Dorchester and Wittenham Clumps

Dorchester Abbey from Castle Hill

Last night we went to a splendid birthday party and stayed over in a hotel. Apart from avoiding the need to drive home, this set us up for a walk a bit farther from home than usual. This wonderfully varied walk, in a figure of eight, starts at the south end of the pretty village of Dorchester, near the Abbey, of which more later. You go down a lane towards "River (Thames) and Wittenham" and quickly leave the village. Entering a field you see Round Hill and Castle Hill - and the name Wittenham Clumps begins to make sense.



You pass the so-called Dyke Hills, the ramparts of an Iron Age settlement ...



... cross a meadow and reach the banks of the River Thame, just before it joins the Thames. (Why is one pronounced "tame" and the other "tems"?)



You now walk along beside the Thames as far as Little Wittenham Bridge, a footbridge which leads to Little Wittenham church.



Here you enter the Little Wittenham nature reserve and climb a grassy but increasingly steep path to reach Round Hill. Looking back you can see Little Wittenham, the Thames and the gravel pit lakes to the north of Dorchester.



You then walk over to Castle Hill, once the site of an Iron Age hill fort. The walk book describes a route through the trees on the top, but this area is now fenced off and you have to go round the side. At the point where you would have emerged from the woods, a dead beech tree has a poem
which was inscribed on it in 1844-45 by one Joseph Tubbs of Warbrough Green. It is now all but illegible, but happily a tracing was made in 1965 and the text is now displayed on a plaque. It is not a great work, but you can read it here.

You now descend back to Wittenham bridge and walk across meadows and beside the Dyke Hills to return to Dorchester.

From: Chilterns and Thames Valley (Pathfinder Guides).

Distance: 4.5 miles.

Map: Explorer 170 (Abingdon, Wantage and Vale of White Horse).

Rating: four stars.


Sightings

We were thrilled to see what will probably be the last Painted Lady of this wonderful summer of Painted Ladies.



Dorchester Abbey

After the walk we visited Dorchester Abbey and then had an excellent lunch at the wonderful Fleur de Lys pub opposite. There was a Saxon cathedral here from the 7th century and parts of the existing church date from the rebuilding undertaken in the 12th century. There has been much further rebuilding, damage during the dissolution of the monasteries and later restoration and Pevsner describes it as "an unsatisfactory building as a whole". From the outside, the most striking features are the length of the nave plus chancel - making it difficult to photograph - and the tower. The tower dates from 1602, but incorporates a 14th century stair turret at the corner.



Inside, the most dramatic and inspiring feature is the 14th century choir, which contains an extraordinary window combining tracery, stained glass and statuary in a way which is "without parallel on this scale not only in England but in Europe" (Pevsner again). It depicts a family tree showing Christ's descent from Jesse.