UK Camino Ingles: Day 2 - The English Way 10 miles

It rained on and off throughout our second day walking on the Camino Ingles, Reading to Southampton, but with peeks of blue sky and having met so many kind people we completed this section back at the little Chapel B&B in good form. When we had showered and gotten warm, we walked the short distance up the road to the absolutely charming, old fashioned (cash only) pub, The Plough and met the best folks who cheered us on.

Start where we left off, St. Mary's Sulhamstead

Stone masons mark 

Old yew in the churchyard

We picked up where we left off at St. Mary's in Sulhamstead and did, as invited to do so the day before, visit the interior of the church and paid our respects to a family's departed dad whose funeral was planned for the afternoon. It was an honor to stand beside the flag-draped casket of a British veteran. We left a note of condolences in the guest book and thanked the family for allowing us to explore the church before the service.

The owners of The Baobob, Gavin and Rachel

Me and Molly taking a pilgrims rest at the Boabob

 

We cruised into the old Saxon town of Mortimer and paid a visit to the new-ish pilgrim's rest and shop, The Baobob. The owners were so enthusiastic to have their stamp ready for our pilgrim's passport and prepared a take-away scone for our second breakfast on the trail. They absolutely support the new pilgrimage trail and love to see it getting used more and more. "We love meeting people from all over the world and we hope it continues to build in popularity and local support!"

Follow the markers through town...

...through the heart of the community.

Crossing boundaries

A little more rain, a lot more mud

No surprise, it started raining again this time with a little wind and a cooler temps through meadows, pastures, through holloways and wooded sections. We found deer tracks everywhere and stopped a lot to watch and listen for birds. Mud caked to our boots and I stopped here and there to kick it off on a rock or fence post. Through gates and over stiles, we made our way along this old path as thousands of pilgrims must have done hundreds of years before us. 

Small species of deer - the Muntjac.

Footbridge

Holloway

More holloway action

A holloway is an old sunken road lined on both sides by old hedges where the hedges have grown over the road to form a tunnel. My cousin loved walking through these and as we walked we counted the number of plant species growing in the hedges to arrive at it's general age. Not only are these old hedges important for boundary and fence lines, but they are biologically, historically, and culturally important as well. Some hedges are dated thousands of years old and host a variety of native bees, wildflowers and flowering trees, shelter badgers and hedgehogs, and so much more. History was the theme for the day as we walked along the ancient hedgerows and into the Roman ruins of Silchester. 

Ruins of a Roman amphitheater 

Where gladiators and battle beasts entertained 7,000 people

Tower entrance 

Arena entrance for gladiators 

We visited the old Saxon-Norman church of St. Mary the Virgin situated right inside the old Roman walls of Silchester and found a stamp for our passports then sat (shivering) in the church to read about its very long history. It was really cold! We moved outside to the slightly warmer bench and ate our scones and some fruit but quickly decided we needed to keep moving to stay warm so opted to do the entire 2 kilometer walk around the outside of the Roman city walls. We even saw earthworks of the older yet Iron Age ruins of the hilltop fort over which the Romans built their city of Silchester. The winds picked up and we waked faster, but stayed warm as long as we were moving.

Saxon-Norman church of St. Mary the Virgin

Woodwork dating to the 900s above us

Huge walls! 

Flint rubble built walls scavenged for the dressed exterior stones

One of five corners to the city within that held a tower

Earthworks emerged on the western flank of the exterior wall

As we completed our walk around the Roman city ruins, the rains returned and we pulled our hoods and beanies close down over our heads. Some road walking a few miles brought us to an old coppiced woodlands managed sustainably by woodworkers for hundreds of years. Coppicing for stave and pole production, pollarding for limb beams, shoots for wicker and hurdles (woven walls), and waddle and daub building were all made possible by the careful attention woodworkers gave to a stand of trees that could supply a community with wood and natural materials for generations. 

Coppiced tree

Coppice mound and trench

Walking beside a stave-supported hedge repair (right)

Water burbled through the woods in trench-cut streams leaving straight, long mounds of coppiced trees growing between. The woodworkers are still at work here as we followed the path along a section repair for an old hedge made with newly cut staves. These support water shoots and sapling trees freshly planted to fill in gaps and openings in the older hedge. I remembered my Uncle Russ and his work in hedge building and repair back in West Virginia, a very old tradition of fencing and boundary-making brought with English immigrants to the Appalachians. I still have his old billhook and draw knife he gave me years ago, though I now work with a newer billhook when laying down younger trees along my own fence lines. Its a wonderful way to work with live wood and so thankful I learned from him so many years ago. What I would give to see his big tough hands wrapped around that old caulked Hickory handle one more time.

Anglo-Saxon/Norman St. James in Bramley

Medieval wall paintings and iconostasis

St Thomas Beckett slain by knights of Henry II

Saxon barrel ceiling

Light was beginning to fade as we walked into Bramley and visited the well-lit St. James church where we picked up another stamp and lingered about to admire the fantastic Medieval wall paintings so well preserved all around. More kind folks to talk to and a great conversation with another group of pilgrims who were local and doing the whole walk as day hikes, one hike per week. This was a very beautiful church and I wished we'd had more time to stay but our B&B was still a few miles away and it was getting dark. Did I mention it was raining?

Back to our warm and dry Chapel B&B

Absolutely my favorite pub visit of the entire walk

Mike and Jim - a very small world, indeed

Through the cemetery and four soggy pastures and we arrived in the tiny village of Little London and walked right in to our delightful Chapel B&B for our second night's stay. After a shower and clean, warm clothes, we decided to walk up the road to The Plough pub for a beer. We were absolutely in love with this old place and stayed probably longer than we should have but the conversation beside the woodstove kept us in place for a while. We received a huge stamp (the biggest stamp on the Camino Ingles) from the pub onwer, Mr. Brown, who was so happy to have pilgrims walk in the door.  Families and friends were gathered in each of the cozy rooms chattering away while the cash-only pints and half-pints of ales, bitters, and ciders were served over the counter. We even found a connection to home as Mike's brother plays organ for our local St. John's church and lives in Glen Arm, MD, only thirty minutes from where I live in Delta, PA. Small world! 

The Plough still stands and serves customers after 300 years

Cash only and old fashioned service on tap

We completed ten wet and muddy miles on the Camino Ingles this day but were kept warm and cheerful with all the wonderful conversations with folks we met along the way. But honestly, our visit to The Plough won the day and if you decide to walk this path someday you will be forever sorry not to have stopped for a refreshing beverage and woodfire chat. Dogs and families welcomed. Sorry, but they have no social media presence and rely on word-of-mouth beyond the small village of Little London to draw in new visitors. 

Notes:

Silchester Roman City https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/silchester-roman-city-walls-and-amphitheatre/history/

St. Mary the Virgin, Silchester https://www.silchesterchurch.co.uk/

National Church Trust, St. James, Bramley https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/st-james-bramley

UK Camino Ingles: Day 1 - The English Way, 8.5 miles

The first two weeks of October this year, my cousin Molly and I walked pilgrimage in England along the seventy-mile route of the newly re-established Camino Ingles, The English Way section from Reading to Southampton. We each had different reasons for making this pilgrimage (more on that later) but for both of us it was an opportunity together to enjoy an official section of the famous Camino de Santiago that eventually would lead us to Santiago de Compostela and the Cathedral of St. James in Galicia, Spain.  If you are interested in the hiking and walking then stay right here but if you are interested in more of the religious history and modern pilgrimage meaning of this new/old route, then you may want to visit my other blog over on Substack, Uphill Road. 

The start of this newest section (as of 2024) 

We were well prepared for all kinds of weather with an emphasis on rain gear for this walk. For the entire seven day hike from Reading to Southampton we experienced rain, fog, mist, drizzle, and a few wonderous hours of sun. One day of the seven was completely clear but off-pavement trails remained muddy and wet throughout. We hiked through the remnants of Hurricane Helene and Milton as well as an Atlantic hurricane that spun itself out over the North Atlantic without touching the U.S. We were advised that we were on the edge of the wet season coming into late fall and winter in this part of England, but that the region had experienced an unusually wet late summer. We were both glad I'd brought my set of hiking poles (in checked baggage) as conditions were slippery and sometimes required careful support in flooded sections. 

Getting our first pilgrim stamp at Reading's Town Hall

We started our journey south from Reading on Monday after having spent Sunday roaming around the city and attending a service at the church of St. James. We also explored the ruins of the Reading Abbey before setting off, including all of its surviving structures that included a grand gateway and a mill race, the Holy Brook, where Benedictine monks operated grain mills.  In its day, the Reading Abbey was one of the largest royal abbeys in England and the largest Benedictine monasteries in Europe. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 (whose father was William the Conqueror) and it hosted royal families several times a year up until the Dissolution of the Abbeys in 1538 under Henry VIII. 

Through the Reading Abbey gatehouse

St. James Church (left) and former pilgrim's rest house (right)

Lady Chapel of St. James

Reading Abbey ruins of the Chapter House

Surviving section of an abbey mill wall over mill race 

The walk began at the Church of St. James and continued through the modern market town of Reading along canal paths through the shopping district and past some beautiful homes along the River Kennet. We were amazed to see that compared to our modern map of the route and an old map describing the extent of the historic Reading Abbey grounds, it was some time before we actually left the original site of what would have been the largest of all monastic communities in Europe in the 1100s.  My cousin who is fluent in French, explained that the great geographical extent of the French Benedictine holdings here and the influence of the French-speaking royal families would have ensured that French was the language of the land in the early Middle Ages. Oh mon Dieu! Je n'en avais aucune idée!

The canalized River Kennet

Homes along River Kennet - recently flooded in September

Canal boats 

The River Kennet, a major tributary of the River Thames, was my first introduction to the chalk streams of England. Flowing over chalk gravels and bedrock, rising from deep aquifers and springs of chalk headlands, these unique river systems flow particularly clear and clean and contain vast assemblages of wetland plant and animals life. 80% of all the world's chalk streams are found in England making these rivers of particularly high conservation value and especially vulnerable to pollution events. (See Notes)  Between rain showers, my cousin and I were able to do a little birding and botany and found our pace slowed considerably when the sun peeked out. 

Birding on the River Kennet

A peek of sun before the next shower 

Our first pub break on the river...

...where we met fishermen and heard their concerns for the river. 

Our stop at the Cunning Man pub was an especially rich break as we got to talk to fishermen about the Kennet and hear their concerns for its health and welfare. We met Mike who was so giving of his time to introduce us to his home stream as he described his life-long dedication to the river and for the protection of its fish and other aquatic life. He spoke of bottom fishing and flyfishing and catching Brown Trout on the fall spawning runs. He loved catching Pike and shared a picture of his largest catch to date, an enormous Barbel that looked almost as big as Mike himself! He was adamant that better care needed to be taken, as water management left to government authorities alone was not enough and often not helpful.  He and other fishermen we met along The Way were 100% in support of the new Camino route that included the river paths so that "people from all over the world can see what we have here and help us get the word out that these are some of the most amazing places they will ever experience for wildlife and fisheries."

Mike and his beloved River Kennet

Onward along chalk gravel river paths...

... to our first glimpses of the extraordinary water meadows complex.

We entered the vast plains of water meadows, the braiding of grass and hay meadow with woodlands and wetlands all along the river. Here we experienced more rain, coming now in bands of heavy clouds with breaks of sun and blue sky. Experiencing chalk stream water meadows was another first for me and while at home I would have described these places simply as floodplain, I learned they are far more than this. 

Impatiens glandulifera - a large non-native invasive Touch-Me-Not

It was walking through the first of many nature reserves on this trip that my cousin's Merlin App began to pick up new bird species fast and furious. We were experiencing globally important wetlands that developed alongside Southwest England's Medieval water management systems of old sluiceways, ditches, trenches, hatchways, and mazes of agricultural fields. With the tenaciousness of the river's persistent wetlands, these combined ecosystems form complex semi-wild landscapes of wet meadow and woods.  Another hour was spent listening and watching the water meadows for birds, investigating new plant communities (and seeing large swaths of invasive Himalayan Touch-Me-Nots), admiring grazing heritage livestock, new species (for us) of migrating waterfowl, and hopeful sightings of semi-aquatic mammals like water voles (muskrat-size) and otter. Was that thing long and slender or chunky and short? 

Thatch-roofed parish house of St. Mary's Church, Sulhamstead

St. Mary's Church - our final stop for Day 1

Our final destination for the day was to stop at St. Mary's Church, Sulhamstead Abbots, and while it was closed in preparation for a funeral the next day, a family member of the deceased asked us to please come back in the morning to visit when the church would be open before the afternoon service. It felt a little awkward to accept the invitation, but it was made clear that "he would have loved to meet you walking the St. James Way - the old pilgrim's route - as this church was surely a stop for rest along the way."  We agreed to return and pay our respects in the morning and with that our ride arrived to take us to our first and second night's lodging in a B&B a few miles off the trail in an old Methodist Church.

The Chapel B&B 

Notes: 

The history of the Reading Abbey includes some incredible work being done to save what is left and what is underground within the abbey quarter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Abbey

Reading Abbey - A Short History from the Reading Museum  https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/blog/short-history-reading-readings-royal-abbey

History of the Abbey Quarter - Reading Museum

 https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/your-visit/abbey-quarter/history-abbey-quarter

River Kennet, our first chalk river (note the description of the 2013 insect kill - two teaspoons of ant poison!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Kennet

River Kennet conservation sheet (and 2013 insect kill), Marlborough College 

https://www.marlboroughcollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/River-Kennet-Helena-C.pdf

Water Meadows - Medieval water management systems with modern conservation importance

 https://circularwaterstories.org/analysis/harnam-water-meadows/

The Salisbury Water Meadow Trust https://www.salisburywatermeadows.org.uk/history/

The Chapel B&B was a lovely place to stay, and if I ever go back, will surely basecamp from here to explore more of the Southwest England region. http://www.bnbhampshire.co.uk/