6th May 2024 – Abingdon, Shippon, Drayton, Marcham

I always promise in update posts to return in one month, as I did in the last update in early February. And, reliably, I put it off. And, reliably, I finally get around to it three months later. This post honours that time-established pattern of procrastination. One month is a good interval for these; I hope to update again in early June. However, August seems more likely. Anyhow… Enough of that kind of navel-gazing. You are here for a different kind of navel-gazing.

Progress

Pictures 1 and 2 are before-and-afters of the Walking Territory Covered Map at the last update and at this one. Pictures 3 and 4 are the same, but zoomed to its south-west corner, where I have been extending the network of lines.

Picture 1: WTCM as of 4/2/24 (imagery courtesy of Google MyMaps)

Picture 2: WTCM as of 6/5/24 (imagery courtesy of Google MyMaps)

Picture 3: Abingdon WTCM as of 4/2/24 (imagery courtesy of Google MyMaps)

Picture 4: Abingdon and around WTCM as of 6/5/24 (imagery courtesy of Google MyMaps)

We can functionally declare Abingdon finished at this point. The only possible quibble over that when we introduce the concept of “Maximal Abingdon” (cf. “Maximal Oxford“) regards Abingdon Airfield, which is outside the town, attached to Shippon. There is furthermore no clear urban break between Abingdon and Shippon; rather recognisable Abingdonness peters out at the bridge over the A34 to Shippon, with schools either side of the road for a distance, and then the not-exactly-a-ring-road, here called Copenhagen Drive, provides urban punctuation as it crosses under the bridge adjacent to the A34. We cross the A34, and immediately recognisable Shipponness is present. By our rules, this is not an urban break, and so Maximal Abingdon must include Shippon. With Shippon included, the attached airfield seems an obvious desirable extra, so we must circumnavigate it to truly consider ourselves done with Abingdon. As Picture 4 shows, this single loop yet lacks approximately three-eighths walking coverage. No matter, this is a technicality; the real Abingdon is covered. Joining up Cothill, Gozzard’s Ford, and Whitecross on future walks will allow us to complete this technical extended construct of Abingdon.

Having covered Caldecott (i.e. Abingdon south of the River Ock), I turned my attention to extending the mesh a decent distance beyond the town. We already (Picture 3) were covered by past exploration to the east (across the river to Culham) and southeast (Sutton Courtenay), and there was a pre-existing line along the B4016 from Drayton to Sutton Courtenay dating from one early 2000s work morning when car travel was impossible (I forget exactly why), and in a fit of energetic youthish enthusiasm I decided to walk the 18.6 km commute. Working out to this line felt like it would look tidy on the map, and so I have. This brought much of Drayton into view, including the pretty Sutton Wick, which was new to me. Rather lovely place, Drayton. I feel sure there will be some pictures of it in the photodump below. From there, I am aiming to gradually bend around to connect up with the path network finger that stretches south from the edge of Cumnor (middle left in Picture 2). Venturing into the flat and marshy empty quarter between East Hanney, Steventon, Frilford, and Abingdon, I’ve made it as far as Marcham at the present date, which also pleasingly brings into the mesh the not-quite-disconnected tendril that pointed out from Abingdon along the A415 to the bobble of previously-mapped paths there. My current intention is to next fill in the paths east of a line drawn between Marcham and Bessels Leigh. At that point the more detailed mesh that is Abingdon will be thoroughly encompassed by mappings all around its circumference.

Photos

Picture 5: This is not Abingdon! This is the Minchery Farmhouse, a 15th century building adjacent to the Kassam Stadium in Littlemore, local to me. After years of neglect by its absentee landlord, Firoz Kassam, I was pleased to see that somebody had undertaken some maintenance tasks on the grounds. 15/2/24.

Picture 6: Ock Valley Walk signage, Abingdon, 17/2/24. This is a lovely walk leading right to the centre of Abingdon, highly recommended. I keep accidentally typing “Ock River Walk”, which to my mind would be a better name – the valley is miles wide.

Picture 7: Ock Valley Walk, 17/2/24. The walk is along an island between two streams of the Ock, between the B4017 Ock bridge and St. Helen’s Church, and may be extended into further green spaces along the river to the west

Picture 8: Weir at end of northern Ock stream at eastern end of Ock Valley Walk, 17/2/24

Picture 9: 17/2/24, southern Ock stream looking across to spaces behind housing on Caldecott Road, Ock Valley Walk

Picture 10: 17/2/24. Looking east at the easternmost end of the intra-Ock islands on which the walk lies. Around the bend is the confluence with the Thames.

Picture 11: 19/2/24. Returning a couple of days later to explore the Caldecott Road side. This shows the Ock in spate after heavy rain. The river walk is seen in between the two swollen streams at a narrow point. I liked this tree.

Picture 12: Civic street art at Ock Bridge Place, 19/2/24. Apologies for the footy intrusions.

Picture 13: Decapitated redwood inside St. Amand Drive, 22/2/24

Picture 14: 22/2/24. Swollen arms of the Ock rejoining just before joining the Thames stream. Picture taken from bridge joining Caldecott Road to St. Helen’s Wharf. If I lived in one of these houses (on Mill Paddock), I too would want my house to be on stilts.

Picture 15: Archway relic in St. Amand Drive, 23/2/24. This is close to the redwood shown above, and I thought I’d taken a picture of it on that day, but it turned out that I didn’t know how to operate my camera, and so I came back for another attempt.

Picture 16: Intermezzo: Bicester, 25/2/24. Unnecessarily dramatic name? But the amphibian is cute.

Picture 17: Back to Abingdon, 28/2/24. This struck me as a lovely thing to do when your garden backs onto a public green space. Chaunterell Way playground.

Picture 18: 29/2/24, overgrown pill-box, ‘accessible’ from the footpath through western Caldecott that more-or-less follows the old route of the Wilts & Berks Canal.

Picture 19, 2/3/24: Falling blossom lends beauty to Preston Road, Caldecott

Picture 20, 3/3/24: Friendly cat with overgroomed tail base, Gainsborough Green, Caldecott

Picture 21, 3/3/24: Street art, Saxton Road, Caldecott

Picture 22, 3/3/24: These were realistic enough to confuse me for a moment! Palmer Place, Caldecott.

Picture 23, 3/3/24: Lots of these ‘peek-a-boo’ walls in the Cotman Close area. Some householders had filled up holes with bricks and mortar, and I can certainly see why.

Picture 24, 7/4/24: Duck pond, Sutton Wick. There’s an image drought in the month between the previous photo and this one. I think I was worried about exceeding my Google Drive storage limit… All sorted now, having rationalised some old .wav recording files!

Picture 25, 7/4/24: Sutton Wick chickens, seen from a path towards Stonehill Lane that didn’t seem clearly differentiated from a farmyard

Picture 26, 7/4/24: A kindly passing couple explained to me what this was, on the path between Church Lane and Millennium Green, Drayton. It was formerly an access gate, now removed to enable wheelchair access.

Picture 27, 7/2/24: Sundial, Millennium Green, Drayton

Picture 28, 7/4/24: Bluebell wood path, Millennium Green, Drayton

Picture 29, 20/4/24: Intermezzo: Bluebells at Shotover Country Park

Picture 30, 21/4/24. On this day, I accidentally found a National Gardens Scheme open garden afternoon at Lime Close, Drayton. Quite a large space – it went on and on. This end of the garden is mature, the far end only just planted.

Picture 31, 21/4/24, Lime Close, Drayton: Every garden needs a topiary horse with raised front leg. The mild skeletality of the back legs doesn’t detract.

Picture 32, 21/4/24, Lime Close, Drayton. In the middle of the house lawn is this magnificent tree. Any idea which species it is, loyal readers?

Picture 33, 21/4/24: Welcome to Drayton from the Sutton Courtenay direction

Picture 34, 25/4/24, Drayton village green: One of the nicer sets of please-don’t-mess-up-this-grass-with-selfish-parking devices that I’ve seen.

Picture 35, 27/4/24, between Marcham and Drayton, near the empty flat wet space on the map that Thames Water are keen on placing a reservoir in: The state of this bridge on a marked footpath tells us something about how often it is used. The boards bowed alarmingly when tested, and so I inched across on the far right hand side above the across-stream supporting beam. Honestly wouldn’t recommend it; bit of a drop to the muddy stream below should the bridge fail. The footpath has been largely superseded by paved farm tracks, but a footpath is a footpath. I should add it to my list of endangered paths, and I should alert Oxfordshire Country Council.

Picture 36, 27/4/24, between Marcham and Drayton: And here is some more of that footpath. Can you spot it as it crosses the field? This was once the main road between Marcham and Drayton, old OS maps tell me.