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!

Image credits: 

All photos were taken by me - please feel free to reuse them under the following Creative Commons license:

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Silchester - Calleva Atrebatum

Signpost for Roman Silchester

Like Wroxeter, which we visited in March of this year, Silchester - known to the Romans as Calleva Atrebatum - didn't really take off as a settlement in modern times.  Most people would be hard pushed to pinpoint Silchester on a map and myself and BAM (Best Aussie Mate) were no exceptions, before we did this walking trip!

The modern-day village of Silchester is located in the north of Hampshire, in the countryside between Basingstoke and Reading, just outside a town called Tadley.  Although there is a hotel in Silchester, the reviews were off-putting, so we did some research and decided to start our walk in Stratfield Mortimer in Berkshire.  Mortimer station is located, quite handily, on a small branch line that runs between Reading and Basingstoke.  Although it's a small line, it dates back to the early days of rail travel and the station and line has been in operation since 1848!

Reading to Basingstoke line

Like a lot of railway stations around Berkshire and Oxfordshire, Mortimer station is quite far from the main village of Mortimer Common.  It might seem a bit incongruous to 21st century travellers, but I believe this is evidence of a stubborn compromise for 19th century villagers who weren't all that interested in having steam-driven technology ploughing through their idyllic lives.

Victuals and lodging

We travelled down from London Waterloo, via Basingstoke, arriving at Mortimer just in time for a delicious curry at a popular local restaurant called The Cinnamon Tree.  Time-travelling 19th century Mortimerians might well be bewildered by a restaurant in their village specialising in Bangladeshi and Indian cuisine, but we were well-pleased, feasting on Misty Lau and Murgh Jalfrazi.

Our room at the B&B

Little Park Farm B&B

BAM had booked us in to a lovely B&B called Little Park Farm, which is in a 19th-century farmhouse, a short distance from Mortimer station.  We stayed in a Twin room in the loft, with lovely views over the surrounding countryside.  For city-dwellers like us, it's great to wake up in the countryside, with the smell of bacon being fried in the kitchen and the sound of birds twittering in the garden.  Once we'd had our fill of food and coffee, we ventured out into the countryside and set off in the direction of Silchester.

Little Park Farm to the Devil's Highway (1.2 miles)

BAM walking through a field of wheat

Like most Roman settlements, Calleva Atrebatum had a Roman road, which ran from modern-day Silchester all the way to London.  As it passes through this part of Berkshire, the Roman road is known as the Devil's Highway, although I couldn't quite find out why it's called this.  Perhaps, it was related to the fact that the road brought Roman invaders to what was a regional Celtic capital?  Perhaps, the name comes from a later time, when weary travellers along this road would have journeyed in fear of footpads and highwaymen?  Whatever the reason, the name in itself was enough to attract our attention, so our first 1.2 miles involved a loop from Little Park farm, walking down the farm driveway to the main Beech Hill road (known, oddly, as The Forehead).  Opposite Perrins Farm, we turned onto a public footpath leading through some beautiful wheatfields, which eventually brought us onto the Devil's Highway at the Home Farm, just outside Fair Cross.

The Devil's Highway

Yesterday's weather was a bit unsure of itself and our arrival at the Devil's Highway was greeted with a shower of rain which, in the nature of English showers, decided to finish, as soon as we'd got our raincoats out of our bags.  We noticed a group of young people with maps standing at the junction to Fair Cross, looking a bit uncertain as to whether or not the Devil's Highway was the right option for them.

The Devil's Highway to Calleva Atrebatum (3 miles)


Roman roads are very easy to walk on!  They're straight, for a start, so no chance of getting lost and, unlike most of the main Roman roads, which have been superseded by national highways and motorways, the Devil's Highway to Calleva Atrebatum is, blissfully, devoid of modern phenomena such as trains, planes or automobiles!  We passed south of Little Park Farm again, then through Butler's Land, where we passed another group of young people with maps and then crossed onto a small country road leading to a railway bridge.

Field full of cornflowers

We were quite startled when a silver-haired lady called Ann suddenly appeared from a gap in the hedge.  As it turned out, she is a local leader for the Duke of Edinburgh awards and had been looking for some of the same young people we'd seen wandering around the area with maps! We had a quick chat, then crossed the railway bridge, coming to a T-junction, where we left the road and crossed a hilly field full of the most amazing cornflowers, daisies and poppies.  The end of the field brought us onto the road again and the amphitheatre of Calleva Atrebatum.

Calleva Atrebatum to Silchester (0.8 miles)

The Amphitheatre at Calleva Atrebatum

The Roman name for the settle Calleva Atrebatum could possibly have been adapted from a local Celtic name that translates something like, 'wooded place where the Atrebates tribe live'.  Calleva sounds like a Romanisation of the Celtic word for wood/forest, if you compare the Irish word coillte or the Welsh coedwig.  I wonder if the origin of the name Silchester, also has its roots in the Latin word for wood/forest Silva? The Atrebates occupied most of modern-day Berkshire and they were unusual in that their culture seems to have more in common with Belgic tribes living in (modern-day) France, than the other Celtic tribes that were living around them in Britain.

The churchyard at St Mary's

Wedding guests

One mystery surrounding the Celtic settlement at Calleva Atrebatum was the fact that a stone with Ogham script was found on the site.  Ogham is mostly associated with Ireland and there are very few examples of Ogham script in England, the others being found exclusively in Cornwall in Devon.  The presence of Ogham in Silchester is attributed to a lone Irish settler, so perhaps, with its Belgic and Irish connections, Calleva Atrebatum was an ancient melting-pot of Celtic cultures?

Another mystery surrounding the site is the reason for its having been abandoned.  During the Roman times, it's believed that several thousand people lived in Calleva Atrebatum.  The site not only contained an amphitheatre, which you can still see today, but also Roman baths, temples, a mansion and a Forum Basilica.  According to The Guardian's Heritage writer, Maev Kennedy, in her article from 1999, the site might have been cursed by the Anglo-Saxons, evidenced by ritualistic remains involving a dog's bones!

Silchester Town Life Project

Excavation at Silchester Roman site

Whatever the reason for its abandonment, Calleva Atrebatum has an air of otherworldiness about it.  Just inside the walls of the site is a beautiful church called St Mary the Virgin.  We stopped for lunch in the churchyard and watched wedding guests milling around the church, congratulating a newly-married couple.  We then continued our walk through the heart of the ancient settlement, passing a group of young excavators from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Reading, who are currently working on the Silchester Town Life Project.  Eventually we came to a road at the edge of Silchester, where we turned around again in the direction of Mortimer.

Silchester to Mortimer (1.4 miles)

Sign post for Wall Lane

We had to walk along a fairly busy road, past Catthawlands Farm, before turning onto a quieter road called Wall Lane and back-tracking past the Roman walls and onto a public bridleway that took us all the way to Mortimer.  We had intended to take a smaller public footpath to Mortimer, rather than the bridleway, but I'm glad we went the way we did, as the bridleway passed through some lovely countryside, full of sheep and horses, past the Nine Acre copse and Simms Stud Farm, which is on the outskirts of Mortimer village.

Horses at Simm's stud farm

The wedding at St Mary's and the bridleway passing a stud farm has us thinking about all kinds of horsey-matrimonial connections we'd never thought of before.  It's interesting that the word groom is used mainly in two contexts, ie. a man who is getting married (or has just got married) and the person who looks after a horse.  It's also interesting that the word bride is very similar to the word bridle, ie. the idea that young, free women are bridled by marriage and reigned in by their new husbands, who are, by definition 'house bound'.  Horses were incredibly important to the development of modern technologies and societies, but it's not very flattering for a young woman to be described in language usually reserved for horses! 

Boundary marker

Another thing that caught our eyes on the way into Mortimer was an old boundary post, which marked the border between Hampshire and Berkshire.  I'd seen references to these on my Ordnance Survey map, but this is the first one we've spotted!

Mortimer to Wokefield Common (2.3 miles)

Wood for the signs?

The rain came on again as we sat at the church in Mortimer.  Mortimer seems like a nice place - quiet Berkshire village life went on all around us, as we sat munching our chocolate Koala bears!  Passing a playing field, we skirted around the north of the village and then took a path through Starvale Woods, eventually leading us to Wokefield Common on the edge of a village called Burghfield Common.  The woods were really beautiful, but it's always harder to orientate yourself in woodland and the bewildering array of signs for public footpaths and bridleways meant we couldn't see the wood for the signs! 

We got a little bit lost, but eventually made it to a crossroads, where DoE Ann spotted us and stopped her car to give us an update on her groups and an interesting history lesson about Mortimer Common and the Silchester Roman site.  We would loved to have spent more time talking to her, as she seems to know her local history really well, but time was pushing on and we had a train to catch.

Wokefield Common to Mortimer Station (2 miles)

Wheat fields

The last two miles brought us down Lockram Lane, then through some amazing wheatfields and hilly country, passing over Lockram Brook, we took a wrong turning and detoured down to Mann's Farm, then walked along the road to Wheat's Farm where we joined our original path, going downhill to Mortimer Station, just in time for our connection to Basingstoke and back to London.   

Access for Wheelchair Users

Wokefield Common

Again, I'm basing this on someone using a heavy, electric wheelchair.  I would start this walk at Beech Hill, rather than Little Park Farm or Mortimer Station.  The second part of the walk I've described above, along the Devil's Highway, is completely accessible and relatively smooth-going, until you get to the T-junction before Calleva Atrebatum.  At the T-junction you could turn left along a small country lane, then right to the gates of St Mary's Church.  The Roman site seems to be, for the most part, wheelchair accessible.  We didn't walk on the walls of the site but, from a distance, they looked really inaccessible to wheelchair users.  

Church at Stratfield Mortimer

I wouldn't recommend wheelchairing along the roads around Silchester and the bridleway to Mortimer was also not accessible.  Some of the paths in Wokefield Common seemed accessible, but the rest of the route described above, especially the last two miles, would not be accessible, unfortunately.  




Image credits:

All images were taken by myself or BAM, please feel free to use these images under the following Creative Commons license:

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Ancaster - Welcome to Learning about Britain!

Welcome to this first posting on my new blog Learning about Britain.  This is a sister blog to http://www.learningabouttheworld.blogspot.com/ which is almost a year old.  The idea is to learn about Britain in greater depth than the countries in Learning about the World, because this is where I live and because the focus could be slightly different.

Me and my BAM (Best Aussie Mate) have come up with the crazy idea of getting to know Britain better by visiting every major town/city ending in -caster, -cester and -chester.  We thought that this might lead to some random trips to parts of Britain that we've never been to before and, what started off as a crazy idea, has now almost come to fruition in terms of our first trip which, alphabetically, will be to Ancaster in Lincolnshire. 

We're going to stay in nearby Grantham and do a walking trip through Ancaster, finishing in Sleaford.  I want to document our trip and blog about the learning experience along the way.  In true learningabout fashion, I want to also read a book related to that local area, watch a movie or TV programme inspired by the place we're walking through, listen to some music and, if at all possible, cook a local dish - oh, and I won't forget to sample the local brew! It should be a bit of fun really and I hope you'll join us virtually, by following this blog.  We've started alphabetically, so I guess that's how we'll continue.  We're also limiting ourselves to castercesterchesters that are on the National Rail network, otherwise it could end up being very random indeed! 

As I started researching this trip, the first thing that struck me was that our choice of placenames with the etymology 'castrum' is not that random after all and Ancaster, like most of the casters we'll be visiting, has remains of the Roman fort that once stood on this site.  Doh!  It seems so obvious now and it's a great thematic link for the places we're planning to visit.

Britain's history didn't start with the Romans, of course, but with the Celts.  Learning about Roman Britain is, by default, learning about Celtic Britain.  The celtic period of Britain's history is not really history at all, ie. documented and attested, but rather pre-history - that which exists mostly through archaeological guesswork and continues to haunt us through its unusual placenames and the names of long-forgotten kings.  In my brief dip into Celtic Britain this week, I've been amazed to learn about a whole country full of Celtic tribes - the Iceni of Norfolk, the Catuvellauni of Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, the Corieltauvi of the East Midlands and the Brigante of Yorkshire and the north.  I had no idea that these tribes had names and histories that could be made out, despite the obscurity of time.

Luckily, I've already read Robert Graves seminal history of Rome, I, Claudius, so I can place the Roman invasions of Britain between their first contact with the Trinovantes of Essex during Caeser's time and the full-scale, forty thousand man strong invasion during the time of Claudius in 43AD.  I think the Roman invasion of Britain had an impact on this country way beyond anything that happened later.  It was Britain's first real experience of aggressive colonisation, the first time Britain had belonged to a Europe united by the Roman Empire.  Before the Romans came along, even the word Britain didn't really exist.  They applied it to the islands of Great Britain, Ireland and (perhaps) Iceland, later restricting the use of the term to their subdued Roman province Britannia - corresponding, more or less and rather confusingly, to modern-day England and Wales. 

I realise that by visiting the chesters, we will be learning about England more than Britain.  But we're going to start with the Roman concept of Britannia and perhaps later, we can move on from that and visit other parts of the country as well.  In another, rather controversial way, the Roman invasion of Britain gave birth to a sense of national identity to those north of Hadrian's Wall (loosely called the Scots) and to a lesser extent, those to the west of the initial Roman border on the Trent (the Welsh).  The Roman tactic in colonising Britain was to build forts/castrums to secure its newfound territory, then employ local administrators from the friendlier Celtic tribes and have them run the colony on Rome's behalf.  Two thousand years later, it's a tactic that reminds me a lot of Western governments' plans for Iraq and Afghanistan. 

I'm looking forward to our first trip to Ancaster and hopefully I will have lots to report back on, not just about Ancaster, but also about Grantham and Sleaford.  Coming centuries after the Roman invasion, the Anglo-Saxons have formed the basis of English identity and I hope to combine our cester/caster/chester trips with many hams and fords and burys along the way!

Image credits:

The photo of the Green man (Banksia man) is by Graham Wilson, wikiuser Dgu56 and he has shared this with the world using the Creative Commons License.  Find out more information about re-use of this image here.

The image of Britannia on her plinth has been supplied by flickuser Tim Ellis and you can see more of Tim's photography on his blog http://tmellis.wordpress.com/

Thanks Graham and Tim for sharing your images with the rest of us!