08-Apr-2015 Fiddlers Island

We arrived in Portsmouth needing to fill up with petrol- it was very expensive on the island. We were going to drive to Oxford where according to the map Bob said is a little island in the River Thames, just outside the city, called Fiddlers Island.

 

We stopped at Binsey and had our lunch in a little deli not far from the lane that led to the bridge on to the island. We enjoyed our sandwiches there but the staff didn’t know there was a place called Fiddlers Island only one called Osney which is quite large and seemingly built up.

 We parked near the footpath leading to the river. The pub nearby was our original destination for lunch but it was being refurbished and very closed! Lewis Carol frequented here and the Perch was also featured in a lot of Inspector Morse episodes on TV.

 

We walked in towards the little church passing several old cottages. Here were the first bluebells we had seen this year. The hedgerow was full of blossom and we spotted Brimstone, Fritillary and small Tortoiseshell butterflies. Overhead impressively close was a kite(  the bird). In a field were sheep with black and white lambs. It was all oddly rural compared to the main road a short distance away. Beside St. Margaret’s church is a small holding where goats clambered over their play equipment. An immense yew took up a lot of the churchyard and somewhere lurks the treacle well of Alice in Wonderland though we didn’t notice it. The church door was open and it was simple and cold inside as you might expect.

 

We had to retrace our steps to get to the path leading to the river. There were greylag geese being argumentative with each other. Small fish swam in the shoals in the sunlit water. Teenagers were having rowing lessons- hailed to from what looked like a floating box with a motor, carrying the instructor. They went a long way with one sweep of the oars ,maybe in training for the Oxford/ Cambridge boat race.

 

 Just before the bridge linking with Port Meadow, an ancient grazing area for horses and cattle,           (Calves were just being delivered by small truck to their mothers as we watched) is a boatyard and several gated off properties all marked Private. There were quite a lot of cyclists. We walked along the water the other way until we reached a little path through trees leading down to the Perch. Fairy lights festooned archways along the route and then we came out into the car-park. As we walked through we were told by numerous workmen that the pub is closed and when we reached the car our navigation of Fiddler’s Island was complete.

We hope this Greenfield site remains like this for future generations and planning permission isn’t granted for student accommodation, as was tried for in 2013.