On Thursday our son gave us a trip out by car, and we happened to visit Stoke Row, where we saw the Maharajah’s Well.

Here is a short video of the pictures I took there

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I bought an interesting guide to the well for £1. There is a plastic covered box that holds the guide, and a metal collecting box on site.

The well is 368 feet deep and cost £353 13s 6d to build.  The entire depth was dug by hand.

There was a discussion between the Maharajah and a local English Country Shire, Mr Edward Anderdon-Reade.  He accepted the gift of money to establish a much needed source of water at Stoke Row. He then set about building it.

The house that you see at the end of the slide show, the cute little one, was the Well keeper’s house. There is a picture in the guide book taken in 1910, it shows Mrs Hewitt, the well keeper, and her niece Miss Cecily Turner sitting outside the house.

Wikipedia has an entry on the Well

Maharajah’s Well[edit]

The Maharajah’s Well
Edward Anderdon Reade, the local squire at Ipsden, had worked with the Maharajah of Benares in India in the mid nineteenth century. He had sunk a well in 1831 to aid the community in Azimgurgh. Reade left the area in 1860.

A couple of years later the Maharajah decided on an endowment in England. Recalling Mr Reade’s generosity in 1831 and also his stories of water deprivation in his home area of Ipsden[8] the Maharajah commissioned the well at Stoke Row and it was sunk in 1863.[6] The originally intended site for the well was Nuffield Common. All work was completed by the Wallingford firm of R. J. and H. Wilder.[9]

It was a great place to visit, aided by the fact that the winter sunshine was out!

Latest news from South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse district councils

As I was leaving Tesco on my bike, I observed for the first time on Sunday people playing hockey.  We are fortunate here to have so many sporting facilities in Henley.

On Monday I arrived in Henley Town just in time to see them finishing clearing up the lovely large Christmas tree. The smaller branches and fir were shredded and the larger bits were loaded on to a vehicle to be taken away. Pity that such a big tree had to be sacrificed for a month, but it helped us all to get into Christmas.

I paused in Friday Street on Monday and took a picture of one of my favourite cafes in Henley Hot Gossip.

Here is a short video of pictures I have taken recently that tie in with this brief post.

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This Sunday saw me on a cycle ride towards Mill Lane and Marsh Lock.

It was a lovely sunny but cold day. There were quite a few walkers as I reached the start of the bridge to the weir and lock.

There are records of a lock here from the early 1400s. It was a flash lock right up until 1773, with two mills, one on each side of the river. On the Berkshire bank were two corn mills, and on the Oxford side was a corn and paper mill.

Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, the lock saw a wide range of goods being carried to and from London in heavy barges. Produce such as wool, timber, grain and malt all made their way through Marsh Lock.

Did you know?

Because the lock is unusually situated on the opposite side of the river to the towpath, a long wooden bridge was built from the Oxfordshire bank to the lock island below the weir, and then back again to the riverbank above the weir. This feature is unique on the River Thames. http://www.visitthames.co.uk/about-the-river/river-thames-locks/marsh-lock

I then turned into Mill Lane, went past the Football pitch, pausing to take a picture of their lovely perimeter hedge which was in seed. It looked very pretty in the sunlight.

They were established in 1871 and are the oldest club recognised by the Oxfordshire Football Association.[1] By the 1879–80 season, Henley Town was playing in the FA Cup and, for some seasons, was a full member of the Football Association. In 1897 Henley Town then joined the Reading Temperance League until 1931 when they joined the Spartan league.In 1957 they joined the Hellenic Football League Division One, and stayed in this league until 1972–73 season when they lost the use of the Reading Road Ground in 1971 which they had leased for 70 years. Later, Henley Town joined the Wycombe & District Football League, playing on borrowed pitches throughout the 1973–74 season, until securing the use of the Mill Lane Sports Centre and the Triangle from the town council.[2] In 1984 Henley Town joined the Chiltonian Football League. In 1991, the town council granted a long lease on their present ground and a new clubhouse was opened in 1995. In the 2000–01 season Henley Town joined the Hellenic Football league again as it merged with the Chiltonian Football league. In 2011 they gained promotion to the Hellenic Football League Premier Division after finishing second in the league.

Henley Town FC play their matches at The Triangle ground, Mill Lane, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire, RG9 4HB. (from Wikipedia)

Here are some pictures I took this morning.

Also first of all, notice from the first picture, that Hoopers moorings at the end of New Street  no longer have any decoy Owls on their mooring posts.  Where have they gone?  There seem to be more seagulls there now.  Also a new house is almost constructed on the Island in the river.

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A New Year, and slightly warmer than it has been. Unfortunately today it has been rather overcast most of the day.

I got out for a ride around midday.  There was fine misty rain most of the time,

I was horrified to see that that bird droppings on the footpath just past the Leander Club. I suspect these are from Canadian Geese. They seem to assemble their dropping up in piles. I will send a picture off to one of the council offices to see if they can clarify when it will be swept up.  It is a health and safety issue, maybe exacerbated by no work during the Christmas and New Year Break,

I took some pictures of some lovely farm buildings in Remenham Lane, also Fawley Court from Remenham Lane. Then the last picture is of Remenham Court, which is conveniently situation on higher ground, to avoid floods. The  stream with runs along the road near there is full of weed and algae.

Taken on my mobile phone – a record of what today was like. Brightened only, by yet another lovely view of Henley on Thames.