The Jack Ibbott Memorial Walk

The third Memorial walk for Jack Ibbott, OFS President, who sadly died in 2012, took place on 23rd May. We started from Dorchester-on-Thames with14 walkers led by Margaret Jones and were very pleased to be joined by Frances Carter, Jack and Margaret’s eldest daughter, who lives in New Ash Green, near Gravesend in Kent. We began by following part of one of Jack’s favourite walks included in the booklet Oxfordshire Rambles which he compiled with his wife Margaret.

The route took us to the River Thames, past the Dyke Hills - two large banks and ditches - enclosing a small Iron Age settlement, occupied before the site became more important as a river crossing during the Roman Period. The route then crosses the River Thames at Day’s Lock where the International Pooh-sticks championship used to take place before moving to Witney.

From Little Wittenham, the home of the Earth Trust, the route goes to Shillingford Bridge, first traversing Little Wittenham Wood and the farmland beyond. We crossed the River Thames and walked along the Thames Path in Shillingford to our picnic stop, on a grassy bank overlooking the river.

Picnic stop. Frances Carter (nee Ibbott) 2nd from the right Picnic stop. Frances Carter (nee Ibbott) 2nd from the right Photo: Jim Parke

From Shillingford we crossed the main road and walked towards the village of Warborough and then through large fields along the Priests’ Moor Lane; finally following the left bank of the River Thame back to the hamlet of Overy before walking into Dorchester and through the Abbey grounds back to the start.

Jim Parke