Rust in Peace

This old Ford Anglia 105E lays under an old bridge on the former Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway. It like the remains of a few others nearby must have been driven up there and dumped. Years of abuse have left it in this state.

The line was shut in 1961 now little of it remains.

Deadly Boathouse

The Boathouse at Mongwell Park in Crowmarsh, this was the former Carmell College grounds till 2003. On the left hand side is a Defended building from the second world war. The walls are 1meter thick embrasures made to look like windows. The front has been cutaway to take doors to form a  second boathouse.

The Defended building formed part of the Thames Stop line during the second world war.You can read my blog here

Perilously close

The flood waters from the river Thames come close to the new housing that has been built on the former Wilders site in Crowmarsh.

 No doubt they are safe but I wonder if they think have they bought the right place

No Entry

Parking in the Riverside carpark in Wallingford could be interesting, wonder if they charged for parking a boat.

The floods at this point in time were about 30cm higher that on Christmas Day

Looking for dinner

Sat on a marker in the Thames near the Grotto at just outside Streatley was this Cormorant these are becoming a pest along the Thames taking the fish.

Ghost in the window

 Not often you see a ghost bike in the window of a shop. Not sure if it is in memory of the shop which moved or the fact this is no longer a bike shop which it has been as long as I can remember.

Note the other ghost in the window.

Merry Christmas

Seemed an apt photo for the day and Taken on Christmas Day 2010. 

St Marys Church Cholsey

May I wish all of those who read my Blogs a

 Merry Christmas 

Robin with dinner

This little fellow made me smile. He hopped on top of the rabbit cage I was cleaning out proudly showing me a spider he had caught for dinner and waited while I took his photo.

You just have to love robins following you round the garden waiting for something you uncover for them

Silly Bridge

Silly Bridge in Cholsey. It's name could have come from a couple of sources. As a kid one of the favorites was a tank drove over the side of it, I also read of a ghostly presents and ghost train but in all my years living in the village no one has mentioned that story. You need to look back at the history of it to understand why it is called that. When Brunel built the Great Western Railway it first stopped just outside Cholsey at Moulsford which discussions took place which way it went. Didcot won and the railway went forward causing a large cutting to be dug  which went through a roman road that took the villagers of Cholsey to their common land after much argument he built the bridge and not long after the enclosures act came in and the only person to benefit was the local land owner.

There could be another reason for the name, a Mental Hospital was nearby and many of the patients used to jump off it and kill themselves. 

Old Culham Bridge

The bridge takes the old Henley Road over Swift Ditch now it is a footpath with some history. Swift ditch was dug as a bypass for the Thames at Abingdon where back in the middle ages it was full of reefs and shallows that the barges going upstream had trouble negotiating. Once Swift Ditch was done the barged stopped nearby and goods where transfered to smaller ones which would have been built and stored in the basin in front. There was also a civil war skirmish here between the Royalists and Roundheads you can see the plaque on the bridge. During the second war there were two pillboxs built on it as well and you can see the outline of the bases still there.  It was also a toll bridge and the old house is still there over to the right.

The Ditch is a shadow of it's former self now and the bridge was bypassed in the 1920s leaving an historic bridge very few people see.