Thames Path

Thames Head → Cricklade

Distance: 12.4 miles
Ascent: 114 metres
Duration: 4 hours 36 minutes

Water: tiny at first, then bigger
« Not walked | Not walked »

Why work on one National Trail at a time? The buses that ferry walkers back and forth along The Ridgeway aren't running today so instead we headed for the soggy Gloucestershire meadows from which The Thames rises to start its two hundred mile journey to the sea.

The stone of circles that mark the source was dry today but the dip running the length of the adjoining field was damp underfoot and the channel that took the embryonic river beneath Fosse Way had gathered together a reasonable flow.

I can't get Deacon Blue's One Day I'll Go Walking out of my head, tracing the evolution of water into a battling burn, cool stream, great and terrible river then sea. The imagery is powerful: growth, unstoppable, inevitable; fragile beginnings. By the time we reached Cricklade the river was already well on its way through childhood.