Thames Tiny Start
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The Very Start of the River Thames or Is It
?????  We left Whitley Bay after breakfast, once more through
the tunnel under the River Tyne. Flushed with the success of gaining our LRPS
yesterday, Bear organised a cross country route through Oxfordshire and located
a shop where I could try out many different camera bags - my current back sack
crams everything too tightly together and the zips have suffered some pretty bad
salt damage. What a joy to mostly avoid the motorways in preference to country
roads passing through some stunning English
countryside.
  What a beast – not light it has to be
said......Oh wait, I have a Bear who will carry it. Huh.
 My trusty ‘bearer’ Ha Ha Ha and Huh..........then made a surprise
stop for me to see the ‘argued’ start of the River Thames at Seven Springs in
Gloucestershire. He parked the car next to a small pit like area, with little to
see but a few bushes, very understated.
 I went down some steps.................
 ..........and there it
was.
  To my left a pipe, to my
right a roughly hewn
business.
 Climbing back up I did pass this lovely wild poppy.
 We stopped to read the sign.
Mmmm.
 On the other hand. Thames
Head is a site in Gloucestershire,
traditionally identified as the source of the River
Thames, a major river which runs through the centre of
London. It lies near the
village of Kemble and the town of Cirencester.
The claim that Thames Head is the source of the River Thames is disputed. The Environment Agency, the Ordnance Survey and other authorities have the source of the Thames as the nearby Trewsbury Mead. Others hold that the true source of the Thames is at Seven Springs, Gloucestershire, some eleven miles further north, and east of Gloucester. Officially, however, Seven Springs is the source of the River Churn, a tributary of the Thames that joins at Cricklade. This tributary, by its distance rising further than Trewsbury Mead, would therefore result in the Seven Springs being the ultimate source of the Thames. A monument beneath an ash tree bears the inscription:
THE CONSERVATORS OF THE RIVER
THAMES
A nearby basin of stones marks the spring. However, there is usually only water during a wet winter. Whatever, it is generally known that the River Thames runs for two hundred and fifteen miles and her highest elevation is at three hundred and sixty one feet.
The final bit of our journey was to be on the M5, great sky though.
My last surprise of the day, Bear took me to see my mum and dad. In the late afternoon sun, simply lovely.
ALL IN ALL GREAT DIVERSIONS |
