Loddon & Thames: Eight years in the past I printed an account of a stroll I made with Linda and Sam from Winnersh Triangle to Studying, not by the somewhat boring direct route of round 4.5 miles however alongside two of Berskhire’s rivers, the Loddon and the Thames. Right here I republish te textual content in full, although the unique is nonetheless on My London Diary, which additionally has many, many extra photos for many who have an interest.
Loddon & Thames
Winnersh Triangle to Studying. Mon 27 Jul 2015
Winnersh Triangle appears like a harmful place to go, a brand new halt (hardly a station with a platform solely a foot or two vast) on the Waterloo to Studying line that opened in 1986. It’s light-weight wooden construction was designed to not put too nice a load on the Loddon Viaduct on which it hangs, although there’s a ticket workplace at floor stage, closed after we arrived.
Largely Winnersh Triangle is house to firm males and the businesses they work for in what the website describes as “an 85-acre, mature enterprise atmosphere” between the A329M motorway, the rail line and the River Loddon. The website says it’s a spot the place “on a regular basis issues develop into distinctive and distinctive issues occur daily“, however little or no gave the impression to be taking place on the day we went there. It didn’t appear like a spot the place something of curiosity ever occurred, and its huge promoting level is which you could be at Heathrow in half-hour.
We took a fast look, didn’t prefer it and headed south underneath the railway to stroll alongside the Studying Street to Loddon Bridge, becoming a member of a footpath that led north beside the River Loddon underneath the railway and motorway. You’ve in all probability by no means heard of the Loddon, however its a sizeable tributary of the Thames, that usually will get too sizeable for its banks, flooding nastily. A person in council hi-viz who was checking the river gave us a 20 minute dissertation on this and associated issues earlier than all of us escaped, although I’d wandered away taking photos after the primary 5.
Fortuitously the river was pretty low or we would have been paddling or swimming for the following mile or so, earlier than the trail veered away and climbed to a street and we discovered ourselves briefly in suburbia. Then we got here throughout a big BEA twin prop aircraft, its presence quickly defined by an indication ‘The Museum of Berkshire Aviation’. It was closed which saved us from having to resolve if we needed to be enthralled by “Berkshire’s dynamic contribution to aviation historical past.”
You could find out extra on the museum website, which features a image of a somewhat dinky little ‘Miles Pusher’, which was “constructed by F. G. Miles underneath protest and subsequently by no means flew.” Miles went bust in 1947, and Handley Web page took over the designs, accounting for the Handley Web page Herald turboprop standing exterior. Miles from 1942 had been designing an experimental supersonic jet plane to fly at 1000mph, however the Air Ministry in 1946 cancelled this, deciding solely to construct it as an unmanned rocket-powered scale mannequin which achieved managed flight at Mach 1.34 – 1020mph. The design of the Miles M52 knowledgeable the later English Electrical Lightning which I noticed on the Farnborough Air Present within the early Fifties and will out-perform something from that period.
We didn’t hold round, although Sam seemed up a couple of issues on his cellular and we photographed the Fairey Gannet out the again earlier than going alongside the footpath and all the way down to the river to proceed our path via rural Berkshire alongside the river to Whistley Mill Lane.
This results in a ford over the Outdated River, nonetheless a stream of the River Loddon, and except you’re driving a Land Rover or one thing bigger, its in all probability finest to show round and return. The extent markers have been at 2 ft, however fortuitously there’s a footpath to a footbridge round 60 yards to the south which we crossed, taking us to the Lands Finish pub, which could have been a great place to lunch, however we had introduced sandwiches.
The subsequent mile or so took us via the Charvil, a suburban fringe of Twyford, and with some issue throughout the A4 to Milestone Ave, a slim lane with some Nineteen Thirties improvement on the east aspect for the primary half mile or so. Simply earlier than a bridge over one of many minor arms of the Loddon, a footpath leads off to the River Thames. We’ve beforehand walked alongside the Thames path on the other financial institution, which we got here on to a mile or two later because it crosses the bridge at Sonning.
We took a glance inside St Andrew’s Church there (and got a replica of what should be one of the vital lavishly produced church magazines within the nation) and briefly explored the grounds earlier than taking the trail from the churchyard to rejoin the Thames path, strolling alongside this into Studying for the prepare house.
Many extra photos from the stroll on My London Diary.
Tags: BEA, Berkshire, bridge, Charvil, Fairey Gannet, flood danger, Ford, Handley Web page, Lands Finish, motorway, Museum of Berkshire Aviation, Outdated River, peter Marshall, railway, Studying, River Loddon, River Thames, Sonning, St Andrew’s Church, Thames, Twyford, Uri Geller, Stroll, Whistley Mill Lane, Winnersh Triangle
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