The Thames Path gang (at least some of those that started this walk) have finally left London. Roughly halfway through yesterday's long awaited fourth stage of our Thames walking project we crossed Hampton Court Bridge from the London borough of Richmond upon Thames in to East Molesey of Surrey. At first the change felt immaterial but soon it became apparent that we weren't in London anymore.
Less busier, less houses, more countryside. It was a walk of islands, aits, and eyots and it was a walk with a lot of royal history. Not an unusual experience when walking the Thames. It was a walk that initially, unfortunately, saw less people on it than the previous two stages as well.
Blame knees. Always blame knees. Bee's knees have let her down so badly she's had to forego he role in the Thames Path steering group and will now only join occasional walks (hopefully lots of occasional walks) and Shep had had a flare up in the last week or so and though he expects to be back soon decided Saturday was a walk too far. He at least made it along for the curry.
I'd been in A&E with my own knee less than a month ago. Gout in the knee. Painful. Very painful for a couple of days. But luckily fleeting. I'd woken ridiculously early, excited?, on Saturday and that was just as well as engineering works on both trains and roads had made my route to Teddington less straightforward than ideal.
I'd taken the 63 bus, on diversion from the Old Kent Road to Elephant & Castle, to Waterloo and arrived there in time for the 1000hrs train which was going from Platform 22. I didn't even know Waterloo had that many platforms but, as I'd guessed, it seems they've opened up for the former Waterloo International platforms for domestic trains now.
Adam joined me on the (very empty) train at Clapham Junction and we arrived in Teddington just before Mo and Pam who had bumped into each other en route. Teddington's quite fancy, you don't see many places that double up as manicurists and prosecco bars, and decidedly free of greasy spoons so we popped into the very busy Fallow Deer Cafe.
I had cruhsed avo, poached eggs, and homemade harissa on sourdough. Pam had the same, Adam the best rarebit he'd tasted in a decade, and Mo a bacon and sausage butty followed by a lemon drizzle cake (a bit too 'dense' apparently but it looked good). I washed it down with a mug of tea and we all caught up with each other's news before heading down the High Street to Teddington Lock and the river.
Via a Rubbish Taxi (is that a taxi that picks up your rubbish or just a taxi that's rubbish, one that takes you to the wrong destination, turns up late, and overcharges you?). Luckily there are more pleasant ways of getting about on this idyllic stretch of the Thames than in rubbish taxis.
Boating of course. Plenty were. But probably not as many as the area's boating heyday, the late 19th century would see many thousands of Londoners escaping the pollution to muck about on the water. It was a good way for young men and women to mingle together without censure of supervision (according to Phoebe Clapham).
Such was the popularity of the pastime that, in 1889, Jerome K Jerome wrote Three Men In A Boat about a trip from Kingston to Oxford. The book started off as a serious guide but Jerome soon allowed it to take on its own life and developed it into a comic novel. One that, according to people I know who have read it, still stands up over one hundred and twenty years later.
Probably ought to read it. Or at least add it to my ever expanding list of books I hope to read one day. We continued along a pretty enough stretch of the river, passing Steven's Eyot, Canbury Gardens, the Half Mile tree, several juvenile swans, and some teams of rowers out practicing, and soon enough arrived in Kingston.
We'd planned to hopefully meet our friends Sharon and Jason at walk's end for a curry but Sharon had rung ahead and said they'd like to join us for some of the walk. Most of the walk to be fair. So, after a quick look at Noah (below), we picked them up outside The Ram pub (a future walking stop and rather fine one too) and headed over Kingston Bridge to the north side, or - here - the west side, of the Thames.
Sharon and Jason were a great addition to the day's walking (and I hope they can join us again next time and onwards). Sharon knows all manner of things (when I appeared on Eggheads with her she was the only one of our team who knocked out one of the Eggheads) and Jason is a font of knowledge too. Especially when it comes to this area which has been his home for most of his life. He keeps it quiet but he's something of a Hersham boy.
No laced up boots and corduroys though. He gave us some Kingston history (including the story of the infamous Clattern Bridge) and as we passed round the enormous gardens of Hampton Court we looked across to St Raphael's Roman Catholic Church(built in 1847-8, less than twenty years after the Catholic Emancipation Act gave English Catholics their civil rights back), the small neighbourhood of Seething Wells (famed, though the name suggests otherwise, for its potable water), and a few more islands:- Raven's Ait (a popular venue for wedding receptions, thanks Sharon), Boyle Farm Island, and Thames Ditton Island.
Which told us we were now looking across to Thames Ditton rather than Seething Wells. There's some pretty nice houses there that lead directly down to the river (including, according to Pam, a Huf Haus) but that means the path is pushed away from the river on to side streets. At least on our side we still had river views.
Pretty good ones too as you'd expect. Of course, our attention was diverted from the river for a while when we arrived at Hampton Court Palace itself. I'd forgotten just how vast it is - and how many chimneys (apparently a proud sign of wealth at one time) it has. I'd visited the palace as a tourist and even been ice skating on its grounds but I would, one day, like to try the maze.
Our book contained a potted history of the palace and I read that to the gang later in the pub. It was originally built in about 1514 as the home of Cardinal Wolsey, one of Henry VIII's chief advisors, drawing both on Italian Renaissance architectural styles and more traditional Gothic perpendicular. In 1528, as Wolsey began to fall out of favour with Mr VIII, Hampton Court was enlarged for the king himself.
One of its gatehouses is named after his wife Anne Boleyn though she never got to see it completed as he had her executed while it was still being built. It was at Hampton Court that Henry's son, Edward VI, was born and it is said that Catherine Howard, Henry's fifth wife and another whose head he had chopped off, or at least her ghost can be seen hanging around in the appropriately named Haunted Gallery.
Post-Tudor, Hampton Court remained an important royal venue. The Stuart king Charles I was imprisoned here by Parliamentarians in 1647. He managed to escape down the Thames and, eventually, to the Isle of Wight but, much like Boleyn and Howard, Charles I soon found his body and head being going in different directions.
By the late 17th century, Hampton Court Palace was starting to be considered a bit old fashioned and was being shown up by the fancy French! Not least the glories of Versailles. William III and Mary II commissioned Christopher Wren to rebuild it and he designed a Baroque Fountain Court. When Mary died of smallpox, William lost interest in the project but George I and George II ordered further redecorations which were carried out by John Vanbrugh and WIlliam Kent.
When George III took over as monarch, in 1760, Hampton Court Palace's days as a royal residence would soon come to an end. George III didn't like the place as his father had once hit him there. In fact he hated it so much he never set foot in it again. Since then it's never returned to a royal residence and is, of course, a hugely popular tourist attraction.
We didn't go in. There was a pub over the road and that was more in tune with our needs and desires. The Mute Swan had a large iron staircase in the middle of it which you'd not want to navigate after a couple of wobbly pops but it had a decent range of beers, I had an Henry's Ait - well I had to, and we found a nice big table and I read out the history of Hampton Court Palace and quizzed Sharon on the singles released from Lionel Richie's Can't Slow Down album. Well, it was fun for me.
More interestingly, Jason revealed he used to work in the pub back in the eighties. Just after he'd done his O-levels. It's changed a bit it seems. But it was a pleasant stop and we were lucky that the Six Nations, always a big draw in this area, was having one of its fallow weekends. If we'd been in there a week ago we'd no doubt be in a very crowded pub with Ireland v France on. If we were to visit again next week I suspect we'd be subjected to an Italy/Ireland confrontation.
As we crossed Hampton Court Bridge into East Molesey (and Surrey) and started to follow a riverside path named Barge Walk we passed further islands (Ash Island, Tagg's Island - full of charming residences, Garrick Ait, Platts Eyot, Sunbury Court Island, and Sunbury Lock Ait) and we looked across to Sunbury itself.
There were reservoirs and more modest suburban houses, even tower blocks, to our south and on the north side of the river, maps and the guide book informed us, there were more reservoirs and, in Sunbury itself, both a church and a temple. We continued along the side of Hurst Park (once a racecourse), past a couple more islands (Wheatley's Ait (North) and Wheatley's Eyot (South)), and in front of the tempting looking Weir pub.
We resisted a stop and continued along, chatting about Tales of the Unexpected, the execrable Andrew Tate, WhatsApp scamming techniques, people who used to work for the Automobile Association (there were four of us present), and gimlets. Eventually we reached The Anglers which was to be our final pub stop of the day. Shep, Laura, and Helen met us there and I ordered a Hogstar lager (well, we were in Surrey) and Pam a Hog IPA which, due to an uneven table, I managed to spill half of. Some of it over her.
The friendly, if not particularly efficient, staff mopped up my mess and because we'd made such good time we were able to stay for a second drink before heading in to Walton-on-Thames proper and the Babucci restaurant for what had been billed as 'timeless Indian cuisine'.
Strangely enough, for a business that bandies the concept of timelessness about. time was an issue that soon was very much on all our minds. They took absolutely ages to take our orders and then took even longer to bring out the mains. I'm not a fan of the word 'hangry' (it's very babyish and if even I think that then that can't be good) but some around the table could definitely said to be getting hangry. It was exceedingly busy in there but there was starting to be the danger of missed trains and well over an hour is a long wait.
At least the beer (Cobra), soft drinks, and poddadoms (very tasty ones too) came quickly. When the food did finally come most were pretty impressed with it. My garlic naan was fine (it's rare that goes wrong) but my vegetable makanwala ranked poorly compared to an absolutely delicious one I'd had in the India Gate, Arundel on a TADS walk back in September 2021.
Not to worry. We eat a lot of Indian meals and many of them are great. This one wasn't bad. Just a bit underwhelming. The atmosphere, as people discussed (and sang) their favourite Erasure songs - with of course a quick throwback to The Thompson Twin, was convivial and I was almost sad the day was coming to an end.
People headed in separate directions. Mo, Pam, and myself took a long walk to Walton-on-Thames station which, for some reason, is nowhere near the town centre and then had an even longer wait for our train (there had been many delays). They jumped off en route and I continued all the way, my bladder now virtually bursting, to Waterloo and then. eventually - I walked to Elephant & Castle for some reason, a bus home. Across the day I'd walked a 2023 record of 27,879 steps.
We'll be back on the Thames Path (Walton-on-Thames to Staines-on-Thames) on Good Friday and in two weeks we'll start up the 2023 TADS season with a walk I'm calling Steadfast in Service. I'm very happy the walking season is getting properly going again. Thanks to Adam, Mo, Pam (extra thanks, as ever, for the snaps included in this blog), Jason, Sharon, Helen, Laura, and Shep for a great day yesterday. See you all again soon.
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