Chapter I: Above Oxford (1)

The Source of the Thames--Early Names of the River--Seven
Springs--Thames Head--The Churn and its Course--Thames and
Severn Canal--Cricklade--Castle Eaton--Inglesham--Fairford and
the Coln--Lechlade--The First Lock--Some Thames Flowers--Old
Buscot--Hart's Weir--Bird Life--Radcot Bridge--Eddying
Pools and Golden Shallows--Canal-like Reaches--Tadpole
Bridge--Bampton--Duxford Ferry--Canute's Country--The Windrush--The
Oldest Bridge--Old Father Thames--Disused Weir-pools--Bablock
Hythe, Stanton Harcourt, and Cumnor--Skinner's Weir and Pinkhill
Lock--Eynsham Weir, Bridge, and Cross--The Evenlode--Witham
Hill--Thames Angling--Godstow--King's Weir--Port Meadow--Folly
Bridge.

The birds, flowers, and bees around are, doubtless, in their several ways, rejoicing with me in the balmy May morning radiant with warm sunshine. Down the unsullied emerald of the little slope yonder, carpeted with nodding cowslips, daisies, and buttercups, and faintly azured in sheltered spaces with wild hyacinths, I have descended into a rustic glade, not, at its widest, more than fifty yards across, and running, roughly reckoning, north and south. The slope is easy, springing as it does from a verdant bottom to the foot of a low wall; this, pushing aside the glossy sycamore branches, I have leaped from the Canal path, at a gap where the village children, on their recent half-holiday, wastefully cast aside the surplus of their cowslip harvest to wither and die. But from my present standpoint the low wall is nearly hidden in undergrowth, and by a plentiful intermixture of hawthorn, holly, and ash flourishing on the bank top. The sweet-smelling grass is spangled with daisies and buttercups, though not so profusely as in the field adjacent, which is destined for a crop of hay; and the grove resounds with bird-music set in the rapturous key of the bridal season. And there, a few paces athwart the sward, under the shadow of trembling foliage, is the spot which for centuries was said to be the birthplace of the River Thames. We are at Thames Head, in Trewsbury Mead, in the parish of Cotes, in the county of Gloucestershire, three miles south-west of Cirencester.

The mossy trunk, lying prostrate under the wall on the side of the glade opposite the sylvan slope by which entrance has been effected, invites the opportunity of a more minute observation. Seated thereupon, far from the noisy world, we may make a fair and leisurely start upon that long and interesting voyage from Source to Sea, upon which, in this and succeeding chapters, the reader is invited to embark with confidence and hope. Here, probably, is the identical spot which Peacock, author of the "Genius of the Thames," had in his mind when he wrote--

"Let fancy lead from Trewsbury mead,
With hazel fringed, and copsewood deep;
Where, scarcely seen, through brilliant green,
Thy infant waters softly creep."

The friendly branches of a wild rose hustle my elbow, or, rather, would do so, but that a sturdier bramble bough interposes. On the other side of me there is a charming tangle of hazel and blackberry bushes. There is also a more than commonly bushy hawthorn overspreading the wall at a portion where thick ivy covers it. A spreading wild rose is established in the very middle of the glade, which is graced with quite an unusual quantity of large and old hawthorn trees. A strong west wind soughs and sighs in the trees; blackbirds and thrushes, by their liquid notes, blithe and merry, seem to protest against the melancholy undertone, as does a grand humble bee, in magnificent orange-velvet smallclothes, who contributes a sympathetic bass solo as he drones by. But the object to be chiefly noticed at this moment is the aged ash-tree yonder. It is of medium size and no particular shape, though the ivy covering its bole and lower limbs gives it an air of picturesque importance. Ragged hawthorns and brambles surround it. The importance of the tree lies in the circumstance that it marks the spot which the old writers, and many modern authorities following in their footsteps, have pronounced to be the source of the Thames. The supposition is that in former times a perennial spring of water issued forth here, forming Thames Head. The well, however, out of which the water might once have gushed, and miscellaneously overspread the pasturage on its way to form a brook, has in these days lost potency. For a long time past it has ceased to yield water, and, as a matter of prosaic fact, from one end of the glade to the other there is no sign of water in any shape or form. The inhabitants of the countryside say that in the winter-time the waters, provoked by long rains, still well forth in copious flood; but, even granting this, we may not conclude that a spring so uncertain as this in Trewsbury Mead is the source of the Thames. The obvious reflection is that before the erection of the ugly pump-house which disfigures the locality, and before the neighbouring springs began to be drained for the service of the Canal, the supply of water was permanent and strong, albeit there is ground for supposing that Thames Head was never thoroughly to be relied upon. I have thus pictured for the reader the source which appears to be favoured by topographers and antiquaries; but there are other springs besides. Half a mile lower down there is, near the Roman way, a basin--another Thames Head--which is sometimes filled by a spring, and which is pictured on the next page in the precise condition in which it appeared to our artist during the rains of early spring. Yet another rill issues from a hill-side; and a fourth, lower still, is perhaps the most clearly defined and strongest of the group, and best entitled to the honour claimed on behalf of the dried-up well in the green glade just described. The Thames Head district seems, indeed, to abound in springs, and in wet weather the level ground is probably freely intersected by brooklets, forming the stream which is the undoubted head of Isis, and which has been called the Thames from time immemorial.

On the very threshold of our task we are confronted, indeed, with two sometime-disputed points which it will be necessary to clear away, or come to terms with, if we would proceed upon our voyage of some two hundred miles from source to Nore with a clear conscience. They relate, first, to the name of the river; and second, to the precise spot in the Cotswold country where it starts upon its wanderings. Neither of these controversial subjects shall, however, detain us long from an intimate acquaintance with the "mighty king of all the British rivers, superior to most in beauty, and to all in importance," setting forth on its career in humble smallness, gathering tranquil volume as it flows in succession through the fertile counties of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Middlesex, Kent, and Essex, and finally delivering its full tribute to the Northern Ocean. What rare historical memories it evokes, what varieties of landscape it touches and creates, let the following lines describe:--

"The blood-stain'd scourge no tyrants wield,
No groaning slaves enrich the field,
But Health and Labour's willing train
Crowns all thy banks with waving grain;
With beauty decks thy sylvan shades,
With livelier green invests thy glades;
And grace, and bloom, and plenty pours
On thy sweet meads and willowy shores.
The field where herds unnumber'd rove,
The laurell'd path, the beechen grove,
The oak, in lonely grandeur free,
Lord of the forest and the sea;
The spreading plain, the cultured hill,
The tranquil cot, the restless mill,
The lonely hamlet, calm and still;
The village spire, the busy town,
The shelving bank, the rising down,
The fisher's punt, the peasant's home,
The woodland seat, the regal dome,
In quick succession rise to charm
The mind, with virtuous feelings warm;
Till where thy widening current glides,
To mingle with the turbid tides,
Thy spacious breast displays unfurl'd
The ensigns of th' assembled world."

It is now generally accepted that, from times as remote as those which preceded the Conquest, the highest portion of the river was called the Thames. The Saxon Chronicles so refer to it, and there is no reason to suppose that the river crossed by the armies of Ethelwold and Canute on their expeditions into the land of Mercia was ever known by other name. How, and when, the river from Cricklade to Oxford acquired the local name of Isis is not clear; but the idea was probably fairly started, though not invented, by Camden, who had pretty visions of the "marriage of the Tame and Isis." "This," wrote he, "is that Isis which afterwards joining with Tame, by adding the names together, is called Tamisis, chief of the British rivers, of which we may truly say, as ancient writers did of Euphrates in the East, that it both plants and waters Britain." It is sufficient for us now to recognise the fact that above Oxford the river is impartially spoken of, now as the Thames, and now as the Isis; and it is rather as a matter of convenience than of dogmatic purpose that I shall elect henceforth to use the older and more reasonable name--the Tameses of the Romans, the Temese of the Saxons, and the Thames of modern days.

Equally fruitful of controversy has been the source of the Thames. It has long been a question whether this grassy retreat, in which we are supposed to be lingering, to wit, Thames Head, in the parish of Cotes, near Cirencester, in the county of Gloucestershire, or Seven Springs, near Cheltenham, should be regarded as the actual starting-point of the river. Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, and different portions of each, have occasionally contended for the honour. Many pages might be filled with rehearsals of learned argument, and quotations from ancient authorities, to support conflicting contentions; but I shall presently invite the reader to follow the course suggested in regard to the name, and make an arbitrary law unto himself. It is not to be denied that the balance of acceptation by topographers of olden times pointed to Thames Head as the generally received source. Leland, sometimes called the Father of English Antiquaries, settles it thus:--"Isis riseth at 3 myles from Cirencestre, not far from a village cawlled Kemble, within half a mile of the Fosse-way, wher the very hed of Isis ys. In a great somer drought there appereth very little or no water, yet is the stream servid with many of springes resorting to one botom."

Ill, therefore, will fare the visitor to Thames Head, who seeks it, as I have done, full of poetical fancies and pretty conceits about the source of rivers in general, and the birthplace of the famous English stream in particular. However charming he may find the place to be, and charming it certainly is, he will be doomed to disappointment if he thinks he has reached the source of our royal stream. I was bound for the identical spot, as I congratulated myself, where

"From his oozy bed
Old Father Thames advanced his rev'rend head,
His tresses dropped with dews, and o'er the stream
His shining horns diffused a golden gleam."

As we have seen, the explorer will, at first, experience failure in his endeavour to find, with any satisfactory clearness, either old Father Thames or his oozy bed. Arrived at the ancient Akeman Street, or Fosse-way, "3 myles" from Cirencester, a choice of no fewer than four springs is presented. The village of Cotes, the Roman mound known as Trewsbury Castle, Trewsbury Mead, and the unromantic chimney of the Thames and Severn Canal Engine-house are plain enough, here and there--landmarks, all of them, for the industrious searcher; but there is no sign of flowing water, or, indeed, of water in repose. You will look in vain for semblance of a bed which might be that of a river. It was only after considerable trouble that I obtained any information, and was guided to this well, named by tradition as the original and primary source of the Thames, and reached by proceeding for a quarter of a mile from the high road (where it crosses the railway) along the walk bordering the Canal.

The reader, however, is hereby invited to regard, not Thames Head, but Seven Springs, near Cheltenham, as the natural and common-sense source of the River Thames. Some three miles south of the town, in the parish of Cubberley, or Coberley, to quote the words of Professor Ramsay, "the Thames rises not far from the crest of the oolitic escarpment of the Cotswold Hills that overlook the Severn."

After pausing on the shoulder of Charlton Hill, and admiring--as who can fail to do?--the magnificent panorama of hill and valley receding into the mist of distance north and north-east, you proceed from Cheltenham along the Cirencester road to the crossways. A short divergence to the right, and a dip in the road brings you to a piece of wayside turf, with, beyond, a corner shaped like an irregular triangle. One side of this might be, perhaps, seven yards in length, another four yards, and the third something between the two. The triangular depression is reached by one of those little green hillocks so often to be found on English waysides. The bottom is covered with water, which, in spite of the place being no-man's-land, is clear as crystal, and in its deepest part there was not, at the time of my visit, more than six inches of water. The bed of this open shallow reservoir is not paved with marble, or even concrete, but is liberally provided with such unconsidered trifles as the weather or playful children would cast there. When the wind sets that way a good deal of scum will gather in the farther corner, formed by two walls. The turf near the water's edge is worn away, and the green hillock has been trodden into a mere clay bank by the feet of cattle and men, for it is, as I have said, a patch of common land abutting upon the road. Overhead, stretched from the telegraph posts, you may count nine unmistakable wires parallel with the wall which forms the base of our triangle. On the side farthest from the road the bank is high. A venerable hawthorn has become wedded apparently to an equally venerable ash, whose topmost boughs coquette at close quarters with the telegraph wires. Another ash-tree, at the outer point of the triangle, leans over the water. Between the trees a little sloe bush keeps sturdy foothold. You may mark, moreover, a few straggling briars, bits of silver-weed, a root or two of the meadow cranesbill, a clump of poverty-stricken meadow-sweet, some fool's parsley, wild strawberry plants, and a good deal of bold and always flourishing dandelion. This is the environment of the true source of the great River Thames. We are at Seven Springs.

Hence multitudinous initials are rudely carved upon the old trees and on the stone walls; hence strangers, during summer, drive hither and pay homage. Clear away the scum from the water at the foot of the wall and a small iron grating explains how the waters, always bubbling clear and cool from the Seven Springs, pass away. On the other side of the wall the inflow forms a pond in private grounds. Thence it descends by a homely fall into a smaller pond, and by yet another insignificant fall into what for some distance is sometimes little better than a stagnant ditch. A lower fall, however, of more determined character than the others, sets in motion a clear rill, which, though tiny in volume and unpretentious in present aims, sets off upon its gravelly course as if it knew that by-and-by it would form an estuary upon which the navies of the world might ride in safety. Just now a child might leap across. It is a mere thread of water, yet the streamlet begins at once to proceed in a business-like way under the solid hedgerows separating the fields, and soon becomes a decided brook. This is a tangible beginning, at all events. The Seven Springs are on evidence in a convenient enclosure; they may be recognised as, silently sparkling, they gush from the bank which gives roothold to the hawthorn and ash; and the infant river is always in sight from the moment it assumes the form of a tiny streamlet.

It is difficult to conceive how it has come about that Thames Head on the one part and Seven Springs on the other have been considered rival claimants for the honour of being the cradle of the Thames. It is true that both streams (for Thames Head eventually, by sundry means, becomes a stream) rise from the eastern slopes of the Cotswolds; but they are many miles apart, and Thames Head is nearly fifteen miles nearer the sea than Seven Springs. The rivulet issuing from Seven Springs, and which presently becomes the River Churn is, in the present day at least, the distinct stream which continues its unbroken course to the Nore, and it is the source which is farthest from the mouth of the Thames.

Leland, nevertheless, writing at the time of Henry VIII., fixes, as we have seen, upon Thames Head as the source. Stow, with less detail, adopts the same locality; Camden does likewise; Atkins declares that the river riseth in the parish of Cotes; Rudder that it has been reputed "to rise in the parish of Cotes, out of a well." Modern tourists regularly visit both places, and in great numbers, during the summer season, and in the case of Thames Head are probably taken now to the uppermost glade, which I have described, and now to the spring nearer the engine-house of the Thames and Severn Canal, represented by the illustration. The neglect of the alleged sources by the local authorities of both Cirencester and Cheltenham is to be explained, probably, on the old principle, that what is everybody's is nobody's business. Since, however, people go in full faith to both Seven Springs and Thames Head, some record, however simple, might surely be upraised at both for the enlightenment of the wayfaring man.

Dealing with this question at more length perhaps than the subject requires, I may be allowed to repeat that in these days there ought to be no manner of doubt that the natural and legitimate source of the Thames is that shallow, neglected, triangular pool formed by the Seven Springs. The Cotswold Hills are, in any case, above dispute as the cradle-ground of the river, and may be happy with either claimant.

"But Cotswold, be this spoke to th' onely praise of thee,
That thou, of all the rest, the chosen soyle should bee,
Faire Isis to bring forth, the mother of great Tames,
With whose delicious brooks, by whose immortal streames
Her greatnesse is begun."

Following the fortunes of the Seven Springs, you naturally enter with some degree of zeal into an expedition down the River Churn, and this you are able to do without losing sight of the excellent road between Cheltenham and Cirencester. The pretty little dancing trout stream runs hard by the highway, mostly through a succession of beautiful estates, and generally thickly overhung with alders and other bushes. Drayton hit off the character of the stream most accurately in calling it the "nimble-footed Churn;" and its picturesqueness, and musical flow between the wooded hills and through the fat meadows, as we near Cirencester, appeal to us, even on the score of sentiment. Surely it is more pleasant to identify this as the Thames than that commonplace current proceeding from the Thames Head series of springs. There is no necessity, however, to trace in detail the course of the beck-like Churn, by wooded uplands teeming with game, and through rustic villages and sequestered grounds. It runs through Rendcombe to North Cerney, down by Baunton, and through the once famous and still interesting town of Cirencester. The Fosse-way mentioned in connection with Thames Head was one of three great Roman roads which met here. Mentioned by Roman historians as Corinium and Cornovium, the strongly fortified city of Cirencester, the metropolis of a Roman province was, there is reason for believing, a considerable British town before it became a Roman centre. In the time of Henry VIII. the Roman wall surrounding the city might yet be traced, and, as the histories of Gloucestershire show, many Roman remains have from time to time been discovered here. The Churn sustains its brook-like character alongside the Cricklade road by Addington, South Cerney, and Hailstone Hill, and then within a mile of the town of Cricklade it unites with the other branch issuing from Thames Head, to which it is necessary briefly to return, in order to administer to it the justice already bestowed upon what we have agreed to regard as the rightful heir, namely, the Seven Springs stream, or River Churn.

The Thames and Severn Canal is so intimately associated with Thames Head, and so dominates that particular part of the country, that a few words respecting it may be spared. Indeed, it has dealings, directly or indirectly, with the Churn as well as with the Thames Head stream. Not far from Trewsbury Mead it gives a position to Thames Head Bridge, and the Canal lies within a few yards of the traditional spring. The first tributary is formed by a spring issuing from beneath the aqueduct, and not far from the Canal stands the single-arch watercourse, here illustrated as practically the first bridge over the Thames. The course of the Canal, however, almost immediately bears eastward, until it strikes the Churn, near which it keeps during the remainder of its independent career. The Thames and Severn Canal is an interesting fact which the present generation is in danger of forgetting. For many years the junction of "fair Sabrina" with "lordly Thames" was a burning question in the commercial worlds of London and Bristol. The merchants were much fascinated with the speculations in which they indulged. The Canal scheme was launched in a Bill in the reign of Charles II., and Mr. Hydrographer Moxon was engaged to survey the ground and prove to what extent the project was practicable. Pope, in the grandiloquent language of the time, in a famous letter written at Oakley, Lord Bathurst's country house at Cirencester, said, "I could pass whole days in describing the future and as yet visionary beauties that are to rise in these scenes: the palace that is to be built, the pavilions that are to glitter, the colonnades that are to adorn them; nay, more, the meeting of the Thames and Severn, which, when the noble owner has finer dreams than ordinary, are to be led into each other's embraces, through secret caverns of not above twelve to fifteen miles, till they rise and celebrate their marriage in the midst of an immense amphitheatre, which is to be the admiration of posterity a hundred years hence."

The Canal was completed sixty-eight years after this dream was indulged in, and in December, 1790, the first Canal boat, laden with coals, passed through. The Canal is a continuation of the Stroudwater system from the Severn to Wallbridge, near Stroud, and runs in a devious course from that point to Lechlade. It is thirty miles long, forty-two feet broad at the top, and thirty feet at the bottom. Between Stroud and Sapperton the water is raised 241 feet in less than eight miles, by means of locks.

Returning now to the lower spring of the Thames Head group, the course of this branch of the river may be traced from the expanded water giving growth to the ancient watercress bed, and receiving its first modest tributary rill from the spring proceeding from under the Canal aqueduct. Hence the brook meanders through meadows, and, near the railway, passes under the roadway. The village of Kemble lies half a mile back, and the stream passes under and alongside the road from Kemble to Ewen, beneath a considerable culvert, or trio of culverts. The first mill on the Thames was, in former times, at Ewen; but a cosy farmhouse now occupies the site, and the water which in former days set the drowsy wheel in motion is turned aside for sheep-washing purposes. The first mill now is Somerford Upper Mill, with its pretty setting of elm-trees, and charming rural surroundings. Somerford Keynes, on the elevated ground to the left, was bestowed as a marriage gift upon Ralph de Kaineto by Henry I., and an ancient charter granted to the Abbot Aldelm of Malmesbury contains the following incidental reference to the river as the Thames:--"Cujus vocabulum Temis juxta vadum qui appellatur Somerford."

Throughout the varied and interesting voyage upon which we are embarked the spires and towers of churches will be ever present, graceful and welcome features of many a landscape, now set upon a hill like a city which cannot be hid, now half concealed by mantling ivies, and shunning observation amongst the rugged elms which shelter their roofs and windows. The square tower of venerable All Saints, Somerford Keynes, is one of the earliest to claim attention as a typical parish church of rural England, very dignified in its age, and in its maternal relation to the cottages around the churchyard. The stream not far below this point serves another rustic mill, and a noticeable object later on is a homely foot-bridge supported by upright slabs of stone. At Ashton Keynes there are sundry small bridges spanning the current, soon to be sensibly increased in depth and width by Swill Brook, whose proportions have for the last mile of its course been not inferior to those of the Thames Head stream. The young River Thames was once, as is supposed, navigable to Water Hay Bridge for boats of moderate size; but this must have been before the aqueduct of the North Wilts Canal crossed it, or West Mill was built.

The ancient town of Cricklade reconciles any differences, and effectually ends all disputes as to individual claimants, by affording the two branches an opportunity of uniting their forces a short distance below the bridge. Here the Churn, from its north-western source, merges into the stream which has been always apparently called by the name of Thames. In this district it formed the boundary of the forest of Braden in the time of Canute. James Thorne, in his accurately written "Rambles by Rivers," does no injustice to the town of Cricklade when he speaks of it as dull to look at, dull to live in, and no less dull to talk about. There is, indeed, little about which to talk in connection with it, though we may, in passing, smile on recalling Drayton's words in his "Polyolbion"--

"Greeklade whose great name yet vaunts that learned tongue
Where to Great Britain first the sacred Muses sung,
Who first were seated here at Isis' bounteous head,
As telling that her fame should through the world be spread."

It has been alleged by certain authorities that a college here, founded by a school of ancient philosophers, became famous for its Greek learning, and hence the name of the town. It has also been insisted that a few miles down the river a rival college, maintained with similar success in the Latin interests, gave a name to the community which lived under its learned shadow; or, as Fuller said, "The Muses swam down the stream of the River Isis to be twenty miles nearer to the rising sun." In this manner fanciful writers have sought to explain the origin of the words Cricklade and Lechlade.

Cricklade is important to lovers of the Thames as being the first definite station on its upper waters. From the southern watershed come, besides the Swill Brook, the Dance and the Rey. The last-named, a contribution from the range of hills around Swindon, has been thought worthy by a few enthusiasts of the distinction of contesting with Thames Head and Seven Springs the responsibilities of parentage. The Thames passes under a plank bridge at Cricklade, and becomes very shallow before receiving the tributaries above indicated. Thames tourists rarely push their explorations so high as Cricklade, which, other than two well-preserved specimens of fourteenth-century crosses (as is conjectured), and the prominent share in the landscape taken by St. Mary's Church and churchyard, as seen from Eisey foot-bridge, offers few attractions to the visitor. The scenery of the river hereto, and in truth for many a mile to come, is of a pleasing order, yet on a small and unpretentious scale. Farmhouses, with their surroundings of rick-yard and orchard; hamlets and villages in sleepy remove from the noisy world; a country house set in blooming gardens at odd intervals; pasture land and grain-fields, separated by old-fashioned hedges that are gay with flowers in spring and summer, with deeply-hued berries in the mellow autumn;--on every hand and at every turn these form the landscape. The river itself, so far, claims no particular notice, calls for no warmth of admiration. It makes no noise, performs no astonishing feats, inspires no terrors, but steals tranquilly through the meadows, and silently flows by the plentiful rushes which, unmolested, protect its banks in these remote reaches.

Castle Eaton Bridge, over four miles below Cricklade town, is perhaps the centre of the best of the rural scenery of this district, but it demands no special pause. The church tower, which shows boldly above the meadow, two miles farther on, belongs to Kempsford. King Harold was once a property-owner here. William the Conqueror subsequently gave the manor to one of his Norman soldiers, and, as was not uncommon in early days, it ultimately fell into possession of Mother Church, by whom, at the time of dissolution, it was disgorged and granted to the Thynne family. The edifice upon the river-side was probably built in the fourteenth century. There was also a castle at Kempsford, of which a fragment of window and a bit of wall remain, and a portion of the tower known as the Gunners' Room. The occupants of the Gunners' Room, when the building was habitable, had the advantage of looking out upon the river. A horseshoe nailed to the church-door long sustained the legend that when powerful Henry, Duke of Lancaster, the builder of the church, was quitting the place for ever, his horse cast a shoe, which the inhabitants nailed up in proud remembrance of the honour. The traces of an old weir, as we proceed downwards with such speed as the thickets of reeds and weeds will allow, if we are attempting the passage in a boat, remind us that in days when even inconsiderable streams were valuable as highways for barge and boat traffic the channel of the Thames was not so neglected as it will in these days be found. In other respects also its character has doubtless changed, as indicated by the stepping-stones across the foundation of the weir-sill, upon which the passenger, during summer level, may step dryshod from bank to bank. Below Hannington Bridge (with Highworth Church in the distance), the rushy pool, almost choked up with aquatic growths, still bears the name of Ham Weir. A sharp northerly bend in the river opposite the village of Upper Inglesham marks the separating-point of Berks and Wilts. Born in Gloucestershire, the Thames has latterly diverged for a brief excursion into Wilts, but now returns again, and from Kempsford until, a few miles onward, Oxfordshire is entered, it is the boundary between Gloucestershire and the southern counties of Wilts and Berks. The River Cole joins the Thames on the eastern bank. The little stream, in a charming Berkshire valley lying south, has given a name to Lord Radnor's mansion, Coleshill, famous as a perfect specimen of the style of Inigo Jones, and it arrives, accordingly, with some degree of repute on its own account.

For many years the highest weir upon the Thames was at Inglesham, known for the picturesque church, with its bell-turret overlooking the river, and the remarkable piece of carved stone in the porch wall, but of more interest to us as the meeting-place of the Coln, the Thames and Severn Canal, and the Thames.

The Canal we have already glanced at. The Coln is a trout stream of some value, but it receives its fame principally from association with the town of Fairford; and Fairford is famous because of the painted church windows supposed to have been designed by Albert Dürer. The Round House at Inglesham is the final lock-house of the Thames and Severn Canal, and it indicates the stage at which the Thames becomes a river of importance. It is broader and deeper than heretofore, and was once navigable for barges of from thirty to seventy tons burden, drawing four feet of water; but a channel of such proportions has not existed for many years, and the river threatens to lose all pretensions to a waterway before long, unless its guardians dredge to more purpose than they have done in recent years. Once upon a time, when the ports of Bristol and London were not connected by railway, there was constant traffic through Inglesham Lock, and the Round House was a conspicuous beacon for the bargees of the period; but the lock-keeper's berth has, it is needless to explain, in modern days become a sinecure. The angler at this meeting of the waters is the gainer, and his practised eye will mark the juncture as a probable haunt of the voracious pike.

The Highworth road is carried by a substantial one-arch bridge (to the left of the compass of the illustration on the next page) over the river at Lechlade, and in the fields, half a mile below, we arrive at the first lock on the Thames. There are a lock-house and garden to rest in, Thames Conservancy notices to be read, and ancient lock-keeping folk to talk with. It is a very old lock. In the natural order of things it cannot last much longer, and at no distant date, no doubt, it will give place to one of the more useful, but infinitely more prosaic, affairs of iron, with modern improvements in the machinery, which the Conservancy supplies when it is necessary to replace the original structures. The partly-decayed boards, the hand-rail rising from their outer edge, the lock gates patched many a time, and thinned in regard to their outer casing by many a winter flood, have done their work, and stand in weather-worn picturesqueness, all awry, doing their remaining duty as best they may. Looking westward, the spire of Lechlade Church, and, indeed, its tower and the greater part of the body of the building, shaded with ivy, make a very harmonious object of middle distance. The village, neat, substantial, and mature, rallies round it, with woods extending on either hand, and at its left flank stands the well-built, arched structure, which may be said to be the first bridge worthy of the name upon the river. It will be, perhaps, half a mile from the lock to the bridge, as the crow flies, but the Thames winds among the flat meadows in serpentine twists. Still farther on the line of the horizon, as, seated on the lever-beam used for opening the lock, we look westward, is a little picket of six poplars, marking the whereabouts of the solitary Round House, which substantially marks the limit of the navigable part of the Thames. The scene, thus comprising woods, village, church, bridge, and the long line of low trees terminated by poplars, is peculiarly English, and of a character that we shall see reproduced in endless variety--every prospect pleasing--until the last lock is reached at Teddington. But this is the first lock, 144 miles from London Bridge, and 125 from Teddington weir. Between the two there are many subjects of interest; but there is only one first lock, and upon this we may bestow closer attention than common. In the meadow is a big hawthorn on which the hips are already forming, and on a hot summer day the dairy kine will find shelter, lazily flicking the flies from their hides. Haycocks are plentiful on all sides. Yonder the men are hoisting a load of sweet-smelling hay upon the rick. Farther in the distance a late crop is falling in regular swathes; and when the gurgle of the water escaping from the dilapidated lock-gates moderates for a moment we can hear the mower whetting his scythe. The meadow upon which the first Thames Conservancy notice board has been erected, opposite the neat lock cottage, has not, it seems, been laid down for hay this year, and so offers a variety for the satisfaction of the artistic eye--to wit, masses of newly-shorn sheep lying on the grass, and dappled kine steadily feeding, what time the swallows and swifts are hawking around, and small birds warble in the reeds.

The Thames hereabouts, notwithstanding the prevailing officialism, is very modest. At the period of my last visit I found that there had been no floods for eighteen months; and the river, as our boatman put it, had long wanted washing out. In its widest part in the neighbourhood of the first lock it is not more than twenty yards from bank to bank, and on each side there are thick margins of bull-rush, sedge, and flag. The water is fairly deep, but cumbered with masses of weeds, out of which spring the tall rank stems of water-parsnip, while here and there small, compact, yellow water-lilies gleam like moidores on a silver plate. The river runs parallel with the lock channel under St. John's Bridge, a comparatively new and good-looking structure of one arch. It is about a mile from the town of Lechlade, and near it is the old-fashioned "Trout" Inn, still maintaining all the homely characteristics of the English countryside inn. A great sycamore overshadows it; there is an old-fashioned garden at the rear, and its little orchard, with a noble walnut-tree in the centre, offers a pathway to the pool. There is something in the semblance of a weir at St. John's Bridge, though it is of the most rudimentary kind, having fallen naturally into decay, and even into desuetude. Still, the small sluices are occasionally lifted, and serviceable streams are formed to keep the pool in motion, and prevent the patriarchal trout from giving notice to quit. At the end of St. John's Bridge tradition placed the priory of Black Canons, but of this there is no more substantial record than that of ink and paper. A few yards beyond the garden, on the left bank, the River Lech creeps into the Thames.

The regulation towpath exists from this point downwards, but for miles to come it is, like the boundaries of counties, a generally invisible line. The path is never trampled by horses, since barge traffic is unknown. For the towage of pleasure boats it is occasionally used, though these upper regions are rarely indeed penetrated by tourists. This is a pity; for there are a quietude and utter rurality about the river from Lechlade till within the precincts of Oxford that will be looked for in vain upon the busier haunts. Farther down there are glimpses--samples, so to speak--of what we have here in the bulk. We shall here find none of those notable Thames scenes that have been written about and painted from the olden times to the present day. Progressing from Lechlade downwards you feel altogether removed from the haunts of men. A patient angler sitting in his home-made boat under the overhanging boughs of a tree you will occasionally pass, and the presence of labourers toiling in the meadows informs you that this is not wholly a sleepy hollow. But river traffic, in the common meaning of the term, there is none. For a whole day you will probably not meet a boat; and there is no necessity to sigh for a lodge in some vast wilderness, some boundless contiguity of space, seeing that you have so excellent a substitute at hand. The solitude is, in truth, delightful. As you drop down between the banks you see drawn up in review order regiments of familiar friends--the dark glossy leaves of the water dock, bursting into seed in July; huge clumps of blue forget-me-nots that can only be plucked from a boat; ox-eyed daisies, well above high-water mark, gleaming as fixed stars in the floral firmament; the yellow-flowering great watercress, the purple loose-strife beginning to blossom, yellow iris, the white flowers of the common watercress, the pink persicaria, meadow-sweet, the comfreys, and sometimes a clump of arrowheads. From one to another flits the superb dragon-fly:--

"One almost fancies that such happy things,
With coloured hoods and richly-burnished wings,
Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade
Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid;
Keeping their joyous pranks a mystery still,
Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill."

A mile and a half of winding and uniformly narrow river brings us to rare old Buscot. The days of its weather-stained lock and weir are numbered too, but so long as they remain they will be, in conjunction, an object such as the artist loves, and a reminder to us all of other days when the world was not so jaded as now, when things were not so new, and when the ways of men were more primitive. There is a very fine tumbling bay on the farther side of the weir, and a sharp sweep of swiftly-running water coursing over a gravelly shallow, upon which the trout come out to feed at eventide, and the silvery dace and bleak poise in happy security during the long summer days. One is tempted naturally to land at the little village. The square, solid, countryfied-looking church tower, surrounded by old trees, and approached through a flower-garden, suggests, as your boat pauses at the lock, that it will be better to spend a quarter of an hour afoot than in the tedious process of passing through. Buscot is not a large or a pretentious place, but it is pleasant to look at, and deserves mention in passing, as giving name to the first weir of goodly size. A particularly pretty bit of the river, winding, tree-lined, and narrow, is followed by a long unromantic stretch.

Quaint, time-honoured Hart's Weir is so little a weir that the ordinary boat shoots the open half on the strength of a miniature rapid representing, at a summer level of the river, a fall of three or four inches only. The water there opens out into a wide bay that is purling rather than tumbling; and this is succeeded, in the ordinary course of nature, by a silted-up shallow, densely covered in their season with the white, yellow-eyed blossoms of the water crowfoot. Kelmscott on the north, and Eaton Hastings on the south, are the nearest villages. The banks of the Thames are now clearly defined by those trees which love to spread their branches to a river. The Thames does not, like the Loddon, encourage a monopoly of alder, but favours rather the familiar willow, the Lombardy poplar, and the plentiful hawthorn. Clumps of old elms, most picturesque of English trees when standing on village green, or as a rearguard to church or manor-house, vary the prospect. White and red wild roses are plentiful in the higher reaches of the river, and every turn of the narrow stream offers new combinations of wood and field:--

"No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
Though each its hue peculiar; paler some,
And of a wannish grey; the willow such,
And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf,
And ash far-stretching his umbrageous arm;
Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still,
Lord of the woods, the long surviving oak."

After Hart's Weir the Thames settles down to an interval of insignificance. There is an indescribably soothing influence exercised by a river in the soft mood which characterises the Thames throughout. How pleasant it is to be simply moving with the current, which does so much and is heard so little. Loud, even, by comparison with the murmur of the waters, is the sighing of the breezes amongst the shock heads of the willows, and the silver shiver of the poplars. Under the spell of this influence the prosaic features of a reach like that between Hart's Weir and Radcot serve as a foil for the more lovely objects. Besides, occasional descents from the higher platforms of admiration, to which special points of interest are apt to summon you, give time for reflection and observation. Thus you will not be long in discovering that in these veritably upper reaches of the Thames what of animal life is still left may be seen without let or hindrance. The birds here are in no danger from the cockney fowler's gun. Amongst the water-fowl the most frequent appearance is that of the common moor-hen, which breeds as freely as ever, and still maintains its character as amongst the tamest of our wild birds. The coot is less often seen, but the heron will be often disturbed from its busy occupation on the shallows. Even in much-frequented reaches of the Thames the heron may still be descried at a distance, shy, watchful, and wary. On both of the days occupied by my voyage from Lechlade to Oxford I saw herons. They may have travelled twenty miles from the heronry for their nightly or early-morning forage, but you rarely can approach them within gunshot. The bird is most artful and shy at all times; but I have always fancied that the herons of the Thames Valley are the most wideawake of all. They hear the thump, thump of the rowlocks half a mile off, rise from their depredations, and wing their way slowly into the centre of a field; or perchance you may see one doing sentry on the upper boughs of a tall tree.

Between Hart's Weir and Radcot Bridge I descry three "herns" in one meadow that had been so disturbed by our gliding boat. As they stand motionless and lank in the fields, on a fence, or in the tree-tops, only a practised eye can identify them. In summer-time, though rarely, you put up a couple of wild ducks from the main river. The boating man, as may be supposed, meets with less bird life than the pedestrian, who, stealthily walking on the grass, will often obtain a passing flash of a kingfisher, or witness the alarmed flight of rarer birds. My July voyage brings me into constant companionship with troops of the wanton lapwing, in glorious plumage and full of noisy life; rooks, as a matter of course, busy, self-satisfied, and radiant in their blue-black vesture; swallows, swifts, sand martins, and reed warblers. The common sandpiper is about upon the shallows where the streams run swiftly, and the elegant water wagtails abound. At intervals throughout the day, near shrubby undergrowths and open meadows, the music of skylark, thrush, or blackbird charms the ear, though the eye seeks in vain the whereabouts of the performer. Four-footed creatures are few. The merry vole is an exception, and in some of the woods the cautious searcher may find squirrels in active play. The otter, seldom seen by the human eye in broad daylight, is plentiful enough in the earlier stages of the Thames, and of them, as of other wild creatures, it may be generally said that they are not so harried and wantonly destroyed as in the middle and lower parts of the river.

Radcot Bridge, of which we catch sight three miles from Hart's Weir, is understood to be one of the oldest bridges on the Thames, and its appearance is quite in character with this theory; moreover, it is an interesting piece of stonework, apart from its age, its three Gothic arches being curiously ribbed underneath. There is a very steep ascent to the crown, and over the centre arch is still preserved the socket in which, on the crest of bridges, the sacred cross was wont to be uplifted. There are, in point of fact, two bridges at Radcot, but the "real original" is the antique three-arched affair to the right, as we drop down. The river is here divided, a short cut to facilitate navigation and deepen the channel forming a new departure. The old stream wanders round, when the weeds will allow it, under the ribbed arches, leaving the channel of the new cut, like a newly-come tradesman who has a contempt for the old-fogeyish methods of the ancient inhabitants, to transact its business merrily, with promptness and despatch. For a couple of miles or so the Thames has now all the essential characteristics of a trout stream, with eddying pools and golden shallows, over which the water ripples at a moderate depth and at sparkling pace. In the hands of patient fish culturists and preservers this portion of the river might be made, no doubt, a trout stream; but salmo fario is as yet the least abundant of Thames fishes. What are called the coarse fish, or summer spawners, are on the contrary abundant, and most plentiful of all, under the willowy banks of the meadows, are the chub, which, for want of better game, afford passable sport to the fly-fisher, who, from the towpath, ought to be able to command any portion of the Thames at this stage of its course. In the wide deep pools marking the sites of old weirs, of which little trace but the piers remain, there should be, and as a matter of fact is, excellent angling for perch and pike.

Because the Thames has been so much praised, and so much the subject of picture and poem, it does not follow that it is all pleasing to the eye. After leaving Radcot Bridge, and with the exception of these pools, once foaming and noisy with the action of the descending water, some indifferently furnished reaches have to be passed--reaches that are almost canal-like in the straightness of their course and in the uninteresting character of the low-lying land on either side. The country immediately bordering on the river is sparsely populated, and the world must revolve somewhat slowly for those who live there. Some indication of this may be gathered from the fact that at Rushy Lock, where there is a fine weir and pool, we had the pleasure of being our own lock keeper, opening the heavy gates, letting in the water, and releasing ourselves. The labour accomplished, a small urchin of six years of age was sharp enough to put in an appearance in time to take the toll; it was evident, however, that traffic was so unexpected that he alone had been left in charge, Indeed, during one whole day's progress we met but two boats.

Tadpole Bridge, a substantial structure of one span, between four and five miles below Radcot, carries the road from Bampton, where Phillips, the author of an almost forgotten work, "The Splendid Shilling," was born. The singular spire of Bampton Church is seen from Radcot Bridge, the view from which also includes Faringdon Hill, and some effective wooded heights around. The few tourists who make a pilgrimage from the source to the mouth of the Thames, or those who visit these stations for a sojourn of greater or lesser duration, turn aside from the river and visit both Faringdon and Bampton. At Faringdon any traces of the houses which withstood the hard knocks of the Cromwellian period are gone; nothing but the site remains, and that only as a vague tradition, of the castle built by the supporters of Queen Matilda, and pulled down by the supporters of King Stephen. Sir Edward Unton, who was Queen Elizabeth's ambassador at the French Court, is buried in the church.

Bampton, on the Oxfordshire side, is half town and half village, and it has an indirect connection with the Thames, although it is some distance from its banks, because the steeple, to which I have already referred, is a striking mark upon the landscape. Not without reason has the character of singularity been applied to it. From a square tower rises an octagon steeple, with belfry windows; pinnacles at each corner form basements of statues, and these are supported by slabs resting at right angles against the steeple. Skelton says that the church contains examples of almost every period of architecture, from the Conquest to the reign of George III. It has a fine Norman porch, an inner arch that is much admired, brasses, and a series of sculptures, probably work of the fifteenth century.

There is not much material for description in the next few miles. The river seems occasionally to lessen rather than increase in size, and right and left you look in vain for anything worthy of inquiry or admiration, save the comfortable old farmhouses and homesteads, environed by the usual clump of characteristic elms; and, at farther distance from the river, here and there a country mansion, secure in the privacy of its trim park, suggesting always the happy language of the poetess:--

"The stately homes of England, how beautiful they stand,
Amid their tall ancestral trees o'er all the pleasant land."