Steps

Between the villages of Long Wittenham and Clifton Hampdon , not really near either (or anywhere else for that matter) these concrete steps lead down through a concrete reinforced section of the bank and into the water. I suspect it is one of the old public swimming places that dot the river. I cannot however find any reference to it which is fairly unusual - although long disused and largely forgotten even by the locals, these old swimming places are usually to be found with a bit of a google, not this one though.
The bank here is very solidly, even formidably, concrete reinforced - uniquely so for a long way in either direction - and another possibility presents itself when one notices in the bushes a few feet away one of the tank traps left over from the War when the river was part of the extensive defences against the imminent German invasion. The remains of the "line" are a constant feature of the Thames in Oxfordshire, in some parts such as Wallingford, one cannot go much more than a hundred yards without passing a pill box and not too far from these steps the large artillery bunker at Days Lock is a major feature. The concrete of the steps and the bank is certainly of that vintage and I would have assumed that it was all part of a strongpoint except that helpful steps enabling invaders to climb out of the river are not a common feature!

Whatever its origins I have plans for it, canoe launching plans.