Maps
[ Only for small boats - for main stream click here ]
Hennerton Backwater, Wargrave Local History Society.
At the end of the reach above Marsh Lock
the river bends away to the left bank side – but, if in an unpowered boat, go
straight on – crossing over to the right bank.
If in a punt you will be out of your depth and need to paddle.
Here is the downstream end of Hennerton Backwater,
the very centre of the world, known personally to me as “Jammy
beggar land”! That came about whilst
camping up here during Henley Regatta.
Punting down the backwater on a warm summer’s
morning with blue skies and perfect silence, anticipating the regatta, it
suddenly came to me “I’m a Jammy beggar!” (=lucky)
and "Jammy Beggar Land” it has been ever since.
The backwater was probably formed by the
River Loddon; and then the Thames in its
meanderings cut into the Loddon at Wargrave, and so “captured” the
backwater. It would naturally have
silted up and disappeared long ago were it not for the maintenance of the
riverside owners who quite rightly cherish it. This is Thames water flowing -
there is a right of way for all
vessels that can get through the very low Fiddlers Bridge at the upstream end.
Apparently until the 1900s the stream was known simply as "The Backwater".
When the landowner (C F Johnson who gave his name to Johnson's Bridge) owned the land on both sides
of the stream he claimed the Backwater as his own and called it after Hennerton House
which had been named in 1817 from Hennerton Lane. It thus became "The Hennerton Backwater"
2003: Thames-side beauty spot restored
The Environment Agency has been working in partnership with local riverside residents from the Hennerton Backwater Association (HBA) to restore a former beauty spot and improve navigation for canoeists and small boat users. The area is a one and a half mile loop backwater of the Thames, between Wargrave and Henley-on-Thames.
The restoration and river navigation project was completed early July with an investment of £8,200 by the agency, and over 1,000 volunteer man-hours by local residents, over four winters. Navigation has been restored through a combination of stabilising river-banks and clearing over-grown trees.
The Agency formally set up partnership with HBA in April 2003 to ensure better management of river-bed levels and improve navigation for the backwater - a haven for wildlife and a popular and picturesque spot for canoeing, boating, and with local residents. The project followed extensive work that dedicated members of the HBA carried out themselves, with 1,000+ man-hours that entailed clearing dozens of over-hanging and submerged trees.
Agency ecologists met with HBA members to discuss the best methods to remove increasing silt in the backwater to ensure the river area was once again navigable, following its gradual demise since the late-1990s. It was agreed the most beneficial method was to strategically plant 100 metres of hazel faggots and coir fibre rolls to narrow the channel, which would increase the speed of the river. This would remove built-up silt on the river-bed, enabling it to return to its natural gravel, with the coir rolls planted with indigenous species to attract butterflies and insects, providing a greatly increased spawning habitat.
Peter Collins, Agency flood defence officer said: "Hennerton Backwater is a beautiful, tranquil area, ideal for small boats, punts, canoes and kayaks which had become virtually impassable in the late ‘90s. Local residents have done a great deal of physical, hard work to clear the backwater of tree debris on a year-by-year basis. The Agency was pleased to form the partnership with the HBA, which aims to maintain a clear channel, both width and depth, using a sustainable, no maintenance method. The project has ensured the cleared area is navigable for boat users now and into the future."
Philip Meadowcroft, secretary of HBA commented: "Members and friends of the HBA have a common interest in preserving the beauty, nature and heritage of the backwater. The Environment Agency has been approving and encouraging in the results we have achieved so far. The partnership is a very positive one and we greatly value the close ties that have developed with Agency staff."
1889: A S Krausse, A Pictorial History of the Thames -
The lower end [of Hennerton Backwater], beneath the heights of Park Place is, however hardly
discernable when coming up stream, and needs looking for, especially in summer, when the river is
in this part well covered with rushes. ...
The backwater in question is even prettier than Patrick Stream, and has in its time been the subject
of even more marked struggles on the subject of right of way. This little stream runs through land
owned by Mr. Rhodes, in whose family it has been for very many years. The owner has at various times placed
obstructions in the water such as to render access difficult to boats, but the question is, for the
present at least, settled, and it is now possible to exercise the undoubted public right of navigation.
Hennerton Backwater is a little over a mile in length, and is spanned by two bridges, which add an additional
charm to the rusticity of the scene.
1881: George Leslie -
The end
of this reach is very lovely, the mainstream, with some backwaters and islands
trending away to the right by Bolney Court;
whilst, on the left, the stream narrows up to the entrance of a very
interesting backwater of about a mile and a quarter’s length, reaching quite up
to Wargrave. At this end, where it
leaves the main river, on the right-hand side, in the sluggish water and mud-bank,
grow lofty plumes of reeds and reed-mace, seven or eight feet high, of quite a
tropical character, through which one would not be surprised to see the mother
of Moses or Pharaoh’s daughter appear.
It is generally sheltered and calm here, and to see this place in its
perfection, a fine evening at the end of September should be chosen, when the
colouring of the weeds and banks in the warm sunlight is as
fine as anything ever done by Turner and Nature combined.
You need
not mind the notice-boards about private waters &c., if you wish to explore
this stream. These boards are generally
put up at backwaters;
but as long as the stream is navigable and no landing is
attempted, the right of way cannot be disputed.
1885: The Upper Thames, Harpers New Monthly Magazine -
At a bend of the river about half a mile [above] Marsh Lock there is a bit of back-water
and a great bank of rushes, where surely Mr. Millais got his inspiration for “Chill October”.
Our boatman knows the way round the island that occupies the very centre of the river,
and we shoot along by the lawn of a fine old residence, and beneath branches of oak and beech
and straggling willow, and through great beds of water-lilies ...
1889: Jerome K Jerome has been reading Leslie! He says -
We went up the backwater to Wargrave. It is a short cut, leading out of the right-hand bank about half a mile above Marsh Lock, and is well worth taking, being a pretty, shady little piece of stream, besides saving nearly half a mile of distance. Of course, its entrance is studded with posts and chains, and surrounded with notice boards, menacing all kinds of torture, imprisonment, and death to everyone who dares set scull upon its waters - I wonder some of these riparian boors don't claim the air of the river and threaten everyone with forty shillings fine who breathes it - but the posts and chains a little skill will easily avoid; and as for the boards, you might, if you have five minutes to spare, and there is nobody about, take one or two of them down and throw them into the river.
1891: And Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell have also read Leslie, The Stream of Pleasure -
We explored ... the many near back-waters, with that indifference to the sign
"Private Water" which Mr Leslie in "Our River" recommends.
Indeed, no one seems to heed it. I have heard men read aloud
"Private Water", and add at once "Oh, that's all right. Come on!"
[ The law is that there is a right of way wherever Thames Water flows. ]
1881: George Leslie continues -
The
little stream narrows as it passes an orchard on the left, and then, with a
bend, a private boat-house and bathing-place are reached;
about this part, if in a rowing boat,
look out carefully for some sunk fencing beneath the water, which cannot be
seen when you are sitting down, and against which you may come with a nasty
jerk if going fast. When punting, you
are almost sure to see the obstruction, and also the passway through it, quite
clearly.
Immediately
beyond this place, the stream runs beneath a pretty bridge, and then comes out
into the meadows of Wargrave Marsh;
Map: Johnson's Bridge
1887: Johnson's Bridge, Henry Taunt -
Hennerton Bridge, Henry Taunt, 1887
© Oxfordshire County Council Photographic Archive; HT05102
1889: A S Krausse, A Pictorial History of the Thames, Hennerton Bridge -
Hennerton Bridge, 1889
1901: Johnson's Bridge -
Hennerton Water Bridge, 1901
1999: Johnson's Bridge -
Johnson's Bridge, 1999
1889: Here Jerome K Jerome has one of his comic interludes -
Half-way
up the backwater, we got out and lunched; and it was during this lunch that
George and I received rather a trying shock.
Harris received a shock, too; but I do not think Harris's shock could
have been anything like so bad as the shock that
George and I had over the business.
You see,
it was in this way: we were sitting in a meadow, about ten yards from the
water's edge, and we had just settled down comfortably to feed. Harris had the beefsteak pie between his
knees, and was carving it, and George and I were waiting with our plates
ready.
"Have you got a spoon there?" says Harris;
"I want a spoon to help the gravy with."
The
hamper was close behind us, and George and I both turned round to reach one
out. We were not five seconds getting
it. When we looked round again, Harris
and the pie were gone! It was a wide,
open field. There was not a tree or a
bit of hedge for hundreds of yards. He
could not have tumbled into the river, because we were on the water side of
him, and he would have had to climb over us to do it. George and I gazed all about.
Then we gazed at each other.
"Has he been snatched up to heaven?" I queried.
"They'd hardly have taken the pie too," said George.
There seemed weight
in this objection, and we discarded the heavenly theory.
"I suppose the truth of the matter is," suggested George,
descending to the commonplace and practicable,
"that there has been an earthquake."
And then he added, with a touch of sadness in his voice:
"I wish he hadn't been carving that pie."
With a
sigh, we turned our eyes once more towards the spot where Harris and the pie
had last been seen on earth; and there, as our blood froze in our veins and our
hair stood up on end, we saw Harris's head - and nothing but his head -
sticking bolt upright among the tall grass, the face very red, and bearing upon
it an expression of great indignation!
George was the first to recover.
"Speak!" he cried,
"and tell us whether you are alive or dead -
and where is the rest of you?"
"Oh, don't be a stupid ass!" said Harris's head.
"I believe you did it on purpose."
"Did what?" exclaimed George and I.
"Why, put me to sit here - darn silly trick!
Here, catch hold of the pie."
And out of the middle of the earth, as it seemed to us,
rose the pie - very much mixed up and damaged; and, after
it, scrambled Harris - tumbled, grubby, and wet. He had been sitting, without knowing it, on
the very verge of a small gully, the long grass hiding it from view; and in
leaning a little back he had shot over, pie and all. He said
he had never felt so surprised in all his life, as when he first felt himself
going, without being able to conjecture in the slightest what had
happened. He thought at first that the
end of the world had come. Harris
believes to this day that George and I planned it all beforehand. Thus does unjust suspicion follow even the
most blameless for, as the poet says,
"Who shall escape calumny?"
Who, indeed!
1881: But back to George Leslie -
here [ Hennerton Backwater ] winds about with many a twist, at one place having a small island in its centre.
[ The said island has now almost lost its right bank channel and with it any claim to be an island. ]
Weeds of every sort grow in great beauty, and many shy birds frequent the spot; the kingfisher may often be seen darting along, and here I once saw some long-tailed tomtits, which had a nest up in a willow stump. A heron is very likely to be disturbed by your boat, and go off with its great flapping wings.
[ You will find a series of large houses on
the right bank and fields on the left bank. The
traffic noise only serves to highlight the peace of the river here. ]
Footbridge -
Hennerton Backwater, 1999
1891: The Stream of Pleasure, Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell -
In Bolney back-water the trees meet above your head, and in the water below, with here
and there a glimpse beyond the willows of lovely poplars and old farmhouses and
"wide meadows which the sunshine fills".
Reeds and lilies and long trailing water plants in
places choke the stream, so that sculls are put away for the paddle. May and sweetbrier,
with the bloom all gone now in mid-August, trail over the banks. Flowering blackberries
festoon the bridges, where you must lie low as you float under the arch.
The stillness is broken only by the plashing of your paddle and the twittering of birds;
the dragon-fly comes to dream on the water, blue kingfishers fly from shore to shore,
and the water-rat swims across the track of your boat.
The solitude is seldom disturbed, except perhaps by a boy in a dinghy,
by the one-armed ferryman of Wargrave in a punt coaching a beginner,
or by a canoe silently stealing along.
Footbridge
A few years ago (1980s) we camped in Mrs Brown’s field (a
water meadow full of rabbits).
She was a gracious lady and we returned with
our small family and then a youth group on several occasions.
But alas, she died, and her house was
demolished and that was that. For several years the water meadow was left to run wild
but in 2006 has been closely mown.
Footbridge
The
stream swings round to the right under a private footbridge linking two parts
of the one garden and then left under another footbridge, until ahead of you is
a very low bridge.
1881: George Leslie -
To
return to our backwater, which goes wandering on, very much in the style of my
writing, until you begin to think it will never come to an end, save that as
the water is running you know it must come from somewhere;
Eventually
at length a very low bridge is reached, to pass under which it will be
necessary to lie down in your boat, the tiny
arched bridge … is so low that one has to lie full
length in a boat in order to pass under it. This is called Fiddler's bridge,
though no local tradition keeps alive the origin of the name.
Map: Fiddler's Bridge, Willow Lane
Local tradition actually now associates the name with Fiddler's Farm
1999: Fiddler's Bridge -
Fiddler’s Bridge, Willow Lane, Wargrave
At this point you now find yourself in a marina. Boats moored on both sides of the stream. Sometimes almost blocking access from the bridge. You have right of way wherever Thames water flows – and it certainly flows through Hennerton Backwater.
Upstream End of Hennerton Backwater
unpowered craft only
1881: George Leslie -
and then the stream widens, and on the right-hand side there runs an outlet into the main. It is best, however, to continue straight on,
Map: Footbridge
Modern footbridge from right bank to island -
Modern Footbridge
1881: George Leslie -
... past a funny little cottage on the left, which when first I knew it seemed inhabited only by cats; three beautiful white ones were generally to be seen basking in the sun.
And so we rejoin the main stream a little below The George and Dragon.
Skip on to George and Dragon
(The main stream which Hennerton Backwater bypasses)
Estuary
PLA
QEII Br
Barrier
Tower Br
Custom Ho
London Br
; Frost Fairs
Cannon St Rb
The Great Stink
Southwark Br
Millenium Br
Blackfriars Rb
Blackfriars Br
Waterloo Br
Charing Cross Rb
Westminster Br
Lambeth Br
Vauxhall Br
Victoria Rb
Chelsea Br
Albert Br
Battersea Br
Battersea Rb
Wandsworth Br
Fulham Rb
Putney Br
Hammersmith Br
Barnes Rb
Chiswick Br
Kew Rb
Kew Br
RICHMOND
Twickenham Br
Richmond Rb
Richmond Br
TEDDINGTON
Kingston Rb
Kingston Br
Ditton Slip
Hampton Br
MOLESEY
SUNBURY
Walton Br
Desborough Cut
SHEPPERTON
Chertsey Br
CHERTSEY
M3 Br
Laleham Slip
PENTON HOOK
Staines Rb
Staines Br
Runnymede Br
BELL WEIR
Magna Carta Is
OLD WINDSOR
Albert Br
Datchet
Victoria Br
Black Potts Rb
ROMNEY
Eton
Windsor Br
Windsor Rb
Windsor Slip
Elizabeth Br
BOVENEY
Dorney Lake
York Cut
Summerleaze Fb
MonkeyIsland
New Thames Br
BRAY
Bray Slip
Maidenhead Rb
Maidenhead Br
Below Boulters
BOULTERS
Cliveden
Hedsor
COOKHAM
Cookham Slip
Cookham Br
BourneEnd RFb
Quarry Woods
A404 Br
MARLOW
Marlow Br
Bisham
TEMPLE
HURLEY
Medmenham
Culham Ct
Aston Slip
HAMBLEDEN
Temple Is
Fawley Ct
Remenham
Regatta
Phyllis Ct
Henley Slip
Leander
Red Lion
Henley Br
Angel on Br
Landing
Hobbs Boatyard
Hobbs Slipway
MARSH
Hennerton
Bolney
Wargrave
Shiplake Rb
R.Loddon
SHIPLAKE
Sonning Br
SONNING
Dreadnought
K&A Canal
CAVERSHAM
Reading Br
Caversham Br
Reading Slip
Purley
MAPLEDURHAM
Hardwick Ho
Whitchurch Br
WHITCHURCH
Hartswood Reach
Gatehampton Rb
Goring Gap
Goring Br
GORING
Swan
CLEEVE
Moulsford
Moulsford Rb
Papist Way Slip
Winterbrook Br
Wallingford Br
BENSON
Shillingford Br
R.Thame
DAYS
Burcot
Clifton Hampden
Clifton Church
Clifton H Br
Barley Mow
Long Wittenham
CLIFTON
Appleford Rb
Sutton Courtenay
Sutton Br
CULHAM
Culham Cut Fb
Abingdon Slip
Abingdon
Abingdon Br
ABINGDON
Nuneham Rb
Nuneham
Nuneham Park
Radley Boats
SANDFORD
Rose Island
Kennington Rb
Isis Br
Iffley Mill
IFFLEY
Oxford Rowing
Isis
Donnington Br
Riverside Slip
Boathouses
Punting
Lower Cherwell
Upper Cherwell
Islip
Head of River
Salters Steamers
Folly Br
Bacons Folly
Oxford Fb
Osney Fb
Weir stream
Osney Rb
Bullstake Stream
Osney Marina
OSNEY
Osney Br
Four Rivers
OLD RIVER
CANAL
Medley Weir Site
Medley Fb
Bossoms
Perch
Trout
GODSTOW
Godstow Nunnery
Godstow Br
Thames Br
KINGS
River Evenlode
EYNSHAM
Swinford Br
Oxford Cruisers
PINKHILL
Farmoor
Stanton Harcourt
Bablock Slip
Arks Weir Site
NORTHMOOR
Harts Fb
//Rose Revived
Newbridge
//Maybush
River Windrush
below Shifford
SHIFFORD
Shifford Fb
Tenfoot Fb
Trout Inn
Tadpole Br
RUSHEY
Old Mans Fb
RADCOT
Radcot Cradle Fb
Swan Inn
Radcot New Br
Radcot Old Br
GRAFTON
Eaton Hastings
Kelmscott
Eaton Fb
BUSCOT
Bloomers Hole Fb
Trout Inn
St Johns Br
ST JOHNS
Halfpenny Br
Marina Slip
LIMIT
Inglesham
Hannington Br
Kempsford
Castle Eaton Br
Marston Meysey
A419 Br
Cricklade
SOURCE?
THAMES HEAD
SEVEN SPRINGS