The text and routes in these mapping apps are based on content in my blog where you can find the updated versions of the routes and notes on the landscape, history and things to watch out for. Link www.pootler.co.uk.
This ‘figure of eight’ tour takes you from the wide, flat Thames Valley at the East end of the Vale of the White Horse, into much narrower and steep sides valley where the river cuts a course between the Chilterns meets the North Wessex Downs. This is the Goring Gap.
It starts from Didcot station and heads north on NCR 5, a good(ish) cycle path towards the Thames, which it follows to Dorchester and Wallingford. Both were important cities in the Iron age and the Saxon period respectively and both can prove it!. It then continues along the bottom of the Goring Gap to Goring itself before returning to Wallingford, enjoying longer views from the upper side of the valley. From there it skirts the foot of the Downs back to Didcot.
Apart from NCR 5 out of Didcot, It is mostly flat, minor roads with the odd busier stretch near the river. Much of it is flat, but there is a long but gentle climb out of Goring and an unmade section around South Stoke. See ‘Route Tips’ below.
Zoom In
Highlights are:
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Following Jerome K Jerome's trip down the Thames, immortalised in 'Three men in a Boat’.
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King Alfred’s Saxon Walls and a Plantagenet castle at Wallingford. Game of Thrones stuff!
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Even older Dorchester, once an Iron Age Oppidum and later a capital of Wessex, where you can also visit the site of the World Pooh Sticks Championships next to a Bronze and Iron Age fort.
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Good mini-museums at Wallingford (History) Dorchester (part of the Abbey) and Pendon (eccentric!)
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Goring Village. A scenic spot on the Thames.
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The Goring Gap itself – a slice of geological history!
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As ever, a Wunderkammer of other oddities.
On the blog, there are detailed notes on waypoints and things to see. If your mapping app has not imported these, use this link to go directly to the blog post of the route. I hope these will be more entertaining than the links to dry Wikipedia articles dredged up as POI’s by the mapping apps’ software robots. This cannot give you the exact location for each waypoint but it many cases you won’t need it and at least the information will be up to date!
Link Pootler Route
Zooming Out
The Thames has moved around quite a lot over time. At its zenith it was much larger, draining much of North Wales and following a northerly course before flowing into the North Sea, perhaps around where Ipswich is today. During a severe Ice Age around 500,000 years ago this route was blocked by glaciers, so it turned south, cutting through the soft chalk of the downs to create the Goring Gap and adopting (roughly, it is always on the move) its present path to the sea.
Dorchester’s owes its historic importance to both its location and the fertility of the surrounding land. In the Bronze and Iron Age when the this stretch of the river probably marked the boundary between the Catuvallauni and Atrebates tribes. You might have bumped into them on some of my other Routes. Sadly, a lot of the traces they left behind were obliterated by gravel quarrying. It was effectively the capital of Wessex for a while, its importance was underlined by the status of its Abbey as the seat of the Bishopric of Mercia. It lost that title in the 11th century and since then it has been downhill all the way. It is a sleepy old place now.
Wallingford is one of the lowest fording points on the Thames, so it was always a nodal point on early transport routes. Hence King Alfred’s fortifications. Later, William the Conqueror used it when circling around London after the Battle of Hastings and its pivotal role in both the intermittent Medieval conflicts and the Civil War. Now, it is a bustling small town but while it retains its role as a convenient river crossing, its administrative and economic roles shrivelled several hundred years ago.
On the blog you will also find posts on the rich and complicated human and topographical history of the area as a whole, ranging from the early occupation, the changing agricultural landscape, the geomorphology of the chalk country, the buildings and anything else that moves me.
Link Pootler : Other Stuff
Route Tips
If your app provides notes on the road surfaces etc. keep in mind that they are automatically generated and only as good as the underlying mapping. The cycle path out from Didcot is narrow but mostly tarmac. I haven’t been there after heavy rain but imagine that might cause problems on the low lying ground. There is a stretch of unmade road at South Stoke on the way into Goring. If you are using a road bike, you might prefer to stick to the B4009. The climb out of Goring is about 90m over about 3 miles. Not scary.
