Dorchester-on-Thames - Catherine Wheels, Christograms and Brahma Kumaris

It's been more than four years since we did our Dorchester walk back in May 2011 - that's the bigger and better known Dorchester in Dorset, rather than the little village of Dorchester-on-Thames, which is tucked into a quiet corner of South Oxfordshire. 

Actually it's been five years since we started doing our series of the Chester walks, the first walk being Ancaster, in Lincolnshire, back in July 2010. To date we've covered 36 Chesters although, as we've been going along, we keep finding more (the most recent discovery was all the Caers in Wales), so I estimate that we have another 26 Chesters to do before we finish, which should keep us going for another good 4 or 5 years! 

Dorchester-on-Thames has been on our list since the beginning and I remember being vaguely aware of it when we were doing our second Chester walk in Bicester, on the other side of the county. 

As much as possible, we like to stay in the Chester that features in our walk, so it was with no small amount of excitement that we made our way to Dorchester-on-Thames and a lovely welcome at the Fleur de Lys last Friday night. Dorchester is a difficult enough place to get to, for non-drivers like ourselves, but we're lucky enough to have a friend who lives locally and who gave us a lift from Culham station to the village.

Dorchester Abbey - stained glass window

Whilst most of our walks have been just me and BAM (Best Aussie Mate), we were joined by BRH (Best Russian Husband) this time, who also joined us on our Rochester, Northumberland walk back in January 2014. He only seems to join us on the 'double-named' Chesters like Rochester and Dorchester!

Dorchester Abbey - side door

Dorchester Abbey - worn statues

After a hearty meal and a good night's sleep, we woke up to a wet and chilly morning. It was the last day of summer time, so we were in no rush to set off. We intended to make the most of our extra hour of daylight, so we pottered around Dorchester Abbey and faffed around in the village, stocking up on water and chocolate before striking down the High Street and out into the wilds of Oxfordshire.

Entrance to Dorchester Abbey

Dorchester to Drayton St Leonard (2.3 miles/3.7 kilometres)

Dorchester is a pretty place and it feels like an island, being almost completely surrounded by water - bounded by the River Thames in the south and what look like small lakes, but are actually water-logged gravel pits, in the north. Its strategic location and the fact that it was easy-to-defend against marauding Celts, made the area attractive to the Romans, who established a settlement here.

Dorchester is, historically, considered to be the starting point of the Thames, as the river upstream of Dorchester was called the Isis. It's a distinction that people rarely make these days and the whole river is now usually referred to as the Thames. 

We started our walk by following the High Street out of the village, past rustic Tudor-style cottages and stone buildings until we found the turn-off for Drayton Road - a mere lane really, leading to the busy Oxford Road and Queenford Farm.

War memorial in Dorchester village

My Ordnance Survey map and Google maps began to disagree at this point and Drayton Road seemed to disappear into the bushes, which confused us a bit and it took a couple of wrong turns before we eventually found our way again and started off along a straight lane to Wally corner.

Leaving Dorchester-on-Thames

At Wally corner we turned right and took the Dorchester Road towards Drayton St Leonard's. The landscape was frighteningly banal at this point, flat and dull, the only relief being blasts of autumnal orange and red from distant trees. Just before Drayton St Leonard, we took a footpath across a dyke and remarked at the number of flowers that were still blooming, especially poppies, which seems unusual for this time of the year.

BAM walking across the dyke to Drayton St Leonard

We took momentary shelter at St Leonard and St Catherine's, a wonderful little church with a magnificent timber bell tower. Whilst we remarked at the fact that the village took on the male saint's name, but not the female's, we also wondered who St Leonard was and why he was chosen as the namesake of this obscure Oxfordshire hamlet.

Church at Drayton St Leonard

It turns out that there was a bit of a cult of St Leonard in Western Europe in the 12th century, which corresponds to the time that this church was first built. St Leonard came from Limousin in France and his abbey at Noblac, near Limoges, became a popular stop on the St James pilgrimage way, which ends in Santiago. Indeed, we did find reference to the Santiago pilgrim's route, inside the church. As both myself and BAM have walked along the Camino de Santiago, we're always on the look out for signs and references to this famous path.

Drayton St Leonard wooden boxes for papers

It's also quite possible that Noblac was a stopping point for Crusaders, so St Leonard's church in Drayton was most likely part of that tradition. St Catherine was a convert to Christianity who was martyred in 4th century Egypt and no doubt represented, to the 12th century English crusaders, conquest of the heathen eastern lands! 

It doesn't feel like much has changed in Drayton St Leonard since the 12th century and we contemplated the import of history, as we munched on our chocolates in the church porch. 

Drayton St Leonard to Marsh Baldon (1.7 miles/2.8 kilometres) 

From the church at Drayton St Leonard, we walked to a pub called The Catherine Wheel (no doubt in honour of St Catherine) and then doubled back on a byway that ran behind the church and, what looked like, 19th century alms houses. The byway took us out into the most wonderful open space and along an occasionally muddy concrete path that led, more or less, to the village of Chiselhampton.

BAM and BRH on the path to Chiselhampton

We didn't actually enter the village of Chiselhampton, but crossed the Oxford Road on the edge of the village, picking up a path called the Shakespeare's Way, which turns left into a small wood. Shakespeare's way is a path that runs 146 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon to the Globe theatre in London. It's the first time we've come across it, although we have been to Stratford on one of our previous Chester walks.

Just like Shakespeare's plays, there was something very elemental about the landscape between Chiselhampton and Marsh Baldon. The black earth of the ploughed fields, with dark green hedgerows and the sky hanging low and and grey gave the countryside a haunted feeling, which I thought was quite appropriate as Halloween was just around the corner!

The elemental earth near Marsh Baldon

At Marsh Baldon we met the old Roman road which, even today, runs in a very straight line back to Dorchester. 

Marsh Baldon to Clifden Hampden (1.9 miles/3.1 kilometres) 

Marsh Baldon is a very pretty place, with a row of stone cottages looking out over the village common and a little pond. We bought some eggs at the Parsonage Farm and then had a short rest before taking a public footpath across to the neighbouring village of Nuneham Courtenay.

Village pond at Marsh Baldon

We noticed that a lot of the local names (Courtenay, Camoys, D'Oyley) are of Norman origin, which might also explain the prevalence of the fleur-de-lys is this part of England.

The fleur-de-lys is a common sight in South Oxfordshire

Nuneham Courtenay is believed to have been the inspiration for Oliver Goldsmith's poem The Deserted village, as the old village was deserted and a new one built along the Dorchester to Oxford road. 

In fact, this whole area has quite a deserted feel about it and I found it little bit spooky in the dim autumn light. Quite rarely, for the countryside, we came across an abandoned church, Nuneham's All Saints, which had lots of lopsided headstones with esoteric symbols on them.

The abandoned All Saints Church in Nuneham Courtenay

The symbols, which look a bit like dollar signs, are what's known as Christograms (nothing to do with religious fetish or Stripograms!) and they represent three Greek letters ΙΗΣ (IHS), which comes from the Greek for Jesus Christ - ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ. It was a real Da Vinci code scene, so we hurried on, following the very normal-sounding Oxford Greenbelt Way towards Nuneham House. 

We only really saw the gateway to the Nuneham House, but we did notice lots of signs for the Global Retreat Centre, a place for meditation and retreats run by the Brahma Kumaris (Daughters of Brahma) World Spiritual University. Think Hindu Suffragettes meets Scientology and you're part of the way there! They've obviously got some wealthy backers if they can afford to run a retreat in such a super-rich part of England.

Sign for the Global Retreat centre

Flower which reminds me of the supreme soul symbol

We were intrigued by the Global Retreat's symbol, which looks a bit like a Zoroastrian sun or fire symbol and, I guess, represents the Supreme Soul and/or the Cycle of Time. The Brahma Kumaris believe in 'soul consciousness' and I was quite interested in the 'soul stories' on their website.

Entrance to the Global Retreat

As we left the Global Retreat behind and made our way across Nuneham Park, the rain came on and the surrounding landscape took on a very sombre mien. We took a sharp left at the New Cottage, then a right at the Keeper's cottage, following a trail along the edge of Roundhill Wood, which brought us to the village of Clifton Hampden.

By the time we reached the village, it was raining quite heavily, so we made our way down to the Thames and the nearest pub, the Barley Mow, on the far side of Clifden Hampden bridge. 

Clifden Hampden to Culham Station (1.4 miles/2.25 kilometres)

After our meals and a couple of drinks, the last part of our walk was from The Barley Mow to Culham Station. Although it was the last day of summer time, it was getting dark by the time we made our way along the Abingdon Road, so we could catch the 19:15 train back to London. 

My abiding memory of this last part of the walk is seeing the sunset over Didcot Parkway, a fitting end to a rather weird and wonderful walk!

Sunset over Didcot Parkway

Access for wheelchair users

Public byway to Chiselhampton

The first part of this walk, from Dorchester-on-Thames to Drayton St Leonard was along country roads and was fairy accessible, if you can get through the bushes to Wally corner!  The road to Drayton St Leonard was relatively busy on the Saturday morning that we walked it and had lots of sharp corners, so I'd advise caution.   

The public byway from Drayton St Leonard to Chiselhampton was also fairly accessible, but a bit bumpy, so for more adventurous wheelchair users.  

Shakespeare's Way from Chiselhampton to Nuneham Courtenay was completely inaccessible, however, there are some interesting trails around Nuneham Courtenay and you would be able to wheelchair along the Oxford Greenbelt Way to Clifden Hampden.  

The road from Clifden Hampden to Culham station has a path alongside it and is also accessible, so mostly good news for wheelchair users from this walk!

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