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Route 2: The journey to Godstow

 

Unless you are a very strong walker and care to go straight on now, this section of the trail can be taken on another day.

 

On 4 July, 1862 Charles Dodgson and Robinson Duckworth set off from Salter’s Boatyard near Folly Bridge with the three Liddell girls, and rowed to Godstow. It took them two-and-a half hours and there are three versions of this historic journey:

 

Alice Liddell in an article in the New York Times 4th April 1928 recalled:

 

“The beginning of Alice was told to me one summer afternoon when the sun was so hot we landed in meadows down the river, deserting the beat ao take refuse in the only bit of shade to be found, which was wider a newly made hayrick. (Her memory picked up a different day. Records show that 4th July, 1862 was cloudy and it had rained the night before.) Here from all three of us, my sisters and myself, came the old petition, ‘Tell us a story,’ and Mr Dodgson began it.

 

Sometimes to tease us, Mr Dodgson would stop and say suddenly, ‘That’s all till next time.’ ‘Oh,’ we would cry, ‘it’s not bedtime already!’ and he would go on.

 

Another time the story would begin in the boat and Mr Dodgson would pretend to fall asleep in the middle, to our great dismay.”

 

Robinson Duckworth’s version is slightly different:

 

“I rowed stroke and he rowed bow (the three little girls sat in the stern)… and the story was actually composed over my shoulder for the benefit of Alice Liddell, who was acting as ‘cox’ of our gig... I remember turning round and saying, ‘Dodgson, is this an extempore romance of yours? And he replied, ‘Yes, I’m inventing it as we go along.’”

 

PIC

 

The invention was to become Alice’s Adventures Under Ground and then Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

 

Charles Dodgson in 1887 also recalled that day — and others:

 

“Many a day we rowed together on that quiet stream — the three little maidens and I — and many a fairy tale had been extemporised for their benefit — … — and none of these many tales got written down: they lived and died, like summer midges, each in its own golden afternoon until there came a day when, as it chanced, one of my little listeners petitioned that the tale might be written down for her.”

 

To follow the happy party you can, of course, take a rowing boat from Salter’s. Most people will prefer to walk.

 

Start at Worcester College (at the corner of Walton Street and Beaumont Street). Here Isa ‘didn’t see the swans (who ought to have been on the lake) nor the hippopotamus, who ought not to have been walking about the flowers, gathering honey like a busy bee.’ (Going from the quad into the wonderful garden with its lake gives one another experience of becoming smaller in a greater space.)

 

From Worcester walk along Walton Street to Walton Well Road, turn left and keep going until you come out onto Port Meadow. Follow the path across the meadow to the river, cross to the other side and walk along to the Perch Inn (where you may wish to pause). Continue on into the hamlet of Binsey where the Liddell governess, Miss Prickett, had relatives whom she visited with her charges. Follow the road along the north of the green to St Margaret’s Church (about half-à-mile). Here in the timeless churchyard you will find the treacle well — in the medieval sense of treacle being a healing fluid. All three Liddell girls appeared at the bottom of the treacle well in the forms of Elsie (LC, Lorina Charlotte), Lacie (an anagram of Alice) and Tillie (Edith’s pet name). You will also find several memorials to the Prickett family — one of them dating back to 1724.



 

When a certain Reverend Prout decided to restore the well, he asked Dodgson’s advice. The reply was typical, ‘Let well alone.’

 

Now, returning to the river, continue along its bank towards Godstow, remembering the boating party on the river with the tale unfolding as they went. At Godstow — where the boat

party had tea and where in those days there would have been no shortage of rabbit holes and rabbits — is the famous Trout Inn and nearby the weir. In Alice’s day eel traps were often attached to Thames weirs. She might well have seen at Godstow traps similar to those behind Father William as he balanced the eel. (Reputedly such an eel trap could be seen near Sandford Lock until quite recently.) You can now walk back into Oxford or continue on into Wolvercote where there is a frequent bus to the city centre.

 

 


Date: 2016-03-03; view: 800


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