Thames Indo-European Dark River Walk to the Source

On Sunday yesterday myself (Toby), Cathy, Bunny and Raja began a walk which I hope to do in sections from Woolwich just downstream from the Thames Barrier to the source of the river in a remote Cotswold meadow in Gloucestershire.

The Thames is the most accessible and most intensely mythological and story-filled stretch of major river in the world. I am hoping that people will join in with me on various stages of this walk which I hope to do each week on Sundays.

I have really enjoyed a lot of walking over this summer and felt so invigorated mentally and physically by it. I really want to carry this on into the autumn and share this with my friends. Without getting burdened down with “heritagey” side of visiting sites I’ve been getting into the way that walking helps to build up and explore mental maps of names and places and the connections that link both on the ground and in the memory. Thanks to Ray, Alice, Marchain, Phil, Bunny, Cathy and Raja who have joined in on my walks so far. One of the more interesting walks was a mammoth one due-north out of Kings Cross to the open countryside packhorse roads, and eventually up to St. Albans in Hertfordshire. This, August bank-holiday walk was partly inspired by Iain Sinclair’s book Edge of the Orison which is an account of a semi-deranged walk by the early 19th century rustic poet John Clare from Epping Forest to his birthplace in rural Northamptonshire. But I was also thinking of huge day walks described in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the Durbervilles and also of Jah Wobble’s epic aboriginal-style walkabouts out of Hackney. I'm also reading Peter Ackroyd's newly published Thames - Sacred River to give some inspiration on the psychogeographical side. This is the spirit in which I hope the walk and these blogs will develop.