After a sodden Saturday, we were fortunate to have a relatively dry and pleasant Sunday walking along the Thames (dodging the coach parties) and enjoying the picturesque Eton College buildings. Most of us battled with the car park machines whilst a couple of enlightened folks took the bus from Bracknell for relatively modest fees compared to the car parking - I must remember to highlight this for future walks!
In the end fifteen of us convened at the bandstand in Windsor’s Alexandra Gardens, which was built in 2016 to commemorate the late Queen Elizabeth’s achievement in becoming the longest serving Monarch. More on the bandstand later!
We departed promptly after 10:30, passing through the throngs of tourists, with plenty of ducks, swans and river cruisers on the Thames and the buzz of overhead airliners to add to the buzzing atmosphere.
We then proceeded down the Romney riverside walk, past the Riverside station, to reach Romney Lock, and then continued the river walk in Home Park. The crowds quickly diminished, and we saw an excellent view (the first of three) of Windsor Castle. We then crossed the river via the Victoria Bridge built in 1861.
We walked along the boundary of Dachet Golf Course and then navigated our way across a bridge over the Jubilee River. This was completed in 2002, to alleviate the flood risk to Maidenhead, Bray and Windsor. Richard read out a few salient facts after a hasty download from Wikipedia the night before. This river is in fact a hydraulic channel and is 11.6 km (7.2 mi) long and is on average 45 metres (148 feet) wide. However, during our pre-walk its modest proportions caused confusion as was assumed to be part of river itself, we had been over-reliant on our ageing Rambling for Pleasure Thames book that had been published in 1993!
We continued our route away from the Thames and eventually reached a cricket ground and buildings of Eton college (founded 1440 by Henrry VI). The buildings were magnificent, and the grounds were immaculate.
Walking through Common Lane we saw Anthony Gormley statue high above us at right angles to the pavement! This is an example of many of his sculptures which Wikipedia alleges are based on moulds taken from his own body. The most famous example of his work is the Angel of the North in Gateshead.
We left Eton through a pleasant field, with an allotment and viaduct on right, and with a further excellent view of the Castle on left. We reached the river for our return to Windsor, over the decorative Victorian decorative cast iron bridge. See our route on Google Maps.
The majority of us stayed on in Alexandra Gardens for our picnic and there was the occasional shower but not too disruptive.
Some of us also enjoyed some tipples at the Windsor and Eton Brewery taproom, and also stayed on at Alexandra Gardens Bandstand to listen to the excellent Woodley Concert band, playing a set list for which our Chairman Rob managed to identify all the numbers in the first half apart from “Omens of Love”, composed by one Hirotaka Izumi.
Many thanks to Petrina Steele for doing the actual leading of the walk with only limited support received from Richard.
Thank you to Petrina for leading the walk and to Richard for organising the afternoon's activities and writing it up.
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