INAUGURATION OF
THE GLYME VALLEY WAY

On Friday (24th August) The Glyme Valley Way was officially inaugurated. Its a new walking route from Chippy to Woodstock following the River Glyme. At 7.30am outside the Leisure Centre  the Mayor handed over a letter of greeting for the Mayor of Woodstock to Clive Hill who set out to walk the sixteen miles to Woodstock to deliver it personally.  Clive was accompanied all the way by Dan Weeks from the County Councils Countryside Service and as far as Lidstone by John Grantham

             

7.30am Chippy Leisure Centre Top left: The lovely Natasha Peach from Radio Oxford interviews Town Mayor Gina Burrows. Top right: The Mayor hands over a letter for the Mayor of Woodstock to walkers John Grantham Clive Hill and  Dan Weeks (Oxfordshire County Council Countryside Office) . Below: The walkers set off down Glyme Lane

 After about ten miles Clive and Dan linked up with Colin Carrit Mayor of Woodstock. At the Black Prince the Mock Mayor of Old Woodstock joined in for the last half mile into Woodstock. Their arrival at around 3.30pm at the Museum was the highlight of Phil Mercer's afternoon show on Radio Oxford  which came live from the finish .

Sixteen miles and Six hours later. Top Left: The group arrive and walk past the lake at Blenheim Place. David Griffith (Mock Mayor) Clive Hill, Colin Carrit (Mayor of Woodstock) and Dan Weeks Centre: Clive looks amazingly relaxed and well Top Right: Clive presents Gina's letter of greeting to the Mayor of Woodstock - with Radio Oxford's Phil Mercer as a witness. Below: Phil Mercer invites the group to cross the finishing line and officially  inaugurate the walk

The idea for the walk came from BBC Oxford journalist Simon Pipe, who explored the route with his family and their friends. But the hard work of creating The River Glyme Walk has been done by Paul Harris, Tom Craggs and Dan Weeks, of Oxfordshire County Councils Countryside Service.

In just four months they have negotiated with landowners, drawn up a promotional leaflet, improved stiles and, of course, walked the route to make sure it really was as fine as Simon claimed (it was).

In less than 20 miles, the walk takes in deserted medieval villages, two parks created by the great Lancelot Capability Brown  and the site of a lost palace. You can download a guide to the walk from

SEE SIMON PIPE'S VIDEO
 

TOWN HALL, WOODSTOCK, OXFORD, OX20 1SL
Tel: Woodstock ()

An Open Letter to the Mayor of Chipping Norton on the Occasion of the Opening of the Glyme Valley Way

This is a story about a river that begins its life in one town and ends in another.  Its also a story about my love for both towns.

The River Glyme begins as a trickle of life in the hills to the south east of Chipping Norton.  It gathers strength and dimension as it flows south through quiet fields and folds of hills, through deserted villages, hamlets and bustling communities.  And it reaches its maturity and the slowness of its old age as it meanders into Woodstock through the historic watermeadows.

My life began in Chippy.  Or so Im told.  My mother assures me that I was conceived in a flat above an electrical shop in Topside next door to the Crown and Cushion.  My parents moved away before I was born but my mother counts her two short years in Chippy at the end of the war as amongst the happiest in her life.  She was a girl from the East End of London, and Chipping Norton, she discovered, was not full of country gentlemen and their snobbish wives, but was in fact populated with a solid core of working class families centred on the Bliss Tweed Mill.  She found, too, that the Co-operative movement was alive and strong in the town.  She felt at home there.

Now, shes in her ninety third year and she lives in residential care in Woodstock.  And I, too, like the river, rapidly approaching the end of lifes meanderings, made Woodstock my home thirty five years ago.  Woodstocks tradition is very different to Chippys.  Woodstocks traditions are indeed aristocratic.  It was a favoured place of kings.  It was staunchly royalist during the English Civil War.  And it famously became home to one of Britains most illustrious families, the Churchills, Dukes of Marlborough.

And yet    And yet there was always a hint of scepticism on the part of the ordinary folk of the town towards their aristocratic neighbours.  Always just a hint of  thumbing of the nose in the direction of them up there at the palace.  And Old Woodstock, for centuries excluded from the town, went one step further by publicly ridiculing the pomp and pageantry of the new town, with a ribald version of its own corporation.  Thus, the Mock Mayor and the Old Woodstock Corporation burst on the scene over two hundred years ago.  And theyve been gently poking fun at the Town Council and its institutions ever since.

Its a wonderful tradition set beside the gently gliding waters of the River Glyme that flows peacefully and tranquilly from that other great Oxfordshire town, Chipping Norton

What better way to celebrate our civic histories and our wider traditions and cultures than with a long distance path joining us together, The Glyme Valley Way.

Best wishes     Cllr Colin Carritt    Town Mayor