Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide -
Inglesham,
Map: Inglesham
Do not attempt to force the Thames above Inglesham, in dry seasons, with a heavy laden double sculler! I tried it once, with
the intrepidity of egregious inexperience; and after the third shallow contemplating a fourth I desisted, grateful enough to
the god of the stream that after incredible efforts I managed successfully to force my craft back over the scours to
Lechlade. It is better at such times, and with such a craft on your hands, to tramp the rest of the journey.
Half a mile
above Lechlade stands the Round House, two hundred and fifty feet above sea level. This Martello tower-like structure, with
its poplar group reminiscent of Iffley, but much more ragged, marks the junction of the Thames, the Thames and Severn Canal,
and the Colne. The Thames comes round from the southwest; and the canal is the midmost of the three, barred by lock gates.
It was opened under very high auspices and with golden hopes in 1799, its bed of thirty miles having taken seven years to
excavate. "The canal cutters," says Mr. Hutton,"must have been quite a colony in Lechlade; the registers for one year shew
six deaths and four baptisms" amongst them. It has always, however, been more or less unsuccessful, usually more. The Great
Western Railway bought it up in 1893 and forthwith closed it. A trust formed by Act of Parliament then reopened it in 1895,
with an annual guarantee of six hundred pounds for thirty years from various county and district councils. But the constant
repairs necessary from its long summit level in porous limestone have proved too expensive for its income, and it is still
maintained at a heavy loss. The Colne, the third of the trio, rises near Shipton in Gloucestershire, and runs a course of
about twenty-three miles.
Inglesham church is quite close above, on the right bank. William Morris was enthusiastic about it: "a lovely little
building," he thought; "like Kelmscot for size and style, but handsomer and with more old things left in it. " It is a tiny
place, only forty-nine feet by thirty-six, and sadly needs repair; though not "restoration"; looking as though it had never
been touched since the end of the twelfth century, when it was built and given by John to his favourite abbey at Beaulieu.
An archaic bas-relief of the Blessed Virgin and Child is built into the outer south wall, with a Hand pointing downwards to
Him, as in a fragment at Latton by Cricklade; the whole surmounted with MARIA. They say it was once in the priory chapel by
St. John's Bridge. In the churchyard is a fine cross fifteen feet high, unusually perfect.
[ Fred, in Additions and Corrections, adds: There exists in the North Meadow in Inglesham a piece of land of about an acre,
which between the twenty-fifth of March and the twelfth of August in every year reverts to the parish officers. The origin
of this peculiar tenure is unknown, but the churchwardens have, from time immemorial, let the right to the grass between
these dates. ]
A very little way upstream the River is often, as I have just said, impracticable for anything heavier than a canoe
travelling very light and easy to float over the shallows, which are frequent and shew in places but an inch or two of water
rippling over the white chalk pebbles for fifty yards together. And there are stretches of clotted reed that sullenly clog
the whole width of the course for a quarter of a mile at a time. These scours recall what must often have been the state of
the River even far lower in olden days. Dr. Plot wrote: "In dry times barges do sometimes lie aground three weeks or a
month or more, as we have had sad experience in past summers. " "Flashing" was often resorted to as a relief to navigation.
Stanches were placed above the shallows to dam the River, and when suddenly removed the barges were floated down by the
sudden rush of water. These were the old "locks," or "whirlpools," of which I wrote at Osney.
The River Cole enters the Thames by its smaller outlet on the right bank two or three meadows above Inglesham; its larger
mouth is a few yards above St. John's lock. About a quarter of a mile higher on the right bank is the boundary between
Berkshire and Wiltshire. How solitary the waterside and all the surroundings are along here. Between Inglesham and
Kempsford scarcely a farm to be seen, and never a village; for geological reasons, perhaps; the soil between being mostly
clay and alluvial. Would this reason apply also to those long thirty miles of solitude below Lechlade?
Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide -
Inglesham,
Map: Inglesham