Downstream

I get off the bus at Lechlade
and walk down Thames
Street to Halfpenny Bridge
where David Walliams began
his swim from Riverside
Park. I pass low stone
cottages and the Cotswold
Canal Trust, then the road
leads up to the small hump of
a bridge – Halfpenny Bridge
– named after the toll
pedestrians were required to
pay until 1839 and where
there is still a small, square