It’s Sunday. We find ourselves at the station faced with an array of possible destinations. 
We have alighted in Glorious Goring.
And so have lots of others, it would appear.
And so have lots of others, it would appear.
Something to do with George Michael. But we have a path to find.
With the Thames to the left of us & the GWR to the right, we’re taking the Rigdeway all the way to Wallingford.
South Stoke is keeping the thatched dream alive.
St Andrew’s of South Stoke. Originally C13th. Restored 1857 by Reading architect J.B.Clacy.
The two sides of the Moulsford Railway Bridge. The first built in the 1830s when the GWR first marched through. The second from 1892 when the line was quadrupled.
It’s actually two bridges. The first built wider for the original broad gauge tracks. By the time the 1890s rolled around, narrow gauge was where it was at.
And from there the GWR leaves us for Bristol, and stations in between.
We’ve arrived at St Mary, North Stoke - the only church directly on the Ridgeway.
We love a door with instructions.
We’ve paused here because it’s cool in the heat, but mainly for the C14th wall paintings.
Miss the tiny sign for St John the Baptist's Church, Mongewell & it’s your loss.
It’s a ruin nowadays. Millionaire Howard Gould owned the land in early C20th & apparently had the lane to the church sunk so he did not have to see parishioners going to church.
The Ridgeway is leaving us, heading off up Grim’s Ditch. This area of the Chilterns used to have many strip parishes. To maintain shares of resources, the estates and parishes became strips, sharing same cross-section of resources, some 8 miles long.
When out in the countryside, spare a thought & some change for a phone box. Call a loved one, make their day & save a phone box from scrap.
Unexpectedly saying hello to our old friend, Jethro Tull, in Crowmarsh Gifford where he lived from 1700-1710 (he’s the one who invented the horse drawn seed drill).
And we find ourselves in Wallingford at the end of our adventures. We would get the train home from here but the passenger service ended decades ago (although a preservation society does run trains to the mainline).
