Shorter Option: start from Appleford, using the 10.20 train and changing at Didcot. But you’ll be behind the group at least until lunch. See the webpage or the pdf for more details.
This walk takes in an attractive part of the Thames Valley south of Oxford, with a lunchtime stop in Dorchester-on-Thames. This handsome village is now bypassed by the traffic but used to be an important staging post between London and Oxford. It has retained a large number of coaching inns and other pubs, so there's plenty of choice for refreshment. You should be sure to visit Dorchester Abbey , one of the few large monastery buildings to survive the Dissolution; it now functions as an impressive parish church. In the afternoon the walk comes to the Wittenham Clumps, the name given to a pair of Iron Age hill forts set in a Nature Reserve managed by the Earth Trust.
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In w=overcast weather we strode on from Didcot Station, with 1 Ealing B'way-originating walker having not read the walk post properly and failing to change at Slough off the stopping service, ie being a scheduled 20 minutes behind. After further delays en route, she took a taxi from the station to Long Wittenham and awaited the group there, managing to nab a free tea and some biscuits off some friendly locals while waiting. The group itself took longer than hoped for to get to Long Wittenham, on account of A - the 'leaders' following the gpx in reverse initially, and B - then all running into a blocked off right of way after crossing Appleford Road. The cyclepath onwards was being re-engineered and tarmac-ed. The SWC being what it is, we climbed over fences and trees to get around the barriers and keep on along the normal route, assuming that there surely wouldn't be any workers there anyway on a Saturday. Not so. After overcoming another barrier blocking a bridge over a stream, we faced the sight of various JCB equipment being worked by a handful of council employees, a bit further downpath. A Plan B was needed, and duly implemented: turn right and follow hedges and field boundaries to a public bridleway further east and take it from there. Plentiful mud was accumulated doing so, but to Long Wittenham we got, eventually.
The Thames-side section has seen some changes, including a long boardwalk across a mud-prone section, and also plentiful works on creating a flood-mellowing, lapwing-breeding-supporting area (funded by the EU, of course), it mainly being fenced-off new ponds, which means that cattle are kept out from that stretch, ie not much mud there. [Generally, mud wasn't much of a problem today.]
In Dorchester, we found the Fleur de Lys closed w/o explanation, so the lunchers gave The George a go, which was a very nice spot indeed: Greek-Cypriot cuisine in a more-than-400-years old Coaching Inn. And with a very lovely ale from Abbingdon. We stayed for close to an hour and a half.
On to the Abbey, then the church in Little Wittenham. I then explored a possible extension to the route through Little Wittenham Wood and only caught up with the rest close to Didcot Station. On the descending approach to Ladygrove Farm, one can see that prime-commuter town Didcot is mushrooming out of the confines of the northerly bypass road: all the fields west of Lady Grove Road are being built on (Nobel Park, Willowbrook Park, where do they find those names for all those anonymous estates?), with the dreaded 'Planning Notice - May affect Right of Way' notice hung up on the gate to Ladygrove Farm. As it is, the line of the footpath is not and will not be affected, but the former mud-prone field boundaries are now engineered sandy paths to the left of some new housing. Maybe even a win?
As for 'group cohesion' (the lack of which was famously bemoaned in a recent comment on a Wednesday walk), it was typical SWC stuff: 5 lunchers, joined by 3 picknickers. 2 other picknickers did the full walk w/o joining the lunchers. 4 shortcutters (an improvised shortcut from Long Wittenham to Little Wittenham along a road and into Dorchester, they arrived there just minutes before the main group), 2 of which then took a bus to Wallingford for a bit of a mosey, then another bus to Didcot to meet up again with the other 2 shortcutters. Those other 2 had bumped into another walker that had started from Appledore (with a dog). 1 walker had cut out just the tiny loop into/out of Dorchester after crossing the Thames. n=16 and a dog, all on the 16.15 and 16.56 trains (minus the car driver and dog from Appledore).
For the benefit of travellers intending to go to Didcot Parkway I’ve now checked the TFL website to find that none of the trains stopping at Ealing Broadway on a Saturday at least actually go direct to Didcot despite saying that Didcot is the destination. They stop at Reading and separate adding at least 20 minutes to one’s journey. Thus a change is required at Slough to connect with a faster train. Also none of the trains are TFL and not free to Reading on a Freedom Pass. Tickets required from West Drayton. It would have been helpful to have this explanation from our super efficient walk poster before buying a ticket and catching a useless train to Didcot which didn’t arrive at the same time as the group. I’ve never traveled to Didcot before so wasn’t aware of this ridiculous anomaly. You have been warned!!
Well, Marion, that's why the walk post said "change at Slough", if starting from Ealing, as the stopping service would arrive much later. I don't think punters should expect walk posters to engage in detailed analysis of the intricacies of dealing with Senior Railcards or Freedom Passes validities' and ticketing arrangements. The users of those are best placed to know or guess what's what themselves.
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