Thursday After Work Walk, 22nd August 2024

I found this walk in Rambling for Pleasure East Berkshire published by Heron Maps www.heronmaps.com in collaboration with East Berkshire Ramblers https://eastberksramblers.org/. I was attracted by the photo in the book of the brightly coloured Rebecca’s Well, surprised that I’d never seen pictures or heard of it previously.

It was described as a 5 mile walk, ‘an easy climb through fields and tracks to the modest heights of Crazies Hill, a hamlet which seems to have side-stepped the 21^st century. From the charmingly decorated well, saunter along the paths through older woods, finally along a new field-path back into thriving Wargrave’. I recorded the walk on the Strava App www.strava.com and it measured at 4.8 miles. I’d also mapped it on AllTrails www.alltrails.com prior to going out. It had mapped out on AllTrails at 4.7 mile.

www.strava.com

www.alltrails.com

We met as suggested in the car park (free) at the Recreation Ground on Victoria Road, Wargrave, Postcode: RG10 8BG / Grid ref: SU 794 786 / What 3 Words: www.what3words.com/etchings.agreeable.newspaper at 6pm as usual. It was about 23 mins drive from my flat according to Google Maps www.google.co.uk/maps. There were 5 of us including one newbie from Maidenhead Out and About www.meetup.com/Maidenhead-Out-And-About and a dog.

We headed out of the car park on to Recreation Road and took a left turn down Victoria Road where we passed allotments on our left before crossing over and turning right into Purfield Drive. We followed the road to Blakes Road which we turned right into. About 50 yards on the left was a kissing gate that we passed through and followed the path across the field to a foot bridge.

After crossing the footbridge, we turned left to walk along the edge of the next field with a hedge on our left and on reaching a lane, Highfield Road, we turned left into it and then approximately 100ms on, took the path on the right into another field.

About 200m’s later we turned left across the field to Crazies Hill Road. On Crazies Hill Road we passed the entrance to Hennerton Golf Course and turned left through another kissing gate and with the hedge on our left, we walked to the far corner and descended down steps and across the golf course.

Here we went a little wrong. With no obvious path and not reading the instructions as we walked, we mis-judged where we were heading and as we dropped down the slope of the golf course, we cut the corner and missed where we were supposed to drop down on to Penny’s Lane. But on quickly realising our mistake, we double backed on ourselves, almost but not quite all the way back to the corner and found an opening where we could descend downinto the lane which actually looks more like a ditch or no more than a narrow sunken track.

We followed Penny’s Lane until we reached Crazies Hill Road again where we turned left through gates and continued onto a footpath through a patch of woodland and came to a road opposite Crazies Hill Village Hall.

Big house seen from the path

Crazies Hill Village Hall

We turned right past the Village Hall and followed the road as it bent right and past Rebecca’s Cottage named after the well www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/community-news–all-districts-/180091/cottage-named-after-well-that-once-supplied-villages-water.html.

Still following the path ahead, we at this time ignored the path to our right and a few yards on came across the Grade II listed building Rebecca’s Well www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101210646-rebeccas-well-wargrave#google_vignetteon our left.

I was excited to see that it is still colourfully painted and looked in good condition. On writing this however I have noticed that the picture above the well actually differs from that in the guidebook in that the figures, stonework and plants painted look different suggesting that it has been repainted. That would explain it’s good condition and indeed on further research that the well was restored in May / June 2020 by a local craftsman and funded by The Wargrave Heritage Trust. The works were initiated by a Parish Councillor and supported by Wargrave Parish Council as a “clear reminder of what village life was like 150 years ago”. www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/gallery/twyford/159166/rebecca-s-well-restored-in-just-under-three-weeks-in-crazies-hill.html.

Picture of mural from Rambling for Pleasure East Berkshire

1960’s

www.francisfrith.com/uk/wargrave/wargrave-rebekahs-well,-crazies-hill-c1960_w25057

Up until the late in the nineteenth century this natural spring was a main source of water for residents of the hamlet, Crazies Hill, who would bring their pails to the well to fetch their water as well as visiting it for it’s “health-giving, healing properties”. Crazies Hill apparently said to come from the old local dialect ‘Cray-wy-seath Hill’ or ‘the hill of the fresh clean water of the waterless place’. www.thejournalofantiquities.com/2013/04/23/rebeccas-well-wargrave-berkshire.

Rebra’s Well is apparently ‘The healthy water place, hard by the top of the Hill’. In about 1870 it had become a muddy pool of water within the woods which shocked the new pastoral curate Reverend Grenville Phillimore. He raised enough money to house the well with a large basin to collect water and avoid contamination from muddy surroundings and because the locals appeared to worship this ancient well, he put a cross upon the top of the folly, apparently to claim it for Christianity. www.insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.wordpress.com/the-source-new-series-contents/rebeccas-well-on-crazies-hill.

Believing that Rebra was short for Rebecca, he re-named the well in honour of the biblical figure of the same namewww.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca and commissioned a famous Victorian Landscape Designer Gertrude Jekyll to design the well house whilst he himself designed the basin.

The significance of Rebecca (or Rebeka as per the text in the mural) wife of the Isaac and granddaughter of Abraham’s brother, Nahor, is that according to the Book of Genesis, Chapter 24 www.biblehub.com/kjv/genesis/24.htm. Rebecca was chosen by God when Abraham’s sent his servant to seek a wife for his son, Isaac. The servant stood by the well of Nahor and “prayed to God: And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master”. With that appeared Rebecca proffering him her pitcher and water from the well for himself and his camels. Thus, Rebecca was the chosen wife of Isaac. The painting above Rebecca’s Well depicts Rebecca standing at the well of Nahor with the servant. www.thejournalofantiquities.com/2013/04/23/rebeccas-well-wargrave-berkshire.

Arched around the cross above the basin is biblical text from Isaiah 49:10, that Reverend Phillimore added, “Even by the springs of water shall he guide them” www.biblehub.com/kjv/isaiah/49.htm.

Reverend Phillimore also added text to the basin on a stone below the cross. Unfortunately, I did not spot this when taking the photo in the darkness inside the well from outside of the railing and so did try and focus better on engraving. On reviewing my photos I can only make out the odd word or letter. Age and the water have worn the stone and the text and this part of the well does not appear to have been restored so that the text is again legible. Algae from where the water level in the basin is sometimes higher was also obscuring the text. From the articles I have referenced, it is probably the quotation from Chaucer mentioned in them but these references unfortunately do not indicate which quotation. A quick google revealed that Chaucer did write about Rebecca and Isaac, however I could find the relevant quotation.

Turning back the way we came, we returned to the path now on our left which we turned into and followed it to a kissing gate and field. We crossed to the far corner and over a stile. Where the path descended and continued along the lane passing by Highfield Farm and to another kissing gate on our left. We walked across the middle of a field and a line of oak trees.

On reaching a junction of paths, we took the path straight ahead into Bottom Boles Wood, down steps to a footbridge and right along the edge of the field to reach a bridleway. We turned left onto the bridleway and on to a gate and permitted path into the next field.

At the end of the field, we turned right along that far edge and bending right again until between houses on our left, we turned left onto a path between them and out onto the road, Hanover Gardens.

We walked down the road and again diverted from the route in the guidebook. Instead of turning right and taking the path around the Highfield Park estate, we turned left and crossing the road diagonally to a footpath that ran between end of the gardens of the houses and hence right through the middle of the estate to the other side.

When we reached the road again, we turned left, crossed the road and took the path across the grass on to Blakes Road. Here we continued left, crossed the road and before we reached the turning on the left, we turned left through gates and onto a path which took us into King’s Field.`

To our right were rows of new fruit trees (apple, pear, plum, medlar and quince) planted in 2011. King’s Field Orchard was funded by the Big Lottery Fund Local Food scheme in collaboration with the local councils.

From the path onto Kings Field, we crossed diagonally across the field to the far left corner by the Wargrave BMX Track and through the gates to the Recreation Ground. We crossed to the Wargrave Cricket Club clubhouse and bearing right, towards the car park where we started.

I love weathervanes which are a bit different and the one on the clubhouse is just that. Unveiled in 2014, it is based on the Old Father Time weathervane at Lord’s www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/cricket/3382/Cricket-club-unveils-new-weather-vane.html.

Wargrave Cricket Club weather vane

With the walk complete some of us drove to Wargrave’s St. George and Dragon pub, High St, Wargrave, RG10 8HY / What 3 Words: www.what3words.com/dizziness.deflated.emerald for a drink and pizza. It was one of the nearest pubs to the end of the walk and chosen because of it’s position on the river without door seating. Unfortunately, too nippy to sit outside and with daylight fading, we headed inside where although not busy, the interior was stylish, clean and comfortable, service and pizza all good.