TSE River Wey Wander 28th January 2018

 GPX for route here
Viewranger File Here

On Sunday the 28th January 2018 I met up with Siobán to drive up for another Walking For Pleasure Team South East meet.

After a hour and a half drive we arrive at The Anchor PH car park at Pryford GU23 6QW. We parked up (free parking) and met the rest of the group. We set off out of the car park and into Wisley Lane before taking a footpath across Wisley Golf Course.

The Wisley consists of three loops of nine holes and is consistently ranked amongst the best courses in the country. Originally designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jnr, the quality of thecourse is really second to none.

After walking through the well manicured course we divert off to see Wisley Church.

Wisley means ‘marshy – meadow clearing’ (WISC and LEAH). A building was here by circa 1086, for it is mentioned in the Domesday Book ‘ibi eccla’ (there a church). Dedication unknown. Saxon remains imply that it is earlier. The present building is mid-12th century, when the only English Pope was at Rome. Wisley had a succession of Rectors in the 14th century, probably due to the infamous plague. Three of the original 12 consecration crosses remain (an unusually large proportion) and there are traces of frescoes. The Black Prince presented five or six Rectors. He had stables at Byfleet Manor.

Here the snowdrops were blooming a first sign that Spring is on its way!

Adjacent to the church is an old farmhouse where the rear garden has a delightful array on animal ornaments dotted about.

We leave the church behind and re-enter Wisley Golf Course 'The Wisley'.

More signs of approaching Spring with Daffodils lighting up the area.

Courting Crested Grebes.

Cormorants drying off their wings

How we leave the Golf Course and get our first look at The River Wey.

The River Wey is a tributary of the River Thames  and one of two major tributaries in Surrey. It begins as two branches rising outside the county which join at Tilford between Guildford and Farnham. Once combined the flow is eastwards then northwards via Godalming and Guildford to meet the Thames while in Surrey. 

We pass Pigeon House Bridge on the Wey that appears to have been built in 1765.

Further up the River we pass John Dunnes Summerhouse on the opposite bank.

An Elizabethan summerhouse that is part of Pyrford Place.

This small brick tower can be found on the stretch between Pyrford Lock and Walsham Gates near the village of Ripley. It is an attractive and unusual structure, fourteen feet square, two storeys high with a first floor entrance and a distinctive ogee-pitched roof. Known as the ‘Summer House’, it bears a blue plaque declaring that: ‘John Donne, Poet and Dean of St.Pauls, lived here 1600-1604’. The story of the romantic runaways is about Donne and his passion for Ann More.

 Donne had fallen in love with Ann, the daughter of Sir George More of Loseley Park near Guildford. Ann’s family was too important for her to be permitted to marry Donne so the lovers eloped, when Ann was only 17. This caused a scandal and Sir George organised a search for the runaways. Once they were found, Sir George had Donne thrown into London’s Fleet Prison. On his release, he and Ann were given shelter at Pyrford Place, the home of Sir Francis Wolley, a friend of Donne’s. Sir Francis eventually managed to engineer a reconciliation with Sir George. John and Ann Donne lived at Pyrford Place for a further two years and had the first of their twelve children there. Ann and children lived there for another year while Donne travelled, before the whole family moved to their own home in 1606. It is said that, such was his love for Ann, Donne never got over his grief when she died (having 12 children took its toll!).

It seems unlikely that Donne ever actually lived in the Summer House, which some historians think may not even have been built until later in the century, but the Summer House is in the grounds of Pyrford Place and it is certainly picturesque enough to stand in the imagination as the retreat of a lovelorn poet!

All other things, to their destruction draw,

Only our love hath no decay;

This, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday,

Running it never runs from us away,

But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

Songs and Sonnets (1611) ‘The Anniversary’

A Pike shaped bench near The Summerhouse.

'Walsham Gates are the last of the original turf-sided locks opened in 1653 that were common along the full length of the Wey Navigation, and is not a lock in the traditional sense. The gates are only operated as a flood lock to force water over the weir when water levels become too high so are both usually left open.

During times of flood boats still had to operate, the change in water level for boats passing through the lock at these times would only be about one inch, but this involved operating the lock none the less. The lock also retains the square structure that was wide enough to accommodate the big barges before the introduction of narrowboats.

A lock-keepers cottage was originally built here in 1653 but the present house dates from 1896.'

We cross the Wey over a noisy weir.

Here we pass a Kingfisher sculpture, I hear someone mention it and Siobán getting excited before seeing it wasn't a real kingfisher! Did make me chuckle !!

Here all along this bank was thick deep squelchy mud and there was no way to avoid it other than to trudge through it.

On the far bank on private property is Newark Priory.

Newark Priory is a ruined priory on an island surrounded by the River Wey and its moat-like channel the Abbey Stream near the southern boundary of the village of Ripley in Surrey.

Newark Priory was before its reconstruction run by the Canons Regular of St Augustine and the register of Bishop Woodlock (1312) states that the priory was first founded by a Bishop of Winchester.

The Priory was granted substantial lands "to the canons there serving God" in the late 12th Century by Rauld de Calva and his wife Beatrice de Sandes for the Augustinian canons "to build a church" when Richard I reigned (1189–99) so according with its Early English Gothic architecture, the present priory dates to then. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint Thomas Becket in contemporary documents "Thomas the Martyr" and originally, the land where the church was built was called Aldbury. This gradually changed its name from Aldbury to Newark or the New Place (novo loco) of St Thomas near Guildford, at one point being called Newstead.

The taxation roll of 1291 shows considerable non-ecclesiastic assets (temporalities). The priory held tenements or rents in ten London parishes, producing an income of £5 16s 3d; in the wider Diocese of London; in the Diocese of Rochester £1 6s was produced annually; and in Diocese of Winchester income of £27 10s 3½d.

During Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries Newark Priory was dissolved. The prior himself was pensioned off, all valuables sent to the Tower of London and the land given to the Master of the King's Horse. It has been said that a cannon was employed from the top of Church Hill to bombard or demolish what were the then extensive buildings. This incident is portrayed in one of a series of paintings made by artist Tessa Kewen. The last known prior of Newark Priory was Richard Lipscombe, appointed just before the surrender of the establishment and lands in 1538.The building, falling into ruin, was said to have been further destroyed by locals using the stones for road mending until Lord Onslow, the owner in the 1730s, decided to preserve what remained.

A dredger

A dawn service is held each year on Easter Day at 6am in the ruins, run by churches from the surrounding towns including Byfleet, West Byfleet, Pyrford and Ripley.

A lock being drained and dredged.

Now we approach Newark Road Bridge.

A watermill once stood here before burning to the ground on the 3rd December 1966. The 17th century Mill stood on the banks of the River Wey near Ripley was razed to the ground by an intense fire that also threatened the neighbouring Millhouse.

The blaze was visible for miles around, illuminating the night sky.

It did not take long for the historic weather-boarded mill to become a mass of flames.

Fire engines from Woking and Guildford were called out, with five appliances arriving from Guildford alone.

Woking's CID DI Edmond Cunningham said: "There is no evidence of arson. There is no evidence of anything. We are still trying to find out how it did start.

"We are trying to get at the base of the fire by removing the remaining timber. There is no inflammable material at the base of the fire that we can find."

The five-story much loved Surrey landmark collapsed into a charred and smoldering ruin, out of which protruded twisted pieces of machinery and some of the old grinding stones.

The mill and it's picturesque setting was a favourite with artists, painters and photographers.

It appeared (belatedly) in the 1967 pictorial calendar of Surrey and was often used as a setting for feature and television films and had recently been used for a sequence in a Robin Hood series.

We cross the bridge and take a path opposite back along the river and yet more deep mud.

We now reach Papercourt Lock. Papercourt Lock ranks among the prettiest on the River Wey, with its picturesque cottage and its large tumbling bay to cope with the overspill water.

The original Papercourt Lock  was opened in 1653 in reality no longer exists as the National Trust moved it to make better sense of water management here. 

The lock was originally closer to the lock-keeper’s cottage but required considerable management as there was no self-regulating water control installed here. The tumbling bay was built where the lock was to provide this control. The cottage had also been moved prior to this when it was rebuilt in 1922 on higher ground, and this reconstruction has provided a river yarn too. The lock-keeper at the time was made to make temporary accommodation for him and his family in a barge just below the bridge for a few months. The site had been pegged out by the builders and in the middle of the night, as the story goes, he tiptoed around the site moving the pegs about to make sure that when the cottage was built he would have a good view along the river in both directions to spot approaching vessels without having to leave his cottage. 

Family accounts of life at the lock illustrate well the sociable nature of living by the river with many an evening whiled away by candlelight playing shove ha'penny  with family and friends. River weddings were celebrated in style with the marriage of Elizabeth Wye in 1896 culminating in the newlyweds being escorted to the marital home by a long procession of barges which had been lit up by lanterns. The family also experienced first hand the horrors of WWII with an account of a solitary German aircraft strafing family members whilst they were picking mushrooms in a nearby field.

We reach high bridge which we cross by going up and down its very steep steps.

Briefly before the above picture, Toby the labrador nearly took John down the steps as he hurtled by!

We walk into the village of Send, where we stopped to use the toilets before having lunch in the park.

Send acquired its name during the Great English Vowel Shift from the word sand, which was extracted at various periods until the 1990s for construction and other purposes at pits in the outskirts of the parish.

We rejoin the Wey and crossing a bridge and taking a muddy and slipperly path towards Old Woking.

We pass a old printing Works that now appears to be flats. 

JTP’s scheme in Old Woking for Linden Homes transforms a collection of buildings on a site that includes Gresham Press, a redundant printing works, and a nineteenth-century mill building.

Unwin Brothers is one of the longest established printing companies in the UK. The firm was established by Jacob Unwin in 1826 in Ludgate Hill, London. When Jacob died his sons George and Edward took control of the business which became styled as Unwin Brothers. The company grew significantly under the stewardship of the brothers.  When the printing works in Ludgate Hill was badly damaged in a fire in 1894 Unwin Brothers was forced to search for alternative premises. The company purchased an old paper mill in Woking, Surrey which was converted into the Saint Martha Printing Works.

In 1901 the company became Unwin Brothers Limited. At this time the  firm was engaged in most aspects of the printing industry, being described as old style, modern and music type printers, lithographers, engravers, stereotypers, bookbinders, account book manufacturers and general and export stationers.

Unwin Brothers Ltd. remained at Saint Martha's until 2007, when the firm merged with another printing company and operations were moved to Chessington.

Also previously known as Gresham Mill and old watermill.

We pass a Wicker Horse as we walk towards Old Woking.

Now we walk into Old Woking.

We walk on down to St Peters Church in Old Woking. It is recorded in the Domesday Book. It also has the third oldest surviving door in the British Isles. It is also the oldest door in Surrey.

The church is a Grade I listed building, within the Old Woking Conservation Area. St Peter's was originally the parish church of Woking prior to the development of a new urban area, now called Woking, centered on the railway station. The village of Woking subsequently became known as Old Woking. The Domesday Book records a church at "Wochinges" (an old name for Woking). An early written record relates to the foundation of a minster, dedicated to St Peter in the year 675.

A Norman church was built during the reign of William I of England, replacing a 7th-century Saxon wooden church. The Norman church was a simple rectangular building about 50 feet in length. Only the north and west walls survive from this period, now part of the nave. The original east wall was removed to facilitate the construction of the south aisle in the 14th century or early 15th century.

The tower is at the west end of the nave. The base of the tower was built around 1200 to 1220. It is constructed of a type of flint and ore known as pudding stone. The upper part was completed around 1340.

The west door survives from the Norman church. Originally in the west front of the church, it now opens into a porch formed by the base of the tower. It is the oldest door in Surrey and probably the third oldest in the country having been dated by dendrochronology to the reign of Henry I of England. The four oak planks making up the door may have come from a single tree which was over 270 years old when it was felled. Jane Geddes of the University of Aberdeen has identified the door as one of only five picture doors in the country and the ironwork as medieval.

The gallery, at the west end of the nave, known as the Zouche Gallery, was constructed during the reign of James I of England. It was built in 1622 at the expense of Sir Edward Zouche.

We leave the church behind and walk on down the High Street before taking a footpath beside a grand house and through more mud.

A fallen tree, Can you see the elephant head?

We pass a Sewage plant  that filled the air with an unpleasant aroma.

More footpath trudging passing a herd of cattle as we make our way back to Pyrford.

We cross another Golf Course (Hoebridge Golf Course ) before reaching the Wey again.

We arrive back at Pyrford Lock.

After removing our boots , after a 10.1 mile walk we make our way over to The Anchor PH for a debrief and I had a lovely pint of Badger Tanglefoot ale. A great walk with great company, thanks to david for organising and leading the walk!