As Marlow is just one stop away from Bourne End, and it’s an hourly service, by train seemed a good way to get there.
Naturally, we arrived at the station two minutes after the departure of the 10.53am train, so we explored Bourne End’s useful but not terribly exciting high street: a Costa, another café, a Sainsbury’s, a shoe-repair/key-cutting/photo-printing shop and so on.
Marlow station isn’t in the centre of the village, as the Bourne End station-master had kindly warned us. From when you turn left at The Marlow Donkey pub (named for the affectionate local term for the original choo-choo that plied this route), it’s about a ten-minute stroll to a seriously chi chi high street. Here you’ll find some interesting clothing boutiques, a couple of art galleries, cafés, restaurants, aesthetics clinics and nail salons; plus several decidedly upmarket charity shops – we counted at least two Oxfams! – selling cut crystal glasses and Royal Doulton tea-sets.
Wounded bulls
At the end of the high street, you cross Marlow Bridge to get to Macdonald’s Compleat Angler Hotel – named for the book by 16th-century English writer Izaak Walton, who stayed there in 1659. Amazingly, The Compleat Angler is the second-most reprinted book in the English language, after the King James Bible!
On this, the hottest day of the year, the terrace was fully occupied; we contented ourselves with a large G&T in the bar lounge. At GBP15 each, we felt almost as though we were back in Singapore.
Drinks had been drained and a table not yet forthcoming; so we took the very next train back to Bourne End, crossed the bridge, turned right and followed the river for cod and chips at the The Bounty Pub. (For more on that, see my previous blog.)
