ENGLAND : The Timeless Thames

The noblest river in Europe,” Joseph Addison said of the Thames back in 1712. And you know, old boy, he might have been correct.

“There are two things scarce matched in the universe,” Sir Walter Raleigh said: “the sun in the heaven and the Thames on the earth.”

And we had them both on this glorious English morning as we headed our boat down the sun-dappled river at 5 m.p.h., the top speed allowed.

The Upper Thames--the name of which evolved from the Celtic Taom-Uis (the pouring out of the waters)--is neither deep nor fast-flowing--”a lyezy rivah” in the words of Peter Barnes, a charming Londoner who was to be our guide and boatman for the week. Upstream, the Thames is surprisingly narrow, considering its broad expanse near London. It is very clean, and we saw swimmers all along its pollution-free length as far as Hampton Court. Three-quarters of London’s drinking water comes from it.

The Thames Conservancy gained control of most of the river in 1858, stipulating that it “be preserved as a place of regulated public recreation.” And it is hard work to maintain its pristine beauty; only one floating beer can sullied the waters during our entire five-day, 40-mile journey. “Some foreigner,” Barnes sniffed, offended. “You may wager on it.” The Thames is so clean that salmon are caught in its waters regularly.

We had pushed off earlier in the morning from Abingdon, where Barnes had left his boat in front of the Upper Reaches Hotel. The rare craft is known as a Thames Slipper Stern, an attractively archaic 28-foot inboard with lines that drop gradually and gracefully from a high, perpendicular prow to the water-line at the stern; it was an artifact that Tom Swift might have built and loved. The cockpit, barely big enough to accommodate four Rover Boys, was open but had a canvas top folded back at the ready.

“An old-timer,” said Barnes, affectionately caressing the mahogany parquetry of its deck, “and a good ‘un.” (You also can rent--reasonably--various sizes of houseboats that you can learn to handle yourself very quickly.)

As we were getting on board, photographer Loomis Dean came rushing down from the hotel, two cameras swinging from his neck.

“Just got over from Paris,” he panted. He handed us a bucket of ice that cradled a large wine bottle. “A good Pouilly Fuisse--travels bravely.”

Barnes blew the hooter , and we cast off.

“What wonderfully untypical weather,” Dean said, as he adjusted his tweed golf cap, removed his Leica lens cap and started taking photos. “What a day!”

What greeted the eye as we headed toward our goal--luncheon at Streatly--was a happy, busy, liquid thoroughfare. Used and respected by thousands of Britons every day, the river is the biggest holiday resort in the Isles, visited by more people than Blackpool. One sees every type of floating craft--rented houseboats, racing sculls, classic refurbished steamboats from 10 to 60 feet in length, barges, excursion boats resembling floating omnibuses, incongruous, giant Indian war canoes with inboard motors, tiny kayaks with schoolboys trying for a free ride by surfing the wake of an outboard, and an occasional sailboat tacking nervously around the power craft. Yet, somehow, despite all the activity, there is little feeling of congestion.

Unlike the rules for cars on England’s motor ways, boats are supposed to keep to the right of the river and pass the upcoming traffic on the left side. The skipper of one houseboat, apparently untutored in that fine point, headed directly toward us. Barnes, who has driven the river all of his life, gunned his motor and swerved skillfully toward the bank, avoiding a decided unpleasantness.

“Scofflaw!” he barked angrily over his shoulder at the erring craft as it skimmed by. “Port-to-port, you foxy beagle!”

The scenery was relentlessly, archly picture-post card--tinted engravings lifted from a Victorian novel. Even the sight of modern boats couldn’t dispel the feeling that we somehow had slipped breathtakingly backward in time. We passed towns called Tadpole and Sutton Courtenay and Clifton Hampden, and--suddenly--up on a hill would be the ruins of a castle, and over on one bank would be a little 13th-Century church and graveyard, and on the other side a herd of black-and-white cows drinking their reflections. On both sides were Victorian gingerbread cottages and charming Tudor manors with curried lawns undulating down to the water, as well as elegantly dressed Britishers lounging in white wicker chairs shaded by willows. An elderly couple playing backgammon in front of a brick mansion waved cheerily to us.

Ever since our arrival in England, we had experienced a gentility that could not be found anywhere else.

Now, the entire countryside seemed to reflect that genteel manner as the Thames bore us past stately houses punctuated by the greenest fields (“pigment straight from the tube,” my old art professor would have said), where blooded horses grazed on lush farmlands.

Not a kilometer of the river did we pass that wasn’t complemented by fishermen, and the guidebooks almost musically assure one that good fishing can be had for “brace, bleak, barbel, bream, carp, chub, roach, rudd, dace, tench, gudgeon, ruff, stickleback, perch and the occasional trout.” (Oh, to have Sir Arthur Sullivan set that to music!)

Though once denounced (more or less accurately) as a nation of shopkeepers, England might now be accounted a nation of shopkeeping boaters. At one point, a very fancy inboard passed us as we were about to enter a lock. “Good heavens!” Barnes exclaimed. “The man at the throttle of that thing is our local greengrocer. Well, I mean ! It is a bit much, isn’t it?”

Soon Dean announced “elevensies” and relieved the bottle of its cork, chanting a bit of doggerel to himself as he filled our glasses:

I must have a drink at eleven. It’s a duty that must be done; If I don’t have one drink at eleven, I’ll have eleven at one! A little later, Barnes said it was time to have a little savory. He produced a palette of watercress sandwiches and cheeses. Before any of us had put the first bite to tooth, we were surrounded by eager swans. One bold cygnet arched its neck over the side of the boat and tried to snap the bread from my wife’s hands. “None of that, you foxy beagle,” she laughed, slipping easily into the argot of the river and eating quicker than the cygnet could peck.

If the river was charming in the bright sun, it was exquisite during the late afternoon’s gilding. Nearly all the traffic had gone as we slid up to the dock in front of the hotel in Pangbourne. Here, where the Pang Stream meets the River Thames, at the Swan Hotel (on the very first day of our journey), our quest for the perfect inn / tavern was almost resolved.

It had been the pioneer guru of cafe society, Samuel Johnson, who inspired this journey of ours. On Thursday, March 21, 1776, Johnson remarked to his friend James Boswell: “There is nothing which has been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as a good tavern or inn.” We were ready to take up the quest. Besides, it has always been a dream of mine to float down the Thames; you know, “Wind in the Willows,” Izaak Walton, Robin of Hood, 1066 and all that. Kenneth Grahame captured the Thames mystique: “Nothing seems really to matter. That’s the charm of it.”

In a short time, we were contemplating Barnes’ happy selection of our lodgings and toasting him with tankards of Tanqueray; we sat in the bar overlooking the darkening river, probably on the very tavern stools that Dr. Johnson once referred to as “thrones of human felicity.” The Swan Hotel was quaintly charming and charmingly quaint--overworked words but unavoidable when describing most of the Thames hostelries. A buxom and jolly barmaid (is there any other kind?) informed us that Jerome K. Jerome finished his popular comedy, “Three Men in a Boat,” in this 15th-Century tavern, and that Grahame wrote much of his classic “Wind in the Willows” in 1908 while sitting in the bar, watching the boats go by.

The inn serves French and English food, and after a day in the fresh English river air, we were ready for our stalwart steak-and-kidney pudding, then excellent crepes suzettes, followed by a ported Stilton.

“The quest is over,” my wife Mary said to Barnes the next day. “We have found the perfect inn.”

And yet, during the next four days, the inns became, improbably, more perfect. The rest of the week remains a wonderful, heady montage in my memory: historic castles; great inns with good food, and colorful taverns with fine ale and wines. The food ranged from the plebeian bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potatoes), bubble and squeak (fried leftover vegetables) and sausage toad (surely sliced Presto log) to the elegant soused trout, pomme paysanne (beluga caviar in a baked potato) and devil on horseback (chicken livers and bacon on toast).

As we lazed through time down the river, the historical venues we passed ranged from Reading, in whose gaol Oscar Wilde spent 1895 to 1897, and Runnymede, where in 1215 King John was forced by the English barons to sign the Magna Carta, to great Windsor Castle, looming up at a bend in the river, to a cozy little Victorian cottage on the river bank where John Profumo was said to have kept his trysts with Christine Keeler, the infamous party girl. Each inn seemed better than the next in a different way; some were cozy-small with the bathroom down the hall, a total capacity of six guests and a cost lower than that of a motel in the United States. Some were more luxurious, such as the Compleat Angler at Marlow (where Izaak Walton wrote his immortal work on fishing more than 350 years ago).

Some exhibited framed letters from Churchill and Eisenhower and the Prince of Wales, saying how much they had enjoyed their sojourns. Old House in Windsor had a discreet plaque stating that Christopher Wren “built and lived here in 1676.” The White Hart at Sonning boasts a handsome African gray parrot named Nickel who will whistle “The Colonel Bogey March” for you. Henley, where the annual crew races take place, has a retreat for tea and scones called the Old Rope Walk near a 13th-Century church. The French Horn at Sonning is one of the most attractive restaurants we have ever encountered. In the paneled entrance, which looks like an elegant private living room, you are greeted with the sight and smell of a duck sizzling on a spit that turns in the great fireplace.

It’s said that there are 7,000 pubs in London; one wonders how many inns, pubs and taverns there are along the Thames. On our trip from Abingdon to Hampton Court, we barely scratched the surface, even though we checked out some 20 recommended establishments. Which came closest to ending our quest for the perfect inn?

We finally agreed that it would have to be Ye Olde Bell in Hurley. First of all, the setting: The town boasts that it has “no pavement, no street lighting, no speed limit, no industry, no cinema and no shopping center.” The whole town appears to be a movie set; the inn itself was built in 1135, making it possibly the oldest in England. It is connected to a Benedictine monastery, 250 yards away, by an underground tunnel. I asked Barnes whatever for, and he shrugged and said: “In those days, the blighters just liked to do things like that.”

When the food, service and accommodations at the inn turned out to be every bit the equal of the extraordinary surroundings, our quest was over.

And so was our quiet, dreamlike adventure on what Addison called “the noblest river in Europe.”

Names of guides with small boats and agencies that rent houseboats by the day or week are available through your travel agent or London hotel.