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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Saturday 1 July 2017

Saturday Walk - Marlow to Marlow or Henley

Book 2 Walk 8 - Marlow Circular or Marlow to Henley-on-Thames
Main walk - Marlow Circular - 13.4 miles/21.6km
Alternative ending in Henley - 9.4 miles/15.2km

This walk follows a beautiful stretch of the River Thames in the morning, with a stop at Aston for lunch.  In the afternoon you have a choice of routes from Hambledon Lock - either cross the river to return to Marlow via wooded hills, or for a shorter walk continue along the Thames Path to Henley-on-Thames.

Trains: Take the 9:57 train from London Paddington (10:05 Ealing Broadway) to Maidenhead arriving at 10:34 and head straight to platform 5B to catch the 10:38 to Marlow, arriving at 11:01.
Return trains from Marlow at xx06, from Henley at xx01.  For the Henley ending you will need a day return to Henley, and possibly a single from Maidenhead to Marlow.

Lunch: The Flower Pot, Aston (01491 574721) is 6.1 miles / 9.8km into the walk and offers traditional pub food plus a selection of stuffed animals.  Food is served all day on Saturdays.  An earlier stop after just 3 miles/4.9km is Ye Old Bell Inn, Hurley (01628 825 881), which is rather more upmarket but this time of the year has a less formal outdoor Summer Kitchen  - details here.

Both Marlow and Henley have plentiful tea options, check the walk notes for a few suggestions.

T=2.8

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope that the train is on time as 4 minutes to connect at Maidenhead is a bit of a worry

Walker said...

The connection is usually held - ie the Marlow branch departure is supposed to connect with the train from Paddington. Do be quick to cross to the other platform when you arrive at Maidenhead, though - the footbridge is towards the front of the train, from memory.

If the Paddington train is very late, the connection may not be held: the Marlow branch is single track and so they can't keep the train waiting forever or the whole schedule for the rest of the day will be thrown out. But for a few minutes they would hold it, I am sure.

Anyway (famous last words!!!!) we have always made the connection in the past. If not, you might look at how much a shared taxi would be. Or you could take along the instructions for the Maidenhead to Marlow walk (which is also very nice) as a back-up.....

Marcus said...

Best not end your walk in Henley but instead do the circular walk. I believe the Henley regatta remains in full swing on Saturday and the town is likely to be more than a tad busy.

Anonymous said...

I'm driving on Saturday to the marlow walk, so if it's changed @ the last minute due to train delay, could someone going on the walk post their mobile number so if no one turns up @ the station i'll know why. no smart phone or computer @ home, so it would help to have the info ahead of time.

also, would the flower pot @ aston still be the lunch pub if you switch to the maidenhead walk?

Walker said...

If you switched to the Maidenhead walk you would have lunch in Cookham

Barbara said...

I'm also driving to Marlow, so at least one companion provided.

Anonymous said...

N=14 on this walk hoping to have a nice day with a short walk - we all opted to finish at Henley - with a pleasant flat stroll to finish 
The weather was W=warm-breezy-grey-until-late-when-the-sun-came-out
Before I go on - this report is long because our day was very long and I have written this whilst on the train
The blazered brigade and the fascinatord females ( sometimes not much more ) were in throngs around Henley so the walk was far from pleasant ( more of a queue) for the last 2 Ks but great from a voyeurs 'point of view' with lots of the young enjoying on trend food and drink and chatting animatedly whilst rowers sliced through the very calm Thames being chased by a blazered umpire and film crew in a boat with an engine - good lord those rowers were fast.
Whilst we watched the women's coxless 4 teams ( UK under 23 against Nottingham Uni ) lining up before the off one of the women in our group noted that they were 'very fit' . The men demurred knowing that should they make a similar comment then castigation opprobrium, contempt etc etc.
But I am getting ahead of myself here as before all this happened we walked out of Marlow on flat lands by the Thames to The Flower Pot for lunch and nare saw a soul on or by the river .
Lunch at the Flower Pot was so so though the man who had steak and kidney pudding expressed himself delighted with his choice.  The waiter come pot boy said that they could seat 500 and today was quiet - say 100 sitting in the garden drinkin and eatin. Thus we were served quickly and fairly efficiently though you needed to keep your ears open for your number or you may miss it and the waiter would take your meal back in again.
After lunch the walking was hard but very stimulating, visually more varied than any previous walk that I have been on I suspect. i
Cake and tea in The Chocolate Gallery revived 8 of us before our major travail of the day. 
So fascinators off to those 6 who didn’t bother stopping for tea and presumably got home without any delays.
Bloody trains
Suffice to say a taxi for 8 of us from Twyford to Reading and then a very slow train to Waterloo
Arrived back in Waterloo nearer 8 than 7 having finished the walk around 15.30
For all that, good fun and company - thanks fellow wanderers.

I Strain