believed to have been left behind during Scott's 1910-13 Terra Nova Expedition.
The next site of interest, and a curiously undersold and underappreciated one by Reading itself, is the abbey. Or at least the ruins of it. It's bigger than you might think.
Reading Abbey was founded by Henry I in 1121 and in its heyday it was one of Europe's largest monasteries. Following the royal foundation it was established by monks from Cluny Abbey in Burgundy and others from the Cluniac priory in Lewes. The first abbot, in 1123, was Hugh of Amiens who went on to become Archbishop of Rouen and is buried in Rouen Cathedral.
The Kennet provided power for the abbey's water mills (specifically the Holy Brook channels you can see running beside the ruins). When Henry I died in Normandy in 1135 his body was returned to be buired here but he's not the only royal burial at the abbey. There's also Matilda of Scotland (Henry's first wife, aka Edith, 1080-1118), William of Poitiers (Henry II's son from Eleanor of Aquitaine, 1153-1156), and Constance of York (c.1375-1416).
The abbey once held ground as far away as Herefordshire and even Scotland and became the principal centre of medieval English pilgrimage. It is even said it holds the hand (relic) of St James, one of Jesus' twelve apostles. His other hand, more famously, being in Santiago de Compostela in Spain. A shriveled hand was found in the church during work in 1786 and is now in Marlow.
The song, Sumer is Icumenin - Britain's earliest known six part harmony, was written in the abbey around 1240. John of Gaunt married Blanche of Lancaster there in 1359 and, in 1538, Henry VIII mostly destroyed it.
Looming up behind the abbey you can see the former Reading Gaol, its walls now adorned with a Banksy. The prison was built in 1844 and closed in 2014. Designed by George Gilbert Scott (see also the Albert Memorial, St Pancras, and parts of Dorchester Abbey) in a cruciform shape based on London's Pentonville which, in turn, was based on the Eastern State Penitentiary of Philadelphia.
It'd held Irish prisoners from the 1916 Easter Rising (nobody wanted me to recite the Yeats poem), WWI and WWII prisoners, and was once also a borstal. Its most famous inmate is, of course, Oscar Wilde who was incarcerated here between 1895 and 1897 but it also held the boxer Anthony Joshua for a spell in 2009 and a certain Amelia Dyer.
Amelia Dyer is said to be one of the world's worst ever serial killers and is believed to have killed over four hundred children. Known as the 'Reading baby farmer', or 'the ogress of Reading' she was hanged at Newgate in 1896. Another inmate who ended up hanged was Charles Thomas Wooldridge. A Trooper jailed for the murder of his wife he was the inspiration for Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol even though the two men never actually met.
Neaby St James Church continues the Abbey's traditions and was designed by Augustus Pugin (who also did the Houses of Parliament) in 1840. Built using stones from the abbey ruins, the last but one Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, was baptised in the church and served it as an altar boy. Having been born in the town of Reading in 1932.
Next, it was a brief detour through Forbury Gardens. The site, since I'd written the route of this walk, of a deadly terrorist incident but, historically, most famous for its enormous lion statue. The Maiwand Lion is named for the Battle of Maiwand, a major and deadly battle in the Second Anglo-Afghan War (part of the Great Game between the British and Russian Empires). 329 men of the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot died in a war that took approximately 15,000 lives in total.
The lion was erected in 1886. Sculpted by George Blackall Simonds of the local Simonds Brewery (who amalgamated with Courage in 1960) and rumours persist that Simonds killed himself on learning the lion's gait was incorrectly that of a domestic cat. Wikipedia insists those rumours are untrue and that Simonds had studied lions and the stance is correct.
He did get to make another statue in no lesser location than New York's Central Park (as well as one of biscuit man George Palmer in the park named after him) and the cast iron sixteen ton lion is something of an emblem for the town of Reading, appearing on the Reading FC crest and on medals given to finishers of the Reading half-marathon.
Forbury Gardens, over the years, has been used for military drills, parades, cheese fairs, circuses, and hiring fairs but, as we passed through, it was mostly full of local youngsters enjoying music and drinks.
A statue of Queen Victoria is locally said to be looking away from the town because she didn't like the place but if that's the case she's not a fan of the rather delightful architecture of Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905). As well as building London's Natural History Museum and Strangeways in Manchester he built Reading Town Hall (or at least the version we see today).
Quite a triumvirate. It's built in Victorian Gothic style with terracotta ornamentation and once hosted both a replica of the Bayeux Tapestry and a nice bar called the 3Bs (named for Reading's association with biscuits, beer, and bulbs).
Between Reading's two main shopping thoroughfares, Broad Street and Friar Street, stands Union Street. Or as almost every local knows it - Smelly Alley. A nickname that came about in the 1940s due to its wet fish shops. Specifically one called Frost's. I can remember when it still smelt of fish and the aroma was quite overpowering.
Smelly Alley opens up on to Broad Street where, in 1688, the Battle of Reading saw a decisive victory over soldiers loyal to James II by William III of Orange's Dutch troops (as part of the Glorious Revolution). The only significant military action of the whole Williamite takover. Kurios Oranj?
Nearby stands the Broad Street Mall, or St Mary's Butts, (in my youth, the Butts Centre and then the absolute height of modern shopping, or so it seemed to me - I used to go to Listen Records there and get my hair cut in the style of Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran - not the drum machine from Echo and the Bunnymen).
Before that it was an actual artillery butts used for Reading men to hone their skills on Sundays. Some archers from 1415's Battle of Agincourt trained there and Edward IV (who reigned from 1460-1470 and again from 1471-1483) made it compulsory for all yeomen to learn archery.
I'd planned to pass through the Butts for old time's sake but time was against us and we decided on one more drink before curry time. We thought we'd try an old favourite haunt, The Horn, but it was closed (permanently or not, I do not know). Instead we tried the nearby Sun which was dark and dingy, had an old Winmau darts scoring machine, and, as it turned out, due to close soon as well.
Nevertheless, we found a quiet table, took drinks, and I read some more Reading spiel. Firstly about the, pictured above, Reading Minster. Or Minster Church of St Mary the Virgin. The oldest ecclesiastical foundation in Reading, even predating the abbey.
Unverified beginnings date to the 7th century and 9th century coins have been found there from the time when Ethelred and Alfred of Wessex were fighting the Danes and a time when Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) was still the local centre of importance!
In 979, King Edgar's wife, Aelfthryth, founded a nunnery here as an act of repentance for mudering her stepson but in the next century it (the nunnery) was destroyed by the Danes. Later the church was granted to Battle Abbey under William the Conqueror. There's a one hundred and fifty year old Indian bean tree in the church's garden.
By 1525, Reading had become the largest town in Berkshire and the tenth largest in the country. Even now it competes with Northampton as the largest town yet to be made a city in the country. Reading was devastated in the English Civil War and, as mentioned earlier, played pivotal role in the Glorious Revolution. It's steeped with history but so often dismissed as if a new town or a mere railway stop.
Of the railways:- they arrived in 1841 but the town was most famous for those three Bs (the bulbs because of Suttons Seeds). Reading remained relatively unscathed in both wars and is now perhaps most famous as home of the Reading Festival. WOMAD, too, was held on the same site until 2006 when it moved to Malmesbury. Jane Austen attended boarding school in Reading, Thomas Hardy changed its name to Aldbrickham in 1895's Jude the Obscure, and then of course there's Oscar Wilde.
And Ricky Gervais. As well as a host of other notables. John Altman (Nick Cotton in Eastenders) was born here, so was Sky News' Adam Boulton, Kenneth Branagh lived her from the age of nine and Felix Bowness (the jockey from Hi-De-Hi) died in the town.
Other Reading born names of note include Charlie Brooker, Neil Halstead of Slowdive, Jeremy Kyle, Arthur Negus, the aforesaid Cormac Murphy O'Connor, Lucy Worsley, Neil Webb, Mike Oldfield, Stuart Price, Chris Tarrant, and Kate Winslet. William Henry Fox Talbot had a photography studio in the town and Michael Foot, Alma Cogan, Sir John Soane, Sir John Madejski, Lawrie Sanchez, and David Lean all attended school here.
Oh, and I was born there too. From The Sun we all headed down to the Royal Tandoori where we met with Carole and Dylan and had what all agreed was a rather delightful feast of Indian food washed down with Cobras, and, for Teresa, Pam, and Bee, some fancy cocktails. No time for any post-prandial drinks as we all headed back to the station. Pam and I took the train to Paddington (some very refreshed but very friendly rugby players were enjoying themselves) where I said goodbye to her before getting the tube to Elephant & Castle and the bus home. Another TADS mission completed.
Thanks to Pam, Kathy, Shep, Laura, Adam, Teresa, Neil, Bee, Ben, Carole, and Dylan for making it such a happy day and thanks to Pam, Bee, and Neil for some of the snappage and mappage in this blogged account of the day. Next month TADS are walking from Benfleet to Southend in a walk I've called Per Mare Per Ecclasiam (because it's the Southend town motto). As ever, I'm looking forward to it.
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