Jane’s Walk 2026 – Day 6

Our hosts of last night join us and we then meet up with 3 other walkers who have come up from London to be with us today. Another beautiful day and the route is pretty and conversation flows easily between us all.

Being a sunny Saturday, many of the barge owners are sitting out on the towpath and we enjoy a brief chat with them as well as some musical entertainment along the way. I notice the putrid remains of a fish on the path. I watch to make sure Moses passes it by, but unfortunately he obviously goes back afterwards and comes back stinking of dead fish.

We pass the best barge garden we have seen. The whole side of the barge roof is planted with trailing variegated ivy with white petunias growing through. It looks stunning. Our hosts Richard and Antonia, with whom we are staying for 2 nights, leave us.

We lunch in an old mill/farm which had diversified into a thriving café supplying a large selection of salads and cakes. I try to wash stinking Moses with a farm hose, but with little effect!

We finish in good time at Cocklebury Farm, where there is an ancient mound called Swinger’s Tump with an ancient stone commemorating the meeting of King Alfred the Great and his brother Aethelred in 875 AD on their way to fight the marauding Vikings. They promised their land to each other if one of them was killed. The story does not relate to what happened, but we know that King Alfred survived.