23 September 2024: By the estuary
Today being our wedding anniversary, my wife and I travelled about twelve miles to a town at the head of one of the local estuaries. It has long been one of our favourite places.
We started in the park next to the promenade and then walked the entire length of the promenade itself. At the end of the promenade is a statue of a local hero from Anglo-Saxon times. It’s just a symbolic representation really as there is no record of what he looked like.
We had intended to walk from there round the head but found the path blocked. We retraced our steps. For a long time there was next to the promenade a large climbing structure in the shape of a pirate ship. As you can imagine, it was a great hit with the young children, who were able to clamber on it and exercise their imaginations. It has been taken down now. I thought it was a great pity but my wife felt it might have been due to the wooden framework becoming unsafe over the years.
A further walk along the promenade in the direction of the town brought us to the quay. As you may just be able to make out from the photograph above, Thames sailing barges were moored alongside it. Some of them are now owned by the Thames Sailing Barge Trust, which has erected boards on the quayside giving information about them, including their histories. We once visited the town when some of the sails had been laid on the quay to be repainted with a special paint that gives them their distinctive deep red colour.
We had lunch in the pub on the quayside. Being it was a Monday out of season, the pub was fairly quiet and our food was soon served.
After lunch we walked into the town itself, stopping to look in the church near the quay which historically provided a landmark and a beacon for incoming ships. There is no commercial activity now except for pleasure cruises.
We walked to the top of the town before returning home.