Sunday 3 July 2011

Return to SONNING on Thames




Sunday 3rd July 2011.
This was a place where EG and I stayed one night, very old pub but we missed our way leading to an extra 10 minutes walk and I wanted to find out why. Instead of going up the path top left in int right hand picture, we SHOULD have turned left and the pub was about 20 yards ahead. Note the brick wall going off right, it was built from bombed out bricks taken from east London in 1945
You can see the pub above. It is one of the few pubs to be owned by the nearby church. This is because it dates back to about 1300 and was then the lodging house for some visitors calling on the Bishop of Salisbury who lived in a palace about 200 yards away. He later transferred his residence to Salisbury and the palace became a ruin. Just like that!
Sonning was at one time recently the home of the Palmer family, as in Huntley and Palmers biscuits. The palace site is now a school.
The walk along the river in the wrong direction was quite pleasant, far too many people for peace but if you go out on a Sunday you have to expect that.
We had a large lunch at the pub, The Bull, very satisfying, i recommend it but tall people (over 5ft6) should watch out for the low ceilings.