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From Paddington to Penzance / The record of a summer tramp from London to the Land's End cover

From Paddington to Penzance / The record of a summer tramp from London to the Land's End

Chapter 11: VII.
By Charles G. Harper
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British LiteratureTravel Writing

About This Book

A first-person account of a summer journey from London to the western coast, blending practical itinerary notes with evocative scene-setting and local color. The narrator describes towns, coastal views, moors, churches, and roadside personalities encountered while travelling on foot, by boat, and by bicycle, and intersperses historical and antiquarian reflections on coaching, highways, and changing travel customs. Humorous anecdotes and brief portraits of fellow wayfarers punctuate a contemplative, conversational prose, and over a hundred pen-and-ink illustrations and reproduced engravings visually accompany the observations and sketches made along the route.

VII.

This morning we rowed through Marsh Lock, struggled through the mazes, snags, and shallows of Hennerton Backwater, and lazed in the sunshine at Wargrave, that picturesque beach and village set over against the flat green meadows of the Oxfordshire bank. Then (for the spirit of exploration grew strong again) we laboriously shoved, rather than rowed, our craft through the esoteric windings of the Loddon River and Patricksbourne, arriving some hours later on the hither side of Shiplake Lock, with the unexpected satisfaction of having thus saved some pence from the clutch of the Thames Conservancy.

Sonning Bridge.

At the Bull at Sonning we dined in a parlour gay with geraniums, with windows shaded by vines and creepers, with old-fashioned fire-place surmounted by a huge stuffed fish—a typical river-side inn—and thereafter rowed up from Sonning to Reading, where, by the filthy Kennet side, we left our boat for return to its owner, in the usual Thames-side practice.

We came to Reading prepared for anything but charm in that town of biscuits, and we were not inclined to alter our ready-made opinion upon sight of it. We passed through “double-quick,” leaving the last of the town as late as 8.30. He who runs may read, perhaps, if the type be sufficiently large; but I don’t think he would find it possible to write: we did not, and so this book must go forth lacking a description of Reading.

The train that carried us from this town of almost metropolitan savour jogged along in most leisurely fashion past Mortimer Stratfield, and finally brought up at Basingstoke, where we went to bed with what haste we might.