Thames Path - Source to London - Eynsham to Abingdon via Oxford - Day 4 of 12
Day 4 of 12 of an epic walking adventure through some of England's most beautiful countryside and incredible history. A walk that covers 186 miles from the source of the river in Gloucestershire to the Thames Barrier in the east of London via historic towns of Oxford, Henley and Royal Windsor to name a few.
Sunday 31st March Eynsham to Abingdon Day Four
The Thames Path Challenge - 184 Mile hike from Source to London - Click on the image to watch the video of day 4 of the hike. An epic adventure
Again we were up fairly early, and this time we decided to wait until 8am for the full English Breakfast to be served. Definitely worth waiting for in such a lovely pub with great food. We left at 8.45am, and walked 200 meters back to river over the bridge and regained the path. After 5 miles of walking the first boat actually moving on the river for 50 miles seen. Hopefully the river will get busier from here.
After walking for 6 miles we came into Oxford at 11am, leaving the path and called in at The Four Candles Wetherspoons pub for a coffee. Oxford would be a lovely place to stay the night looking round the colleges, old buildings etc, which we have done previously. We had a lovely stroll around Oxford for a couple of hours, before returning to the river at Folly Bridge at 1pm.
We had lunch bought in Tesco in Oxford and ate it whilst sitting on a bench by the river. More people were out than we had previously seen, tourist boats and rowers on the river, also people out cycling, jogging and walking along the concrete tow path. The walk was much more interesting than before with these activities and lots of rowing clubs to walk past. We called in at Kings Head pub, Sandford-on-Thames for a pot of tea, a beautiful location.
The path grew quieter again until Abingdon came into view at around 4pm. We had booked the Crown and Thistle pub, which has a great location very close to the river. It is a beautiful old coaching house, with various bars/restaurants, and football is shown. We went for a walk round Abingdon, which is another beautiful old town, before buying our dinner from Tesco. But there are plenty of pubs and restaurants to eat in.
Today, the fourth day of walking, the bags felt lighter, the distance covered felt not as far, and there a is nice easy concrete section of path from Folly Bridge to The Kings Head. Looking forward to tomorrow, and maybe more towns to visit!!!
Distance km 27.55
Duration of Walk Hours 7.46
Average Pace Min/km 16.55
Steps 47433
Johnny Berry Band Eynsham
Sorry about the camera angle enjoy
25th June 2017 - VB399 - Thames Path Section 16 - Abingdon to Oxford
Video Blog 399 - Thames Path Section 16 - Abingdon to Oxford
Cardiff Morris dance Eynsham Morris at The Boars Head, Tyla Garw. 18th June 2013.
The Eynsham Morris side were photographed as far back as th 1900s. Some of those photos were used as the basis of paintings. The photograph of them at the entrance to Blenheim palace (seen here: ) was used for a painting by William Nicholsons (seen here: ) which now hangs in the Hill-Stead Museum in Connecticut alongside works by Degas, Monet and Whistler.
Another photograph from the same era shows Eynsham Morris Men dressed as mummers. Mummers plays generally feature as the central event the killing and restoring to life of one of its main characters. The term 'mummer' probably comes from the circa 15th century German term 'vermummen' meaning 'to disguise oneself'.
The novel War and Peace features a Mummers play moving from house to house in a boisterour procession with men dressed as women and women dressed as men.
The earliest version of a reasonably full Mummers play text is probably the 1779 Morrice Dancers play from Lincolnshire. We also have the text of a Mummers play from Cheshire that dates from 1788 (seen here: ), it featured St. George who was frequently seen in Mummers plays. Despite featuring St. George and Cheshire's close proximity to Wales this play featured no dragon but did have as a main character Saladin. It ma however feature an early advertisement for ale, as St. George is given the lines:
Thou boasted man that lives by Bread
What makes my nose look so red
Thou silly fool can'st thou not tell
It is because I love good Ale so well
This Macclesfield Ale it is so stale
That it keeps my nose from looking pale.
100 YEARS REMEMBRANCE In Northill
In April this year our local village magazine announced its intention to decorate the local church with swathes of poppies to mark the 100 years since the end of the First World War. A worthy challenge and one which the villagers met head on. Myself included – though my contribution was tiny by comparison to some!
But why poppies? Papaver rhoeas, more commonly known as the ‘corn’ poppy, grows throughout Europe, the United States, Asia, and Africa and is native to the Mediterranean region. Its seeds, which need light to grow, can lay dormant for 80 years or even longer by some accounts, without blooming. And so, once soil is disturbed and the seeds come to light, poppies nobody knew existed can then bloom.
During World War I, this vivid and beautiful phenomenon took place in a Europe decimated by the first truly modern war. In Belgium, which was home to part of the Western Front in its Flanders provinces, the soil was torn up by miles of trenches and pocked by bombs and artillery fire. The Battles of Ypres, which took part in a portion of Flanders known as Flanders Fields, were particularly deadly and took a toll on the physical environment, too. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, many of them British, breathed their last on soil laid bare and churned up by the mechanics of war.
After the Second Battle of Ypres, a Canadian doctor named John McCrae noticed red poppies growing near one of Flanders’ Fields’ mass cemeteries. His subsequent poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ written in 1915, was eventually published in Britain. “In Flanders fields the poppies blow,” wrote McCrae, “Between the crosses, row on row.” It went on to become the war’s most popular and most recognised poem in the United States and Great Britain.
The poem, which muses on the existence of poppies in a cemetery and encourages people to take up the torch in honour of their fallen countrymen, became a powerful recruiting tool for the Allies. Today, poppies still dot the places that were once scarred by World War I.
In 2014 I was working for a fulfilment company in South Cambs. We were approached by the Historic Royal Palaces about a distribution of a commemorative product being designed to mark the 100 years since the beginning of the Great War. The protoype of what turned out to be the ceramic poppies that eventually surrounded the Tower of London was pale by comparison to the final flower. And at the time they initially thought the number would be around 100,000 to be sold and delivered. The final event turned out to be a much larger project (too big for us), and inspired four years of exhibition touring around the country at various locations. With the river of red poppies being staged in some stunning locations.
And in particular over the last four years fields of poppies have sprung up throughout the UK, where once there was just arable land. Roadside verges have become bathed in red through the summer as more and more poppies take hold and remind us all of how lucky we are to be able to live our lives safely thanks to the sacrifices of those during the 14-18 War, and all other conflicts since. Something that should never be taken for granted nor forgotten.
The Great War created records nobody ever dreamt would be seen:
• 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans were mobilised
• 9 million (est) combatants and 7 million civilians died as a direct result of the war
• The war was considered to be a large contributory factor in the flu epidemic of 1918 which saw between 50-100 million deaths worldwide
• Trench lines established in 1914 changed little until 1917 and were considered to be ‘hell on earth’
• The Battle of the Somme alone killed 1.2 million soldiers
• 8 million horses and countless mules and donkeys died in the conflict
• The Great War is still believed to be one of the deadliest conflicts in history.
Northill’s tribute to the memory of those men and women will take place at its Grade 1 listed Church of St Mary the Virgin. Starting two weeks before Armistice Day by dressing the church with the huge poppy decorated camouflage nets which will hang from the Tower and the three sides of the church. Made by local volunteers, over 10,000 poppies have been knitted, crocheted and sewed, then tied on to the nets by hand. A massive challenge which was taken up and met by the local villagers. Open to all visitors and viewers the village encourages everyone to come along to its Festival of Remembrance at St Mary Virgin Church, Northill.
Starting with . . .
30/31st October - Hanging the poppy nets
Friday 9th November – 7pm doors open for a 7.30pm showing of Richard Attenborough’s film – OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR.
Saturday 10th November – 7pm for an evening of WW1 Music, Songs Poetry and Readings. Tickets (inc. refreshments) £10
Sunday 11th November – Remembrance Sunday on Ickwell Green
Sunday 11th November – Armistice 100 at Ickwell Cricket Club afterwards
Tickets (inc. Hot food & beverages, & entertainment & raffle) £8
An Ode to Harvest Pale
A song to celebrate Castle Rock Brewery's Harvest Pale winning Supreme Champion Bitter at the 2010 CAMRA Great British Beer Festival! All copyright goes to Gren Bartley & Tom Kitchen, performed live at The Swan in the Rushes 09.08.2010.... Enjoy : )
Lyrics :
I once drank cold larger, just like my father,
I never had the faith for true ale.
But some years ago, on a night of cold snow,
I took my salvation here...
Harvest Pale, Harvest Pale,
It's brewed from pure dreams they say,
Harvest Pale, Harvest Pale,
It made me the man I am today.
I've supped on many ales, Robbie's, Hyde's and Gale's,
Many's a love that never saw the day.
But that night in The Swan, I knew that I'd found the one,
A love renewed every time it drained away.
Chorus
Brewed up as a special, when the trams ran on new metal,
Trammie Dodger was your name before we met.
Now your name is Harvest Pale, I sing good fortune to this ale,
You're the only one to keep my whistle wet.
Chorus
Crook Morris Mummers Play 17th January 2009
17th January 2009. First performance of Crook Morris Mummers Play as part of the Wassail celebrations at the Hare & Hounds, Bowland Bridge. The Mummers Play is a folk play popular throughout the whole of England in various forms. The word Mummer possibly came from the Greek word Mommo, meaning a mask, the wearing of which became popular at royal functions in the fourteenth century, the practice of such being termed as Momerie. Traditionally the performance itself begins with an introduction, usually by Father Christmas, who also clears space in the venue for the play to be performed. The play then moves onto a hero combat with two combatants who differ from play to play, such as St. (or King) George, A Turk, a soldier, a dragon and various ruffians. Much boasting of martial prowess by the combatants occurs before and after the fight. The person who is killed is always brought back to life by a quack doctor who first boasts of his skill in medicine. The play ends with a plea for money from the audience and then usually a song or Mummers carol.
2014 DERT Crook Morris A Tour Of The Lakes
DERT 2014. Not your main dance form - WINNERS. New entrants - WINNERS. Open category - WINNERS !!!!
Bristol Morris Men in Thornbury [4/4]
Bristol Morris Men performing in the St. Mary Centre, Thornbury on Saturday, 1 May 2010. This May Day spectacle was a fringe event of the Thornbury Arts Festival. This was the second half of the second set:-
● Bobbing-a-Joe
● Nutting Girl
● The March Past
Until fairly recently, Thornbury itself had two folk dance groups:-
● Turnberrie Castle [till 2006]
○ Home page
○ Photo gallery
● Folk Companions [in existence in 2006, current status unknown]
Bristol Morris Men morris dancers dancing St Mary Centre Thornbury Arts Festival Thornbury Bristol South Gloucestershire Avon Northavon
Bristol Morris Men morris dancers dancing St Mary Centre Thornbury Arts Festival Thornbury Bristol South Gloucestershire Avon Northavon
Bristol Morris Men morris dancers dancing St Mary Centre Thornbury Arts Festival Thornbury Bristol South Gloucestershire Avon Northavon
Bristol Morris Men morris dancers dancing St Mary Centre Thornbury Arts Festival Thornbury Bristol South Gloucestershire Avon Northavon
Bristol Morris Men morris dancers dancing St Mary Centre Thornbury Arts Festival Thornbury Bristol South Gloucestershire Avon Northavon
Bristol Morris Men morris dancers dancing St Mary Centre Thornbury Arts Festival Thornbury Bristol South Gloucestershire Avon Northavon
morris morris morris morris morris morris morris morris morris morris morris
Abingdon Marina to The Nags Head & Back Trip 2
Trip2
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an English actor. In a career spanning over 40 years, he has won an Oscar, Grammy, BAFTA, two Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild awards. He is known for his starring role as Mohandas Gandhi in the 1982 film Gandhi, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He is also known for his performances in the films Schindler's List (1993), Sexy Beast (2000), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Shutter Island (2010), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), Hugo (2011), and Iron Man 3 (2013). In 2013 he received the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Los Angeles 'Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment'.
Kingsley was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000, and was made a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 2002. In 2010, Kingsley was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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1993 NOMAD, Morris, massed Balance The Straw
1993 NOMAD, Mianus River Morris and others dance a massed Balance The Straw.
Hall full of dancing morris dancers
Morris dancers dance at an Anniversary party in Berkshire, England
Kirkby Malzeard longsword dance - done our way
Pacific Sword Co. dancing at First Thursday in Santa Barbara on Dec. 1, 2011. First time out for Captain Kenny and Swordsman Mark.
Cardiff Morris dance Green Garters at the Priddy Folk Festival, 12th July 2014.
Wessex Morris Men at the Newfield Inn, Duddon Valley
The Wessex Morris Men visit the Newfield Inn in the Duddon Valley, an idyllic corner of the English Lake District. Here they perform traditional dance routines in the beer garden and inside the pub. Morris dancing is an essential part of English culture but with few young men taking it up it future is somewhat uncertain although some Morris troupes have been successful in recruiting younger people.
The Wessex Morris Men have featured on Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's 'River Cottage' programmes and are based in Cerne Abbas in Dorset, home to probably the biggest organ in the world but don't try looking for it in the local church!
Anthony J. Batten
Canadian visual artist Anthony J. Batten was born at Eynsham Hall, in Oxfordshire, England in 1940. Receiving his early schooling in the U.K. he moved to Canada with his parents and brother in the 1950s. While still resident in England he had received a scholarship to attend Christ's Hospital School in Horsham, Sussex.
His family settled near Montreal where he attended Chambly County High School and then McMasterville School. He attended classes at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts and at the Museum School of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with Arthur Lismer. His initial degree programs were at Sir George Williams University. While living in Montreal he regularly sketched in the old port area of the city attracted by the historic buildings and streetscapes. In 1966 Batten was commissioned by Canadian Industries Limited to produce a tourists' map of that historic area in readiness for the 1967 World's Fair. The map was reproduced widely in both official languages. That exposure resulted in him having his first exhibition in 1967 at La Galerie Place Royale. In 1968 Batten moved to Ontario to study at the University of Toronto.
A teacher for many years with the Scarborough Board of Education, Anthony Batten became the Head of the Arts Department at Sir Oliver Mowat Collegiate Institute. During those same years he was a lecturer in art history with the CBC's Institute of Scenography, a demonstrating artist with the University of Toronto's Woodsworth College and the Faculty of Fine Arts and later a painting instructor with the Royal Ontario Museum. In the mid 1980s he was the resident artist with the Canadian School at Cambridge University, England.
He produced architectural renderings for a number of prestigious clients including Rod Robbie and Robbie, Wright and Young. Batten's rendering of the Gardiner Museum was featured in the Art Gallery of Ontario's 2006 show on new culture related structures in Toronto.
He was the 1996 winner of the prestigious A.J. Casson Award.
Anthony was one of twenty five Canadian artists who as part of 2006's Arctic Quest traversed the North West Passage in celebration of the centennial of Roald Amundsen's historic expedition. He has for many years painted and exhibited internationally with a group of former colleagues collectively known as the PORDS.
While he has worked in many styles over the years he has become best known for his architecturally inspired images that often underscore contemporary disregard for architectural conservation.
Elected to the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour in 1980 he later served as the Society's President from 1993-1995. In 2002 he received the CSPWC's Julius Griffith Award and was made a Life Member in 2007. Batten is an elected member of the Ontario Society of Artists and the Society of Canadian Artists. His principle dealer is Toronto's Westmount Gallery.
Among the institutions holding Batten's work are The Royal Canadian Military Institute, The Government of Ontario Art Collection, The Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, The Royal Collection U.K., the Vancouver Maritime Museum and the City of Toronto Archives.
With a lifelong commitment to volunteerism in arts related endeavours he twice chaired the Art Committee for the Volunteer Committee of the National Ballet of Canada and then in 2014 he co-ordinated their 'Gallery at Paper Things Project'. He also served as a Board Member with Queen's Park's John B. Aird Gallery. Donor of works by Albert Dumouchel to the National Gallery of Canada and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre. In recognition of his volunteer activism he was a recipient of the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal in 1992 and the 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
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The Maid of the Mill
Hurst Morris People perform The Maid of the Mill at the Dukes Head Wokingham 18 July 2013
The Morris Dance
Fingerstyle
King Of Wine - The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band
King of Wine by The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band, first single taken from the album Party Seven (c) 2014 Jump Steady
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Video directed and filmed by Suzy Prior suzyprior.com
Production Assistant Nick Ribero
Song available on iTunes Amazon worldwide and Play.
King of Wine music and lyrics (c) Stuart Macbeth
Next July I'll hold court
Down Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens,
When my swimming pool fills up with Port
I will float among the garlands.
In my Jack The Ripper dancing shoes
I'll be all the rage around St. James Mews,
On my shoulders I'll keep cockatoos
Who sing my melody -
I'm the King of Shiraz,
In my lame pyjamas,
The King of Merlot
With my pantry full of Crow.
On my crown I will balance a glass,
While my boot thumps the evening class,
The National Trust can come and kiss my ass
When they crown me King of Wine
And when the summertime has gone
I'll be blacked out in the Palace
With pretty Nell strapped upon my lap
I will raise my ruby chalice
Bring all my French girls over -
And unlock the gates of Dover -
For I'll never more stay sober
In the court of the King of Wine
Tell my Queen Cnut
I'll hang firecrackers off her suit,
Tell my Queen of Grenache
I'm gonna make her markets crash,
Let Pont Street Jeroboams
Write me patriotic poems
Til my corpse rise up
For another cup
From the court of the King of Wine
PARTY SEVEN available on Jump Steady records