Two Days on the Thames

Barnes and Kew Gardens, Guildford and Kingston

On a Thames River barge with Hampton Court in the background

Few tourist guide books will tell you anything about the villages along the course of the River Thames that bear visiting. But having read about Putney and Barnes in my favorite decorating magazine The English Home, I resolved to explore this area over which an unhurried air still pervades. Still off the beaten track, these riversdie villages offer the adventurous rambler endless hours of serene exploration.

It is hard to believe that Barnes or Putney lie just a fifteen to twenty minute train ride outside the bustling city of London. These village communities  owe their development to the railroad that ,by the mid-nineteenth century, extended beyond the confines of the city, bringing in middle-class residents who quickly made such hamlets fashionable. Soon spacious homes rose upon the river front attracting the rich and the famous including composers like Gustav Holst and 18th century novelist Henry Fielding who wrote Tom Jones while living in Barnes’ Milbourne House.

A short South East train ride from Waterloo took me past Vauxhall to Putney and then to Barnes, setting for a Britcom called Fresh Fields that I had enjoyed on American TV for years. But White Horse Lane, supposedly the most interesting in terms of its interior decorating stores, could not be reached by foot. Local villagers recommended the bus which crossed Barnes Pond and Barnes Bridge (below left) across the River Thames, went past the smart waterfront homes that made up the street called The Terrace and finally took me to my destination. Be sure to have the correct change (one pound fifty pence) for the ticket you buy from the driver on the bus as most claim not to have change. On the bus, I spied Barnes Common, Green and Pond in which geese and ducks were being fed by delighted children. I could have sworn I had stepped into the 1950s when the world was a kinder, gentler place.

My interest in English interior design took me on foot to The Dining Room Shop and Tobias and the Angel which were full of expensive items that most tourists would shun. I did find a “Mushroom Brush”, however, in The Dining Room Shop and a great deal of assistance from the saleslady who actually did some research for me online to help me find my way by public transport to Syon House and Park, a massive country house and estate at Syon Lane train station that was built by architect Robert Adams on the river. This was supposed to be my next eager port of call. I discovered just in time, however,  that the place was closed that day, a Tuesday, which forced an impromptu change in my plans for the rest of the day.

Because the village was more widely spread than I expected, I could not really cover all of it on foot. I decided then to walk back to Barnes Bridge train station to wind on along the Thames to Kew.    So Kew Gardens  it was instead. The weather could not have cooperated better. Already having walked a couple of miles that morning, my feet had begun to protest but I pressed on, crossing Kew Bridge on foot and arriving at the hamlet of Kingston-Upon-Thames. Though I could have walked right into the main gates, I opted instead to take the Tow Path that ran alongside the Thames banks where a very friendly lady walking her dog, Darcy, kept me company. As we marched by the river banks, joyous birds sang lustily in the towering horse chestnuts that were in full bloom, presenting their spectacular white candle-like flowers for all the world to see. Also appearing in pink, though rarer, these flowering chestnut trees made such a marvelous sight throughout my spring stay in England.

It was quite a long walk before I reached the Brentford Gate at Kew Botanical Gardens and purchased a ticket for 16 pounds which included entry into London’s newest royal attraction, Kew Palace (left). But hunger pangs were rather insistent by this point and in the lovely white Victorian Orangery, I found sustenance in the form of ham and cheese sandwiches. Kew’s vastness is unfathomable and there was no way I could even scratch the surface, having already done a great deal of walking that day. My camera worked overtime as I couldn’t resist taking pictures of the lilacs that were blossoming in white and every purple shade from the softest lavender to the deepest mauve. Spring also brings out carpets of wild bluebells all over England and there were plenty at Kew. I couldn’t linger through lunch though as I had to get to the entrance of Kew Palace by 3 .00pm, the time stamped on my ticket, since the number of visitors to the house is carefully regulated to prevent overcrowding.

Kew Palace is the name given to the country home at Kew that was maintained and used by Mad King George III who is infamous both for his insanity (porphyria by today’s diagnosis) and for having lost the colonies in America. After his marriage to a German Princess named Charlotte, the couple converted Kew Palace into their summer home between the years 1800 and 1818. Together, they had 15 children and just one grandchild, little Charlotte (grandmother to Queen Victoria). The house lay in disuse for generations and has only very recently been restored, refurbished and
opened to the public. In fact, renovation is still progressing on the topmost floor, but those that are open to the public are a wonderful indication of the contrast that made up the simple austerity of the father King George III and the rampant extravagance of his son Prince Regent George IV (yes, the same one who constructed the Royal Pavilion at Brighton). In her memoirs, Queen Charlotte wrote very affectionately of her summers at Kew and as I roamed at leisure through the rooms, I imagined the happiness of this couple whose greatest joy lay in spending time with their children at Kew, playing cricket and crochet together on the front lawn and taking endless walks in the spectacular botanical gardens with their many ‘follies’ built in the form of pagodas, Grecian temples and mosques. I lingered for a long while in the Queen’s Gardens just behind the Palace where tall blue irises were striking in the midst of the herb beds and where bunches of yellow laburnum made graceful arched pergolas under which visitors strolled.

Though there was an Explorer mobile that could take visitors to the highlights of the park, I decided to discover a small part of Kew on my own two feet. In the Secluded Garden, close to the Princess of Wales Conservatory, I enjoyed the sight of some pretty unusual trees such as an African Monkey Tree, a gingko biloa and a giant dogwood that was in awesome bloom much to the delight of the English visitors who had no idea what the tree was and were so taken by its flowers. I informed them very proudly that dogwoods are native to North America and that I had one blooming even as we spoke in my garden in Connecticut!

Next stop, Guildford, Surrey, home of my cousin Sybil Gonzalves. Another long local train ride that looped along the course of the River Thames, brought me to Woking where Sybil met me at the station and drove me to her lovely home called Wheelspin. Not having met Sybil for a few years (though we speak every so often on the phone), we had much to chatter about and decided to continue our conversation over dinner at a very exclusive country pub in Worplesdon called The Olive Tree. Though the “gastro-pub” offered a smart gourmet menu, we opted for traditional Pub Grub and enjoyed gigantic servings of Bangers with Caulifower Cheese and Roast Beef and Roast Pork with Bubble and Squeak. For dessert, we split another old traditional English offering—Bread and Butter Pudding, studded with raisins and served with warm custard, all washed down with foamy Guinness. This was pub grub to die for and we polished every last crumb because both of us had been starving.

Guildford is a very upscale London suburb and its shopping is just short of the kind of offerings one might find on Oxford Street—so its not surprising that Sybil took me shopping with her the next day to Guildford High Street where we browsed around Marks & Sparks, then got on to the motorway to head for Kingston-Upon-Thames where her brother Don lives with his wife Cissy. They were keen to have me spend one night with them at their home in Serbiton where after lunch, Cissy suggested a stroll on the river banks. Never one to resist a walk, I jumped up and found myself enjoying a charming Ladies Day Out with Sybil and Cissy. Because the day was so gorgeous, Sybil quite spontaneously suggested a river boat cruise on the Thames and, armed with ice-cream cones, we boarded the Tilbury Hope for 5 pounds each to make our way up the river (below right).

What a memorable experience that was! All along the way, we saw charming bird life. Geese, mallards and herons dotted the landscape uttering mating calls and frantically building nests for the spring season. The houses along the river were varied examples of English architecture from stylish Georgian manors to contemporary glass and concrete affairs. Cyclists and joggers were active along the river banks and as the boat’s paddles swished softly on the water, the magnificent roof lines of Hampton Court Palace came into view (below right) as we passed the gilded ornamental gates. I closed by eyes and imagined myself seated in the shoes of Tudor queens Anne Boleyn and  daughter Elizabeth I, as they made their way up river by ferry from the court at London to Hampton Court Palace each summer. Indeed I was thrilled by the exciting vistas of the Tudor buildings that they might have spied four centuries ago as the palace came into view.

Interestingly, Llew, Chriselle and I had visited Hampton Court Palace not even a year ago, when the previous August, we had spent one day in London en route to Eastern Europe. It was superb to get this perspective of the Palace (from the river bank) and I took several pictures of these views.

At the Hampton Court Ferry Stop, many passengers boarded the ferry and whereas we had the boat to ourselves on the way to the Palace, we shared it with several co-passengers on the return journey. Once again, on our way back, we were regaled by the antics of our wild feathered friends who kept us enthralled as they poked their heads out of sheltered coves or swooped close to the boat’s prow, much to the delight of the kids on the cruise.

Our boat ride on the Thames  (left) was followed by a spin around Kingston by car as Cissy was an able tour guide, proudly pointing out to me the landmarks of her little town. Later that evening, Don joined us for dinner at a restaurant on the riverfront called Restaurant Vegetaria where we settled for masala dosas and rather odd cider.

Visiting Kingston had not been on my agenda at all and it was the purely spontaneous nature of our riverside excursion matched by the superb weather that made the day one that will stick for long in my memory. I explored the Thames by river boat quite by accident, thanks to the sudden whim that seized my fellow-traveler.  It is just such delightful detours as these that make me realize that while planning is critical in any itinerary one undertakes, it is as Robert Frost put it so well, “the road not taken” that “makes all the difference”.

Bon Voyage!