Perch & Pike - Route 1

(S/E) Leave the pub and turn right along The Street with some buildings including St Andrew’s Church located along it.

(1) After about 100m, turn left into Ferry Lane. After another 150m, branch left and follows signs to the River
Thames, Ridgeway and North Stoke (3.5km). After about 300m, you will reach the Thames and this point you will see the Beetle and Wedge restaurant on the opposite side of the Thames. (The ferry ceased operation in the 1970s).

(2) Turn right through a gate and walk along the river bank on a well defined path (Ridgeway), passing St John the Baptist Church and Moulsford Preparatory School both visible on the opposite bank of the river. After about 1.2km, go under a brick railway bridge and continue straight ahead via a wooden gate alongside a meadow. Continue to follow the path along the Thames until you reach a small hamlet. As you approach Little Stoke you will cross over a wooden footbridge and you will see on your right, in a private garden, a WW2 Pill Box.

(3) Where the Ridgeway path turns right and then almost immediately turns left, leave the path at this point and walk straight ahead on a gravel driveway between two houses; Little Stoke House and the red bricked Ferry Cottage. Bear left and continue to follow the driveway for about a 100m until you reach a small lane.

(4) Follow the lane round to right pass the Little Stoke Manor Farm with a brick and flint wall perimeter. Walk up to the entrance to Little Stoke Manor and turn left, clambering over the wall via the support stepping stones set in the wall and take the footpath alongside the fence and then over a stile and walk across the field. Cross a stile into the next field and walk towards the railway embankment.

(5) Go through the narrow tunnel under the railway line and on emerging from the tunnel, turn left on to a broad grass track that starts to curve away from the railway line. When you reach a fork in the footpath, bear right on to a narrow path between some houses before emerging on to Ferry Lane. Turn right into the lane and walk for about 50m along the lane before turning left into The Street. Follow the road past St Andrews Church back to the pub.(S/E)

St Andrews Church dates back to the 13th century and up to dissolution of the monasteries belonged to the Abbey of Eynsham. The Abbey’s land was given to Cardinal Wolsey who in turn endowed them to Cardinal College, Oxford, which after Wolsey’s fall from grace was renamed Christ Church College.

This bridge carries the main railway line to Wales and the West and was built by Brunel in 1838/39 to support two tracks, at the same time as Maidenhead and Gatehampton railway bridges. It is constructed from red brick with Bath stone quoins as four elliptical skew arches of 62 feet span and a headway height of 21 feet 8 inches. In 1892, the line was converted to quadruple track and a second bridge was built alongside the upstream side of the original and connected to it by girders and brick bridgelets. The second bridge was built to the same profile and dimensions as the original but it lacks the stone quoins of the original and the plain uncut bricks make a jagged pattern where they meet the faces of the bridge.

There were a large number of Pill Boxes built along the Thames during WW2 at time when Britain feared an invasion by Germany.