Walking The Thames Path: Section 1: Source to Cricklade

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Weather: Sunny, Very Warm
Section Length: 19.7km
Fantastic Place: Ashton Keynes

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The Route

Background
The Thames has played a large part in my life. I've lived in London for over half my life now and most of the IT projects and companies I've worked for have been on or near the Thames. My family grew up in Stroud so the Cotwolds were often a holiday destination for me as a child and I still visit there today to see some of those relations that didn't emigrate to Australia. Given that it is a bit strange that I have not formally walked any of the Thames Path. Sure I've walked part of in while going to work, visiting galleries and museums and some sections formed part of the LOOP, especially out towards the east of the city. As a supplement to my Walking the Lines project, I thought I could add the Thames Path to my list of walks. It is unlikely that I will walk it in any structured way, or in any particular order. The western sections will be done while on holiday in the Cotswolds while the London sections will be done possibly during the winter, hopefully dragging Liz along with me.
However, it seemed to make sense by starting the project with the first section while we were on holiday in Stroud.

Finding the Source
A journey of 294km starts with a single step or so they say and this first step was taken in the carpark of the Thames Head pub where Liz dropped me off so she could enjoy a day of browsing and letter writing in Cricklade where I would meet her later. So the start of the walk was alongside the rather busy A433 which follows the line of the Roman Foss Way. Glad to be off the major road I was then confronted with a foot crossing across a high-speed railway line. Fortunately, views in both directions were good and I was able to cross without difficulty. During my walk along the LOOP, I occasionally had to cross busy roads at the end of a long walk and getting any sort of sprint at that stage was much harder!

The path to the source of the Thames is unclear and there was no sign of any water, just a lot of cows. Then I glimpsed in the distance a stone block that looked promising and soon I was standing at the official source of the Thames.

It's all downhill from here.

Move along, nothing to see here.

 A small depression lined with stones which occasionally after a very wet season will contain the start of the Thames. Looking back along the meadow I could just make out a small dip that would be the path of this infant stream that eventually flows out into the sea nearly 300km to the east.

After dribbling a few drops of water from my bottle onto the stones I headed off east. The meadow was full of cows and the surrounding fields golen with oil seed rape.

Spot the Thames

None Shall Pass

Liquid Gold

The path leads back to the Foss Way and on the other side the path of the Thames is better defined and you can imagine water in it if there had been a wetter winter and spring than the one we had this year.

Just a few hundred paces after the road I could see water in the stream bed. The famous Lyd Well is often the first point where water reliably bubbles up into the Thames. A bit further on the Thames had become a proper stream, shallow and wide but flowing over a pebbly bed and crossed by a bridge.

First Proper Bridge

The Infant Thames

The Lakes of Ashton Keynes
The path follows the meandering stream closely for the next few kilometres through woodland redolant with wild garlic, past ponds with flag iris lining the banks and under powerlines striding across the landscape.

The pretty village of Ashton Keynes is surrrounded by numerous lakes, created by gravel extraction and now flooded and used for fishing and other leisure activities. Some of these lakes are fringed with gated communities and there are a lot of Private signs that don't add up to a relaxing walk. Ashton Keynes itself is a small but very pretty Cotswold stone village where the Thames flows through a stone lined channel, the first sighting of the river for some time, the channel having been swallowed up by the lakes, and the last for a while as more lakes follow on the otherside of the village.

The Thames near Ashton Keynes

At this point I was getting a little tired of the zig-zagging between the lakes but I was amused to see a sign warning of quicksand!

Cricklade - Twinned with Mos Eisley
We had visited Cricklade once a couple of years before as we drove back to London from an Autumn break. When I pointed out the young Thames Liz wouldn't have it, until I pointed out a plaque on the bridge. Before this walk Liz read me a section of William Cobbett's "Rural Rides" where he described Cricklade in 1821 as "a more rascally looking place I never set my eyes on." All I can say is that he had not been out much! The approach to this small town is across a wonderful wildflower strewn meadow which has been protected as a wildlife reserve since the 1970s. Cricklade itself is quite pretty with a number of historic pubs, some useful shops and a very nice cafe where I had a welcome drink and late lunch with Liz while I considered when I'd be able to tackle the next section down to Lechlade.